This was my first speculation in play-buying!  I saw it acted, and thought I could do something with it.  Henry would not buy it, so I did!  He let me do it first in front of a revival of “The Corsican Brothers” in 1891.  It was a great success, although my son and I did not know a word on the first night and had our parts written out and pinned all over the furniture on the stage!  Dear old Mr. Howe wrote to me that Teddy’s performance was “more than creditable; it was exceedingly good and full of character, and with your own charming performance the piece was a great success.”  Since 1891 I must have played “Nance Oldfield” hundreds of times, but I never had an Alexander Oldworthy so good as my own son, although such talented young actors as Martin Harvey, Laurence Irving and, more recently, Harcourt Williams have all played it with me.

Henry’s pride as Cardinal Wolsey seemed to eat him.  How wonderful he looked (though not fat and self-indulgent like the pictures of the real Wolsey) in his flame-colored robes!  He had the silk dyed specially by the dyers to the Cardinal’s College in Rome.  Seymour Lucas designed the clothes.  It was a magnificent production, but not very interesting to me.  I played Katherine much better ten years later at Stratford-on-Avon at the Shakespeare Memorial Festival.  I was stronger then, and more reposeful.  This letter from Burne-Jones about “Henry VIII.” is a delightful tribute to Henry Irving’s treatment of the play: 

“My Dear Lady,—­

“We went last night to the play (at my theater) to see Henry VIII.—­Margaret and Mackail and I. It was delicious to go out again and see mankind, after such evil days.  How kind they were to me no words can say—­I went in at a private door and then into a cosy box and back the same way, swiftly, and am marvelously the better for the adventure.  No YOU, alas!

“I have written to Mr. Irving just to thank him for his great kindness in making the path of pleasure so easy, for I go tremblingly at present.  But I could not say to him what I thought of the Cardinal—­a sort of shame keeps one from saying to an artist what one thinks of his work—­but to you I can say how nobly he warmed up the story of the old religion to my exacting mind in that impersonation.  I shall think always of dying monarchy in his Charles—­and always of dying hierarchy in his Wolsey.  How Protestant and dull all grew when that noble type had gone!

“I can’t go to church till red cardinals come back (and may they be of exactly that red) nor to Court till trumpets and banners come back—­nor to evening parties till the dances are like that dance.  What a lovely young Queen has been found.  But there was no YOU....  Perhaps it was as well.  I couldn’t have you slighted even in a play, and put aside.  When I go back to see you, as I soon will, it will be easier.  Mr. Irving let me know you would not act, and proposed that I should go later on—­wasn’t that like him?  So I sat with my children and was right happy; and, as usual, the streets looked dirty, and all the people muddy and black as we came away.  Please not to answer this stuff.