Thursday, June 11, 2020

Henry VI, Part 3 - Reading Shakespeare Project



Henry VI, Part 3


Henry VI, Part 3 (often written as 3 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 1 Henry VI deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses and 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, and the inevitability of armed conflict, 3 Henry VI deals primarily with the horrors of that conflict, with the once stable nation thrown into chaos and barbarism as families break down and moral codes are subverted in the pursuit of revenge and power.
Although the Henry VI trilogy may not have been written in chronological order, the three plays are often grouped together with Richard III to form a tetralogy covering the entire Wars of the Roses saga, from the death of Henry V in 1422 to the rise to power of Henry VII in 1485. It was the success of this sequence of plays that firmly established Shakespeare's reputation as a playwright.
Henry VI, Part 3 features the longest soliloquy in all of Shakespeare (3.2.124–195) and has more battle scenes (four on stage, one reported) than any other of Shakespeare's plays.
Characters
Of the King's Party
Of the Duke of York's Party
The French
Others
Synopsis
The play begins where 2 Henry VI left off, with the victorious Yorkists (York, Edward, Richard, Warwick, Montague [i.e. Salisbury] and Norfolk) pursuing Henry and Margaret from the battlefield in the wake of the First Battle of St Albans (1455). Upon reaching the parliamentary chambers in London, York seats himself in the throne, and a confrontation ensues between his supporters and Henry's. Threatened with violence by Warwick, who has brought part of his army with him, the King reaches an agreement with York which will allow him to remain king until his death, at which time the throne will permanently pass to the House of York and its descendants. Disgusted with this decision, which would disinherit the King's son, Prince Edward, the King's supporters, led by his wife, Margaret, abandon him, and Margaret declares war on the Yorkists, supported by Clifford, who is determined to exact revenge for the death of his father at the hands of York during the battle of St Albans.
Margaret attacks York's castle at Wakefield, and the Yorkists lose the ensuing battle (1460). During the conflict, Clifford murders York's twelve-year-old son, Rutland. Margaret and Clifford then capture and taunt York himself; forcing him to stand on a molehill, they give him a handkerchief covered with Rutland's blood to wipe his brow, and place a paper crown on his head, before stabbing him to death. After the battle, as Edward and Richard lament York's death, Warwick brings news that his own army has been defeated by Margaret's at the Second Battle of St Albans (1461), and the King has returned to London, where, under pressure from Margaret, he has revoked his agreement with York. However, George Plantagenet, Richard and Edward's brother, has vowed to join their cause, having been encouraged to do so by his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy. Additionally, Warwick has been joined in the conflict by his own younger brother, Montague.
The Yorkists regroup, and at the Battle of Towton (1461), Clifford is killed and the Yorkists are victorious. Following the battle, Edward is proclaimed king, George is proclaimed Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, although he complains to Edward that this is an ominous dukedom. King Edward and George then leave the court, and Richard reveals to the audience his ambition to rise to power and take the throne from his brother, although as yet he is unsure how to go about it.
After Towton, Warwick goes to France to secure for Edward the hand of Louis XI's sister-in-law, Lady Bona, thus ensuring peace between the two nations by uniting in marriage their two monarchies. Warwick arrives at the French court to find that Margaret, Prince Edward and the Earl of Oxford have come to Louis to seek his aid in the conflict in England. Just as Louis is about to agree to supply Margaret with troops, Warwick intervenes, and convinces Louis that it is in his interests to support Edward and approve the marriage. Back in England, however, the recently widowed Lady Grey (Elizabeth Woodville) has come to King Edward requesting her late husband's lands be returned to her. Edward is captivated by her beauty and promises to return her husband's lands to her if she becomes his mistress, but Lady Grey refuses. The two exchange sexually-charged banter, but Lady Grey continues to refuse Edward on the grounds of preserving her honor. Edward declares that, besides being beautiful, she is also clever and virtuous, and decides to marry her against the advice of both George and Richard. Upon hearing of this, Warwick, feeling he has been made to look a fool despite service to the House of York, denounces Edward, and switches allegiance to the Lancastrians, promising his daughter Anne's hand in marriage to Prince Edward as a sign of his loyalty. Shortly thereafter, George and Montague also defect to the Lancastrians. Warwick then invades England with French troops, and Edward is taken prisoner while a heavily pregnant Lady Grey (now Queen Elizabeth) flees to sanctuary. Henry is restored to the throne, and appoints Warwick and George as his Lords Protector.
Soon thereafter, however, Edward is rescued by Richard, Hastings and Stanley. News of the escape reaches Henry's court, and the young Earl of Richmond is sent into exile in France for safety. Richmond is a descendant of John of Gaunt, uncle of Richard II and son of Edward III, and therefore a potential Lancastrian heir should anything happen to Henry and his son; hence the need to protect him. Meanwhile, Edward reorganises his forces, and confronts Warwick's army. At the Battle of Barnet (1471), George betrays Warwick, and rejoins the Yorkists. This throws Warwick's forces into disarray, and the Yorkists win the battle, during which both Warwick and Montague are killed. Oxford and the Duke of Somerset now assume command of the Lancastrian forces, and join a second battalion newly arrived from France led by Margaret and Prince Edward. Meanwhile, Henry sits on the molehill York was on and laments his problems. He is met by a father who has killed his son, and a son who has killed his father, representing the horrors of the civil war. Henry is captured by two gamekeepers loyal to Edward, and imprisoned in the Tower of London, while Edward goes to meet the Lancastrian/French force. In the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury (1471), the Yorkists rout the Lancastrians, capturing Margaret, Prince Edward, Somerset and Oxford. Somerset is sentenced to death, Oxford to life imprisonment, Margaret is banished, and Prince Edward is stabbed to death by the three Plantagenet brothers, who fly into a rage after he refuses to recognise the House of York as the legitimate royal family. At this point, Richard goes to London to kill Henry. At Richard's arrival at the Tower, the two argue, and in a rage Richard stabs Henry. With his dying breath, Henry prophesies Richard's future villainy and the chaos that will engulf the country. Back at court, Edward is reunited with his queen and meets his infant son, who was born in sanctuary. Edward orders celebrations to begin, believing the civil wars are finally over and lasting peace is at hand. He is unaware, however, of Richard's scheming and his desire for power at any cost.
