Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Lucie Wanderburgová
William Shakespeare’s Second Historical Tetralogy: A Study
B.A. Major Thesis
Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph. D.
2007
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D.,
for his kind help, valuable advice and guidance of my work.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ...... 1
2 Shakespearean History Play ...... 5
2.1 Genre ...... 5
2.2 Sources ...... 10
3 Historical and Social Background ...... 13
3.1 Reception of the Plays in Elizabethan Period ...... 13
3.2 Political Situation. Queen Elizabeth‟s Case...... 16
4 Second Tetralogy – Reality or Fiction? ...... 19
4.1 Richard II ...... 19
4.2 Henry IV ...... 25
4.3 Henry V ...... 35
5 Conclusion ...... 41
Works Cited and Consulted ...... 43
1 Introduction
In my thesis, I will be dealing with Shakespeare‟s second tetralogy of history plays, the four-part series, which examines the historical rise of the English royal House of Lancaster. The plays, which constitute the tetralogy, are Richard II, Henry IV, Parts
1 and 2, and Henry V. The series, written at the height of Shakespeare‟s career (around
1595-1599), moves back in time to cover the period between 1398 and 1420.
Shakespeare gave here his epic picture of medieval and contemporary England.
The plays were written in chronological order and Shakespeare preserved the unity of the history play cycle.
My thesis starts with the chapter on Shakespearean history play in general terms. In this part I will be examining what the term „history play‟ exactly means.
In the first instance, there is a question of what genre actually Shakespeare‟s history play is. Are these plays pure historical chronicles (i.e. the dramatisation of past events), personal stories, or rather political writings? In point of fact it is well-known that there is political interest in each play. Some critics are even inclined to believe that it would be more profitable to think of these texts as political rather than historical plays.
And I will try to show how they have attained this persuasion. Then I will briefly state the main sources from which Shakespeare derived his ideas because it stands to reason that he must have sought somewhere for themes, situations, and language for foundation of his plays.
The thesis continues with the chapter on historical and social background to the history plays. I will be interested in the purpose of histories. What was the real reason that Shakespeare depicted the history in such a way he did in these plays?
I believe the important thing to know before observation and apprehension of the plays‟ purpose is to learn at least a little bit about the period and situation under which
1 Shakespeare was writing his plays. The main aim of the chapter is to show how the plays were percieved not only by common people but also by the Queen and other courtly people, and what consequences their perception had for future development of Elizabethan history.
The last and largest chapter of my thesis is devoted to the question of what in the plays is reality based on fact and what is pure fiction. I will resolve the chapter into three parts, each pursuing one play. I will be discussing the plays by virtue of their specific themes. Nevertheless, the chief questions are whether the texts were heavily adapted, reconstructed from memory, or solely invented by the author, and what the main divergences from Shakespeare‟s sources are. It has been remarked by various historians and critics that Shakespeare‟s deviations from history in these plays are principally changes of time and place, sometimes including new scenes, and often containing misrepresentation of fact or recreation of character. In each study of the particular play I will comment on some differences from Holinshed‟s Chronicles.
Although I will do that mostly in general terms, at the end of each subhead I will try to analyse one or two scenes more at large. It is also important to note that I will regard Holinshed‟s Chronicles as the groundwork for historical facts.
As I have mentioned earlier in the introduction, I will concentrate, among others, on the view of the plays in Elizabethan era. However, people should have been influenced by performing Shakespeare‟s history plays also in more recent times, i.e. nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A good example of this1 is Franz von Dingelstedt‟s production of two Shakespeare‟s tetralogies of history plays as a sequence in Germany
1 All information on the reception of the plays given in this paragraph is taken from
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays
2 in 1864. He treated the plays as a single, unified work, with relevance to the contemporary politics. The political vision of history was established in a notion of the analogy between the civil wars of old England known as Wars of the Roses and the present state of the German Reich. In this highly nationalistic production,
Dingelstedt celebrated the brotherhood of the German Reich, and showed the responsibilities of the political class to its people owing to the history plays performed. Dingelstedt stressed that injustice could lead to disunity and the horrors of civil war; so his basic theme was especially a political one. Another remarkable production which had to influence people‟s views was that by Frank Benson.
He directed the first British history play cycle for the Shakespeare festival in Stratford upon Avon in 1902. However, unlike Dingelstedt, Benson did not regard the history plays as a chance for political or social efforts. Even if for him the plays were political allegories of the rise of the Protestant empire, he was even more engaged in current performance methods, e.g. dramatizing of battle scenes. In the 1940s the history plays took on a new political role in the sustaining of the Tudor myth.
With the end of the Second World War Shakespeare‟s political function changed from national morale to an instrument of cultural propaganda. Elizabethan performance seen through twentieth-century eyes is presented in the film called Henry
V by Laurence Olivier from the year 1944. His first attempt at directing a Shakespearean play on screen seems to be revolutionary. The film was in part an instrument of propaganda because it was dedicated to the commandos and airborne troops of Great
Britain. Stanley Wells in Shakespeare: For All Time argues that “Shakespeare had served as a source of spiritual consolation and as a stimulus to patriotic fervour” (368). The film is of course patriotic and it celebrates the virtues of the British officer presented by King
Henry V.
3 Basically, the history plays were used for political purposes, and in each country the plays commented upon the country‟s own political problems. There were always certain motives which led the theatre managers to perform the plays on stage. I have demonstrated on a few examples that Shakespeare‟s plays were and still are of a great importance.
4 2 Shakespearean History Play
First of all, I should give some basic information supporting the eminence of Shakespeare‟s plays in general. Shakespeare‟s career bridged both the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625), and he was a favourite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare‟s company and its actors the greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king‟s players.
It is no doubt that William Shakespeare is one of the most influential writers of English literature and that he is the most important playwright of the English Renaissance.
The fact that the plays survived in the repertory of the King‟s Men after Shakespeare‟s death and, later, when the theatres were closed in 1642 at the outbreak of the Civil War, and that they are widely performed today shows their brilliance.
The „histories‟ are evidently not all the same in style or treatment of their historical material. Shakespeare chose different modes in these plays and focused his audience on specific issues. Richard II, for instance, is clearly a sort of tragedy which, as a genre, is historical, and the chief lesson to be learnt is the instability of the world.
Generally speaking, Shakespeare represented historical events in various ways, and he concentrated as much on form and genre as on story.
2.1 Genre
It is not clear that Shakespeare thought of his plays on English history in any sense as „history plays‟. The designation comes from the organization of the First
Folio put together by Shakespeare‟s fellow actors and compilers, John Heminges and Henry Condell, in 1623. In this volume, the plays were grouped as „Histories‟.
As I have written before, Shakespeare‟s history plays differ in tone, form and focus from each other, and especially from his other plays (comedies, tragedies and romances). Here
5 it is suitable to state the main common features that are shared by all the so-called histories. While many of Shakespeare‟s other plays are set in the historical past, and even treat similar themes such as kingship and revolution, the four history plays of the second tetralogy have several things in common – they form a linked series, they are set in late medieval England, and they deal with the rise and fall of the House of Lancaster, a period that later historians referred to as the Wars of the Roses. Simply to say, English histories depict councils, battles, rebellions, and crises in government. They examine tyranny, patriotism, imperialism, and honour; and exhibit the relationships between public and private figures, and between war and peace. Medieval English citizens lived in a stressful present full of conflicts, shaped by the past events. All of these issues appeared in the four Shakespeare‟s history plays I am discussing in my thesis.
