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Whose times, whose history?
Lisa Jardine
Professor of Renaissance Studies
Queen Mary, University of London
The Henry VI plays were written during the twilight years of the reign
of Queen Elizabeth I. The historical cycle was completed with Richard
III — the play that puts on stage the triumphant establishment of the
Tudor dynasty, and the end of sixty years of war and unrest in England.
Shakespeare’s plays brought vividly to life a period of English history
familiar to London audiences, and one which presented an object lesson
in the need for strong and stable rule.
But by the late 1590s, when the plays were first performed, the Tudor dynasty once again looked anything but secure. An elderly, unmarried female monarch sat on the throne of England, and the absence of an heir would—everyone believed—cause confusion in the land. Factions, pressure groups and individuals impatient for power circled the court. The Elizabethan public waited expectantly for the great Lords of the Privy Council to sort out an altogether confused and insecure succession.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the Henry VI plays, though set in the fifteenth century, are shaped and focused by a thoroughly late-sixteenth century concern—the damage and destruction which engulf a nation once the inheritance claim of a King is challenged or uncertain.
Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell
Civil dissension is a viperous worm
That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.
(1 Henry VI, 3.i.71-3)
Thus the young King Henry VI berates his senior nobles, even before the competition between their factions has begun the spiraling destruction of the Wars of the Roses. Fear of civil disorder stalks the plays. Vested interest succeeds vested interest in determining the succession. Oaths are made and broken according to the contingencies of political need. This is a world without assured values, and one in which even the sanctity of the King himself is increasingly called in doubt.
The process of the Henry VI plays is a downward spiral, from the factionalism around the boy king in the first part to the social turbulence and destructive uncertainty of the last. Once the structure of government fails, Shakespeare shows his audience, the nation loses its political bearings. Hierarchies of rank and status that have held for generations disintegrate into unworthy squabbles between families.
Yet
at the very heart of the Henry VI plays there seems to be an absolute
commitment to Kingship, which drives the action forward and organizes
the haphazardness of the historical events on which Shakespeare based
his plays. The order that eventually emerged from the bloodshed and barbarity
of the Wars of the Roses offered a model for the anxious Elizabethans,
as they pondered England’s dynastic future. Although the country tore
itself apart, during the reign of Henry VI—the child king, who grew up
to become a piously mad king—Englishmen never lost their reverence for
their anointed monarch. The appearance of the King in person arrested
battles, sealed truces, and temporarily healed enmities.
Indeed, the downfall of Henry VI himself comes only in the third part of Shakespeare’s trilogy, when Henry, to end civil war, disinherits his own son, thereby severing the dynastic bonds which the English people believe are unbreakable. His doubly unnatural behavior—unnatural towards his son, unnatural towards the realm—heralds in complete disorder, leading the King himself into perjury, and culminating in his own murder.
In 3 Henry VI this disorder is represented sensationally in the despicable behavior of parents towards children and children towards parents. The bond of trust within families has been severed, and social cohesion dissolves into anarchy. It is from this nightmare that Richmond—Henry VII—rescues England at the end of Richard III:
England hath long been mad, and scarr’d herself:
The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood;
The father rashly slaughter’d his own son;
The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire.
All this divided York and Lancaster....
Now civil wounds are stopp’d; peace lives again.
That she may long live here, God say Amen. (5.v.23-41)
Shakespeare’s Richard III was written in 1597; Queen Elizabeth died in 1603.
With how much fervor of their own must Elizabethan playgoers have watched as the Queen’s Tudor ancestor at last stopped the spinning wheel of fortune; with what shared conviction must they have listened as he offered up his heartfelt plea for continuing peace and stability within the realm. But with how much optimism?