King John

Friends, we’re back in the histories with King John. I have to admit, I’m liking the histories far more than I thought I would (for shame, I’d never read one before this year). However, I’d never heard of this play before preparing for this project.

King John is set during the time of The Lion in Winter and most Robin Hood tales. In short: this is my jam. Seriously. I’m a medievalist, and I tie my interest in the Middle Ages to my childhood obsession with all things Robin Hood. I watched the Disney animated movie multiple times per day (my poor family) and read every adaptation I could find. When I couldn’t find more adaptations I moved on to different stories set in the Middle Ages. This set the course of my entire life: going to Bryn Mawr College to major in medieval studies (which didn’t happen, long story), specializing in rare books librarianship at Indiana University, and later getting my M.Phil. in Medieval Language, Literature, and Culture at Trinity College in Dublin.

All this because of an animated fox.

But, back to the play. My thoughts? I was…underwhelmed. Bored, really. This play was written after Richard II, which was so fiery. Why was this so lackluster? I didn’t feel anything for any of the characters, neither love nor hate, so I wasn’t really invested in the story. Sad.

With that in mind, onto the play!

Summary

Once again, England is having issues with France. (Sensing a theme?) King John currently sits on the English throne. (At this point Richard is dead.) France has sent an emissary to England demanding that John give up the principalities he holds in France, step down, and acquiesce the throne to his nephew, Arthur, whom the French King Philip believes to be the true heir to the English throne. If John doesn’t step down then there will be war. Of course, John doesn’t give up his title.

Directly after the emissary leaves Robert Falconbridge and his older brother Philip enter to have their dispute settled. Robert claims that Philip is a bastard and not his father’s rightful son; thus, Philip is not the rightful heir to the Falconbridge lands. John and his mother Eleanor notice that Philip looks distinctly like King Richard I. Eleanor offers to knight Philip if he renounce the Falconbridge name and claim his illegitimacy, which Philip does. Eleanor knights him and renames him Richard. Philip then confronts his mother about his real father and she admits that Richard was indeed his father.

Meanwhile in France the French are threatening Angiers, which is under the rule of England. King Philip of France demands that they denounce John of England and instead support Arthur as the true king. The inhabitants have themselves well-fortified and deflect the attack. Then the English arrive. Austria (a man’s name, not the country) stands in support of the French King (it’s believed that he [Austria] killed King Richard, which means the Bastard hates him on principle). Eleanor and Constance, Arthur’s mother, insult each other a bit before both King Philip and King John state their claims to the people of Angiers, who support “the rightful king”. When pressed further, they announce that they don’t know who the rightful king is and that England and France must fight for the title.

The two sides fight and then the heralds on both sides come to the gates and announce that their respective sides have won. The town announces that they observed the fighting and that there’s no clear victor. They’ll continue to hold the town until the two sides decide who the rightful King of England is.

The Bastard feels that the people of Angiers are being a bit uppity with their “prove yourself” attitude and suggests that France and England join to attack the city in retaliation. The citizens of Angiers don’t want this, of course, so they propose Option B: Louis, the Dauphin, marries Blanche, John’s niece, thus joining England and France in marriage. In addition, this would strengthen John’s claim to the throne and give Louis more territory in France. The two are wed. Constance, of course, is not happy about this; she views this as a betrayal against her by the French crown; King Philip has essentially abandoned Arthur.

Just after the marriage Cardinal Pandolf arrives with a missive from the Pope. John has apparently appointed someone other than the Pope’s chosen as archbishop. John refuses to acquiesce to the Pope’s demands and so Pandolf excommunicates him. Further, Pandolf supports Arthur’s claim to the English throne and gives King Philip a choice: turn against England or become excommunicated himself. Philip and Louis both decide to turn against England, much to Blanche and John’s distress. Constance, meanwhile, is loving this turn of events.

The two sides go to war. The Bastard beheads Austria in revenge for his father’s death and England prevails and captures both Angiers and Arthur. Eleanor stays behind in France to look over the territories whose titles England still holds while the Bastard is sent to “collect” money (read: ransack) from the English monasteries. John pulls Hubert, Arthur’s caretaker, aside and orders Arthur’s death; Hubert agrees.

Constance is beside herself with grief. Pandolf convinces Louis that he now has the strongest claim to the English throne because Arthur is as good as dead; even if John doesn’t decide to kill the boy outright (although he already has) he’ll need to once the French make their way to England to fight. Between the death of the young boy and the Bastard robbing from churches the people of England should gladly turn to Louis as their king. Thus Pandolf convinces Louis that the French should invade England, and Philip later agrees as well.

Hubert gets ready to poke Arthur’s eyes out with hot pokers but, at the last minute, realizes he can’t. He instead lies and announces that Arthur is dead. John insists on a second crowning ceremony for himself to solidify his rule over England. In attendance are Pembroke, Salisbury, and other nobles and they demand that John release Arthur. John announces that the boy, sadly, died the night prior. The nobles are incensed and insist that John ordered the boy’s death (they’re not wrong). They leave the court and defect to the French who, John has just been informed, have arrived on English soil. John is angry that this was the first he heard of their trip to England. That’s when he learns that his mother died in France and the lady Constance as well, three days before Eleanor.

The Bastard enters and tells John that the monasteries aren’t happy about John trying to take their money (imagine that). John sends the Bastard to join the nobles and try to convince them to rejoin John. John then blames Hubert for Arthur’s death, insisting that Hubert took it into his own head to kill to boy to try to win John’s favor and that John himself had never wanted such a thing. Hubert, incredulous and enraged, then informs John that Arthur is alive and well. John is ecstatic and sends Hubert to inform the nobles.

Arthur, convinced that John will try to kill him again if he remains where he is, attempts to escape and jumps from the castle wall; he dies upon landing. The English nobles and the Bastard happen upon his body and are convinced that this is proof that John ordered the boy murdered. The Bastard defends the king. Hubert then arrives and is shocked to see Arthur’s body but nobody believes that he left the young prince alive and well less than an hour ago. The nobles continue on their way to join the French while the Bastard, still not quite believing Hubert’s innocence, goes with Hubert (carrying Arthur’s body) to see John.

John makes a deal with Pandolf: he swears allegiance to the Pope and Rome and Pandolf will convince the French to leave England. John then orders the Bastard (who’s not happy about John’s agreement with Pandolf) to lead the English army against France.

Louis refuses to accept Pandolf’s request that the French stop fighting and leave England. The Bastard arrives and threatens and insults Louis to get him to back down; still, Louis would fight. And so war breaks out. The Bastard sends a request to John through a messenger that he should leave the field; John does, saying that he feels ill. The English nobles that had defected to the French find out through a French noble, Melun, that Louis plans to behead them all when the French win the day. The English nobles decide to reconcile with the English side.

So, the English nobles head back to the English side and the French are defeated. The Bastard goes in search of John and happens upon Hubert, who brings dark news: John has been poisoned by a monk. (Remember, John had sent the Bastard to take money from all the monasteries.)

John dies, surrounded by his son, Henry, the nobles, and the Bastard. The Bastard makes plans to assault the French troops once more but is forestalled when he learns that Pandolf is within the monastery and came with news of a French peace treaty. Prince Henry then becomes King Henry III.

And that’s it until next week when we read The Merchant of Venice!

Of Interest

Unlike the other history plays, there’s no sense of predestination in King John. The event sin the other history plays felt inevitable, perhaps because they were so well-known to Elizabethan audiences. Also unlike other history plays is that here ordinary citizens play little to no part in the play itself. (The only one I can think of is the first citizen of Angiers, when France and England are vying for the town’s support.)

One of the first events in the play, when John listens to the Bastard and his brother arguing over who deserves their father’s (or in the case of the Bastard, their supposed father’s) inheritance, John is essentially listening to the main grievance that will shape his future actions: that of the disagreement over who inherits the crown. Specifically, does the younger son have claim to the title?

I’m certain there’s also something to be said for the amount of agreements that are later broken throughout this play; it’s really the only constant. Other familiar tropes are: the power struggle between the state and the Catholic Church, arguments over the legitimacy of rule, and the constant threat of invasion.

Nota Bene

One trope we can clearly see is the karma that results from shedding innocent blood. John orders Arthur killed and it’s from this action that his nobles defect to the French side and the battles begin in earnest. Of course, Hubert didn’t actually kill Arthur but the near-miss makes Arthur feel he must flee the castle, and it’s this flight that leads to his death and thus to John’s further problems (since the nobles think Arthur’s accidental death is actually proof of his murder). Lesson: never order the death of an innocent child; things will not go well for you.

That being said, we could also argue that Arthur, though the legitimate heir to the throne, was not the best fit for the role. John was the better fit by far and a much better ruler; Arthur was a child and under great influence from his mother. So here’s the debate again about whether certain issues could lead to an almost divine intervention and provide a more fitting king or whether kingship was divinely supported , and the heir to the throne was ordained by heaven to be king regardless of whether he’s fit for the role or not. It’s Richard II all over again.

Richard III

Gentle friends, we’ve surpassed a hurdle. EIGHT history plays are now under our belts and with them just under ¼ of Shakespeare’s corpus. Feel accomplished! This has been quite a feat.

Also, I’ve finally found the time to start watch The Hollow Crown. Even with my high hopes for the series, I’m impressed. Richard II was gorgeously directed, and the acting throughout is top-notch. I highly suggest it and I’m very much looking forward to the current series following Henry VI–Richard III.

And now, onto Richard III! Our main character is somehow simultaneously a slimy bastard and a charismatic jerk. (Well, charismatic until he starts to kill children, but more on that below.) Onward!