The genre of the Shakespearean history plays was much undetermined in the former times and even today it is quite difficult to define Shakespeare‟s histories.
In Shakespeare‟s time it was perhaps easier to recognize the history play than to classify it because it lacked clear generic markers. Michael Hattaway presents an interesting account in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays2. According to him, the English histories centre their action on the reign and life of a monarch. He says that they are the narratives ending with the monarch‟s death (3). And here we are given a hint why history plays are sometimes associated with the tragedy as a genre. Some of the plays were likewise entitled in that way, among them The Life and Death of King
Richard the Second or The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earl Richmond, and the Battle at Bosworth Field. These long title headings appeared in the Folio „Histories‟.
The names of the plays often varied in other volumes as well; for instance, the first play
2 Later in the thesis referred to as Companion
6 mentioned was called The Tragedy of King Richard the Second in the Quarto. Both histories and tragedies relate to stories of past as well as the lives and deaths of famous figures.
We can say that history and tragedy in Shakespearean texts have somewhat converged.
However, Henry V is the exception of the „rule‟. This play ends not with a death like in a tragedy, but with a marriage like in a comedy. The first part of Henry IV (if we consider the two parts as one play) is also related to comedy because it is dominated by John Falstaff. It is perhaps structurally closest to comedy because the plots are based in different social worlds with different ideologies commenting on one another with irony. Comic practises in 1H4 and H5 are usually seen in multiplying of actions and in some cases in the actions themselves; for instance, Henry V going incognito among common people on the eve of the battle of Agincourt. What has been just mentioned above suggests the great instability of generic labelling at that time.
History has been characterized not only by conflict between a man of high degree and his destiny, or read as a story of a protagonist and his personality, but it has also evolved from the political situation and politics in general. It was thought of history emerging from politics, not politics emerging from history. Hattaway says that
„politics‟, “a demystificatory analysis of the forces that shape events has interrupted
„history‟” (Companion 17). History plays are said to be shaped by the politics of the writers of those plays and then, virtually, history emerges from politics. Shakespeare offers a perspective on political action with unmasking of politicians or denouncing of weakness, which he does by composing scenes in diverse modes and various subplots.
He examines politics by concerning himself with mysteries and problems of the empire, laws and obedience, questions of authority, nationality, and sovereignty of the state, discrepancies between ethical and political imperatives, or the possibility for individual liberty. He also observes roles for women as regards political life, shows relationships between honour, valour, and policy; and questions whether nobility springs from birth
7 or behaviour. Nicolae Harsanyi in The Historical Character in the Plays of the English
Renaissance and the Romanian Drama until the First World War has envisaged that the political lecture is primary to the plays and that it has to be delivered to the audience due to the arrangement of the characters in the composition of the plays (17). It is quite notable that in writing his plays, Shakespeare avoided any element of romance.
His historical characters are not engaged in love-affairs. Even if love-scenes appear, they are always subordinated to political reasons. For example, Henry V‟s wooing and marriage to Katherine of France create an impression of ritual rather than romance.
The ideal Christian king should be married, according to the Renaissance political and religious thinkers, and the succession needs to be secured.
Shakespeare‟s heroes appeal to the audience‟s sympathy by their moral features.
A. J. Hoenselaars has suggested that “the history play – which had gradually emerged from the morality tradition,. . . – was an attractively new but also potentially volatile political genre inviting playwrights to experiment in the no-man‟s-land between dramatic history and state diplomacy” (Companion 28). C. W. R. D. Moseley in Shakespeare’s History
Plays: Richard II to Henry V: The Making of a King says that the plays “explore the moral sickness and the sterility of civil strife” (109). The morality pattern is, beside the historical facts, one of the connecting elements between the plays themselves.
However, it seems to me that in this series of history plays Shakespeare rather „liberated‟ his characters from the morality pattern.
Hattaway further points out that Shakespeare‟s histories are neither similar to one another nor bound exclusively to historical facts. They are related to history especially by introduction of historical figures and the creation of theatre out of historical events. I tend to the opinion that Shakespeare‟s attempt was not to create a sense of historical „realism‟ which expects exact expression of geographical locations, or accurate and authentic explanation of historical events. None of his plays stands
8 or falls by its historical „accuracy‟ in theatrical process. This proves also Hattaway‟s statement that “Not all characters are historical, some were composites . . . , others were shunted from one generation to another: Hotspur and Hal, contemporaries in Henry IV, historically were born in 1364 and 1387 respectively” (Companion 12). In my view,
Shakespeare‟s aim of composing the plays was certainly not to depict the historical characters and describe real events in full details.
Since 1864, the date of the first known production of a history plays cycle
(Dingelstedt‟s one), the performance of the history plays as „history‟ plays has been shaped by cycle productions, the contexts in which they emerge. From that time, the subjects of the performance were not the main characters or a notable battle, but history and nation. History plays began to appear in the theatre not as single works, but as episodes in meta-narrative. Tetralogy thinking, which is favoured by E. M. W.
Tillyard, British classical and literary scholar, in his Shakespeare’s Elizabethan History Plays, presumes that the characters and themes of individual plays are always subordinate to binding ideas. In the theatre, tetralogy thinking has often echoed national ideologies and cultural identity, which means that the history plays could be understood as a patriotic celebration of national culture. The battles among houses and the rise and fall of kings were woven closely into the fabric of English culture and formed an integral part of the country‟s patriotic legends and national mythology. In this respect,
E. M. W. Tillyard thinks of history plays in the same way as Michael Hattaway –
Shakespearean history is often inaccurate in its details, but it reflects popular conceptions of history.
I am inclined to define the history play as a genre according to the latest view,
Hattaway‟s formulation. History plays are closely linked both to tragedy and comedy, using historical and fictive figures set in certain historical period, always under political circumstances.
9 2.2 Sources
In Shakespeare‟s history plays nothing happens in a vacuum; all the action is informed by earlier events, which Shakespeare‟s audiences should be familiar with in the form of folklore, ballads or history books. At the time the plays were written, history was valuable because it was a great accumulation of facts and because it had certain immediate practical uses. The facts which are used in the plays are deduced from written or material documents. Besides, there are also fictional histories which contain speeches that are only deemed to be said by historical or fictive figures.
Shakespeare drew on a number of different sources in writing his history plays3.
The sources offered him not only the row of dynastic data, but also the procedures of history-writing and the knowledge of politics of the Tudor dynasty. He must have known the conceptions of history and politics through some chronicles. Their accounts provided him with the chronology of events that Shakespeare reproduced, altered, or avoided. His primary source for historical material is generally agreed to be Raphael
Holinshed‟s massive work, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland4, published in 1586-7. From this edition Shakespeare, for example, took an account of the last two years of Richard‟s reign, opening in 1398 with Richard‟s arriving at Windsor and closing with the exhibition of his corpse in London in 1400. It includes most of the major historical events and many details. Holinshed‟s work is followed quite faithfully by Shakespeare, though with some constructive selections and rearrangements
3 All information on sources are taken from The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays,
Shakespeare at Work, Shakespeare’s History Plays, Shakespeare’s History Plays: Richard II to Henry V: the Making of a King and the Introductions to particular plays
4 Later in the thesis referred to as Chronicles
10 of events. It must not be assumed, of course, that all the matter common to Shakespeare was necessarily derived from Holinshed. He might also have consulted Jean Froissart, the historian of medieval France; and Edward Hall, London lawyer and a Member of Parliament. Hall‟s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke
(1548), commonly called Hall‟s Chronicle took Shakespeare so strongly in his youthfulness that he dramatised the whole English history from the prosperity of Edward III, through the disasters that followed, to the civil peace under the Tudors. Shakespeare may, as Tillyard argues, have found a natural drama in Hall‟s headings of the chapters, such as “The unquiet time of King Henry the Fourth” or “The victorious acts of King Henry the Fifth” (43). Another source, Samuel Daniel‟s poem The First Four Books of the Civil
Wars between the two Houses of Lancaster and York (1595), influenced Shakespeare in tone and attitude rather than in facts. Christopher Marlowe‟s play Edward II is seen by George
Bagshawe Harrison as a possible source for Richard II, because it “was entered for printing shortly after his death, in June 1593, so that Shakespeare had the advantage of a pattern in print for his version of the story of Richard the Second . . . . The theme was similar and he treated it in the same way; and he ended his play with the bringing in of the bier of the murdered king and a curse upon the murderer” (Shakespeare at Work
89-90). Another influential literary work was the didactic Mirror for Magistrates (1559).
