King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547) is the title character of Henry VIII. King Henry is nominally the protagonist of the play, but he does not create the action; rather, he is placed in a series of situations and the change in the nature of his responses—as he grows from an easily influenced tool of evil men to a wise and mature ruler—illuminates the play's themes. The play's dominant moral point concerns the importance of humanity's capacity for good, which is represented in Henry's development. On another level, the play is about the establishment of England as a Protestant country, and as such it is a celebration of the Tudor Dynasty. Unlike Shakespeare's other English kings, Henry is not a realistic participant in political or military events, but rather a symbol for the greatness of England. 

King Henry is dramatically subordinate to other figures in each of the play's episodes, though he alone appears throughout. In Acts 1 and 2 he is manipulated by Cardinal Wolsey. First, the cardinal deceives him about the Duke of Buckingham, so that he sends an innocent man to death. However, Shakespeare makes certain that we do not blame Henry. Wolsey's evident villainy and Buckingham's saintly forgiveness indicate that the king's only offence is ignorance. In 1.4 the king meets and falls in love with the virtuous Anne Bullen, who will become the mother of Elizabeth and who, as a Protestant, anticipates the English Reformation. Henry's connection to this righteous woman prepares us to sympathize with his moral qualms about his marriage to Queen Katherine of Aragon. He fears his sin in marrying his brother's widow has prevented him from fathering an heir to the throne of England, and this worry makes him susceptible to Wolsey's machinations. The king is again manipulated, but this time only through his own scrupulous morality. Moreover, because Katherine's fall leads to the ascendancy of Protestantism and the birth of Elizabeth, Shakespeare's audience could be expected to find the result satisfactory. When Henry rejects the 'dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome' (2.4.235) in favor of the 'well-beloved servant Cranmer (2.4.236)—a famous Protestant leader—we see that from the play's point of view. Henry is progressing towards wisdom. 

In 3.2 Wolsey is accidentally exposed as a profiteer and an opponent of Henry's marriage to Anne, and Henry responds forcefully, though he mercifully spares the cardinal's life. Wolsey then finds atonement with God, for which he thanks the king. Henry's actions are now unmistakably a force for good, even if it has taken a providential accident to spur him. 

Act 4 offers a celebration of Anne—and indirectly of the Tudors generally—along with a restatement of the mercy and forgiveness that characterize the stories of Katherine and Wolsey. These themes further free Henry from blame, in a general atmosphere of blessedness. In Act 5 Henry's actions in support of good are taken on his own initiative, as he preserves Cranmer from the wiles of Bishop Gardiner, Wolsey's successor as villain. Here we see the culmination of Henry's development. He is now a wise and masterful ruler, capable of foiling the evil intentions of Catholic sympathizers and preserving the Reformation's most important leader. It is at this pinnacle of maturity that Henry, in the play's finale, can pass on to the infant Elizabeth a virtuous realm and the prospect of prosperity for England. 

The historical Henry VIII was far from the wise, benevolent, and virtuous ruler Shakespeare depicts. Shakespeare de-emphasized Henry's ruthlessness and altered history in order to refocus the play on the themes of forgiveness and mercy. Only a small segment of Henry's reign is dealt with. His expensive, inconclusive wars and his court's wasteful extravagance are not mentioned, and the vicious despotism of his later years is ignored. The future execution of Anne Boleyn (as Anne is known to history) is not so much as hinted at, nor is the existence of Henry's other ill-fated wives.

At the time of his accession in 1509, Henry was an intelligent and well-educated young man who was determined to be a good king. However, his egocentric desire to be a chivalric hero led him to wars and extravagance. He wasted the considerable treasury amassed by his father, the highly competent Henry VII, and left his successors with a serious debt problem. Moreover, he was a brutally tyrannical ruler, inclined to suspect treason without cause and to punish without mercy, especially as he got older. In contrast to the play. Henry probably ordered the trumped-up execution of Buckingham, for he feared that the duke, a distant relative, might try to seize the throne. Similarly, he beheaded the last Plantagenet, 68-year-old Margaret (the Girl of Richard III), simply because she was a theoretical rival. 