Summary

The play opens with Richard telling us that he plans to play the villain.The civil wars are over but he has higher aspirations than his current station. Of course, this means he’s planning the downfall of both his brothers, but let’s be honest: all three of them brutally killed the Prince of Wales in Henry VI Part 3 in front of his mother, so can we really feel bad for any of these siblings?

Richard’s plot begins with Clarence: he’s somehow convinced King Edward of a prophecy that foretells Clarence causing Edward’s downfall. So, Edward orders Clarence imprisoned in the Tower. Richard “happens” to intercept Clarence and the guards on their way to the cell and acts distraught over the predicament. He also suggests that the Queen and her family are behind the plot. Just after the brothers speak together Hastings, who has recently been released from the Tower, tells Richard that Edward is very ill.

Meanwhile, Anne (the Prince of Wales’s widow and daughter of Warwick) grieves over the body of Henry VI. Richard arrives and, even though Anne curses him for murdering Henry, Richard somehow convinces her to marry him. Even he seems a little surprised and impressed by this feat:

Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?
Was ever woman in this humour won?

We next see Queen Elizabeth (Lady Grey from the last play) worrying about what would happen should the King die. She’s together with her family, Stanley, and Buckingham when Richard arrives and begins starting trouble (all part of his plan). Things get even worse when Queen Margaret, Henry VI’s widow, arrives and begins to curse and prophesy everyone’s destruction.

To further his plans, Richard needs Clarence dead. He procures a warrant and gives it to two murderers. Clarence has a prophetic nightmare about drowning, which he recounts to the Keeper, and is then stabbed by the two murderers. His body (supposedly still alive but mortally wounded) is thrown into a vat of wine to drown.

Later, King Edward has brokered peace between his wife’s family and the more-established aristocrats (namely, Hastings and Buckingham).  Then two things happen in short succession: Richard informs everyone that Clarence has been murdered, which devastates Edward, and Stanley arrives asking for a pardon for a servant who had killed a man in a brawl. The shock of this (being asked to save one man’s life while being unable to save his own brother’s, and indeed feeling as if he had caused his brother’s death in some part by imprisoning him) is too much for Edward and he’s led off to his deathbed. After he and Elizabeth leave with her family Richard suggests that they (Elizabeth and her family) murdered Clarence.

Clarence’s children, meanwhile, are completely duped by their uncle Richard. They believe everything Richard has told them about their father’s death, but their grandmother (the Duchess, also Richard’s mother) seems completely aware of Richard’s true character. Queen Elizabeth then enters in a fit because the King has died. While both ladies are grieving Richard arrives and suggests the young Prince be fetched to London for coronation immediately. Rivers, the Queen’s brother, is suspicious of Richard’s intentions but, with Buckingham’s help, Richard’s suggestion wins out. After, Richard and Buckingham ally to keep the Queen’s family separate from the Prince.

While waiting for the Prince to arrive, Queen Elizabeth speaks with the Duchess, the Archbishop of York, and the Queen’s second son, the Duke of York. A messenger then arrives announcing the imprisonment of the Queen’s relatives: Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan. The Queen decides to take the Duke of York and seek sanctuary.

When the young Prince arrives in London he’s greeted by Richard and Buckingham and is upset that his other relatives have been imprisoned. Hastings then arrives and tells the group that the young Duke of York is in sanctuary with his mother. Richard somehow convinces Cardinal Bourchier to forcibly remove the Duke from sanctuary and, after the young boy arrives, suggests that both the young Duke and the Prince should be housed at the Tower. For their safety, of course.

Richard and Buckingham then send Catesby to feel out whether Hastings will support Richard’s kingly aspirations; if not, Richard intends to execute him. Richard also promises Buckingham the Earldom of Hereford for his help.

Hastings, for his part, refuses the idea of Richard as king. He and Stanley head to the council to be joined by Buckingham and the Bishop of Ely. They are discussing the date for the Prince’s coronation when Richard arrives. After informing Buckingham that Hastings refuses to support him as king Richard accuses the Queen and Hastings’s mistress of using witchcraft against himself and accuses Hastings of treason, ordering his immediate execution. Meanwhile, Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan reflect on Margaret’s curses as their being led to execution.

After executing Hastings, Richard and Buckingham convince the Lord Mayor of London that Hastings’s execution was necessary due to a plot against both their lives, even though a scrivener later realizes that he’d been given an indictment for Hastings’s execution hours before Richard accused him of treason. Buckingham then convinces the citizens and the Mayor that Richard is the true heir to the throne and, with their help, “convinces” Richard to accept the title.

The Queen, the Duchess, Anne (now Richard’s wife), and Dorset arrive at the Tower to visit the Princes but are turned away by Brackenbury, who says it’s by order of the Lord Protector (though he initially says by order of “Kind Richard”). Stanley then arrives and asks Anne to accompany him to Westminster to be crowned queen. The ladies worry over the prospect of Richard as king and what will happen to the Princes. Queen Elizabeth asks Dorset to join Richmond abroad.

(Richmond, you may remember, was a child in the last play when Henry VI prophesied that he would one day be King. He’s also the first monarch in the Tudor line.)

As Richard assumes the kingship he “suggests” that Buckingham kill the Princes in the Tower. When Buckingham hesitates (because Richard is asking him to murder children) Richard decides that he’s no longer trustworthy and finds someone else to do the deed. Stanley, meanwhile, arrives with news that Dorset has set off to join Richmond. Richard then orders Catesby to tell everyone that Anne, Richard’s wife, is gravely ill (read: Richard plans to kill her). Richard then plans to marry his brother Edward’s daughter (yes, that would be his niece).

When Buckingham returns to the court and demands the Earldom Richard had promised him, Richard treats him with contempt and leaves. Buckingham is smart and realizes what will happen to him if he stays with Richard; he wisely decides to leave the court.

Meanwhile, the Princes have been killed (smothered in their beds) and the man who directed the act, Tyrrel, arrives and tells Richard that the deed is done.  Ratcliffe then arrives with news that the Bishop of Ely has fled to Richmond and that Buckingham is in arms against Richard. The war is on!

The Duchess and Queen Elizabeth, meanwhile, are wallowing in their woes after the deaths of the two Princes. Margaret arrives and fairly gloats in their misery. (Can you blame her, though? Her husband and child were murdered by their husbands and children. Granted, Margaret isn’t a saint and killed the Duchess’s husband and young son… seriously, the only truly redeemable victims in this play are the young Princes.) When Richard approaches Margaret leaves and both the Duchess and Elizabeth confront Richard and curse him. Richard then tries to convince Elizabeth to let him marry her daughter as she’s accusing him of murdering her two sons.

Ratcliffe then brings news that Richmond and his forces have landed in the West. Richard proceeds to accuse Stanley of disloyalty, since Stanley is Richmond’s stepfather, and demands that Stanley raise his forces against Richmond and leave his son with Richard’s forces as an insurance. Meanwhile, Richard receives word of other uprisings as well as Buckingham’s capture. Buckingham reflects on Margaret’s curse/prophesy as he’s being led to his execution.

Stanley, for his part, sends a message to Richmond informing him that he (Stanley) has to fight for Richard because his son is hostage. Richmond receives Stanley’s message and marches to meet with Richard. Both Richard and Richmond set up their camp and Richmond sends a secret message to Stanley.

As both Richmond and Richard sleep they are both visited by the ghosts of Richard’s victims. They promise destruction upon Richard and victory to Richmond, causing Richmond to have a lovely night’s sleep and giving Richard horrible nightmares.

Upon waking, a well-rested Richmond gives a rousing pep-talk to his forces. Richard, by contrast, is unrested and sets out his battle plan to his troops. He then receives word that Stanley refuses to join the battle on Richard’s side, but there’s too little time before the forces meet for Richard to order the death of Stanley’s son.

The battle of Bosworth begins. Catesby recounts how valiantly Richard fights but doubts victory. Richard appears and mutters the famous line, “A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” Then Richard and Richmond meet and face off. There’s no dialogue for this part just stage direction that the two fight and Richard is killed. [Another example of how a play is meant to be viewed and not read; this could be a rousing, climactic ending to the play when acted out but the death of Richard falls short when all we have for the moment is a short mention in a stage direction.]

So, all ends happy. Richmond is ever-gracious and congratulates everyone on the victory. He also states that he will marry King Edward’s daughter (the one Richard had intended to marry), thus uniting the red and the white roses (the houses of York and Lancaster) and ending the strife. He also prays that England will enjoy peace and prosperity after such a long period of civil war.

And that’s it folks! Next week we’re on to The Comedy of Errors.

Of Interest

Richard’s an evil figure, really, but what’s really interesting is just how manipulative he is. Somehow, he manages to make his victims complicit in their own downfalls. Edward dies because he believes the lie Richard created about a prophecy concerning Clarence; Anne somehow agrees to marry Richard, which leads to her death later when Richard needs to marry his niece; the Princes agree to stay in the security of the Tower (though they’re young and innocent, it’s still a place they willingly go to) even though that leaves them at Richard’s mercy. Even in cases where Richard’s victims aren’t so directly involved with their own downfall Richard somehow manipulates them into their dire positions.

And why is this? Because evil is seductive. It’s the serpent convincing Eve to take a bit of the apple; it’s Eve convincing Adam to take a bit himself and join her in their fall; it’s the devil tempting honest people away from virtue and toward sin.

Nota Bene

Do I need to point out how Shakespeare paints the Tudor Myth in this play? I will anyway. The Tudor Myth is the story of how the Tudors (Queen Elizabeth I included) came to power, specifically how the legitimacy of Tudor rule. Richmond, the first Tudor king, unites the houses of Lancaster and York by marrying Edward’s daughter and solving the issue at the heart of the War of the Roses. In addition, Shakespeare paints him as a savior figure who stops the tyrannical rule of the monstrous Richard III. If we believe the idea that the state of a country is directly mirrored by the character of the ruler (which we’ll see again in Hamlet and Macbeth) then Richmond and his apparent righteousness truly do save England.

