It is likely that Cavendish had taken down notes of Wolsey's conversation and movements, for many years passed before his biography was composed. Between 1554 and 1558, he wrote it out in its final form. It was not, however, possible to publish it in the author's lifetime, but it was widely circulated in manuscript. Evidently one of these manuscripts fell into the hands of William Shakespeare, for that poet made use of it in his "Henry VIII", and Samuel Weller Singer even said that Shakespeare "merely put Cavendish's language into verse."