The divorce of Katherine of Aragon was also Henry's idea, and he was much less kind to his long-time wife than in the play. Katherine, however, was permitted to live out her life in peace; the king was less considerate of his later wives. Anne soon fell victim to Henry's need for a male heir. Henry was already involved with his next wife-to-be when Anne's second pregnancy ended in stillbirth. The king arranged false charges of adultery, incest (with a brother), and treason, and within weeks—less than three years after her coronation—Anne was beheaded. Henry was to marry five other wives, one of whom was also executed. His viciousness extended to others as well: he often chose execution as a punishment for failure or opposition.  Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More were among his victims.  

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c. 1475-1530) is the over powerful chief adviser to King Henry VIII. Wolsey is the villain of the first half of the play. He sends his enemy Buckingham to execution by buying the perjured testimony of the Surveyor, and then, to further his foreign policy aims, he encourages the king to divorce Queen Katherine. Moreover, he opposes the king's marriage to the saintly Anne Bullen. His arrogance and pride are vividly presented in such vignettes as his vicious rebuff of Buckingham in 1.1 and his later disdain for a good man he is said to have driven mad: 'He was a fool, / For he would needs be virtuous' (2.2.131-132). However, when his evils are uncovered and he is brought low, Wolsey comes to realize that his life has been wasted in the pursuit of wealth and power.  He reflects that now, removed from politics and its temptations, he can rejoice in a 'still and quiet conscience' (3.2.380). Further, we learn from Griffith’s touching description that on his death-bed, the cardinal has 'found the blessedness of being little' (4.2.66) and made his peace with God. Good has arisen from evil, with right balancing wrong in a spiritual sense—an important theme of the play. 

Wolsey's evils contribute strongly to several of the play's other themes. His victims are good people and offer important images of forgiveness and forbearance. In the play's opposition of justice and injustice, Wolsey exemplifies the latter. He also represents Catholicism, as understood by the Protestant England of Shakespeare's day. Greedy, proud, and corrupt, he is allied with Rome, in the person of Cardinal Campeius, against the virtuous—and Protestant—Anne Bullen.  Perhaps most significant, early in the play the role of King Henry is defined in terms of his response to Wolsey. About Buckingham, the king is completely duped; with respect to Katherine, he finds his own approach—a blameless one, from the play's point of view—and when he finally realises Wolsey's faults, especially his opposition to Anne, he angrily drives him from office. Thus, the king's growth from immaturity to wisdom begins with his increasing awareness of the cardinal's evil influence. 

Wolsey was one of the great villains for the historians inspired by the Tudor Dynasty, including Shakespeare's chief source for the play, Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, and the playwright's treatment of the cardinal is particularly noteworthy in this light. The dignity the cardinal is permitted in his fall and the virtue the audience is clearly expected to find in his repentance had a great impact in the 17th century because of the contrast with the expected picture of a wholly evil figure. As in his other late plays, the Romances, Shakespeare's emphasis was on the restoration of good, rather than on the evil that had prevailed earlier. His humanly forgivable Wolsey helps him present this theme in Henry VIII.  

The historical Wolsey was the son of a prosperous, middle-class livestock dealer and wool merchant. (Wolsey's enemies habitually labeled his father a butcher—Buckingham calls the cardinal a 'butcher's cur' [1.1.120]—and this became an historical commonplace, but it was not true.) As a bright young  priest, he was a tutor to the sons of the Marquess of Dorset (who appears in Richard III). His intelligence and drive impressed the aristocrats he met, and he was repeatedly advanced until he became Henry VII's chaplain. When Henry VIII became king in 1509, Wolsey was one of his most important advisers. He promoted Henry's invasion of France in 1512, supplied the army, and negotiated the highly advantageous peace of 1514. He was rewarded with the archbishopric of York; then in 1515 the pope made him a cardinal and he became Lord Chancellor of England. At this point he virtually governed England for the king. He became very wealthy by accepting bribes and keeping for himself the feudal incomes from various church properties. This was perfectly normal in the 16th century, but as a non-aristocrat, Wolsey aroused great enmity by displaying his power and wealth with extravagant houses, clothes, and entertainment. He was thought, perhaps rightly, to aspire to the papal throne and to have cultivated foreign alliances to that end. 