I also want to touch upon the figure of Richard III. He’s an actor playing many roles, and in the beginning he plays them seamlessly. It’s when he stops playing those roles towards the end of the play, after he’s taken the crown, that things start to fall apart for him. Really, it’s after he orders the murder of the two young Princes that things start to go south. Perhaps ordering the murder of innocent children was a step to far? Perhaps he just got sloppy because he felt secure in his achievements? I’m not certain why Richard loses his charisma after the Princes’s deaths, only that he does and that he’s a true Machiavellian figure. Of course, Richard has to be evil in this play to provide a foil for the righteousness of Richmond and the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.

Henry VI Part 3

I have a confession, friends: I knew that Richard would become King in Richard III, but I apparently had no clue which Richard would do so. I honestly thought it was the father, so I was rather shocked when he was killed in the very beginning of the play. I also knew that Richard III was hunchbacked in some way, but Shakespeare tends to take a bit of license so I thought he might change his appearance in Richard III. Why are there so many Richards and Henrys running about? I now have no clue who Benedict Cumberbatch plays in the new Hollow Crown series.

Ah, well, onward and off-ward we go!

Summary

The play begins where Henry VI Part 2 left off: Henry and Margaret are fleeing the Yorkists after the battle at St Albans. The Yorkists reach the parliamentary chambers before Henry and his group and Richard promptly sits himself upon the throne. When Henry et al enter the room a verbal battle ensues, which is cut off by Warwick threatening violence upon any who would defy Richard’s claim.

Backed into a corner, Henry agrees to let Richard’s line be successors to the crown so long as they let him continue to rule for the rest of his natural life. Margaret is understandably upset that Henry would disinherit their son and leaves with Henry’s supporters (who are also upset that Henry was so easily cowed), declaring war on the Yorkists.

Margaret and her forces attack York’s castle and win the battle, forcing the Yorkists to flee and capturing Richard. Clifford, wanting revenge for his father’s death at the end of the previous play, kills Richard’s 12-year-old son Rutland during the battle. Margaret and Clifford then taunt Richard, giving him a handkerchief covered in his young son’s blood and forcing him to wear a paper crown before killing him. After this battle, Henry returns to London and, at Margaret’s urging, revokes his vow to let the Plantagenet line gain the crown after his death.

Richard has three remaining sons: Edward (the eldest), George, and Richard (the youngest). They, with Warwick (whose army was defeated at the Second Battle of St Albans) and Warwick’s brother Montague, regroup. They win the following Battle of Towton and Clifford is killed. Edward is proclaimed king while George takes on the title of Duke of Clarence and Richard becomes the Duke of Gloucester. Richard then reveals to the audience that he plans to take the throne from his brothers (keep in mind that both Edward and George come before him in succession), though he doesn’t yet have a plan.

Following the Battle of Towton, Margaret and her son travel to France to beg the King to aid their cause. Warwick had been likewise dispatched to France, but he goes to brook an alliance with the French and gain the hand of Lady Bona, the King’s sister, for Edward. Just as the French King has agreed to the marriage a messenger comes with news that Edward’s already married the recently-widowed Lady Grey. Warwick, feeling he’s been made a fool, vows to support Henry and fight against Edward. The French King, likewise angry, agrees to send troops to England with Margaret and Warwick. As a sign of good faith, Warwick promises his daughter Anne to Prince Edward (Margaret and Henry’s son). Due to Edward’s ill-though-out marriage George Plantagenet also vows to help the Lancastrian cause (and as a result gets the hand of another of Warwick’s daughters). Warwick invades England with his French and English troops and takes Edward prisoner. Henry re-assumes the crown and appoints both Warwick and George as Lords Protectors of the realm.

But because this play likes to flip flop every other scene, Edward is soon rescued from captivity by Richard, Hastings, and Stanley. Edward reorganizes and confronts Warwick’s army at the Battle of Barnet. George betrays Warwick and the Lancastrians and rejoins Edward’s side and the Yorkists win the battle. Both Warwick and Montague are killed, so Oxford and Somerset assume command of the forces. Margaret and Prince Edward’s army joins the battle. Meanwhile, Henry is then captured by Yorkists and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Edward and his forces meet the Lancastrian/French forces in the Battle of Tewkesbury. The Yorkists win and capture Margaret, Prince Edward, Somerset, and Oxford. Somerset is executed and Oxford imprisoned for life. Margaret, meanwhile, is banished and then forced to watch Edward, George, and Richard stab her son to death. Richard then goes to the Tower and kills Henry, who foretells Richard’s future actions and the subsequent chaos in store for us in Richard III. Unaware of Richard’s scheming, Edward orders celebrations after the birth of his son thinking that the civil war is over and the crown firmly set upon his head.

Of Interest

In Part 1 we had the fall of chivalry; in Part 2 we had the fall of good government with the death of Gloucester; in Part 3 we have family bonds. Family bonds and their disintegration, specifically in Henry VI Part 3 but really throughout the Henry VI plays, move the entire story forward. It’s a dispute about family bonds (who’s the rightful successor for Richard II?) that leads the Yorkists to fight against the Lancastrians. Similarly, it’s familial bonds (Henry VI’s disinheriting his son) that cause Margaret to fight against the Yorkists after Henry agrees to a peaceful truce. It’s also familial bonds (Clifford’s love for his father and desire to see him avenged) that lead to Rutland’s death.

We can see this interest in familial bonds in Act 2 Scene 5, where Henry watches the aftermath of battle and sees a father realize he’s slain his son and a different son realize he’s slain his father. Civil war itself is a deformity of familial bonds, and this scene highlights just how out of whack social order, even natural order, goes when these bonds are either disregarded or severed.

But nowhere is the idea of familial bonds more important within these plays than with Richard, brother to Edward and George. At the end of the play in Act 5 Scene 6 where Richard kills Henry he states that

I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word ‘love,’ which graybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me: I am myself alone.

Richard denounces his familial bonds, and in Richard III we’ll see just how far he’s willing to go against his family to get what he wants. (Spoiler: it’s pretty far.) He’s also physically deformed, but the question is raised as to which came first: the deformity of body or the deformity of soul? It’s not Richard’s physical deformity that make him a monster, it’s his actions; specifically, it’s his going against his familial bonds to usurp the throne for himself. So, does his physical deformity cause him to be a pariah or is his physical state just a mirror for his soul?

Beyond this play is the role that familial bonds have played since Richard II, where the source of the conflict in Henry VI Part 3 occurred: Henry IV usurped the crown from Richard II, who was then murdered as a result. Whether by Henry IV’s hand or just due to Henry IV’s actions, Richard died. So this degradation of familial bonds traces back to that moment.

Aren’t you glad I misread “Henry VI” as “Henry IV” before I started this blog now? Imagine if we had to skip!

Nota Bene

Did you catch the following bit in Act 4 Scene 6?

King Henry VI: Come hither, England’s hope.

Lays his hand on his head

If secret powers
Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,
This pretty lad will prove our country’s bliss.
His looks are full of peaceful majesty,
His head by nature framed to wear a crown,
His hand to wield a sceptre, and himself
Likely in time to bless a regal throne.
Make much of him, my lords, for this is he
Must help you more than you are hurt by me.

That baby, my friends, is the Earl of Richmond, future King Henry VII and the start of the Tudor line (ie.: the lineage of Elizabeth I). Shakespeare basically calls the child England’s savior.

Henry VI Part 2

Friends, Henry VI Part 2 was much…bloodier than I expected. I’m not complaining, mind you; I was just surprised. There’s been a lot of fighting and wars and death over the past six weeks, I know, but thus far it’s been about valor and law and such. This time we get rebellion and desecration of the dead (if you count putting two male relative’s heads on pikes and parading them about whilst making them kiss as desecration, that is).

So, onward we go! Plots are thickening, monarchs are in peril, and people are about to die.

Summary

Our dear Henry gets hitched to Margaret, daughter of Reignier, but she’s kinda already Suffolk’s lover. Awkward. Of course, Suffolk intends to manipulate Henry through Margaret, essentially getting the girl and power in one fell swoop. But one tiny issue: Gloucester, the Lord Protector, won’t be so easily swayed and Henry trusts him rather implicitly; he’s also really popular with the commoners, which comes into play later.

To get passed this little complication Suffolk devises a plot. Gloucester’s wife, the Duchess, wants to be queen so Suffolk has someone tempt her into using necromancy to gain the throne. Through the help of two men and one woman she raises a spirit who begins to foretell the future. Before the ritual is complete, however, the band is interrupted by York and Buckingham and arrested. Henry banishes the Duchess and condemns the rest to death. Gloucester is embarrassed and sad, of course, but he remains staunchly loyal to the King.

Somerset, Cardinal Beaufort, Suffolk, and Margaret decide that Gloucester must die. Suffolk accuses Gloucester of treason, for which Henry has to have him imprisoned though he doesn’t want to, and has two assassins kill him before his trial. Henry is heartbroken and banishes Suffolk for Gloucester’s death, which upsets Margaret greatly. The Queen vows to somehow get Suffolk back to England, but Suffolk is killed by pirates so the only part of him that returns to England is his head (which she walks around court with, because that’s a sign of a well-hinged person). Meanwhile, Beaufort becomes fevered and dies cursing God. (It’s heavily implied here that Gloucester’s ghost torments and kills Beaufort.)