Although the plays‟ material derives mainly from the English chroniclers Hall and Holinshed, they could also be created by Shakespeare‟s interest in historiography that comprises critical readings of Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (lived 56-117), the historian of Roman antiquity. Michael Hattaway states that Tacitus‟ view of history was secular.
The theme of his writings was mainly ancient liberty; and, in contrast to Shakespeare‟s monarchs, his emperors were hardly mystic and natural bodies (Companion 18). It is also
Hattaway who argues that in his political plays, Shakespeare addressed not only history but also historiography and that his language offered not reflection of the past
11 but reflections on the past (11). Shakespeare could be as well influenced by the Italian political historians of the Renaissance, summed up by the work of Machiavelli, a political philosopher and a key figure of the Italian Renaissance, who assumed that history was associated with action and not mere knowledge.
While there are even more possible sources, I will conclude this chapter with A.
R. Humphreys‟s view pointed down in the Introduction to the first part of Henry IV.
He says that the truest sources are a whole national life, thought, and language
Shakespeare felt as a poet (xxii).
12 3 Historical and Social Background
All Shakespeare‟s history plays I am concerned with in my thesis were written during the reign of Elizabeth I. Shakespeare was an Elizabethan and that naturally means that his assumptions and standards of judgment were different from ours.
He and his audience were interested in the theme of civil war, in the knightly type, and in the general fortunes of England.
Shakespeare‟s contemporaries lacked regular newspapers. In towns, and especially in London, they lived more in public, frequented the Court, the Paul‟s
Cross sermon, the law courts at Westminster, and playhouses. No free discussions of state matters were tolerated and even in Parliament members were forbidden to debate high policy. Elizabethan world was a world of real political and economic problems. In Shakespeare‟s own lifetime, the value of money halved, and the gap between rich and poor widened dramatically. Jobs were scarce and unemployment led to dangerous social unrest. There was also a series of poor harvests and many people died of hunger – which was very surprising in „merrie‟
England. The age was one of brilliant achievements as well as of crisis, of real hope as well as of fear and despair.
3.1 Reception of the Plays in Elizabethan Period
It is very interesting how history and history plays affected the situation in the Elizabethan age. History was a popular commodity when Shakespeare began to use it for his own dramatic purpose. History‟s function might be to recover and preserve the past, to inspire present, and to celebrate the nation. People who were interested in history could think about it as repetitious events in the past, whereas
13 theatre-goers were watching history which was made on the stage. The interests were mainly moral, theological, and political.
There is a question of how the first audience recognized and responded to the history play. It is essential that history plays were topical and history was studied because of the parallels it offered to modern times. C. W. R. D. Moseley in his Shakespeare’s History Plays: Richard II to Henry V: The Making of a King claims that “the history of England that is built into his plays is a history that allows author and audience to come to terms with themselves, to work out their values in a communal and serious activity, to formulate, express, evaluate their ideals” (72). The plays examined the way people behaved politically, the way they were motivated, and the way they justified their actions to themselves. Shakespeare made his audience see the present in his recreated past by putting many contemporary details common people could themselves have experienced. For instance, in Henry IV his audience might be familiar with levying of troops because this was a period when England was again under threat and the march of armies could be heard throughout the land. Englishmen were thus very acquainted with war and many of them had even seen active service. The long war provoked much social unrest and took various forms, frequently religious ones.
Political parties had not yet come into existence and the theory of state was based upon the interpretation of Christian doctrine. The Church, represented by the bishops and clergy, had many functions and obligations in the state. The censorship of books, for example, was in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London.
Shakespeare provoked rather than pleased those who controlled the political culture of England. The history of the Tudor monarchy was quite dangerous a subject for Elizabethan dramatists to handle. In 1599 Archbishop of Canterbury commanded that no history plays be printed unless they had been allowed by the Privy Council.
14 An example of the censorship‟s result is the shortening of Richard II, namely Act 4, scene
1. The text of the most politically disruptive scene in the play eliminated the psychological struggle between Richard and Bolingbroke, once the king had been proclaimed. This scene had to be suppressed so that Bolingbroke‟s revolt had succeeded.
The deposition scene in Westminster Hall was included in the fourth Quarto version as late as 1608 and now it is considered the play‟s climax. It is quite evident that there is a parallel between the deposed King Richard and the Queen whose deposition was strived to be achieved by her enemies at home, and Roman Catholic powers abroad.
Stanley Wells in the book mentioned above says, “This in itself is enough to suggest that the spectacle of a sovereign of England giving up his crown to a usurper was considered too politically sensitive to be presented on stage as long as the Queen was alive.” (72).
The theatres occupied a remarkable position in the life of London. It is clear that many women from the middle classes and the gentry went to the theatres, but a theatre was also a general meeting place for young leisure gentlemen. When free speech was repressed, they found in drama a medium for criticizing recent events.
Generally speaking, Shakespeare‟s plays were performed to a socially mixed audience.
However, to go to the playhouse, one would have had both money and time.
And if we take into account that a working day for labourers, apprentices, or journeymen normally lasted from dawn to dusk, they had to wait for holidays to see the plays on stage. Ian Scott-Kilvert said in his work Shakespeare: Henry V that Shakespeare‟s historical plays “attracted a popular rather than a courtly audience and went out of fashion with the passing of Elizabethan age” (1). I rather assume that the Elizabethan audience was eager for knowledge of their own land throughout the whole era. Nevertheless, people were interested in history not only because they were curious about the happenings of the past, but they also attempted to understand the nature of the political and moral issues that troubled them at their own time.
15 Shakespeare gave audiences much more than just mere mystical figures from the early fifteenth century, which he presented politically. He introduced the situations and persons in a topical and fresh way. The Elizabethan audience was preoccupied by the public issues in which the historical characters were engaged; such as the ideal monarch, usurpation of power, civil war, or wars with other nations. In addition,
Shakespeare equipped his characters with rich human personalities. His heroes did not act as kings only; they had to struggle with problems arising from their private life as well. Henry IV‟s conscience, for instance, suffered from remorse at his usurpation of his father. He also worried about his son‟s behaviour and his apparent lack of interest for prince‟s duties. In Henry V one scene is devoted to the responsibility a king had towards his soldiers when they died fighting for him.
In conclusion it is useful to remark that, with respect to the two parts of Henry
IV, Shakespeare might have a kind of duty to the expectations of the Elizabethan audience. In the first part of the play, he portrayed Prince Hal in his youthful dissipation, which achieved popularity among people. Thus he could not naturally reject to show him as a better person in the second part, and later as a perfect king in Henry V. This acknowledges that Shakespeare respected his audience and perhaps tried to create his plays on the basis of „wish‟ of the theatre-goers. John H. Astington in The Cambridge
Companion to Shakespeare argues that “Shakespeare‟s genres and subject-matter were designed to fit in with the demands of a play-going public” (112).
