Bodily References
No other play attributed in whole or part to Shakespeare features as many metaphorical references to the body as Henry VIII, with only the least performed play in his canon—King John—even coming close. Conscience has a bosom, Cardinal Wolsey is capable of diving into the king’s soul, courtly plots possess limbs and language can be strangled with tears. The metaphors and similes clearly run deep, but most scholars and academics have yet to determine any specific pattern which might create a grand unifying effect.
The Judgment of Rome
At heart, Henry VIII is a story of religion and power and the center of both was no London, but Rome. Henry seeks to change this while the Catholic hierarchy both in London and Rome do not. Cardinal Wolsey, one of an ever-changing roster of primary antagonists for the king, is steadfast in his conviction that Henry has no legal or moral ground to stand on. Ultimately, for those opposed to the king, the judgment will reside with the Vatican which Wolsey characters as “Rome, the nurse of judgment” in a woefully misguided metaphor underestimating the king’s far less charitable characterization of the Church.
The Butcher's Cur
Tradition has long dictated that Cardinal Wolsey rose to his glorified position from the lowliest of origins: the son of a butcher. This tradition seems to have no certifiable basis in fact, but the occupation is beside the point. Those standing in opposition to Wolsey such as Buckingham who extends the metaphor beyond species with his characterization “This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd” had long expressed a superiority toward Wolsey on the basis of his less than noble birth. The metaphorical put-down is therefore directed toward Wolsey personally, but also toward an institution like the Catholic Church that would allow such a person to rise to such power.
An Overheated Furnace
In response to Buckingham’s growing irritation toward Wolsey, his friend Norfolk offers sage advice couched in a beautifully apt metaphor: “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot / That it do singe yourself.” Here is an almost literal case of cooler heads prevailing. The political intrigue in any court creates a dangerously unpredictable climate under the best conditions and the conditions in England at the time were nowhere near being the best. Norfolk goes on to remind Buckingham that sometimes the most dangerous enemy is the passion one directs toward them that cannot be controlled.
The Pieman
Norfolk is a wise counsel. Buckingham’s abhorrence of Cardinal Wolsey runs so deep that he seems almost at times a walking dictionary of metaphorical insults to throw at Wolsey; albeit behind his back and out of earshot. One of the more humorous is ironically perhaps the most telling: “no man's pie is freed / From his ambitious finger.” The slur against his the circumstances of Wolsey’s birth is really beneath him as if he wasn’t not even trying; here he is also not trying, but the truth is revealed. What the courtiers of King Henry really have against Wolsey is not that he wields too much power befitting the son of a butcher, but that he claimed that power through a clear confirmation of his lack of breeding and class. He worked for it.