Meanwhile, because Henry can’t catch a break, York continues his underhanded campaign for the crown and sways Salisbury and Warwick to his side before Henry sends him to Ireland to subdue rebels. He also sets Jack Cade to inspire a rebellion and state that he, Jack, is the true heir to the throne through his Mortimer blood (which, of course, is a lie but is true in York’s case). Through this, York can see whether the commoners would support his claim to the throne. Using the death of Gloucester as a spark, Jack gets the commoners into a frenzy and they proceed to revolt.

The rebellion is rather successful and Jack makes himself the mayor of London. (This is when the whole “heads on pikes” thing happens.) Lord Clifford, however, is able to sway the people to his and the King’s side and Jack flees, though he dies several days later in a fight.

York returns to England with a force behind him. He calls out Somerset as a traitor and is tricked by Buckingham into believing that Somerset has already been imprisoned. York disperses his men but becomes enraged when he sees Somerset walking with the Queen, quite obviously not imprisoned. York states his claim to the throne and is supported by his sons, Salisbury, and Warwick. The nobility take sides, supporting either the house of York or the house of Lancaster (Henry’s line). They battle at St Albans and both Somerset and Clifford are killed.

Margaret convinces Henry to flee the battle (he was rather ineffectual and not fighting, anyways) and they head to London joined by Clifford’s son. York, his sons, Salisbury, and Warwick make chase.

And thus we’re left with baited breath until next week and Henry VI Part 3.

Of Interest

I feel like the subtitle of this play should be All Hell Breaks Loose in England. We have the beginning of the War of the Roses, pitting the House of York against the House of Lancaster, and a king who doesn’t seem to command authority; Henry VI is definitely not Henry V. All the nobles are working towards their own ends, and poor Henry never really grew into his title. He’s strong in religious faith but little else.

It’s ironic that the machinations in the House of Lancaster that remove Gloucester from his office are the very source of their eventual downfall; Gloucester was Henry’s main shield against York’s designs upon the crown, and with Gloucester gone the House of Lancaster is set to fall.

There’s a correlation to be drawn between the state of the kingdom and the state of physical bodies in the play. As things begin to unravel we see a parallel in how bodies, specifically those of the dead, are described. With Gloucester’s death the kingdom begins to crumble (he was the glue that held things together, in large part) and we get a detailed description of his body: bulging eyes, face dark with blood; it’s unnatural and grotesque. Beaufort’s death also seems violent and unnatural, as if an outside force is working upon him. But it’s not an outside force; it’s Beaufort’s own guilt that’s weighing upon his soul, so he’s being attacked from within in a way. Just as England is with the rebellion led by Jack Cade.

Suffolk is beheaded and Margaret carries his head around court (because that’s not creepy or anything); Lord Saye and his son-in-law killed and their heads impaled on pikes and carried about town (and made to kiss*); Cade drags the bodies of Stafford and his brother behind his horse. All this shows that, just as bodies are being ripped apart in increasingly violent ways, so is England.

(*A note here: I’ll always endeavor to stay on topic with Shakespeare, but I want to make certain you know that pointing out that Lord Saye and his son-and-law’s heads are forced to kiss is not a condemnation of same-sex relationships. Here, I’m pointing out that the bodies of these men are being played with by people, and that’s the desecration. It’d be the same if I dug up a body, attached it to strings, and made it dance a jig like a marionette; jigs are not themselves bad, but my actions in digging up a body and playing with it are.)

Basically, the King’s inability to rule his kingdom leads to rebellion in both the nobility and commoners. There is an order that must be adhered to for the machine of government to work, and Henry’s weakness throws everything into chaos.

Nota Bene

Let’s discuss the Globe Theatre for a moment. In the last few weeks we’ve seen a lot of battles and scenes with large crowds, which suggests that Shakespeare wrote his plays with a larger stage in mind. While the actual dimensions of the theater aren’t known, we can surmise that the diameter of the entire theater was about 100 feet. That’s not that big, if you think about it. But here’s the thing: seats went up, not out. The stage itself took up a large portion of the diameter, measuring about 40 feet x 25 feet and raised about 5 feet from the pit. The pit was standing-room and admission there was relatively cheap (the cheapest seats were actually on the stage). From there, the sides of the theater went vertically up three levels.

So you see, not only was the stage large but all spectators were relatively close to the stage no matter where they sat. This meant that you got both a large stage and the ability to create a more intimate feeling. Much better than theater experiences today, where you can kind of see the actors in the nosebleed seats and closer seats will cost you an arm and a leg (or your first born, in the case of Hamilton).

Henry VI Part 1

Friends, this week we plunge into Henry VI Part 1. I swear, after this tetralogy we’re done with the history plays for a bit. But just think! We’ll be nearly ¼ of the way through Shakespeare’s corpus when we finish AND we will have worked through eight meaty plays.

So, onward and off-ward! And pay attention, because situations are set up here that come to a head in the next two plays…

Summary

The play opens with the funeral of Henry V. Hal (to differentiate him from Henry VI, and because I feel like I’m on an informal-name basis with the bloke by now) was, as you know from Henry V, a well-loved king in England and considered a conqueror of France. Hal’s brothers, the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Gloucester, along with their uncle, the Duke of Exeter, and the Earl of Warwick and the Bishop of Winchester lament Hal’s passing and worry about whether the prince (Henry VI) is ready to be king.

At this moment, almost as if the French knew Hal would die, messengers come with word of rebellion in France, led by the Dauphin Charles. They also tell that Lord Talbot, the Constable of France, was taken prisoner after one of the battles. Bedford states that he’ll go to France to take control of the army, Gloucester says that he’ll be reagent in England for the time, Exeter decides that he’ll prepare young Henry for his coronation, and Winchester seems to be plotting. (Warwick doesn’t say a thing; at least, not in the version of the play that I have.)

Meanwhile in Orléans, the Dauphin’s army is being attacked by the English. The Bastard of Orléans informs the Dauphin that there’s a young woman who claims to be a prophetess and who can help them defeat the English. To test her, the Dauphin and Reignier trade places but the girl, Joan la Pucelle (better known as Joan of Arc) sees through the ploy easily. To further test her, she and the Dauphin spar. When Joan wins the match the Dauphin puts her in command of his army and when Bedford arrives to ransom Talbot Joan launches an attack. The French win but that night Bedford and Talbot manage to sneak into the city and take it, making the French flee.

Meanwhile in England, Richard Plantagenet (later the Duke of York) and the Duke of Somerset have a quarrel that explodes across the court, with everyone taking sides with either the White or the Red Rose (mark this; it will be really important in the next two plays).

Richard then visits his uncle Edmund Mortimer, who’s imprisoned in the Tower of London. (Shakespeare takes a little poetic license here, making Mortimer an amalgamation of two separate people, one of whom appeared in the Henry IV plays.) Mortimer tells Richard their family history: how their family helped Henry IV gain the throne only to be ignored after; how Henry V executed Richard’s father, Richard of Conisburgh, and stripped the family of their lands and money; that he, Mortimer, is the rightful heir to the throne (based on lineage from Richard II) and that Richard is next in line. Richard vows to regain his family title and then Mortimer dies. Henry agrees to Richard’s request and he takes on the title of Duke of York. Then Henry, Gloucester, Exeter, Winchester, Richard, and Somerset leave for France.

In France, there’s more fighting. The French gain and lose the city of Rouen in less than a day. Bedford dies and Talbot takes command of the army. The Dauphin is outraged at losing Rouen but Joan calms him. She then convinces the Duke of Burgundy to fight for the French rather than the English.

Henry, having arrived in France and hearing of Burgundy’s betrayal, sends Talbot to win him back to the English side. Talbot goes and Henry proceeds to attempt to heal the rift between Richard and Somerset. Thinking “red vs. white rose” a trivial argument, Henry tries to prove that he could wear one’s rose but still love the other. However, by picking the red rose to wear Henry unwittingly shows support for Somerset and insults Richard. Henry then puts Richard in command of the infantry and Somerset in command of the cavalry, forcing the two to work together, and heads back to England.

Talbot, meanwhile, is outside Bordeaux to win Burgundy back to the English cause. He’s surprised by the Dauphin’s army and sends for reinforcements. When word arrives to both Somerset and Richard that Talbot needs backup neither sends help, instead second-guessing and blaming each other for the delay. The English forces are destroyed and both Talbot and his son are killed.

In the aftermath of the battle, both sides of the English army join forces and overtake the French. Joan is captured by Richard after her visions abandon her and she is subsequently burned at the stake. Henry barters a peace with the French with the urging of the Pope and makes the Dauphin viceroy of France. The French grudgingly agree to the terms but fully intend to break their oaths.

Suffolk, who’s married, captures Reignier’s daughter, Margaret, and desires her. Instead of pursuing her himself (which he can’t do as a married man with a woman of her station) he decides to have her marry Henry, and thus control the king through her. He travels back to England and convinces Henry to agree to the match even though he’s already promised to someone else. Gloucester tries to convince Henry that it’s not a good match, that Margaret doesn’t bring any money or advantage to his position as king, but Henry is too moved by the description of Margaret’s beauty.

And thus we’re set up for next week and Henry VI Part 2. The discord between Richard and Somerset, Richard’s ambitions, and (I assume) Suffolk’s influence over Henry’s future queen will no doubt become bigger problems for our poor King.

Of Interest

Talbot’s death was more than just the death of a lord; it’s symbolic of the death of chivalry. The play takes place during a rather liminal time; feudalism is in decline and the Middle Ages are waning into the Renaissance. (“Renaissance” isn’t a term I like for the period following the Late Middle Ages, but I’ll spare you that rant now.)