Sources
Shakespeare's primary source for 3 Henry VI was Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548). As with most of his chronicle histories, Shakespeare also consulted Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577; 2nd edition 1587). Holinshed took much of his information on the Wars of the Roses from Hall, even to the point of reproducing large portions of text from Hall verbatim. However, there are sufficient differences between Hall and Holinshed to establish that Shakespeare consulted both.
For example, when Henry is urged by Clifford, Northumberland and Westmorland to engage the Yorkists in combat in the parliamentary chambers, he is reluctant, arguing that the Yorkists have greater support in London than the Lancastrians; "Know you not the city favours them,/And they have troops of soldiers at their beck" (1.1.67–68). Both Hall and Holinshed report that the Yorkists invaded the parliament house, but only Hall reports that Henry chose not to engage them because the majority of the people supported York's claim to the throne. Rutland's death scene (1.3) is also based on Hall rather than Holinshed. Although Clifford is reported as having murdered Rutland in both Hall and Holinshed, only in Hall is Rutland's tutor present, and only in Hall do Rutland and Clifford engage in a debate about revenge prior to the murder. The depiction of Edward's initial meeting with Lady Grey (3.2) is also based on Hall rather than Holinshed. For example, Hall is alone in reporting that Edward seemingly offered to make her his queen merely from motives of lust; Edward "affirming farther that if she would thereunto condescend [to sleep with him], she might so fortune of his paramour and concubine to be changed to his wife and lawful bedfellow." Later, Holinshed does not mention any instance in which George and Richard express their dissatisfaction with Edward's decision (depicted in the play in 4.1), or their questioning of Edward as to why he is favouring the relations of his wife over his own brothers. Such a scene occurs only in Hall, who writes that Clarence declared to Gloucester that, "We would make him know that we were all three one man's sons, of one mother and one lineage descended, which should be more preferred and promoted than strangers of his wife's blood [...] He will exalt or promote his cousin or ally, which little careth for the fall or confusion of his own line and lineage." A more general aspect unique to Hall is the prominence of revenge as a motive for much of the cruelty in the play. Revenge is cited many times by different characters as a guiding force behind their actions; Northumberland, Westmorland, Clifford, Richard, Edward and Warwick all declare at some point in the play that they are acting out of a desire for vengeance on their enemies. Revenge, however, plays little part in Holinshed, who hardly mentions the word, and never offers it as a major theme of the war.
On the other hand, some aspects of the play are unique to Holinshed rather than Hall. For example, both Hall and Holinshed represent Margaret and Clifford taunting York after the Battle of Wakefield (depicted in 1.4), but Hall makes no mention of a crown or a molehill, both of which are alluded to in Holinshed (although in the chronicle, the crown is made of sedges, not paper); "The duke was taken alive and in derision caused to stand upon a molehill, on whose head they put a garland instead of a crown, which they had fashioned and made of sedges or bulrushes." More evidence that Shakespeare used Holinshed is found in the scene is which Warwick is in France after joining the Lancastrians (3.3), and King Louis assigns his Admiral, Lord Bourbon, to aid Warwick in assembling an army. In Holinshed, the Admiral is referred to as "Lord Bourbon", as he is in the play (and as he was in reality), whereas in Hall the Admiral is erroneously called "Lord Burgundy". Another aspect of the play found only in Holinshed is Edward's offer of peace to Warwick prior to the Battle of Barnet; "Now Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,/Speak gentle words and humbly bend thy knee?/Call Edward king, and at his hands beg mercy,/And he shall pardon thee these outrages" (5.1.21–24). This offer from Edward is not reported in Hall, who makes no reference to a Yorkist attempt to parley with Warwick. This incident is found only in Holinshed.
Although Shakespeare's main sources for factual material were Hall and Holinshed, he seems to have used other texts for thematic and structural purposes. One such source was almost certainly Sackville and Norton's Gorboduc (1561), a play about a deposed king who divides his land between his children, and which Shakespeare also used as a source for King Lear. Gorboduc was reprinted in 1590, the year before Shakespeare wrote 3 Henry VI, and he seems to have used it as his "model for exploring and representing the destruction of civil society by factional conflict." More specifically, Gorboduc is the only known pre-seventeenth century text containing a scene in which a son unknowingly kills his father, and a father unknowingly kills his son, and as such, almost certainly served as the source for Act 2, Scene 5, in which Henry witnesses just such an incident.
Another thematic source may have been William Baldwin's The Mirror for Magistrates (1559; 2nd edition, 1578), a well-known series of poems spoken by controversial historical figures who speak of their lives and deaths, and to warn contemporary society not to make the same mistakes they did. Three such figures are Margaret of Anjou, King Edward IV and Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. York's final scene, and his last speech in particular (1.4.111–171), are often identified as being the 'type' of scene suitable to a traditional tragic hero who has been defeated by his own ambition, and this is very much how York presents himself in Mirror, a tragic hero whose dynastic ambitions caused him to reach too far and led to his ruin.
Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (1582–1591) may also have served as a minor influence. Of specific importance is the handkerchief soaked in Rutland's blood which Margaret produces during York's torture in Act 1, Scene 4. This could have been influenced by the recurring image of a bloody handkerchief in the immensely popular Tragedy, insofar as a handkerchief soaked in the blood of his son, Horatio, is carried by the protagonist, Hieronimo, throughout the play.
A minor source which Shakespeare certainly used was Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which was also Shakespeare's source for Romeo and Juliet. Much of Margaret's speech to her army in Act 5, Scene 4 is taken almost verbatim from Brooke. In Romeus and Juliet, Friar Laurence advises Romeus to stand up to his troubles, and be brave in the face of great danger;