Among Wolsey's principal enemies was Buckingham, who was a leader of the aristocratic clique that had been displaced as the king's main source of advice. However, Buckingham's fate was probably ordered by Henry, who feared him as a relative of the Plantagenets and a potential claimant to the throne.  Wolsey doubtless manipulated the surveyor, and he may have been pleased with the outcome, but the motivating force was the king's. Shakespeare, however, followed Holinshed in attributing the deed entirely to Wolsey. 

It was the power of the emperor, which Wolsey vainly sought to harness, that finally brought about his fall. Henry ordered Wolsey to see to his divorce from Katherine—Wolsey almost certainly did not instigate this scheme; the play's intimations to that effect come from Holinshed. However, the opposition of Katherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (ruled 1519-1555), proved insuperable. Charles controlled the papacy—his troops sacked Rome in 1527, just as Henry's divorce effort began—so approval from that quarter was never possible. Wolsey probably realized this, but Henry persisted, and the cardinal's failure to achieve the impossible meant his ruin.  Henry—who knew of and accepted the cardinal's other activities—could not accept frustration, and once the failure was evident, he disposed of his minister quickly in 1529. The cardinal's accidentally revealed inventory in 3.2 is an anecdote from Holinshed, but it happened to a different person, 20 years earlier; it is an excellent demonstration of Shakespeare's inventive use of his sources. In actuality, Henry simply invoked the laws defining papal interference in English affairs as treason. He dismissed Wolsey from office and confiscated most of his possessions but spared his life. The cardinal continued to communicate with Rome and the emperor, in the hope of retrieving his situation; within a year this was discovered and he was again charged with treason. He died while traveling to London for his trial. 

Cranmer, Thomas (1489-1556) is an adviser to King Henry VIII and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer is the central figure in 5.1-2, as Bishop Gardiner and the Lord Chancellor attempt to charge him with heresy at a meeting of the royal council, only to be thwarted by the king's intervention. The episode demonstrates the king's mastery of the situation—Henry's increasing wisdom is an important theme of the play. It also illustrates the triumph of the Protestant leaders—Cranmer and the king—over the pro-Catholic conspirators. 

Cranmer is sometimes confused with another Archbishop of Canterbury in the play, whom the king addresses in 2.4.215-217. However, this figure—who remains mute—is Cranmer's predecessor, Archbishop William Warham (d. 1532), for Cranmer is abroad at this point. Henry wishes Cranmer were present in 2.4. 236-237; his return and his appointment as Archbishop are reported in 3.2.64, 74. 

At the close of the play, Cranmer's prediction of glory for the infant Elizabeth even includes praise other successor, James I, and thus extends Henry VIII into Shakespeare's own time. In this, the play differs from all the other History Plays. Cranmer, well known to 17th-century audiences as a martyred religious hero, is a suitable vehicle for such a spiritual evocation of 'the happiness of England' (5.4.56). 

Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk (1443-1524) is a nobleman at the court of King Henry VIII. Through the first three acts, Norfolk is an enemy of Cardinal Wolsey. In 1.1 he warns the Duke of Buckingham against Wolsey's power, and in 1.2 he supports Queen Katherine’s complaint against Wolsey's illicit taxes. In 2.2 he leads a group of noblemen in railing against the cardinal, and in 3.2 he delightedly levels formal treason charges against Wolsey, whose downfall has finally come to pass. Finally, in 5.2, he takes a small part in resisting the attack on Archbishop Cranmer by Bishop Gardiner. Though he is no longer prominent, he remains on the side of right in the play's scheme of the things. 