Mind you, “chivalry” as we, or even the Elizabethan’s, think of it didn’t actually exist in the Middle Ages. Rather, here it’s an idealized concept of honor and selfless devotion to the good of one’s country filled with courtesy and tied to feudalism. This makes Talbot a nostalgic character and his death is a statement, especially since it’s caused by political discord. Henry V is also a nostalgic chivalric figure and his death can also be seen as the end of an era; throughout the play whenever Hal is mentioned it’s for his exploits and what he accomplished rather than as a person, even from his own brothers and son; here he acts as a function, not as an individual. (Keep in mind as well that Shakespeare wrote Henry VI before the Richard II – Henry V plays so Hal as we know him now didn’t yet exist.)

But what does the end of chivalry signify? When one social institution falls another rises in its place. Here, where chivalry falls we get an influx of rule not by honor but by cunning and fraud. We see social factions easily and quickly dividing the court, we see machinations for gain not by one character but by many. This is the rise of Machiavellianism.

Joan is Machiavellian, winning battles by cunning rather than by chivalric, honorable means; it’s one of the reasons Talbot loses to her. Talbot is unable to adapt, meaning his chivalry is also his downfall and not necessarily a positive trait.

 Nota Bene

So what’s the purpose of this play? To one extent, it’s meant to lift national pride. People are a bit despondent; at this point, Queen Elizabeth is still unmarried, there’s a possibility that Catholicism will rise against Protestantism, and there are fears of problems on the continent and in Ireland. The last victory England had was against the Spanish Armada in 1588 so people need a bit of a pick-up.

So here comes a play where the English are most always outnumbered and either win the battles against all odds or, if they do lose, are defeated by underhanded means. The English in the play never give up and never surrender while the French are shown to be fearful of them to the point of respect.

Also note that pretty much everything Catholic is negative while everything Protestant is positive. Talbot speaks of Protestant values (though not by name, since at the time England was decisively Catholic); Wincester, a bishop, is self-serving, and Joan is somehow simultaneously saintly and a witch. We saw the same in Henry V in the beginning, where two members of the clergy were plotting to have England go to war in France for their own gain. Ah, the social implications of Shakespeare.

Henry V

Ah, friends, do you feel as if we’ve passed a hurdle? We have; this marks the end of the tetralogy that began with Richard II. We’ve also finished said goodbye to Henry V after three plays. We jump right into the next tetralogy (technically written before this tetralogy) with Henry VI next week.

A lot happens in this play, and in a short space so let’s dive right in.

Summary

We pick up much where we left off in Henry IV Part 2: Henry V sits as king and, as foreshadowed by the chorus at the end of the last play, England is about to enter a war. Because politics in the High Middle Ages were incestuous and confusing (we won’t even touch the time when there were three popes claiming legitimacy at the same time), the King of England also held lands and titles in France and was, by extent, a vassal to the King of France. Although Henry V is assured by his advisors that his claims are legitimate the French crown ultimately rejects them.

Henry and his counselors had already decided to go to war with France over these entitlements but the French response gives Henry all the excuse he needs: instead of diplomatically saying, “Sorry, the titles aren’t yours,” the French Dauphin (the heir to the French throne) replies by mocking Henry and his former playboy ways with a gift of tennis balls. Henry tells the Dauphin’s messengers to inform their master what he can do with his tennis balls and prepares to go to war.

Henry then shows us how cunning and cutthroat he’s become; he first pardons a prisoner, showing mercy, and then sentences three of his trusted advisors to execution for taking part in a French assassination plot against him. The way Henry handles the situation reminds us a lot of Henry IV, though Henry V has a bit more flair. And thus the English head to France.

Meanwhile, no one in the French court seems to take Henry seriously. They mock him and seem overconfident in France’s ability to withstand any paltry attacks from the English. As such, they don’t send reinforcements to the town of Harfleur, which Henry sacks rather easily.

A bit of a step back here. Earlier in the play we meet up with some old friends from the previous plays: Bardolph, Ancient Pistol, the boy (Falstaff’s page) and Mistress Quickly, the hostess of the tavern. In a rather shocking moment we learn of Falstaff’s death without his ever appearing in the play. This is one of Shakespeare’s most popular characters (both in Shakespeare’s time and now), and he just kills him offstage; it’s a bit jarring.

I bring this up not just to acknowledge Falstaff’s death but also to talk about Bardolph’s fate. Henry had decreed that his soldiers aren’t to do any harm to French citizens or their property (Henry wants the French to like him, after all; he intends to rule them), Bardolph goes and loots a church, stealing a small communion plate. Because of this, Bardolph is sentenced to death and Henry shows neither mercy nor familiarity with his former-friend’s name. (Mind you, it’s possible for an actor to convey both recognition and dismay at this moment, but nothing is specifically written into the play.) Our Hal has come a long way from his wastrel ways.

So, the English have just taken Harfleur. Do the French finally take this threat seriously? Not at all. The English are reportedly sick and tired and the French outnumber them 5 to 1; this should be an easy victory for the French. The two sides prepare for battle.

In the middle of the battle, after it seems that the fighting has abated, we find out that French soldiers have stolen upon the English luggage and killed all the boys and young men who weren’t taking part in the battle. Enraged, Henry orders the execution of all prisoners. Soon after, the battle is over and the French are defeated.

The Battle at Agincourt is a surprising victory for the English. Henry considers this a miracle after being so heavily outnumbered, with about 10,000 French deaths to only 30 for the English (which are pretty accurate numbers according to Holinshed [see the Nota Bene in the last post]). Henry decrees that the victory goes to God alone.

(Of course, that’s a neat bow to tie on a representation of a good Christian king. The reality? Heavy rains put the French, in their heavy armor and on horseback, at a disadvantage, as did the English use of the longbow, which had fallen out of favor on the continent but which allowed the English to pick off the French after they broke ranks.)

Henry proceeds to have all of his demands met by the French, marries the French princess Katharine, and becomes heir to the French throne. A happy ending for the English, right? Well, yes, but the Chorus isn’t done with us yet: he reminds us that things go south with the reign of Henry VI, and thus we’re set up for next week…

Of Interest

Oh, Hal, my Machiavellian king (see the Nota Bene on the post for Henry IV Part 1 regarding Machiavellian characters). Seriously, I don’t agree with Machiavellian sentiment at all, but I love a cunning character, and Hal can be ruthless.

(Interesting fact: Machiavelli wasn’t Machiavellian; he never actually wrote “the ends justify the means;” this was a liberal interpretation of a section in The Prince and other writings by Machiavelli, but nothing comes close to this sentiment. Now his wife, on the other hand, was amazingly Machiavellian…)

Remember that in Henry IV Part 2 Hal’s father worried that his son wouldn’t be able to handle or hold the throne. Obviously, he needn’t have worried; Henry V seems to understand kingship better than either Richard II or Henry IV ever did: it’s a role to be played, a responsibility. While Richard never seemed to embrace the responsibility aspect, Henry IV seemed too practical to follow the ceremony of kingship. Henry V, by contrast, fully understands the responsibility of his station and the importance of ceremony in the role of king. He also seems to understand that the traits that make a good king are not necessarily the same traits that make a good person. He essentially threatens to murder children (specifically, to impale infants) to broker peace and surrender from Harfleur; it’s not very moral, but it does stop the fighting.

One thing we note in this play is a lack of women. Except for the very end of the play the only time we even see a woman is in Eastcheap with Mistress Quickly or the small scene where Katharine tries to learn English (and that scene is mostly in French, partly representing the different, softer life that Katharine leads contrasted to the baser, violent lives of the men in the play). The emphasis, then, is on the relationship of men to men. While there’s a lot to be written on this (the group from Eastcheap as mirrors for the French, for instance) the one thing I’ll comment on is this: while there are various male relationships happening across the play, Henry himself is a very solitary, isolated figure. It’s one way kingship is set apart from all other stations, and it’s even starker when we consider Henry’s former relationships in the two Henry IV plays and the fact that Henry has to order Bardolph’s execution. Perhaps Henry knew the isolation he’d endure when he took the crown and so was indulging in friendship while he could. It’s a bit tragic, really.

It also puts an interesting spin on the final scene with Henry and Katharine. Henry seems a bit bumbling, though charmingly so. It contrasts with the eloquence he exhibits in the rest of the play (and also in both parts of Henry IV). Could he be having that much trouble talking to a girl? I think not. In fact, I think this is strategy on Henry’s part: he’s acting like a charming fool, and it puts Katharine at ease. Keep in mind that theirs is a political marriage. What’s more, Henry has just defeated Katharine’s country in a decisive victory, is making demands on her father, and had killed a lot of Frenchmen. That could be a really tense marriage. To counteract this, Henry puts Katharine at ease by acting both as a courtly, besotted lover and a naive youth. It’s genius, really.

Moving on, what’s up with the Chorus? This is the first time we’ve had an introduction to every act, but it serves a good purpose. Keep in mind that Elizabethan theater didn’t have much in the way of scenery or props; Shakespeare had to set the scene mostly with words. Here, we have a story that spans the English Channel and includes a mighty battle. Shakespeare decided to include a Chorus to paint each scene, telling the audience about each location and preparing their imaginations for the action to follow. In fact, the entire first prologue is both setting up the action to come and asking the audience to suspend reality.

The Chorus does a fine job of getting the audience excited for what’s to come (battles! Horses! Agincourt!), but directly after the Chorus has roused the audience and gotten them ready to see two mighty foes duke it out, we’re suddenly plopped into a scene with two clergymen. It’s a bit abrupt, right? Eh, it makes a point. The two clergymen are a bishop and an archbishop who are planning to encourage England to go to war with France for their own gain. This definitely isn’t a flattering portrayal of the Catholic Church, and it’s not meant to be. Keep in mind that Elizabeth I, current monarch of England, is the daughter of Henry VIII, who is famous for breaking with the Catholic Church a and creating the Church of England  after the Catholic Church wouldn’t approve of Henry’s divorce.