Date and text

The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses Lancaster and Yorke (referred to hereafter as True Tragedy) was published in octavo in 1595 by the bookseller Thomas Millington and printed by Peter Short. It has been theorised that the True Tragedy is a reported text of a performance of 3 Henry VI, and if so, 3 Henry VI was written by 1595 at the latest.
However, there is evidence that the play may have been written several years earlier and was on stage by September 1592. Robert Greene's pamphlet A Groatsworth of Wit (registered on 20 September 1592) parodies a line from 3 Henry VI whilst mocking Shakespeare, to whom Greene refers as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his 'tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide', supposes that he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." This parodies 3 Henry VI, 1.4.138, where York refers to Margaret as a "tiger's heart wrapped in woman's hide". This parody proves that 3 Henry VI was well known by at least September 1592, which means it must have been staged prior to 23 June, as that was when the government shut the theatres to prevent an outbreak of plague. As such, for the play to have been on stage by 23 June, it had to have been written in either 1591 or early 1592.
For a discussion of whether the three parts of the trilogy were composed in chronological order, see Henry VI, Part I.
The 1595 octavo text of the True Tragedy was reprinted in quarto in 1600 by William White for Millington. It was reprinted in folio in 1619 as part of William Jaggard's False Folio, printed for Thomas Pavier. This text was printed together with a version of 2 Henry VI which had been printed in quarto in 1594 under the title The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade: and the Duke of Yorke's first claim unto the Crowne(referred to hereafter as The Contention). In the False Folio the two plays were grouped under the general title The Whole Contention betweene the Two Famous Houses, Lancaster and Yorke. With the Tragicall ends of the good Duke Humfrey, Richard Duke of Yorke, and King Henrie the sixt. Also printed with The Whole Contention was Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
The text of the play known today as 3 Henry VI was not published until the 1623 First Folio, under the title The third Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Duke of Yorke.
When the play came to be called Part 3 is unclear, although most critics tend to assume it was the invention of the First Folio editors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, as there are no references to the play under the title Part 3, or any derivative thereof, prior to 1623.

