Credit for the definition, if not the invention, of tragi-comedy in England is normally given to John Fletcher and is firmly anchored in his preface to the printed edition of The Faithful Shepherdess of 1609/10:

The Faithful Shepherdess was first performed in 1608 or 1609, and it is probable that the collaborative hand in Shakespeare's Henry VIII of 1612/13 was Fletcher's. Since this five-year time-span neatly embraces the period during which Shakespeare directed his primary artistic endeavour to tragi-comedy, with Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest following one another in swift succession, it has been generally assumed that this sharp shift of direction was the product of Fletcher's influence, coupled with influences flowing in from Italy and France in the wake of the Counter-Reformation and those of the Masques which Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones were developing with such success at court in these years.