3.2 Political Situation. Queen Elizabeth’s Case.
As I have mentioned before, Shakespeare used the past to project critical reflections on present realities. The analogy between past and present reigns was very common practice at court of that time. Kingship and loyalty were important themes in Shakespeare‟s plays, and he stressed especially the responsibility of the sovereign
16 in phrases which Queen Elizabeth herself echoed in a speech to the members of her Parliament: “To be a King,” she said, “and wear a crown is more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasure to them that wear it.” It is quite remarkable that these themes did not recur after the death of Queen Elizabeth. When in 1601 the historian
William Lambarde showed success of his researchers in the royal archives and arrived at the time of Richard II, Queen Elizabeth replied to him: “But I am Richard II. Know ye not that?” This bitter comment together with her overall severe reaction to Richard II‟s popularity supports critical debate. It is not clear why she identified so strongly with
Richard but it is fairly obvious that they had two things in common. The first was childlessness and the second a shared guilt at being involved in the murder of a family member. Richard was implicated in his uncle‟s murder and Elizabeth signed cousin Mary Queen of Scots‟ death warrant. Elizabeth also saw echoes of Bolingbroke in the rebellion of the Earl of Essex. However, Essex never intended the deposition of Elizabeth, in contrast to Bolingbroke who wanted Richard to be dead.
When Shakespeare wrote Richard II (around 1595), the question of who would succeed Elizabeth as sovereign was already in the air. It is quite apparent that this is the Shakespearean text most associated with the political power of words which of course caused many difficulties. One of such difficulties was Shakespeare‟s choice of a topical subject for Richard II which had parallel between the events of Richard‟s last years and those of the ageing Queen. Another example of the way in which a double meaning was frequently read, and often intended, is the case of Dr John Hayward‟s
History of Henry the Fourth, which was dedicated to Essex, and included a description of Richard‟s deposition. In 1599 Sir John Hayward, an Elizabethan historian, published a historical work originally entitled The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII which, despite its title, dealt mainly with the end of the reign of Richard II and which related in some detail the events leading up to his deposition. The followers of Essex
17 found a satisfactory parallel between Queen Elizabeth and the story of Richard
II and the deposition scene. It was at the time when Essex quarrelled with the Queen as to who should lead the Irish campaign and it was just he who objected to the book.
On 8 February 1601, the Earl of Essex started the uprising which turned out to be unsuccessful and led to his execution for treason. The day before, his supporters had persuaded the members of the Lord Chamberlain‟s Men to perform a play at the Globe about the deposing of Richard II because they probably thought that the play would encourage the citizens to support the rebellion. They wanted to emphasize the parallels between Queen‟s and Richard‟s insecurity. The purpose of the play was to warn Elizabeth I of her possible fate if she encouraged flatterers and gave permission to unjust taxation. This is quite clear evidence that Elizabethans made connections between Richard II and real life. However, the result was that this part of the play (the deposition scene already discussed earlier) was not possible to print until the Queen was dead.
18 4 Second Tetralogy – Reality or Fiction?
The second tetralogy covers the reigns of the last king of the House of Plantagenet, Richard II, and two earlier Lancastrians, Henry IV and Henry V.
Shakespeare planned this tetralogy as one great unit and we should treat the plays as a single organism. Although they all deal with consecutive events and develop a common theme, they are individual in style, structure and mood, as has been already said in my thesis. In these plays, Shakespeare gives us his version of what life was in the Middle Ages as he conceived this era.
4.1 Richard II
Richard II focuses on the last two years of the king‟s twenty-two-year reign and traces his fall from power and his replacement by the first Lancaster king, Henry IV.
However, it is important to bear in mind that this play and its events are part of a larger context: they are part of the long continuum of English history, and belong to a tradition of documents and literature that chronicle the wars and the dynasties of English royal houses.
This „tragedy‟ shows a collision between the severe world of real politics and the world of dreams and fantasies. It sets historical chronicle against personal tragedy, and concentrates more on central figures whose lives are given tragic shapes.
As an acting-play Richard II does not rank among Shakespeare‟s most successful.
The probable reason is the lack of a prominent character for whom the audience really cares and whose presence on the scene is a pleasure. There is no humorous relief.
Further, the action of Richard II seems to have too many political motives; the whole atmosphere of the play is political.
19 One of the important themes in the play is the idea that the King is divinely appointed by God. We can clearly see it, for instance, in the reasoning of John of Gaunt, who refuses to take action against Richard and raise arms against him.
It is not out of loyalty to him as a relative, nor out of fear for the power of the king, but rather because he believes, as do many of the play‟s other characters, that the king of a nation was appointed by God, and that an act of rebellion against the king would therefore be blasphemous. If Richard has caused Gloucester‟s death, then Heaven must revenge it because Richard is the Lord‟s „substitute‟ and is treated in a way Gaunt‟s word demonstrate: “I may never lift / An angry arm against His minister” (1.2.40-41).
Why we consider Richard II a political play is proved by the voice of the people which lies behind the voice of the king. We can notice it several times in the play, for example in Act 4, scene 1 when Bolingbroke commands, “Fetch hither Richard, that in common view / He may surrender; so we shall proceed / Without suspicion” (4.1.155-7). Other evidence can be found in York‟s assurance “I will be [Richard‟s] conduct” (4.1.158).
Richard later laments, “Yet I well remember / The favours of these men. Were they not mine? / Did they not sometime cry “All hail!” to me?” (4.1.167-9) and “God save the king! Will no man say amen? / Am I both priest and clerk? well then, amen. /
God save the king! although I be not he” (4.1.172-4). At this point we can see that
Richard II is associated with the political power of words when he tries to soften the hearts of people when his crown is being usurped.
The theme of Richard II is drawn almost exclusively from Holinshed. Since my thesis covers with the deviations from the real past, I will now describe several issues that are different from history, i.e. that are not based on historical facts. I will try to do it with the help of Shakespeare‟s main source for the play, the second edition of Holinshed‟s Chronicles. This work supplied author with Henry, Duke of Hereford, who later became Duke of Lancaster; but Shakespeare, like Samuel Daniel, preferred
20 the name Bullingbrook for Richard‟s rival (Bolingbroke only became the norm in the eighteenth century). There are of course a lot of divergences from history, including omissions or added materials. Among the main omissions is the whole of Holinshed‟s long account of Richard‟s campaign in Ireland. Shakespeare also did not use a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, issued at the time of deposition, whereas Holinshed printed the full version of this text. What Shakespeare completely invented was, for instance, Hotspur Percy‟s youthfulness and his meeting with
Bolingbroke. The historical Hotspur was actually twenty-three years older than
Bolingbroke himself. Another contrast is in York‟s reason for failing to resist the invasion. In the play York makes excuses with “because my power is weak and all ill left” (2.3.153). This reason, which York gives for his inaction, is different from that in Holinshed who conveys that York assembled power of men but they did not trust him though. These were quite minor deviations. The main ones centre upon the character and behaviour of John Gaunt, nearly all Isabel‟s parts, Isabel‟s parting with
Richard and her womanly behaviour, and the Garden scene in the third act.
