Henry VI Part One the Articles in This Study Guide Are Not Meant to Mirror Or Interpret Any Productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival
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Insights A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival Henry VI Part One The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (in any pro- duction at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately produced on the Festival’s stages. The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720. Bruce C. Lee, publications manager and editor; Clare Campbell, graphic artist. Copyright © 2018, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long as you do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. For more information about Festival education programs: Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880 www.bard.org. Cover Art for Henry VI Part One by Cully Long. Henry VI Part One Contents Information on the Play Synopsis 4 Characters 5 Scholarly Articles on the Play A New Kind of Play by a New Playwright 6 Information on William Shakespeare Shakespeare: Words, Words, Words 8 Not of an Age, but for All Mankind 10 Elizabeth’s England 12 History Is Written by the Victors 13 Mr. Shakespeare, I Presume 14 A Nest of Singing Birds 15 Actors in Shakespeare’s Day 17 Audience: A Very Motley Crowd 19 Shakespearean Snapshots 22 Ghosts, Witches, and Shakespeare 24 What They Wore 26 Utah Shakespeare Festival 3 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Synopsis Henry V’s reign has ended, and his funeral is attended by many nobles who honor the great king. His young son Henry VI is crowned king of England, and word arrives of trouble in France. The Dauphin Charles has been crowned as the French king and several towns once won by Henry V are now lost. In addition, the English hero Talbot has been taken prisoner. British noblemen rise to action while Talbot’s forces, exhausted and starving, beat the French at Orléans. Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc) tells Charles that she has seen visions from God and can lead the troops. Skeptical, he challenges her to single combat and she wins. She brings military strength to the French army at Orléans and defeats Talbot who has been released in exchange for a captured French lord. She spares Talbot’s life during the fighting and he contrives a sneak attack and retakes the city. In England, Gloucester, Henry VI’s protector, and his rival Winchester quarrel and encourage their fol- lowers to attack each other in the streets. Richard Plantagenet (later York) and Somerset (of Lancaster) are also rivals and their followers declare their allegiance by wearing white or red roses. Warwick pre- dicts their argument will lead to the deaths of thousands. Richard Plantagenet learns he has a claim to the English throne from his dying, imprisoned uncle Mortimer. Gloucester and Winchester’s men continue to fight, but promise to stop when pressed by the king. Upon request, Plantagenet is granted both his father’s and uncle’s titles, renaming him the Duke of York. Henry VI is crowned in Paris, and orders York and Somerset to fight the French instead of each other. As they squabble, French forces kill Talbot and his son. The English army captures and executes Joan. Suffolk captures Margaret, daughter of the king of Naples, and falls in love with her, but because he is already married, he successfully woos her on behalf of Henry, selfishly designing a way to stay close to her. England and France make a peace agreement, and Suffolk hopes that the new Queen Margaret will come to great power by dominating the King Henry VI, thereby achieving greatness for himself. 4 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Characters The English King Henry VI Duke of Gloucester: Uncle and protector to the young king Duke of Bedford: Uncle to the king and regent of France Thomas Beauford: Duke of Exeter, great uncle to the king Henry Beauford: Bishop of Winchester and later cardinal, great uncle to the king John Beauford: Earl, later duke, of Somerset Richard Plantagenet: Son of Richard, late earl of Cambridge, afterwards duke of York Earl of Warwick Earl of Salisbury Earl of Suffolk Lord Talbot: Afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury John Talbot: His son Edmund Mortimer: Earl of March Sir John Falstaff Sir William Lucy Sir William Glansdale Sir Thomas Gargrave Mayor of London Woodville: Lieutenant of the Tower of London Vernon: Of the White Rose or York faction Basset: Of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction A