Henry VIII and History

292 Pages·2012·1.854 MB·English

by  Thomas Betteridge, Thomas S. Freeman

Henry VIII and History
Edited by
Thomas Betteridge and Thomas S. Freeman
Henry VIII and HIstory
To the late Kevin Sharpe,
a good friend and fine scholar, who brilliantly
examined the images of Henry VIII and his royal successors.
Henry VIII and History
Edited by
tHomas BetterIdge
Oxford Brookes University, UK
and
tHomas s. Freeman
University of Essex, UK
© thomas Betteridge, thomas s. Freeman and the Contributors 2012
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
thomas Betteridge and thomas s. Freeman have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing Limited ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Henry VIII and history.
1. Henry VIII, King of england, 1491–1547–Public opinion–History–sources. 2. Henry
VIII, King of england, 1491–1547–In literature. 3. great Britain–History–Henry VIII,
1509–1547–Historiography.
I. Betteridge, thomas. II. Freeman, thomas s., 1959–
942’.052’092-dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henry VIII and history / [edited by] thomas Betteridge and thomas s. Freeman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
IsBn 978-1-4094-0015-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) – IsBn 978-0-7546-9865-4 (ebook)
1. Henry VIII, King of england, 1491–1547. 2. great Britain–History–Henry VIII, 1509–
1547–Historiography.
I. Betteridge, thomas. II. Freeman, thomas s., 1959–
da332.H463 2012
942.05’2092–dc23
2011052189
IsBn 9781409400158 (hbk)
IsBn 9780754698654 (ebk)
III
Printed and bound in great Britain by the
mPg Books group, UK.
Contents
Abbreviations vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction All is True – Henry VIII In and Out of History 1
Thomas Betteridge and Thomas S. Freeman
1 Harry’s Peregrinations: An Italianate Defence of Henry VIII 21
Brett Foster
2 From Perfect Prince to ‘Wise and Pollitike’ King: Henry VIII in
Edward Hall’s Chronicle 51
Scott Lucas
3 ‘It is perillous stryvinge withe princes’: Henry VIII in Works
by Pole, Roper, and Harpsfield* 65
Carolyn Colbert
4 Hands Defiled with Blood: Henry VIII in Foxe’s ‘Book of
Martyrs’ 87
Thomas S. Freeman
5 Fallen Prince and Pretender of the Faith: Henry VIII as Seen by
Sander and Persons 119
Victor Houliston
6 ‘It is unpossible to draw his Picture well who hath severall
countenances’: Lord Herbert of Cherbury and The Life and
Reign of King Henry VIII 135
Christine Jackson
7 Henry VIII in History: Gilbert Burnet’s History of the Reformation
(v. 1), 1679 151
Andrew Starkie
8 ‘Unblushing Falsehood’: The Strickland Sisters and the Domestic
History of Henry VIII* 165
Judith M. Richards
vi Henry VIII and History
9 Ford Madox Ford’s Fifth Queen and the Modernity of Henry VIII 179
Anthony Monta and Susannah Brietz Monta
10 The ‘Sexual Everyman’? Maxwell Anderson’s Henry VIII 195
Glenn Richardson
11 Drama King: The Portrayal of Henry VIII in Robert Bolt’s A Man
for All Seasons 207
Ruth Ahnert
12 ‘Anne taught him how to be cruel’: Henry VIII in Modern
Historical Fiction 223
Megan L. Hickerson
13 Booby, Baby or Classical Monster? Henry VIII in the Writings of
G. R. Elton and J. J. Scarisbrick 241
Dale Hoak
14 Through the Eyes of a Fool: Henry VIII and Margaret George’s
1986 novel The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His
Fool, Will Somers 261
Kristen Post Walton
Index 275
Abbreviations
A&M [1563] John Foxe, Actes and monuments of these latter and perillous
dayes (London, 1563)
A&M [1570] John Foxe, The ecclesiasticall history contayning the actes and
monuments (London, 1570)
A&M [1576] John Foxe, The ecclesiasticall history contayning the actes and
monuments (London, 1576)
A&M [1583] John Foxe, Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and
memorable (London, 1583)
A&M [1596] John Foxe, Actes and monumementes of matters most speciall
and memorable (London, 1596)
BL British Library
CSPD Calendar of State Papers Domestic
CSPSp Calendar of State Papers Spanish
Harpsfield Nicholas Harpsfield, The life and death of Sir Thomas More,
ed. E. V. Hitchcock and R. W. Chambers, Early English Text
Society, original series 186 (Oxford, 1932)
HJ Historical Journal
L&P Letters and Papers of the reign of Henry VIII, eds. J. S. Brewer,
J. Gairdber and R. S. Brodie (21 vols., London, 1862–1932)
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)
Roper William Roper, The lyfe of Sir Thomas More, ed. E. V. Hitchcock,
Early English Text Society original series 197 (Oxford, 1935)
SCJ Sixteenth Century Journal
TNA The National Archive (Kew)
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Notes on Contributors
Ruth Ahnert is a lecturer in Renaissance English Literature at Queen Mary,
University of London. Her interests lie at the intersection of religious history,
literary form and book history. Recent publications have been focused on
literature and texts associated with imprisonment, from writings produced in
prison, to representations of incarceration on the early modern stage. She is
currently preparing a monograph entitled The Rise of Prison Literature in the
Sixteenth Century, which charts innovations in English prison literature during
the Reformation.
Thomas Betteridge is Professor of English Literature and Drama at Oxford
Brookes University. His books include Tudor Histories of the English
Reformations (1999), Literature and Politics in the English Reformation (2004)
and Shakespearean Fantasy and Politics (2005). He is currently working on a
study of Sir Thomas More’s writing to be published by the University of Notre
Dame Press, 2012. He was project leader of the Arts and Humanities Research
Council funded research project ‘Staging the Henrician Court’ and the Wellcome
Trust funded project ‘Medicine, Birth and Death at the Tudor Court’.
Carolyn Colbert, a former Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada doctoral fellow, completed her Ph.D. in early modern literature in
2010 at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she currently teaches. Her
forthcoming publications focus on early modern women, including Mary Tudor,
the subject of her dissertation.
Brett Foster has had articles and reviews published in genre, Journal of British
Studies, Modern Philology, Prose Studies, Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth
Century Journal, Shakespeare Bulletin, and in the collections The Sacred
and Profane in English Renaissance Literature and Christopher Marlowe the
Craftsman. He recently wrote about Henry VIII for Books & Culture, and is also
an author of a book of poetry. He teaches Renaissance literature and creative
writing at Wheaton College in Illinois.
Thomas S. Freeman is currently Visiting Research Fellow with the Faculty
of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and Lecturer at the University of
Essex. He is the co-author of Religion and the Book in Early Modern England:
The Making of John Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ (2011) and the co-editor of four
volumes, including The Myth of Elizabeth (2003) and Mary Tudor: Old and New
Perspectives (2011).