The historical Richard married his second queen when she was seven years old and eleven at the time of the play; however, Shakespeare gave her the voice of an adult woman. One of the reasons for making her much older is supposed to be feminine interest which she brought into the play. As regards the Garden scene, it seems to be quite obvious that Shakespeare compared the garden to the state, which reminds us of the comparison with the social order to the garden which was common among the medieval preachers and were often represented on the Elizabethan stage
(Introduction to Richard II liii). This central theme, the idea of England as a garden and how it must be cultivated, runs through all four plays. Gaunt, for example, sees
England both as a garden and, later, as a farm which needs hard work; and Richard uses many images of cropping the land. John E. Cunningham in his Shakespeare: Richard
21 II claims that the effect of the scene is to remember the Gardener‟s reference to the kingdom “swarming with caterpillars” (R2 3.4.47) and to help us to feel for Queen‟s sorrows (6).
As far as John of Gaunt is concerned, his portrait is essentially unauthentic.
He is presented as a wise counsellor and a great patriot, and he could die for his “dear dear land” which he praises in a soliloquy (2.1.40-68). However, history tells a different story. In fact, he was an ambitious, profit-seeking man, unsuccessful as a military commander, and thus unpopular as an administrator. Shakespeare‟s account of John of Gaunt is sympathetic and takes no notice of Gaunt‟s failures. The most important sources for John of Gaunt are considered to be Berners‟s translation of Froissart and the anonymous work called Thomas of Woodstock of which a manuscript survived
(Introduction to R2 xxxiv). It is evident that Shakespeare had read and remembered both works. However, since I am not observing these sources of history plays in depth, I will not provide further details on these sources and deviations from them. Rather I will draw my attention to the question of what led Shakespeare to make such changes and omissions.
Peter Ure has suggested in the Introduction to Richard II that one of Shakespeare‟s motives for the deviations may have been that he was already planning the continuation of the story in Henry IV and Henry V (xxxiii). Among the elements which show that the author may already have had a sequel in mind when writing these plays are the references to Hal and his familiarity with taverns or his absence from court, as words by his father prove: “„Tis full three months since
I did see him last . . . / . . . / Inquire at London, „mongst the taverns there, / For there, they say, he daily doth frequent / With unrestrained loose companions” (5.3.2-7) and “While he, young wanton, and effeminate boy, / Takes on the point of honour to support / So dissolute a crew” (5.3.10-12). I believe that Shakespeare was developing
22 the character of prince because he planned his future importance in the following plays and that is why he mentioned him in the play although the character of Hal is not actually included in the list of protagonists at the beginning of Richard II.
I agree with Peter Ure‟s point of view; nevertheless, it seems to me that there must have been also other reasons for divergences from the sources. It is easy to say that
Holinshed‟s description of some passages of historical events were so long or complicated that Shakespeare tried to shorten and simplify them. Other extracts could be, on the contrary, unnecessary and useless for the overall insight into the issues of the plays and Shakespeare decided to omit them rather than make his audience bore.
It is arguable to offer a suitable motive for Shakespeare‟s rewriting of historical events.
The main reason for portraying either altered or fictional events and characters, however, seems to be in Shakespeare‟s power to rewrite history and his ability to manipulate the future. History plays were supposed to teach Elizabethan England about their past and people believed what they saw on stage. And thus Shakespeare used the theatre as a medium in depicting his political beliefs to the public. At Shakespeare‟s time,
England experienced the end of the rapid developments. The Spanish Armada finally ended and Protestantism became the official English religion. Shakespeare tried to create a national identity for England and answer the question of what does it mean to be English. However much Shakespeare „changed‟ the history, S. C. Sen Gupta has said in his work Shakespeare’s Historical Plays that even if Shakespeare took all sorts of ideas and moral arguments from his sources, he transformed them in his own way because “a dramatist is a creative writer . . . and he surveys life from a point of view” (28-29).
In conclusion to the chapter on Richard II, I will attempt to look at two of the scenes more deeply and compare them with Holinshed. I will do it with the help of the book edited by Allardyce and Josephine Nicoll, Holinshed’s Chronicle:
23 As Used in Shakespeare’s Plays. The analysis will include Richard‟s death, destiny of the rebels and Richard‟s funeral. Act 4, scene 5 begins with Richard‟s soliloquy being in a prison at Pomfret Castle in the north of England. Richard is trying to come to terms with his isolation from the world and to convince himself that he is actually not alone.
He declares that “It is hard to come as for a camel / To thread the postern of a small needle‟s eye” (5.5.16-17). The notes under the text of Richard II in Peter Ure‟s edition say that the possible meanings of „camel‟ and „needle‟ may have been in Shakespeare‟s mind. „Postern‟ (small gate) seems to suggest the interpretation by which „needle‟ means the small entrance for pedestrians in a city-gate, while „thread‟ hints at the opposite interpretation by which „camel‟ means cable-rope (170). Holinshed does not explain
Richard‟s thinking, but it is well assumed that Shakespeare took these interpretations from other sources. Later in the same scene, a Groom, who remained faithful to Richard, enters a jail unexpectedly to wish him well. The groom describes
Bolingbroke‟s coronation procession and admits that Richard‟s horse carried the new king “so proudly as if he disdain‟d the ground” (5.5 83). Holinshed, however, does not give an account of Bolingbroke‟s horse having originally been Richard‟s. Most of the incidents prior to the death of Richard seem to be invented, but the appearance of the faithful Groom may derive from a “germ” in Holinshed. When a Keeper brings food to Richard, the prisoner asks him: “Taste of it first” (5.5.99). The king‟s food was usually checked by the royal taster as a precaution against poison. Holinshed speaks, however, of Richard‟s being “serued without courtesie or assaie” (49). The Keeper says he is commanded by Sir Pierce Exton, a nobleman, who has forbidden to prove that the food is not poisoned. Richard becomes angry and strikes the Keeper saying, “The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee!” (5.5.102). According to Holinshed, Richard struck the Keeper on the head with a carving-knife with the words “The diuell take
Henrie of Lancaster and thee togither!” (49). At this time Exton and his accomplices
24 rush in and begin to struggle with Richard. This part is adopted by Shakespeare without a change. Nevertheless, Holinshed describes Richard‟s subsequent fight with the murderers in more detail. On the contrary, Richard‟s dying words at the end of the fifth scene are not reported by Holinshed almost at all. In Holinshed
Richard just says: “sir Piers gaue him vpon the head, and therewith rid him out of life; without giuing him respit once to call to God for mercie of his passed offenses” (49).
After the murder of Richard, Exton suffers from conscience: “For now the devil that told me I did well / Says that this deed is chronicled in hell” (5.5 115-116). His remorse is also mentioned by Holinshed: “[Exton] wept right bitterlie, as one striken with the pricke of a giltie conscience, for murthering him” (49).
Act 4, scene 6 is placed at Windsor Castle with Bolingbroke discussing the state of affairs. Holinshed gave here a long account of who of the rebels was punished and in what way. Shakespeare compressed the names and details about the plot to a few lines. Holinshed describes the showing of the embalmed corpse of Richard in a coffin in all towns between Pontefract and London and remarks that “at the masse of Requiem, the king and the citizens of London were present” (50). In Shakespeare‟s play, however, Exton says, “Great king, within this coffin I present / Thy buried fear”
(5.6.30-31) so it seems that the presentation of Richard‟s corpse directly to Bolingbroke is the author‟s invention. Finally, Bolingbroke states that he will “make a voyage to the Holy Land, / To wash this blood off from [his] guilty hand” (5.6.49-50).
Bolingbroke‟s disavowal of the murder and remorse for Richard‟s death are also not remarked in Holinshed.
