An increasingly erratic, dictatorial, and paranoid leader surrounded by yes-men and bootlickers who will say and do anything to curry favour and get ahead. A few men of principle whose downfall is caused by their refusal to compromise those principles. Other men, whose principles are non-existent or which change with the whims of their leader, whose downfall is caused by the unpredictable nature of said leader.
Rich men of power and position whose only wish is to become richer, more powerful, further cement their position and legacy. Women reduced to the status of brood mares. Christians pitted against Christians, both sides claiming to have a direct line to God and parsing Scripture to make it mean what they want it to mean. Ordinary people, just trying to get on with their lives, uneasily wondering how these battles in the corridors of power will affect them.
Yes, the court of King Henry VIII of England was all that and more. Wait, you thought I was talking about something else? You were busy drawing parallels with much more recent events? Well, what’s past is prologue, as Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest: history sets the context for the present. Interestingly, that phrase is engraved on the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. I wonder if anyone in that city has ever noticed it, much less read it.
As appealing as travelling back in time to Tudor England might seem, I value hot running water, indoor plumbing, having all my own teeth, and not dying of the “sweating sickness” too much to be tempted. And there’s the fact that it must have been exhausting for everyone in King Henry’s orbit, never knowing who was in or out on any given day, what faction was in the ascendant, who the real power brokers were, who had the king’s ear and what they were whispering to him.
No matter how clever you thought you were, how good your gamesmanship, what your position was, or how much wealth you had amassed, it could all change in a heartbeat. I imagine a lot of people went around with hunted looks on their faces, always bracing for that knife in the back or blade to the neck.
Knowing what we do about the 45th president’s first term, we have a pretty good idea what to expect when he becomes the 47th president in January. O, for a Shakespeare to chronicle it for us, to bring his eye and pen to the pageant of knaves, fools, jesters, lickspittles, and cravens surrounding the once and future president!
But just as current events have their parallel in Henry VIII’s court, many of the people involved in them have their counterparts in Shakespeare’s works. Human nature, after all, does not change, so it is not hard to find today’s equivalents to Iago, dripping poisonous lies to achieve his own ends, or Bardolph, counting (wrongly) on his friendship with a powerful man to protect him. What of the outwardly virtuous but hypocritical Angelo, eager to punish others but who privately extorts a woman for sex, or the Bard’s depiction of Richard III as a man willing to betray anyone and everyone, lie, cheat, and even kill, in order to gain what he wants?
Perhaps King Lear is the closest we can get to how Shakespeare would have depicted today’s events, with its central character an old, foolish, and increasingly demented leader who laps up empty flattery, falsely believing it shows respect and love, and who is ready to turn on anyone — even a beloved child — who dares to stand up to him. It is a play full of backstabbers and schemers out for what they can get, where virtue and truth are punished, allegiances continuously shift, and fine words of principle are shown to be hollow.
A play? King Henry VIII’s court? Today’s political scene? What’s past is prologue indeed. Or, as George Santayana wrote, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