The historical Norfolk—one of the great English military heroes of his day—died in 1524, before most of the events in the play took place. He was succeeded as Duke of Norfolk by his son, the play's Earl of Surrey. Shakespeare ignores Norfolk's death, perhaps through error or perhaps to keep this dignified hero as a fitting opponent of Wolsey and Gardiner.

Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey,(1473-1554) is a nobleman at the court of King Henry VIII. In 3.2 Surrey joins his father, the Duke of Norfolk, in bringing down Cardinal Wolsey; he thus avenges the death of his father-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, who was earlier framed and sent to execution by Wolsey. In 2.1 the First Gentleman asserts that Wolsey has had Surrey assigned to a post in Ireland 'lest he should help his father[-in-law]' (2.1.44); this circumstance makes him a doubly appropriate addition to the play's roster of Wolsey's enemies. Surrey is present but inconspicuous in 5.2. 

Chancellor is the highest-ranking official of King Henry VIII government and keeper of the Great Seal of England, used to signify royal approval of any document. In 5.2 the Chancellor chairs the meeting of the royal council at which Bishop Gardiner attacks Archbishop Cranmer. He sides with Gardiner, but when the king intervenes for Cranmer, the Chancellor declares that their intention was simply to provide the archbishop with a chance to clear his name. He typifies the malevolence that the king overcomes in the final political episode of the play. 

Stephen Gardiner (d. 1555) is a follower of Cardinal Wolsey and later his successor as the play's principal villain. In 2.2 Gardiner appears as King Henry VIII's new secretary; in an aside he assures Wolsey of his personal loyalty, and the cardinal tells Campeius that Gardiner will do as he tells him. When we next see Gardiner, in the coronation parade in 4.1, he has become a bishop, and a Gentleman remarks that he is the powerful enemy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. In 5.1 and 5.2 Gardiner leads an effort to convict Cranmer of heresy, but the king intervenes and he is stymied. In Act 5 Gardiner is the unscrupulous, pro-Catholic schemer that Wolsey was before his fall, but here the king is more than a match for the villain. This indicates Henry's growth from gullibility to wisdom, an important theme of the play. 

An aide to Cardinal Wolsey.  In 1.1, the secretary informs the carina that the Surveyor who is to testify against the Duke of Buckingham is ready to be interrogated.

Thomas Cromwell(c. 1485-1540) is secretary to Cardinal Wolsey and later to King Henry VIII'scouncil. In 3.2, as Wolsey's downfall becomes clear, Cromwell's demonstration of loyalty improves our image of Wolsey. He seems genuinely grieved, crying out, '0 my lord, /Must I then leave you? must I needs forgo / So good, so noble and so true a master?' (3.2.421-423). The episode also offers an opportunity for the fallen cardinal to display magnanimity—concerning himself with r Cromwell's welfare amid the debacle of his own affairs | and thereby demonstrating his capacity for moral regeneration in adversity, an important theme of the play. Cromwell's subsequent political rise is mentioned by the Third Gentleman, who calls him 'A man in much esteem with th'king' (4.1.109). In 5.2 Cromwell defends Archbishop Cranmer against heresy charges and is himself accused of Protestant leanings by the orthodox Bishop Gardiner. The episode points up the political importance of religious rivalries in the play's world. Also, that the one-time aide to Wolsey should become the king's ally demonstrates the progress from evil to good so central to Henry VIII. 

Griffith is an attendant to Queen Katherine. Griffith is the Gentleman Usher to the Queen in 2.4, but in 4.2 he has a more intimate function, as a faithful servant who continues to attend the now-deposed queen in exile at Kimbolton. Griffith tells Katherine that Cardinal Wolsey repented of his evil deeds before dying. As Wolsey's victim, Katherine speaks harshly of him, but Griffith suggests a more charitable view of the cardinal, emphasizing his good works. Katherine thanks Griffith for reminding her of the proper Christian attitude towards her enemy, since she is near death herself. Griffith is tender with the dying queen; along with the waiting-woman Patience, he helps surround the queen's death with an atmosphere of virtuous mildness. Griffith is named in Shakespeare's sources, but only in connection with his duties as the queen's gentleman usher; the playwright invented his role in 4.2, as part of his association of Katherine with the themes of forgiveness and patience in adversity.