4.2 Henry IV
The Henriad sequence is to a certain degree a celebration of English history with a strong propagandist element that fits to a decade when the country seemed
25 to be under threat from the dominant power in Europe, Spain. After the death of Philip
II of Spain in 1596, this threat was diminished, and Shakespeare turned his mind from
English history to write in other dramatic modes.
Firstly, I should introduce the unity and dissimilarity of style in both parts of Henry IV. There are apparent differences in style between Part 1 and Part 2 but they are connected with a network of cross-references. Although the two parts of Henry
IV have much in common, each of them has its own characteristic mood and structure, its separate dramatic impact. There is a dominant tone in each play. Still and all, both parts of Henry IV make characteristic and distinct impression on the audience. The play includes the whole scale of English social life. It is structured on dramatic oppositions – tavern versus court, mock king versus legitimate king, or single-minded prince versus chivalric warrior. The plot moves beyond the court into the furthest corners of the kingdom: it comprises the actions of the Scots, the Welsh, the churchmen, as well as the battlefield and the countryside. The play concentrates on a centralised monarchy which attempts to unite diverse geographical territories, languages, and cultures. As J.
Dover Wilson, professor and scholar of Renaissance drama, stated in the paper Riot and the Prodigal Prince, Hal “links the low life with the high life, the scenes at Eastcheap with those at Westminster, the tavern with battlefield” (Shakespeare Criticism 49).
It is not a coincidence that Hal was so lavish and riotous. The legend of Harry of Monmouth began to grow after his death in 1422; and nearly all chroniclers mentioned his wildness in his youth. It is thus a historical fact that Henry V was a pious and successful king, that he rejected his bad companions, and defeated Hotspur at Shrewsbury.
Henry IV derives its serious matter from Holinshed, although Falstaff and his companions are of the author‟s invention, inspired by some scenes of a riot in The Famous Victories. The play follows real events and uses historical figures;
26 and so tells a much more concrete story than a more symbolic play. Nevertheless,
Shakespeare significantly alters or invents history and characters where it suits him.
For instance, the historical Hotspur (born in 1364) was not of the same age as Hal (born in 1387) as stated in the play. He was rather closer to the age of Henry, whereas
Shakespeare made Hal and Hotspur the same age so their enmity would be dramatically more persuasive. This liberty taken with the facts is essential to Shakespeare‟s dramatic design. Another example of an alteration is the fact that in Holinshed it is not Prince
John of Lancaster but the Earl of Westmoreland who tricks the rebels. Shakespeare wanted to bring the line of conduct closer to the royal house and that is why he used
Westmoreland as an ambassador of Prince John, Hal‟s brother (Shakespeare criticism 391).
Such substitution brings the taint of it nearer to the King and Hal.
Another contrast to the past are the taverns. Historically they were alehouses visited by anyone from any class who wished to drink liberally and publicly; nevertheless, in the play the taverns represent places where the criminal underworld could meet with the nobility. A tavern is an alternative to the court. Shakespeare collapses under one roof an alehouse and a tavern offering wine. It was often identified as the Boar‟s Head and was located in Eastcheap. Mistress Quickly‟s tavern in the play may actually allude to a real historical tavern of that name which served as a playing space for actors long before there were public theatres (The Shakespearean Stage 117). In former times it must have meant much to Londoners of the reigns of Elizabeth and James. The evidence is very poor but the fact that Shakespeare made this tavern so important in the plays may suggest that the Boar‟s Head was one of the best known taverns in the city.
What Shakespeare expanded in the play is the role of Lady Percy. Holinshed mentioned her simply as a woman whom the lord had married, but Shakespeare gave her a truly human role. However, the most striking amplification of Holinshed is in the interleaving of the history with the Eastcheap life. The social and national life
27 is set in place and time. Pilgrims going to Canterbury, traders riding to London, armies converging on Shrewsbury insist on topographical reality. As I have mentioned, the plot of 1 Henry IV is an outcome of dramatic historical events from England‟s past. This can be also proved by Henry‟s opening remark that “those opposed eyes / Which . . . / .
. . / Did lately meet in the intestine shock / And furious close of civil butchery will no longer spill English blood on English soil” (1.1.9-13) which refers to the recent power struggle between various English nobles and introduces us to the turbulent world.
Shakespeare expected his audience to know the events to which Henry refers in the play.
Indeed, Shakespeare himself dramatized them in the previous play, Richard II, where as a result of a civil war in England, Henry managed to win the crown from Richard II, the former king. Henry is now haunted by the violence that he used to gain the crown, and he must fight another civil war to stay in power.
28 1 Henry IV has two main plots that intersect in a dramatic battle at the end of the play. The first plot concerns Falstaff and his friends and the second one a rebellion against King Henry by a discontented family of noblemen in the North, the Percys, who are angry because of King Henry‟s refusal to acknowledge his debt to them. Besides, the play contains various subplots, such as tense and complicated relationship between King Henry IV and his son, Prince Harry. In reality, one model for the rising of the Percys could be an attempt by Northern Catholic lords in 1569 to advance the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots against Elizabeth. In Elizabeth‟s court, there appeared a cult of medievalism, although the chivalry practised there was more political and symbolic than real; for instance, tournaments and pageants adopted only the forms of the past culture, not its ethos; and courtiers embodied medieval knights who adored their queen, fought on her behalf, and saw her as a lady of romance
(Companion 158-159).
In Elizabethan era, what threatened most the stability of the reign was feudalism. Because 1 Henry IV is set amid political instability and violent rebellion, the play is naturally preoccupied with the idea of rulership. It questions what makes a ruler legitimate, which qualities are desirable in a ruler, when it is acceptable to usurp a ruler‟s authority, and what the consequences of rebelling against a ruler might be.
The concept of legitimate rule in the play is deeply connected with the concept of rebellion: if a ruler is illegitimate, then it is acceptable to usurp his power.
The ideas of 1 Henry IV are diverse. Shakespeare is concerned throughout much of the play with the contrasts and relationships of the different cultures native to the British Isles and united under the rule of the king. Accents, folk traditions, and geographies are discussed and analyzed, particularly through the use of Welsh characters such as Owen Glendower, and Scottish characters such as Archibald, Earl of Douglas. The author wanted to create a sense of England through a contrast with
29 Wales and Scotland. Shakespeare also rehearses the various stereotypes surrounding each character type, portraying Glendower as an evil magician and Douglas as a hot-headed warrior. One scene in the play also provides us with recognition of Welsh culture and tradition which Glendower embodies. It is presupposed that the English regarded the ancient Welsh customs and supernatural traditions with contempt. On one hand, they felt that a more advanced civilization (as they considered themselves) should have no fear of ancient superstitions. On the other hand, however, no one could be sure that the Welsh were not really magicians. Glendower himself is a mixture of the Welsh and English worlds. He reminds that he was “train‟d up in the English court” and speaks fluent English as well as his native Welsh (3.1.117). Mortimer further notes that he is “exceedingly well read” which associates him with gentlemanliness and urban sophistication (3.1.160). But Glendower‟s claims of being a magician able to summon demons reflect his commitment to his pagan heritage. Even Mortimer implies that he believes in Glendower‟s magic arts, saying that Glendower is “profited / In strange concealments,” or supernatural skills (3.1.160-1). Mortimer‟s inability to communicate with his own wife is another revelation of the cultural barriers between the English and the Welsh. Unlike Hotspur, however, Mortimer at least shows himself to be aware of the value of understanding other cultures and tongues, despairing, “O, I am ignorance itself in this!” when he cannot understand his wife (3.1.206).