Lawyer Jailors to Mortimer The French Charles: Dolphin, and later king, of France Reignier: Duke of Anjou and Maine, King of Naples Duke of Burgundy Duke of Alanson Bastard of Orleance Governor of Paris Master Gunner of Orleance Boy: His son General: Of the French forces at Bordeaux French Sergeant Porter Shepherd: Father to Joan de Pucelle Margaret: Daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to King Henry VI Countess of Auvergne Joan la Pucelle: Also called Joan of Arc Fiends: Appearing to Joan de Pucelle Utah Shakespeare Festival 5 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Henry VI Part One: A New Kind of Play by a New Playwright By Ace G. Pilkington Henry VI Part One (the first play in Shakespeare’s first tetralogy, which was most likely written sometime between 1589 and 1592) begins with the funeral of Henry V and ends with Henry VI’s proxy marriage to Margaret of Anjou, the French queen’s niece. In between, Lord Talbot and Joan of Arc fight it out both physically and symbolically, the English lose France, and Shakespeare contrasts one of England’s most successful kings with one of its worst failures. The Duke of Gloucester says of Henry V, “England ne’er had a king until his time./ Virtue he had, deserving to command./ His brandished sword did blind men with his beams./ His arms spread wider than a dragon’s wings.” While most of that is hyperbole, the last line of Gloucester’s speech about his dead brother is much closer to the truth, “He ne’er lift up his hand but conquered” (all references to the play are from The Norton Shakespeare Based on the Oxford Edition [London: Norton, 1997], 1.1.8-11 and 16). In William Shakespeare, the Wars of the Roses and the Historians, Keith Dockray says something very similar but with more examples, “Henry V was probably the greatest English general before Marlborough in the early eighteenth century; his great success at Agincourt . thoroughly humiliated the French, and as a result, the English gained a reputation for invincibility . that was to last until the catastrophic defeat of Henry VI’s forces in Formigny in 1450” ([Oxford: Fonthill Media, 2016], 56). Nor is it hard to find other examples of Henry V’s remarkable abilities. Tito Livio, whose patron was Duke Humphrey (Gloucester) himself, wrote around 1437 that the king was “taller than most men . his limbs slender and marvelously strong. Indeed, he was miraculously fleet of foot, faster than any dog or arrow. Often he would run with his companions in pursuit of the swiftest of does and he . would always be the one to catch the creature” (cited in Elizabeth Hallam, ed. The Chronicles of The Wars of the Roses [Wane, NJ: CLB International, 1988], 119). Henry V was held up as the ideal medieval king, but unlike some of his contemporaries (and his son), he also had modern skills. In 1453, the actual Lord Talbot (as opposed to Shakespeare’s ever-heroic avatar) “made a textbook error, leading a cavalry charge uphill against a fortified camp defended by 300 cannon. One in ten of his troops was killed before they reached the pali- sades, including Talbot himself. From that day the only English possession left in France was . Calais” (Rebecca Fraser, The Story of Britain [New York: Norton, 2005], 224). Henry V, on the other hand, “studied the art of war and used artillery on a scale hitherto unknown, reducing strongly fortified towns by bombardment and fierce assault” (Hallam 122). No wonder Michael Hattaway says (in his Introduction to The First Part of King Henry VI), “Henry V will haunt the ensuing action like the Ghost in Hamlet, he is a presence whose honour, prowess, and acquisi- tion of empire throw into contrast the attacks of fatalism and debilitating piety suffered by his contemplative son” (New Cambridge Shakespeare series [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990], 5). In Derek Wilson’s words, “What lay at the root of widespread and growing discontent was the personal ineffectiveness of the king. Not only was Henry the first king not to lead his armies in foreign battle, he was also incapable of directing policy” (The Plantagenet Chronicles 1154-1485 [New York: Metro Books, 2011], 328-329). 6 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 There was another sense in which Henry V was a part of this story, a part of the new kind of history and the new history plays that were becoming popular in Shakespeare’s London fol- lowing the English victory over the Spanish Armada. There was a general notion that history should contain more fact than fable, more real events than instructive examples.