This is the same anti-Catholic sentiment that led to the desecration of many medieval manuscripts; some were destroyed or discarded, used as binding waste in other books and such (most manuscripts were written on parchment, which is similar to leather and helps with structural integrity); some, like Books of Hours, were in private hands and left mostly intact save for excisions of any mentions of popes or references to/images of St. Thomas More (an English saint martyred for standing up to the king). Such practices are isolated to areas with under English control, including the west of Ireland.

(What? I’m a rare book librarian and a medievalist; you expected me to not comment on something like this? Be thankful you only got a few sentences and not a 30-minute rant.)

One last bit: turn, if you will, back to Act 1 Scene 2 with Henry’s reaction to the tennis balls gifted to him by the Dauphin. The symbolism here is amazing. Henry takes the tennis balls and turns them into a vehicle for his message. The game is on, the match is set, and the tennis balls shall turn into cannonballs. It’s an eloquent and witty speech, even using the word “mock” as onomatopoeia for the sound of the tennis ball striking the ground during a tennis match. (I bet you never thought you’d see “onomatopoeia” used after high school English class, right?)

Nota Bene

How do we view war in Henry V? Is it a patriotic tale, recounting English military prowess and a decisive victory, or is it a tale of the horrors of war and the plight of common soldiers under the ruthless lead of their superiors? Is it pro-war or anti-war?

Short answer: yes.

Henry V is somehow both a patriotic and a sobering look at war. Just as characters and scenes jump between blank verse and prose (more on the meaning of that in the Nota Bene here), so too we jump between the valor of warfare and the base, crass nature of war.

On one hand we have two of Shakespeare’s best-known speeches: the one beginning “Once more unto the breach, dear friends…” and the St Crispin’s Day speech. (Renaissance Man? Anyone?) Both of these speeches are rousing and patriotic. On the other hand we have a view of the English soldiers. The night before the Battle at Agincourt Henry walks among his troops to speak with them (as a man, not as their king) and gauge his soldiers’ feelings. We get an interesting view from this: we see and hear common soldiers talk about war and their king. Some are fearful, some ready for battle, some wish they were home, some question the King’s motives. It’s a surprisingly diverse representation. (We also get a look at stereotypical representations of different cultural groups throughout the play: Fluellen is Welsh, MacMorris is Irish, Jamy is Scottish, and Pistol is a common Englishman.)

We’re constantly bombarded with images of eating and devouring, of fire and aggression. Henry’s war seems idealized, but then we have to remember that Henry orders the execution of all French POWs. How can the two views be rectified? They can’t, and they’re not meant to be. As mentioned above, the traits that make a good king are not necessarily the same traits that make a good person and Henry knows this. Does ordering the death of all the POWs make Henry a good person? Not at all. Does it make him a good king? It certainly helps his cause, and it’s in reaction to the atrocity of the death of young boys at the hand of the French.

Keep in mind also that we’re viewing Henry’s actions through modern eyes and sentiments. How would his actions have been viewed in the early 15^th-century, when the play takes place? Or even at the end of the 16^th-century, when the play was written? Being a king means one has to take one’s entire kingdom into account when making any actions. It’s a completely different set of morals.

(Interesting tidbit: in 2010 there was a mock trial of Henry V for war crimes, with Supreme Court Justices Alito and Ginsberg serving as judges. After a tied audience vote and much debate, the judges eventually decided that Henry was guilty of war crimes. Though keep in mind, this is again based on our modern views on warfare and it’s been argued in the past that Henry is absolved of any guilt because no one died (by the hands of the English, at least) that hadn’t taken part in the fighting.)

Next week, onto Henry VI Part 1!

Henry IV Part 2

Before we get into the second part of Henry IV, I want to draw your attention to something.

Remember on the homepage where I stated that plays should be experienced as performances? Theater is one way to do this, but so are movies.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to draw your attention to the BBC’s Hollow Crown. The first series, which aired in 2012, followed Richard II through Henry V and I’m going to be marathoning it once I finish next week’s play.

What I really want to draw your attention to is the fact that the second series (spanning Henry VI Part 1 through Richard III) will be airing beginning today (May 7th)! It won’t be airing in the US quite yet (I don’t have a date for the premier yet), but this is exciting! Benedict Cumberbatch plays Richard, who becomes the Duke of York and later King Richard III. He’s a monster of a character, so this should be fun.

(**Addendum: Cumberbatch plays a Richard, but I’m not certain which one he plays. Just as there are an embarrassment of Henrys running about, there’s a confusing amount of very-important Richards running about in later plays as well.)

And now, onto the play!

Synopsis

Henry IV Part 2 takes up where Part 1 ended: Hal has killed Hotspur and other rebels remain. There are two story lines to follow: that of Falstaff, and that of Henry/Hal/the rebels.

Falstaff appears to be in poor health, though we’re never told what’s wrong. With his ways, I’m guessing various diseases and issues caused by his indulgences. He’s confronted by the Lord Chief Justice, who questions Falstaff about a recent robbery. Falstaff turns the conversation to the King’s failing health before asking for one thousand pounds for a military expedition, which the Chief Justice denies.

We then find Falstaff in a tavern with Doll Tearsheet, a prostitute with whom he’s in a relationship; Doll proceeds to get into a fight with Ancient Pistol, Falstaff’s ensign, whom Falstaff ejects from the tavern.

What Falstaff doesn’t know is that Hal and Poins are disguised as musicians in the tavern and spying on him for a lark. Falstaff proceeds to make insulting remarks about both Hal and Poins (mostly Hal) before the two reveal themselves. Falstaff tries to use his usual wit to diffuse his comments, but it doesn’t seem to work as well as it did in Part 1.

When news of the second rebellion reaches the group, Falstaff goes off to raise forces. He meets up with Justice Shallow, an old friend from school, and has him bring forward possible recruits. Two of the five possibles offer bribes so Falstaff lets them off.

In the other story line, Henry despairs that Hal isn’t fit for the crown. When the rebel forces led by the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, and Hastings prepare for attack they meet with Westmorland in parlay. Prince John, Hal’s brother, leads the forces for the King and brokers a peace with the rebels. Just as the rebel army is retreating, however, John double-crosses them and arrests the rebel leaders. (True story: I gasped when this happened.) So, these rebels are arrested, and we get news that Glendower is dead, and Northumberland’s forces are defeated in the north. All fantastic news, right?

Well, yes, except Henry is dying and all of this news pushes him over the edge. It’s almost like the conflict was helping to hold his health together. Henry has a fit and, when Hal arrives, appears to have died. Saddened, Hal exits with Henry’s crown. Henry wakes, notes that his crown is missing, and is outraged. He seems to truly believe that Hal can’t wait to become king. Hal, for his part, rather eloquently explains his actions to his father, extols his love, and vows that he understands the gravity of his station. Henry seems convinced and, with his dying breaths, proceeds to give Hal his final council. Then Henry then dies.

And now our two story lines meet. Pistol rides out to find Falstaff and tells him of the King’s death. This isn’t somber news for the group, though; it’s cause for celebration. With Hal now on the throne, everyone believes Falstaff has become one of the most powerful men in London. Falstaff rushes back to London to receive his rewards with his entourage in tow.

Hal, meanwhile, is showing those close to him that he’s truly changed his ways. As if to cement that fact in everyone’s mind, he publicly rejects Falstaff and subsequently has him arrested.

We then have an epilogue, where the chorus (most likely Rumor, who introduced the play) explains that the story continues with Henry V and assures the audience that Falstaff does not represent Sir John Oldcastle, an anti-Catholic rebel. A bit strange, but there you have it.

Of Interest

Once again, Henry and Falstaff are foils; both are facing their mortality (Henry is dying, and Falstaff is constantly commenting on his age and how he’ll die in the future). However, they also represent the opposing sides of Hal’s personality, which he (Hal) ultimately has to choose between. On one side we have Henry, whose gravity and sense of responsibility are something Hal has seemed to rebel against, possibly because he (Hal) never asked for the weight of the crown and wasn’t raised to accept all that comes with it. On the other side we have Falstaff, whose habit of eschewing responsibility is rivaled only by his indulging in vices. In the end, Hal must choose between Falstaff and his father.

Now, may I take a moment to gush over how much I adore Hal? He’s the most well-rounded character in either part of the Henry IV plays. He’s witty and fun-loving but also realizes his responsibilities. More interestingly, he’s clever in a cut-throat way. He told us in the beginning of Part 1 what he intended (to act a wastrel and then reform when he assumed the crown so his responsible nature would be more well-loved), and it worked!

Of course, this means we have to discuss Hal’s rejection of Falstaff at the end. Was this necessary? Did Hal merely use Falstaff? Eh, I’m not so certain. We know that Hal always intended to reject his wastrel ways, but not that he intended to reject his old friends so completely (although there is the promise of reconciliation if his old friends can mend their ways). But let’s look a bit deeper.

First, Henry laid into Hal in their last scene together. It’s one of the best father-son scenes in Shakespeare’s corpus. After Henry rebukes Hal, he (Hal) subsequently apologizes and professes his intentions to be a responsible king. Henry then gives Hal advice and the way in which he does so, along with his previous rebuke of Hal, are rather manipulative. First he rips Hal apart and then he gives him the last council he’ll ever breathe. This is Guilt Trip 101. So even if Hal had already resolved to mend his ways and reform he’d be doubly pressed to do so now.

And I think that’s just what Henry wanted; he sees his son, hears his intention to be more responsible, and what Henry thinks is this: the crown will be less tenuous once a dynasty is established with an heir assuming the kingship. After all, it was Henry and not Hal who overthrew the former king. But Henry needed to be certain that Hal wouldn’t fall back on old habits, for Hal’s sake as well as for England. If Hal surrounded himself with his old friends, if he kept bad council, he might become exactly the kind of king Richard II was. So I think that Henry gave Hal advice with his dying breath to help preserve his son. In a way, it was atonement for having deposed Richard and I think Henry feared having his son turn into another Richard as divine retribution for having usurped the throne.