Act 2, scene 4 acquaints us with gender and domestic life in the Renaissance.
Hotspur‟s obsession with strategy and war make him a bad husband and his wife, Lady
Percy, reveals his absence of emotion and really suffers from her man‟s political conflicts. Hotspur seems to think of his wife only as a sideline to his life as a fighter.
In his thirst for war, Hotspur does not even admit love into his worldview. Neither of the spouses is shy of alluding to sex, or a lack of it. This scene provides an observation of the marital relations of the Elizabethan era. Renaissance women were
30 considered to have a right to sexual pleasure from their husbands. Lady Percy has her sexual needs in mind when she complains that Hotspur has “given my treasures and my rights of thee / To thick-ey‟d musing, and curst melancholy” (2.3.46-47). In spite of this apparent liberation, Renaissance ideas of gender are far from propagation of equal opportunity for men and women. In the first part of Henry IV, for instance, Hotspur running to rebellion denies answering to his wife‟s question of why and where he is going, and explains, “This is no world / To play with mammets and to tilt with lips
(2.3.92-93). This example provides suggestions that the stage of English history is no place for women. Women are often ridiculed and they seem to spend most of their time in tears. They are confined to the roles of helpless victims. In fact, Lady Percy has not many options. She can only accept whatever her husband chooses to give her.
For example, when Hotspur asks whether his plan to let her follow him the next day will satisfy her, she answers bitterly, “It must, of force” (2.3.119). Of course, we need not to accept that Percys‟ situation was a typical one in the Renaissance. However, since we suppose that Shakespeare tried to portray the controversial issues of the period in his plays, we may as well assume that Percy‟s household and relationship with his wife approximates to the reality. Although Hotspur‟s marriage is not really important to the overall plot of the play, Shakespeare still moves the plot forward considerably during this look into domestic life. Female characters generally have very little power throughout the whole tetralogy, not only in Henry IV. Even though the English history play was the least hospitable to women of all the dramatic genres popular on the Elizabethan stage, women still played quite prominent roles and tried to be powerful to influence the development of the action. However, men are those who conducted the business of the historical plots and played part in the affairs of state.
As far as the popularity of Shakespeare‟s history plays is concerned, it is important to note that women were included as customers in Shakespeare‟s playhouse more than
31 men. It is assumed that male spectators in Shakespeare‟s time would have responded with bitterness to presentation of women‟s power and autonomy. However, it would have been a powerful attraction for independent women in the audience.
The second part of the play was composed in 1597-8, a year after the first part.
Political conflicts of the king and prince which were at the centre of the first part of Henry IV were marginalised in the following part. As the second part of the play is concerned with politically lesser stuff, the only events connected with political tactics which were dramatised are the King‟s death and Hal‟s accession. This imbalance of historical matter between two parts of Henry IV raises the question of whether they were originally planned as one long history play or two autonomous plays. Was Part
2 foreseen as a separate part, when Part 1 was started? Or did Shakespeare manage his story in a single play, which grew into two upon revision? The relationship of the two plays to one another and the process of their composition have been widely debated. Discussions of how Part 1 relates to Part 2 go back over a couple of centuries and it is important to remark that the long debate about the unity of the plays has never been conclusively ended. Some critics, among them R. A. Law, wished to separate the two parts because they think their motives are different. J. Dover Wilson and E. M.
W. Tillyard see the two parts as a single play. I am inclined to think that the structure of the parts is very similar and that they both share morality pattern. Therefore, I will account Henry IV as two parts of one play even if no one can actually know what
Shakespeare had in mind as he began to write the first part of Henry IV.
The second part of the play brings to closure the royal narrative of Hal‟s growth to kingship but is far more concerned with other things. It is less about chronicle history than about Elizabethan England and drunkards, country gentlemen, or tailors whose histories had never been recorded. At the centre is not the King nor Hal, but Harry‟s friend and mentor Falstaff; old, fat, lazy, selfish, dishonest, manipulative,
32 and boastful knight. It is not the apparatus of state but Falstaff who won the audience‟s sympathy. The popularity of Henry IV was almost entirely due to the attraction of this character. He is presented as a criminal, as all his extravagant references to himself and other highwaymen as “squires of the night‟s body” suggest (1H4 1.2.24). However,
Falstaff seems to live with a sense of gusto and enjoyment that is completely foreign to royalty. Though he is technically a knight, Falstaff‟s lifestyle renders him incompatible with the ideals of courtly chivalry that one typically associates with knighthood. He sees honour only as an abstract and therefore useless entity: “Can honour set to a leg? No. /
Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? / No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. / What is honour? A word” (5.1.131-134). His approach to life and honour is very different from the rigid systems of pride and revenge that cause the noblemen to fight bloody wars and attempt to overthrow kings. Despite his many negative qualities, Falstaff became one of the most famous and beloved comic characters of Elizabethan audiences, and the most seductive character Shakespeare ever drew.
Shakespeare created Falstaff‟s role so big that it is not surprising that Part
2 has often been called Falstaff in performance. Audiences have paid to see him on the stage and he has earned his reputation among theatre audiences as well as his contemporaries. There is a question of whether Shakespeare in the character of Falstaff intended to point to any historical figure. The person familiar to us as Sir John Falstaff was once called Sir John Oldcastle, and he was in a way derived from the historical character of the same name who became Lord Cobham by marriage.
The real Prince Henry was an associate of this Lollard leader who was actually burnt for his Protestant beliefs and who figured as one of Prince Hal‟s companions in Shakespeare‟s source play, The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth. Since the historical
Oldcastle was certainly neither old nor unmilitary and probably not fat, these attributes must arise otherwise than from history. Oldcastle died at the age of thirty-nine
33 so the interpretation of his name as “old lad of the castle” was exaggerated. From where his age and obesity came into Shakespeare is uncertain. The original name of Oldcastle in the play was changed because the family of Brooke (Lords Cobham and descendants of Oldcastle) objected to their ancestor‟s mishandling. The same name could be at that time a source for defamation. Vestiges of Oldcastle remained in the speech headings of quarto edition, in Hal‟s reference to Falstaff as “my old lad of the castle” (1H4
1.2.41), and in the Epilogue to Part 2, which affirms that “Oldcastle died martyr, and this in not the man” (31-32).
Now I will try to explore the first interview between the prince and the king in Act 3, scene 2 and compare it with the development of the father-son theme presented in Holinshed. The scene begins when Harry comes to the royal palace after a long absence. His father wants him to answer a question of why he does not behave in a courteous and regal way. There has aroused a conflict between them. Also
Holinshed mentions that the “discord might arise betwixt him and his father” (56).
To solve the problem Harry promises to abandon his vagabond habits and behave as a royal prince should. He also puts the blame on the flatterers who always spread gossip about him. He used the word „pickthank‟ for a flatterer and this is a clear echo of Holinshed who says that “pickthanks had sowne diuision” between father and son.
The king says he would like to forgive Harry but he cannot tolerate his recent behaviour.
Henry continues his attack against his son, saying that he feels that Hotspur has more right than Harry to inherit the throne because he demonstrates his courage in warfare.
According to the king, Harry acts like a villain because he hates his father. The king considers his son as the most dangerous (but also the most beloved) enemy who will soon go over to Hotspur‟s side and will left his father to fight under Hotspur “to show how much thou art degenerate” (1H4 3.2128). This suspicion is, however, somewhat antedated because the history says that Hotspur died when Harry was 16. Holinshed says
34 that the tales “brought no small suspicion into the kings head, least his sonne would presume to vsurpe the crowne” (57). Harry replies to his father‟s rebukes: “I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord, / Be more myself” (3.2.92-93). His words imply that he realises that it is time to reveal his true nature. Holinshed also says that “he had a care to auoid dooing of wrong” (57), however, he does not cover the whole dialogue between father and son, and it seems that the long conversation about Harry‟s imprudence is largely of Shakespeare‟s invention.
