SOURCE: “Shakespeare's Henry VIII Reconsidered in the Light of Boethian and Biblical Commonplaces,” in Shakespeare and the Christian Tradition, edited by E. Beatrice Batson, Edwin Mellen Press, 1994, pp. 51-82.

In the following essay, Battenhouse traces several parallels between Henry VIII and Boethian philosophy, remarking that the Boethian belief in God and providence reopens the debate regarding Shakespeare's stance toward Tudor-Stuart politics.

The Prologue to Shakespeare's Henry VIII invokes as the play's frame the tradition of De Casibus tragedy, which scholarship has traced to contexts in Christian tradition and the Consolatio of Boethius.¹ In accord with this framework, Lady Philosophy's theme of the vanity of worldly ambition resonates at the play's climax. “Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!” cries the fallen Wolsey on realizing that the sea of glory in which he has been swimming has become a rude stream.² Yet today's readers rarely apply...