Fletcher, with some aid possibly from his friend Philip Massinger [q. v.], probably undertook the working up of Shakespeare's unfinished sketches. On 9 Sept. 1653 the publisher Humphrey Moseley [q. v.] obtained a license for the publication of a play which he described as ‘History of Cardenio, by Fletcher and Shakespeare.’ It was probably identical with the lost play, ‘Cardano,’ which was acted at court in 1613. Moseley, whose description may have been fraudulent, failed to publish the piece, and nothing is otherwise known of it. Two other pieces, ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ and ‘Henry VIII,’ ‘Two Noble Kinsmen.’which are attributed to similar authorship, survive. ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ was first printed in 1634, and was written, according to the title-page, ‘by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakespeare, gentlemen.’ It was included in the folio of Beaumont and Fletcher of 1679. On grounds alike of æsthetic criticism and metrical tests, a substantial portion of the play was assigned to Shakespeare by Charles Lamb, Coleridge, and Dyce. The last included it in his edition of Shakespeare. Coleridge detected Shakespeare's hand in act i., act ii. sc. i., and act iii. sc. i. and ii. Act iv. sc. iii., and act v. (except sc. ii.) were subsequently set to his credit (Spalding, Shakespeare's Authorship of Two Noble Kinsmen, 1833, reprinted by New Shakspere Society, 1876; Spalding in ‘Edinburgh Review,’ 1847; ‘Transactions’ New Shakspere Soc. 1874; ‘Two Noble Kinsmen,’ ed. Littledale). All these passages develop the main plot, which is drawn from Chaucer's ‘Knight's Tale of Palamon and Arcite,’ and seems to have been twice dramatised previously—in a lost play, ‘Palæmon and Arcyte,’ by Richard Edwardes [q. v.], which was acted at court in 1566, and in a second piece, called ‘Palamon and Arsett’ (also lost), which was purchased by Henslowe in 1594. The residue is disfigured by indecency and triviality, and is of no literary value. Some recent critics assign much of the alleged Shakespearean work to Massinger, and they narrow Shakespeare's contribution to the first scene (with the opening song) and act v. sc i. and iv. (cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in ‘Transactions’ of the New Shakspere Soc. 1882). Certainty is impossible, but frequent signs of Shakespeare's workmanship are unmistakable.
‘Henry VIII.’
Similar perplexity attends an examination of ‘Henry VIII.’ It was in course of performance at the Globe Theatre on 29 June 1613, when the firing of some cannon incidental to the performance set fire to the playhouse, which was burned down; it was rebuilt next year (cf. Court and Times of James I). Sir Henry Wotton, describing the disaster on 6 July, entitled the piece ‘All is True representing some principal pieces in the Reign of Henry VIII.’ The play is loosely constructed, and the last act ill coheres with its predecessors. The whole resembles an ‘historical masque.’ It was first printed in the folio of Shakespeare's works in 1623, but shows traces of more hands than one. The three chief characters—the king, Queen Katharine of Arragon, and Cardinal Wolsey—bear clear marks of Shakespeare's best workmanship; but only act i. sc. i., act ii. sc. iii. and iv. (Katharine's trial), act iii. sc. ii. (except ll. 204–460), act v. sc. i., can on either æsthetic or metrical grounds be assigned to him. These portions may, according to their metrical characteristics, be dated, like the ‘Winter's Tale,’ about 1611. The remaining thirteen scenes are from the pen of Fletcher, perhaps with occasional aid from Massinger. Wolsey's familiar farewell to Cromwell (act iii. sc. ii. ll. 204–460) is undoubtedly by Fletcher. James Spedding's theory that Fletcher hastily completed Shakespeare's unfinished draft for the special purpose of enabling the company to celebrate the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and Elector Palatine, which took place on 14 Feb. 1612–13, seems fanciful. During May 1613, according to an extant list, twenty plays were produced at court in honour of the event, but ‘Henry VIII’ is not among them (Bodl. MS. Rawl. A 239; cf. Spedding in Gent. Mag. 1850, reprinted in New Shakspere Soc. ‘Transactions,’ 1874). The conjecture that Massinger and Fletcher alone collaborated in ‘Henry VIII’ (to the exclusion of Shakespeare altogether) rests on equally doubtful premisses (cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in New Shakspere Society ‘Transactions,’ 1884).
The concluding years of Shakespeare's life (1611–1616) were mainly passed at Stratford, and probably in 1611 he disposed of his shares in the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. He owned none at the date of his death. But until 1614 he paid frequent visits to London, where friends in sympathy with his work were alone to be found. His plays continued to form the staple of court performances. In May 1613, during the Princess Elizabeth's marriage festivities, Heming, Plays at court in 1613.Shakespeare's former colleague, produced at Whitehall no less than seven of his plays, viz. ‘Much Ado,’ ‘Tempest,’ ‘Winter's Tale,’ ‘Sir John Falstaff’ (i.e. ‘Merry Wives’), ‘Othello,’