Any of three minor characters in Henry VIII, members of the court of King Henry VIII. In 2.1 two of the Gentlemen discuss the trial and conviction of the Duke of Buckingham. They attribute the duke's fall to Cardinal Wolsey, who they say is hated by the common people as much as Buckingham is loved. After witnessing Buckingham's moving farewell, they discuss Wolsey's effort to bring down Queen Katherine and mention the arrival of Cardinal Campeius as part of that story. Thus, they convey much important information about the plot, while stirring the audience's responses to the villain and his victims. 

In 4.1 the Gentlemen reappear, this time at the coronation of Queen Anne. They speak of the deposed Katherine's exile to Kimbolton, and as the royal procession passes by, they identify and remark on its participants. They are then joined by a Third Gentleman, who describes the actual coronation ceremony in exalted terms that foster the play's depiction of Anne as a saintly queen, rejoiced in by the country. They go on to discuss the advancement of Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell in the wake of Wolsey's fall, and they mention the rivalry between Cranmer, now Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop Gardiner. This foreshadows the political developments of Act 5. Once again, the Gentlemen convey information while also suggesting the play's point of view. 

Garter (Garter King.at-Arms) is an official of the court of Henry VIII. The Garter whose duties include making formal proclamations at official ceremonies, is present, though mute at the coronation of Anne, and he recites a brief prayer after the christening of the future Queen Elizabeth in 5.4.1-3. His small role adds pomp and circumstance to the picture of the court.

Katherine (Katharine) of Aragon, Queen of England (1485-1536) is the rejected wife of King Henry VIII. The focus of most of Acts 2 and 3 is on Henry's finally successful effort to divorce Katherine and marry Anne Bullen. Katherine appears first in 1.2, where she opposes the unjust taxes introduced by Cardinal Wolsey. The episode establishes the queen as a good person and Wolsey, already designated a villain, as her enemy—and it is Wolsey's influence that leads the king to divorce her. In 2.4, at her divorce trial, Katherine spiritedly defies Wolsey, refusing to submit to his judgement and demanding an appeal to the pope. In 3.1, when she is visited by Wolsey and Cardinal Campeius, she concedes her helplessness, but refuses to co-operate in her own downfall. Finally, in 4.2, she is seen dying in exile at Kimbolton, after the king has married Anne and crowned her as queen. She hears of Wolsey's death, and though bitter, she accepts Griffith’s advice and forgives the cardinal. Throughout she is a spirited woman, insisting on the respect due a queen. Her virtues are stressed in the enactment of her dream, in which supernatural beings crown her with garlands. 

Katherine's role in the play is largely symbolic. As a paragon of goodness, she makes a suitable victim for Wolsey, whose villainy dominates the first half of the play. Henry is susceptible to Wolsey's influence, but his evident affection for Katherine makes it clear that he is not himself a villain, despite the divorce. The loss of Katherine is seen as a misfortune that is compensated for by the king's later wisdom and maturity, and by the birth of Elizabeth at the play's close. 

For dramatic purposes, Shakespeare places Katherine's death immediately after Wolsey's death and Anne's coronation, though she in fact lived for six years after the first event and three after the second, almost long enough to see Anne's downfall. Aside from chronology, Shakespeare's presentation of Katherine's story is fairly accurate. The daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain (ruled 1479-1516), Katherine was married to Henry's elder brother, Prince Arthur (1486-1502), the heir apparent to King Henry VII, in 1501. Prince Arthur died shortly after marrying Katherine, and she declared, then and later, that the marriage had not been sexually consummated. Henry disputed this later, when he sought an annulment and cited Katherine's marriage to his brother as having disqualified her for marriage to him. (Though traditionally called a divorce, what Henry actually obtained was a declaration that he had never been married in theological terms.) Yet when Henry had acceded to the throne in 1509, he had actually received papal approval to marry Katherine. 

