SOURCE: McMullan, Gordon. Introduction to King Henry VIII (All Is True), by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, edited by Gordon McMullan, pp. 1-200. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2000.

In the following excerpt, McMullan concentrates on the characterization of Queens Katherine and Anne in Henry VIII, noting the lack of more than superficial distinctions between the two figures in regard to the play's ambivalent treatment of the English Reformation.

The Character of the Queen

The crisis of the ‘late plays’ is always, in one way or another, a family crisis, and the breaking of deadlock in each of the plays is effected by or through women: Marina, Imogen, Perdita and Miranda unwittingly, Paulina consciously. As Wotton's emphasis on the problems of the ‘familiar’ might unintentionally suggest, much of the trouble in Henry VIII takes place within or in relation to the institution of the family, yet one crucial difference between Henry...