Analysis and criticism

Some critics argue that the Henry VI trilogy were the first ever plays to be based on recent English history, and as such, they deserve an elevated position in the canon, and a more central role in Shakespearean criticism. According to F.P. Wilson for example, "There is no certain evidence that any dramatist before the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 dared to put upon the public stage a play based upon English history [...] so far as we know, Shakespeare was the first."[15] However, not all critics agree with Wilson here. For example, Michael Taylor argues that there were at least thirty-nine history plays prior to 1592, including the two-part Christopher Marlowe play Tamburlaine (1587), Thomas Lodge's The Wounds of Civil War (1588), the anonymous The Troublesome Reign of King John (1588), Edmund Ironside (1590 – also anonymous), Robert Greene's Selimus (1591) and another anonymous play, The True Tragedy of Richard III (1591). Paola Pugliatti, however, argues that the case may be somewhere between Wilson and Taylor's argument; "Shakespeare may not have been the first to bring English history before the audience of a public playhouse, but he was certainly the first to treat it in the manner of a mature historian rather than in the manner of a worshipper of historical, political and religious myth."
Another issue often discussed amongst critics is the quality of the play. Along with 1 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI has traditionally been seen as one of Shakespeare's weakest plays, with critics often citing the amount of violence as indicative of Shakespeare's artistic immaturity and inability to handle his chronicle sources, especially when compared to the more nuanced and far less violent second historical tetralogy (Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V). For example, critics such as E.M.W. Tillyard, Irving Ribner and A.P. Rossiter have all claimed that the play violates neoclassical precepts of drama, which dictate that violence and battle should never be shown mimetically on stage, but should always be reported diegetically in dialogue. This view was based on traditional notions of the distinction between high and low art, a distinction which was itself based partly upon Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry (1579). Based on the work of Horace, Sidney criticised Gorboduc for showing too many battles and being too violent when it would have been more artistic to verbally represent such scenes. The belief was that any play which actually showed violence was crude, appealing only to the ignorant masses, and was therefore low art. On the other hand, any play which elevated itself above such direct representation of violence and instead relied on the writer's ability to verbalise and his skill for diegesis, was considered artistically superior and therefore, high art. Writing in 1605, Ben Jonson commented in The Masque of Blackness that showing battles on stage was only "for the vulgar, who are better delighted with that which pleaseth the eye, than contenteth the ear." Based upon these theories, 3 Henry VI, with its four on-stage battles and multiple scenes of violence and murder, was considered a coarse play with little to recommend it to the intelligentsia.
On the other hand, however, writers like Thomas Heywood and Thomas Nashe praised battle scenes in general as oftentimes being intrinsic to the play and not simply vulgar distractions for the illiterate. In Piers Penniless his Supplication to the Devil (1592), Nashe praised the didactic element of drama which depicted battle and martial action, arguing that such plays were a good way of teaching both history and military tactics to the masses; in such plays "our forefather's valiant acts (that have lain long buried in rusty brass and worm-eaten books) are revived." Nashe also argued that plays which depict glorious national causes from the past rekindle a patriotic fervour which has been lost in "the puerility of an insipid present," and that such plays "provide a rare exercise of virtue in reproof to these degenerate effeminate days of ours." Similarly, in An Apology for Actors (1612), Heywood writes, "So bewitching a thing is lively and well-spirited action, that it hath power to new mould the hearts of the spectators, and fashion them to the shape of any noble and notable attempt." More recently, speaking of 1 Henry VI, Michael Goldman has argued that battle scenes are vital to the overall movement and purpose of the play; "the sweep of athletic bodies across the stage is used not only to provide an exciting spectacle but to focus and clarify, to render dramatic, the entire unwieldy chronicle."
In line with this thinking, recent scholarship has tended to look at the play as being a more complete dramatic text, rather than a series of battle scenes loosely strung together with a flimsy narrative. Certain modern productions in particular have done much to bring about this re-evaluation (such as Peter Hall's and John Barton's in 1963 and 1964, Terry Hands' in 1977, Michael Bogdanov's in 1986, Adrian Nobles' in 1988, Katie Mitchell's in 1994, Edward Hall's in 2000 and Michael Boyd's in 2000 and 2006). Based upon this revised way of thinking, and looking at the play as more complex than has traditionally been allowed for, some critics now argue that the play "juxtaposes the stirring aesthetic appeal of martial action with discursive reflection on the political causes and social consequences."
The question of artistic integrity, however, is not the only critical disagreement which 3 Henry VI has provoked. There are numerous other issues about which critics are divided, not the least aspect of which concerns its relationship to True Tragedy.

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