SOURCE: “‘All Is True’: Negotiating the Past in Henry VIII,” in Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum, edited by R. B. Parker and S. P. Zitner, University of Delaware Press, 1996, pp. 147-66.

In the following essay, Patterson explores the relationship of Henry VIII to Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, noting that Shakespeare often modified facts in order to achieve a desired dramatic or thematic outcome.

Wherein we are to crave pardon that we may plainelie declare and tell the truth: for in all histories the perfect and full truth is to be alwaies opened, and without it the same wanteth both authoritie and credit: … And yet the philosophers are of the opinion, that we ought to reverence so the higher powers in all maner of offices and dueties, as that we should not provoke nor moove them with anie sharpe speeches or disordered languages. … Wherfore it is a...