SOURCE: “Henry VIII: A Jacobean History,” in Shakespeare Studies, Vol. 12, 1979, pp. 247-66.

In the following essay, Baillie compares Henry VIII to other Shakespearean history plays, remarks on its realistic portrayal of Jacobean politics, and examines selected events and issues that occurred in the months immediately preceding the play's publication.

On 29 June 1613 the first Globe Theater burned to the ground during one of the first performances of a “new” historical drama “representing some principal pieces of the Reign of Henry 8.”¹ That play, without question, is the Henry VIII placed last among the Histories in the Shakespeare First Folio. Despite continued debate about the authorship of the text, scholars agree generally that the basic design of the work is Shakespeare's and that the play originated at the very close of the dramatist's career.² Dating as it does from mid-1613, Henry VIII is a distinct theatrical anomaly. It is probably the...