But did Falstaff deserve to be rejected so thoroughly? Honestly, yes, he did. Some people will say that Hal used Falstaff, but Falstaff used Hal just as much. He rarely (if ever) had a good thing to say about Hal when saying such didn’t somehow benefit himself, and he only flew to London after Henry died to assume the power and glory he thought he was entitled to. He didn’t care that Henry had died, didn’t care whether Hal was upset or handling either his father’s death or his new-found responsibility hard. Falstaff thought only of Falstaff.

And in a way, Hal had to publicly reject Falstaff. It was the only way for people to truly believe that Hal had reformed and shucked off his former ways. Falstaff even points this out, though he states (but doesn’t seem to believe) that Hal would contact him in private and maintain their friendship. Hal can’t do that, not unless Falstaff shows people that he himself had reformed. Hal’s position would be too harmed by a relationship with Falstaff, and both of them knew it.

So this split was inevitable, though not tragic. It would have been tragic if Falstaff had sacrificed anything to be there to support Hal, but he didn’t and he wasn’t.

Nota Bene

So where did Shakespeare get his history? What were his historical sources? The main source for Shakespeare’s history works appears to be Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, which also acted as a source for both Macbeth and King Lear. Most of the Roman history plays were based off Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together as translated by Sir Thomas North.

Of course, Shakespeare dramatized many aspects of history to make a good play. We saw this with Hotspur and Hal: in Part 1 they’re depicted as the same age when in fact Hotspur was much older. This was a deliberate move on Shakespeare’s part; by making Hotspur and Hal of an age together he allowed them to become foils for one another. Also, keep in mind that Shakespeare had political reasons to depict certain historical stories in a certain light; with Queen Elizabeth, a Tudor, on the throne it was in Shakespeare’s best interests to shine a light on the Tudor line favorably and to cast any detractors in shadow. Basically, Shakespeare tried to show the Tudor line as having divine right to their station.

And that’s a wrap! Next week we get more of Hal in Henry V.

Henry IV Part 1

And now we continue on with the history plays. Batten down your hatches, folks; there’s civil unrest a-brewing.

Synopsis

Henry IV Part 1 takes place a year after Richard II. Henry is now king, but his position is tenuous; after deposing a king one proves that kingship is not a permanent occupation. Henry had wanted to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land as penance for Richard II’s murder, but that isn’t possible with the turmoil in his kingdom at the borders of both Scotland and Wales. On top of all that, Henry keeps butting heads with the Percy family, which includes the Earl of Northumberland, his son Hotspur, and the Earl of Worcester.

If you’ll remember from Richard II, Northumberland helped Henry depose Richard. The Percy family doesn’t think the king has shown enough gratitude for their efforts in establishing him as king; they seem to expect Henry to grant them favors he doesn’t seem inclined to give. We see this when the play opens: Henry is angry that Hotspur is refusing to hand over the prisoners he captured at the Scottish border. Hotspur doesn’t want to turn over the prisoners until Henry ransoms Edmund Mortimer, the Earl of March, from the Welshman Owen Glendower.

(A bit of a complication here: Edmund Mortimer is the brother of Hotspur’s wife and was also Richard II’s chosen heir.)

Rather than agree to ransom Mortimer, Henry refuses, insults Mortimer’s loyalty to the crown, and is rude and threatening to the Percys. So basically, the Percy family is thinking, “Who does Henry think he is? He’s acting like he belongs on the throne and that we didn’t place him there. What’s more, we have the rightful heir on our side…” You can see how easily the plot thickens. The Percys hatch a plan to join with the Welsh and the Scots and play musical chairs once more with the throne.

Further complicating Henry’s trials is his son and heir Hal, the Prince of Wales. (Hal’s real name is Henry, as is Hotspur’s; there is an embarrassment of Henrys in this play so I’ll be referring only to King Henry IV by his given name.) Hal is acting the wastrel, frequenting taverns and engaging in vices with like-minded companions Poins, Bardolph, Peto, and Sir John Falstaff. As such, the nobles question Hal’s ability to rule and Henry is ashamed of him.

Hal and his friends decide to add highway robbery to their illustrative resumes, but Hal and Poins have an ulterior motive: they plan to leave Falstaff, Bardolph, and Peto to the actual robbery and will then double-back and rob the three in disguise, just for the lark of seeing how Falstaff makes excuses the next day. Sure enough, both the robbery and the prank work like a charm. Falstaff’s lies are so exaggerated that they’re hilarious and obviously lies. After a little bit of trouble (it would appear the authorities know exactly who robbed the pilgrims) Hal returns the money.

With Mortimer and the Percys revolting after combining forces with Glendower from Wales and the Douglas from Scotland, Henry summons Hal and berates him for his profligate behavior. Hal claims that he does know responsibility and the weight of his future office (and says much the same in a monologue earlier in the play) and vows to prove himself and kill Hotspur. Henry gives Hal a high command and Hal, in turn, orders Falstaff to gather a group of foot soldiers and join the battle at Shrewsbury.

At the battle, Henry offers clemency to Hotspur and the other rebels using Thomas Percy, the Earl of Worcester, as a middleman. Worcester lies to Hotspur and makes no mention of the offered forgiveness (in fact, he says quite the opposite), which angers the hot-headed Hotspur. Even though Hotspur’s father, Northumberland, is too ill to join forces with his son and Glendower’s forces are still a ways off, Hotspur decides to engage the king’s forces. The battle begins.

At one point, Henry is beset by the Douglas (who has been attacking all the dupes dressed like the king). At the point where it looks like the Douglas will win the fight, Hal appears and saves his father and forces the Douglas to flee. Henry and Hal share a heartwarming, male-bonding moment (Battle! Blood! MANLY THINGS!) before separating.

After Henry leaves Hal encounters Hotspur. The two fight and Hal wins, killing Hotspur. Meanwhile, Falstaff decides that honor isn’t worth all this fighting and fakes his own death after a minor encounter with the Douglas. Hal sees Falstaff’s body and leaves the scene, saddened that his friend has died. Falstaff rises, sees Hotspur’s body, and decides to take credit for the rebel’s death; he stabs Hotspur’s corpse in the thigh and claims that Hotspur rose from his seeming death, just as Falstaff had, and the two fought before Falstaff overpowered Hotspur.

So, Henry wins this battle. The king orders the execution of Worcester and gives the Douglas’s fate to Hal. Hal decides to show mercy and releases the Douglas without ransom due to his valor. Of course, the war isn’t over; there’s still Northumberland, Mortimer, Glendower, and the Archbishop of York to deal with. And thus we have our set up for Henry IV Part 2.

Of Interest

Themes in this play include the nature of honor, which Shakespeare seems to conclude relies more on the character of a person rather than honor itself, whose definition changes with each person. Falstaff believes honor is just hot air while Hotspur believes honor lies in defending one’s good name and reputation and of victories in battle (all very chivalrous ideals). Henry believes his honor has been tainted by his usurpation of the crown, which we’ll see more of in Henry IV Part 2.

Hal, on the other hand, has an interesting relationship to honor. He seems willing to cast his honor aside to achieve his goals but also believes he’ll be able to reclaim his honor at a later time. As we see in Hal’s monologue in Act 1 Scene 2, Hal plans to lower everyone’s expectations of his character and ability to rule so he can then gain even more love and loyalty when he proves himself an able ruler when he assumes the crown. (Of course, this could just be him making excuses for his wastrel behavior.)

This play also continues the discourse started in Richard II on the legitimacy of kingship. Is Henry, who usurped the crown from Richard II, the rightful king? He’s an heir to the throne, of course, being Richard’s cousin through the line of kings, but that means that all of house York also has a claim to the throne (which comes to a head in Henry VI Part 3). If Henry isn’t the legitimate ruler, can just anyone claim the throne, as the Percy’s attempt?

Included in this theme is the question of what qualities make a good ruler. Here, we have a three-fold foil between Henry-Hal-Hotspur. Henry is unyielding, cunning, and distant. By contrast, Hal is cunning while also being very personable (he gets on well with people from various classes), but no one seems to know his true motivations. Hotspur has a short temper but is quick to make decisions and lead his men. Which is better? It’s an open-ended question, but my money is on Hal; then again, I always seem to root for cunning people who hold their cards close to their chests.

There are a lot of contrasts in this play: Hal vs Hotspur, the English Court vs the tavern vs. the rebel alliance, and Henry vs Falstaff as father figures towards Hal. Speaking briefly on Falstaff (there’s a wealth of information on this character; people love him), he’s the antithesis of Henry: he’s fat, corrupt, and has no interest in honor, but he’s also charismatic and personable as anything. He captivates people. Henry does not; Henry is a good ruler, very concerned with honor (specifically the state of his own, as mentioned above), and aloof. It’s fitting that we see these two men as foil father figures (alliteration ftw!) for Hal, especially since we can see characteristics from each embodied in the prince.

Nota Bene

We’re deep in Shakespeare’s history plays, and will continue to be for the weeks to come until we finish with Richard III. But why did Shakespeare write so many plays following kings from so short a period of time (Richard II, who ruled in the later 14^th century, to Richard III, who ruled in the later 15^th century)? My friends, welcome to the War of the Roses.

The War of the Roses sounds like something out of Game of Thrones. (In fact, it quite possibly had an influence; George R. R. Martin used history as inspiration for some of his most famous scenes.) In fact, the War of the Roses was a series of civil wars in England that took place between about 1455-1487 where (mainly) the houses of Lancaster and York fought for the crown and named for the symbols of those houses: a white rose for the house of York and a red rose for the house of Lancaster.

