''Men''s evil manners live in brass, their virtuesWe write in water.''Henry VIII or All is True is Shakespeare''s retelling of one of the defining periods in English history: the marriage and divorce of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. Written in the wake of the sudden death of Henry Stuart, King James I and VI''s oldest son and heir, Shakespeare''s most ''contemporary'' history play offers provocative parallels between the Tudor past and Stuart present. The play examines the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cranmer, and Anne Boleyn, providing both a meditation on history as a narrative dictated by Church and State, and on the tragic lives of those who become collateral damage to greater forces.The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare''s works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these vol
