.

In the dramatic presentation of the play, there are many passages of
intensely moving interest, the action and characters are drawn with a
remarkable fidelity to the actualities. As has been suggested, however,
the play depends more largely than do most of Shakespeare's works on those
outward displays which an attempt will be made to realize on the stage.

_Shakespeare as Stage Manager_

That Shakespeare, as a stage-manager, availed himself as far as possible
of these adjuncts is only too evident from the fact that it was the
firing off the cannon which caused a conflagration and the consequent
burning down of the Globe Theatre. The destruction of the manuscripts of
Shakespeare's plays was probably due to this calamity. The incident shows
a lamentable love of stage-mounting for which some of the critics of the
time no doubt took the poet severely to task. In connection with the love
of pageantry which then prevailed, it is well known that Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson were wont to arrange the Masques which were so much in vogue in
their time.

_The Fire_

The Globe Theatre was burnt on June 29th, 1613. Thomas Lorkins, in a
letter to Sir Thomas Puckering on June 30th, says: "No longer since than
yesterday, while Bourbidge his companie were acting at ye Globe the play
of Henry 8, and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph; the
fire catch and fastened upon the thatch of ye house and there burned so
furiously as it consumed ye whole house all in lesse than two hours, the
people having enough to doe to save themselves."

_Other Productions of the Play_

There are records of many other productions of Henry VIII. existing. In
1663 it was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields as a pageant play. The
redoubtable Mr. Pepys visited this production, without appearing to have
enjoyed the play. In contrast to him, old Dr. Johnson said that whenever
Mrs. Siddons played the part of Katharine, he would "hobble to the theatre
to see her."

In 1707, Henry VIII. was produced at the Haymarket, with an exceptionally
strong cast; in 1722 it was done at Drury Lane, in which production Booth
played Henry VIII.

In 1727 it was again played at Drury Lane. On this occasion the spectacle
of the Coronation of Anne Boleyn was added, on which one scene, we are
told, L1,000 had been expended. It will come to many as a surprise that so
much splendour and so large an expenditure of money were at that time
lavished on the stage.