Anne Bullen (Boleyn) (c. 1507-1536) is the lover and later the wife of King Henry VIII, and the mother of Elizabeth. At Cardinal Wolsey’s banquet in 1.4, Anne chats pleasantly with Lord Sands, before meeting Henry. The king is charmed by Anne when he dances with her, though she does not speak. In 2.3 Anne tolerantly accepts the Old Lady’s bawdy jesting about her potential relationship with the king, but her own mind is on the suffering of the rejected Queen Katherine Thus, Shakespeare disassociates Anne's rise from Katherine's fall, which is blamed on Cardinal Wolsey. Anne appears but does not speak at her own coronation in 4.1, and she is not present at the christening ot her daughter Elizabeth in 5.4. She is depicted as a saintly woman, whose Protestantism is said to be a healthy influence on the king and the country. Her role in the play's events, however, is very understated probably in order to avoid reminding the audience of her well-known fate: only three years later, after failing to produce sons, she was divorced and executed on trumped-up charges of adultery and treason. Any allusion to this would undermine the play's emphasis on King Henry's growth to wisdom and on the general virtues of the Tudor Dynasty, of which Elizabeth was a prominent a member. 

The historical Anne Boleyn was very different from Shakespeare's Anne, and the course other affair with the king is only sketchily presented in the play We are not informed that the king had already had an affair with Anne's older sister, Mary, nor that Anne was pregnant with Elizabeth when the king married her Anne's personality is hard to discern today, after centuries of accusation and defense, but she was certainly not the high-minded virgin of the play. She appears to have had other affairs before Henry—with the poet Thomas Wyatt, at least—and her upbringing was notoriously scandalous. Anne's father, Thomas Boleyn (1477-1539), an ambitious merchant who had married a daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, was a determined participant in the power politics of the king's court. His power and influence increased greatly as a result of his daughters' sexual relationships, and it seems likely that both girls were brought up with such possibilities in mind. Boleyn served Henry as ambassador to France, and from the age of about 12, Anne was a lady-in-waiting at the licentious court of King Francis I, where sexual intrigue was a way of life. King Francis later described Mary Boleyn as 'a great prostitute, infamous above all—and though Anne is not implicated in such accounts she was certainly close to the participants.

Old Lady is a waiting woman to Anne Bullen. In 2.3 the Old Lady jests bawdily with Anne, who insists that she would not trade her virginity for a throne. The Old Lady contradicts her, declaring that for 'England / You'ld venture an emballing: I myself / Would for Carnarvonshire' (2.3.46-48). The episode exploits the spicy aspects of a courtly romance while not sullying the play's presentation of Anne as a saintly woman. Anne's tolerance of the Old Lady's sharp tongue also keeps her saintliness from seeming stiff-necked and inhumane. 

Patience is an attendant to Queen Katherine. In 4.2 Patience faithfully attends the deposed and dying queen in her exile at Kimbolton. Patience speaks very little, remarking on Katherine's ghastly appearance as she approaches death and saying 'Heaven comfort her' (4.2.99); her mere presence—with that of Griffith—tells us of the loyalty the good Katherine inspires. Her name is so striking that ?t is often thought Shakespeare created her for its sake. Griffith addresses her, 'Softly, gentle Patience as they watch their mistress sleep, and Katherine, approaching death, says, 'Patience, / You must not leave me yet' (4.2.165-166). The quality her name evokes is Katherine's signal trait and an important theme in the play: the virtue of patience in adversity. In gentle Patience, Shakespeare created an embodiment of the virtue itself, an allegorical figure like those of the medieval Morality Play. This technique is characteristic of Henry VIII, which is filled with tableaus, Masque, and other emblematic episodes.