Now, the War of the Roses doesn’t actually start until well into the Henry VI plays, but we can see everything from Richard II as a lead up to the conflicts to come. Shakespeare’s audience would have known the conflicts well; after all, it there was only a little over a century between the actual events and when Shakespeare wrote his plays. It’s a bit like the American Civil War today.

But keep in mind that these history plays are also colored by the politics of Shakespeare’s time. Shakespeare lived under the reign of Elizabeth I, a monarch of the house of Tudor. As such, the first chunk of history plays (beginning with Henry VI)  are heavily propagandized to show the dangers of civil war that culminates with Richard III. Richard III is depicted as a horrible, monstrous person and England was saved from his rule by Henry VII, first monarch of the house of Tudor.

See the propaganda? I love history.

But there are more layers! Beneath the Tudor propaganda is a discourse on the end of the Middle Ages with the rise of Machiavellian politics. Basically, the political structure of the medieval period was “pure” (the divine right of kingship and all) until opportunism caused its fall. It’s pure nostalgia, evoking the past and how it was “better” than the present in some way. This happens all the time; just listen to the rhetoric of the current American presidential race.

I’m not going to go into the Machiavellianism of characters in Shakespeare’s plays, though Shakespeare’s exploration of Machiavellian characters seems to be a rather key point in Shakespeare studies. I’m extremely interested to see how these characters evolve as we go further into Shakespeare’s later works. This is one of the beautiful things about reading these plays in (more or less) chronologically-written order.

For more information on Shakespeare’s history plays, go here. Next week we’ll look into Shakespeare’s historical sources.

Richard II

We’ll first look at Richard II first since it falls at the beginning of the Henry tetralogy (a term denoting a series of four plays), which also includes Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, and Henry V. Although this play may have been written after Henry IV Part I (according to the Internet Shakespeare Editions), it’s a good place to dive into the history plays, which I think are grossly unappreciated.

Synopsis

The play opens with Richard II, King of England, hearing a dispute between his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, and Thomas Mowbray. Henry (often referred to as Bolingbroke) accuses Mowbray of extorting money given to him by the crown for the King’s soldiers and also of murdering the Duke of Gloucester, who happens to be both Henry’s and Richard’s uncle. Also in attendance is Henry’s father, John of Gaunt, who believes it was Richard, not Mowbray, who had a hand in the Duke of Gloucester’s death. Henry and Mowbray challenge each other to a duel and neither Richard nor John of Gaunt can calm them.

So Henry and Mowbray prepare for public combat. The tournament is ceremonious but Richard halts it at the last possible moment. He proceeds to banish Mowbray for life and Henry for ten years (amended by Richard to six years soon after). Before he departs, Mowbray predicts that Henry will overthrow Richard.

Henry’s father, John of Gaunt, is so distressed by his son’s banishment that he becomes sick and dies, but not before he berates Richard for his lack of integrity; he’s a profligate spender, overtaxing his people, fining the nobility for deeds committed generations ago, and surrounding himself with bad council. After John of Gaunt’s death Richard seizes all of his land and money, essentially disinheriting the banished Henry. This move isn’t about punishing Henry or John of Gaunt but rather about funding Richard’s war in Ireland. This move, on top of everything else, adds to the nobility’s anger and frustration toward Richard.

While Richard is away fighting his war in Ireland, Henry returns to England and gathers the support of much of the nobility, including the Earl of Northumberland, but some remain loyal to Richard: namely Bushy, Green, Bagot, and the Duke of Aumerle, cousin to both Henry and Richard. The Duke of York, Aumerle’s father, was left in charge of England by Richard and remains loyal to Richard but sympathetic to Henry’s cause (though not his actions).

When Richard finally returns to England he finds that most of his former supporters have joined Henry or deserted him because they believed the king dead due to his long absence. When Henry calls to reclaim the property Richard had seized, Richard can see that he has no choice but to abdicate the throne. Many people are accused of various parts in the murder of the Duke of Gloucester, Richard is taken to the castle of Pomfret to live as a prisoner, and Henry becomes King Henry IV.

Some of Richard’s supporters hatch a plan to rebel against the new king, among them Aumerle. York, Aumerle’s father, discovers the plot and races to tell the king, which would essentially condemn his son to death. Both Aumerle and Aumerle’s mother race to the castle as well. Aumerle arrives first and tries to tell Henry of the plot before his father can arrive, but York arrives before Aumerle can confess. York tells Henry of the plot and Henry pardons Aumerle at the ardent request of Aumerle’s mother.

Henry takes action to quash the rebellion and in doing so laments that with Richard still living there’s a great possibility of future problems. Exton, a noble, gets a bit ambitious and rushes over to Pomfret to murder Richard. When Exton returns to the castle and proudly confesses his deed Henry renounces the act.

And there the play ends, with everything set up for the next play: Henry IV Part 1.

Of Interest

There’s a lot going on in this play, regardless of my abbreviated summary above.

First, Henry and Richard are foils. The story is about the rise of Henry and the fall or Richard. Where Richard talks, Henry acts. Richard’s position as king is divinely sanctioned, but Henry is the better king. We can see this in two contrasting moments: when Henry and Mowbray quarrel in the very beginning of the play Richard has a hard time keeping control of the situation, eventually allowing them to duel. When the same happens to Henry in Act IV, when at least six nobles are accusing each other of having a hand in the Duke of Gloucester’s death, Henry is pragmatic and immediately takes control of the situation.

Likewise, in Act III when Henry catches up with Richard, Richard laments this rebellion but surrenders his crown without a fight. When Henry faces a rebellion in Act V he immediately takes action, fighting for his crown.

These scenes highlight one of Richard’s flaws: his lack of action. He talks a good talk (and has some of the most eloquent lines ever written), but he just can’t walk the walk. In fact, the only time Richard really takes any decisive action is at the very end when he fights for his life. There’s a tragedy for you: the moment Richard finally starts to live is the moment he dies. Richard II is really a play about a tragic man who happens to be king. He’s unfit for the role while he holds it and has to deal with not only the loss of his station but the loss of his identity.

There’s also the question of whether Henry has any right to overthrow his king. Few would argue that Richard was a better monarch than Henry proves himself to be, but there was still this idea of divine right of office. This was true in the Middle Ages, and it was even more true during Shakespeare’s time. The king (or queen) held their authority by divine will and to go against this authority was to go against God. This didn’t mean that the king or queen was infallible, of course, and there was the idea that if a monarch was bad then perhaps the kingdom deserved them (not the king they want, but the king they need).

Still, at what point is it okay for a king to be deposed? This is the question many characters grapple with. John of Gaunt agreed to his own son’s banishment because his king had decreed it, and one doesn’t go against the king. Poor York tried to be loyal to Richard, even though he was fed up with his actions, and later went against his own son due to his rebellion against his current king. Yet Henry still takes the crown from Richard (though when, or if, he decided to usurp the throne is uncertain). As we’ll see in Henry IV Part 1, this act continues to weigh heavily upon Henry’s head.

A word on the actual transfer of kingship from Richard to Henry: no one in the play knew what to call the act. York calls for Richard to abdicate, Northumberland for Richard’s impeachment, and Richard himself wants a de-coronation. One is a voluntary stepping down, one is a forceful removal, and one is a ceremonious removal of station. This says quite a bit about each character. York is loyal to the crown to his core and wants the transition to be basically decreed by the king; after all, it’s a sin against God to remove the rightful king. Northumberland, by contrast, wants to take out his anger on Richard by aggressively removing him from office. For Richard, he’s all about the pomp and show.

Nota Bene

A word on Shakespeare’s language, because you can see a lot of how this works in Richard II. For the most part, Shakespeare writes in blank verse. Blank verse is unrhymed but has a specified rhythm and meter. (Blank verse is usually iambic pentameter but not always.) By contrast, this post is written in prose; there’s no attention to syllables or how the words flow. (Some might even say there’s no attention to taste.)

The one thing most people know about Shakespeare’s style is that he wrote in iambic pentameter. That means each line is made up of five feet with two sets of syllables, one unstressed and one stressed, for a total of ten syllables. So:

I wast/ed time,/ and now/ doth time/ waste me.

So all we need to know is iambic pentameter, right? Not so much. Shakespeare also wrote parts of his plays in prose. Most people assume that upper-class people speak in blank verse and lower-class in prose; that’s not the case. It’s less about who’s talking than the ct 3subject of the dialogue. In Richard II we see this in Act 3 Scene 4, where the gardeners are speaking in blank verse. They’re lower-class but they’re discussing good governance through the metaphor of the garden. Important subject = blank verse. We’ll see ample evidence of the converse in Henry IV Part 1, with Prince Hal speaking in prose whenever he’s with Falstaff.

Ok, so iambic pentameter and prose. That’s it, right? Eh… kind of. It gets a bit more complicated, but this is where things get really fun. First off, Shakespeare doesn’t always stick to iambic pentameter. Sometimes there’s more or less than ten syllables in a line of blank verse. Sometimes this doesn’t mean anything, but sometimes it does. We’ll see evidence of this in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In addition, even though blank verse is unrhymed we sometimes see rhyming couplets. Usually they’re at the end of a longer area of dialogue or monologue, or near the end of a scene. But sometimes it means more. Take for instance the moment where the Duchess of York is begging King Henry to have mercy on her son Aumerle (Act 5 Scene 3). There are a number of rhyming couplets, one right after the other. Here, this denotes strong emotion. Keep your eye out for it and you’ll see that at moments when a character is feeling scared, angry, or despondent they’ll fall into rhyming couplets.

That’s all for now. Next week we’ll continue with the histories and cover Henry IV Part 1!