4.3 Henry V
This play is the climax of all eight plays which are comprised in the two tetralogies. Even though there are many references in time to the events dramatized in the previous plays, Henry V is able to stand quite independently. The plot of Henry V, in which Falstaff is dismissed and the riotous Prince Hal turned into a vigorous king, is provided mostly by Holinshed‟s Chronicles. This play was the promised culmination of Shakespeare‟s second sequence of plays and he must have known a lot about English political philosophy when he reached the conclusion of Henry V.
Whether or not he originally meant to divide Henry IV into the two plays of which it consists, at the end of the second part of Henry IV he surely knew what he would next be writing. The Epilogue of the second part contains the promise that “our humble author will / continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you / merry with fair
Katherine of France” (27-29).
Henry V is Shakespeare‟s most patriotic play that speaks about both the glories of war (Henry‟s desire for glory) and its moral outlay (Pistol‟s view of war as an occasion for plunder). It is supposed that Shakespeare exposed the brutal reality of war.
The debate concerning the ethics of war is intensified through Shakespeare‟s use of „poys‟. Violence against children will always incite a condemnation
35 of the perpetrators who killed the boys. Shakespeare used it only with moderation because it aroused much emotion among people whose judgments were unqualified.
The position of a child in war is extremely inappropriate because it has a dangerous and risky job to do for the sake of lack of „men‟. We can see it at the end of Act 4 when the Boy, who acts as an interpreter in Pistol‟s confrontation with a French soldier, says in his soliloquy, “. . . I must / stay with the lackeys with the luggage of our camp / the French might have a good prey of us if he knew / of it, for there is none to guard it but boys” (4.4.73-6). Later in the play his death is announced as part of the killing of the „poys‟. Nevertheless, it is not shown directly. A reader should grieve for youth, not for one boy. The boy here functions as a symbol for universal child who will never attain maturity. His potentiality and abilities will never be realised.
Though there are moments of comedy, the overall tone of the play is serious, celebrating the intense personal charisma of Henry and the military conflict between
England and France. This play is concerned, like the previous plays, with politics, patterns of history, ancestral curses, state‟s destiny and its society. The chroniclers show us that Henry V was able to learn wisdom by historical precedent. Shakespeare makes his Henry refer to the history of his country: “For you shall read that my great- grandfather / Never went with his forces into France / But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom / Came pouring” (1.2.146-149). He even remembers the death of Richard II when he courts Katherine: “Now beshrew my / father‟s ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when / he got me: therefore was I created with a stubborn / outside, with an aspect of iron” (5.2.222-225). There remained the question of how the comic element presented in both parts of Henry IV could be managed in Henry V. Falstaff had been promised in the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV (as I have said above) but after his rejection by the newly crowned Prince Henry his role was gone.
What is quite remarkable is the journey from the Prince‟s first soliloquy “I know you all”
36 as he thinks of Falstaff and his associates in Part 1 (1.2.190) to his rejection of Falstaff: “I know thee not, old man” at the end of Part 2 (5.5.47). Falstaff taught the young
Hal all about the underworld‟s way of life. When Prince Hal rose to the throne, though, he rejected Falstaff publicly. According to Falstaff‟s friends, this rejection was the beginning of the end for Falstaff. As the Mistress Quickly explains it, Falstaff died because “The King has killed his heart” (2.1.88). This banishment by the Prince must have been felt by the audience as an act of ungratefulness. However, Zdeněk
Stříbrný claims in a Summary to his Shakespeare’s History Plays that “the final rejection of Falstaff must be understood as a necessary act of statesmanlike wisdom on the part of the newly annointed king Henry V” (265).
Shakespeare created a „compensation‟ for Falstaff in the characters of Fluellen, a Welsh captain of King Henry‟s troop, who is both comic and respectable; and the Boy, a Falstaff‟s page. It is impossible to hold on the stage all the soldiers that actually participated in Henry V‟s war with France. As a result, many of the characters represent large groups or cultures: Fluellen represents the Welsh, Captain Jamy represents the Scottish, and Captain MacMorris represents the Irish. All of them are characters who have heavy accents reflecting their countries of origin. In Act 4, scene 7 Fluellen refers the king to “Alexander the Pig” (4.7.12-13). Of course, he means to say Alexander the Big (an error for Alexander the Great) but Fluellen‟s Welsh accent turns the letter b into the letter p. Fluellen embodies many of the comical stereotypes associated with the Welsh in Shakespeare‟s day – he is wordy, sometimes too serious, but still very intelligent. The fact that Shakespeare used his characters as cultural types is a strong sign that they represent far more than a comicality of ethnic stereotypes.
The role of women in the plays has been already discussed above. In Henry
V the „main‟ female character is Katherine, the daughter of the French king. Her father intends to marry her to his enemy in order to end the war with England and preserve
37 his power in France. As the king Henry conquers more and more of France, Katherine‟s potential husband seems likely to be English. Therefore, Katherine starts to study
English , and not because she herself desires to speak the language, but because the marriage should unite the two kingdoms and solve peace negotiations. Shakespeare uses Katherine‟s English lessons with Alice, the maid of the princess, to highlight her role as a tool of negotiations among the men.
Holinshed‟s Chronicles underlie the whole historical action of Henry V, although the play is far from being a transcript of this work. There‟s a question of what
Shakespeare found unsuitable for dramatic treatment and what he took over almost unaltered from his original. At Agincourt, an outnumbered English army defeats a much larger force of French troops and the chroniclers completely agree with this statement.
The historical sources, however, report that the victory was gained by superior military strategy whereas Shakespeare does not attribute the outcome of the battle to tactics, weather, or technology. He makes no mention of the device; on the contrary his Henry claims that victory came “without stratagem, / But in plain shock and even play of battle” (4.8.109-101). There is also a kind of the discrepancy in the numbers of the French and the English dead (10,000 versus twenty-nine) which is hardly plausible. Nonetheless, these seem to be the real numbers for the historical battle of Agincourt; at least, they are the numbers recorded for the battle of Agincourt in Holinshed‟s Chronicles.
Some critics presume that Henry V glorifies war and imperialism. They note that when the play was produced during the World War II, it was easily turned into patriotic propaganda. So much as it could be true; I believe that the play does not present a realistic picture of war. Shakespeare rather prefers to depict Henry‟s victory over France as an act of God. During the sixteenth century, there arose a conflict between the church and state together with such questions as whether England
38 as a Christian state should make war upon France and who has the right to start a war.
Henry V tries to answer these questions by moral justification for going to war given by the Archbishop who also admits Henry the right to the French throne.
Shakespeare changes the evolving English identity through the play‟s central character, King Henry. He tries to portray him as the ultimate hero and noble, strong, and humble man. Therefore, he makes Henry disguise in some scenes. For example, the scene where Henry disguises as a common soldier on the eve of Agincourt and talks to the soldiers in his camp, learning who they are and what they think of the great battle, and when he exchanges the gloves with Williams who bets him a “box on the ear”
(4.1.213). Trying to understand soldiers‟ positions, Henry finally concludes, “Every subject‟s / duty is the King‟s, but every subject‟s soul is his / own” (4.1.175-177). With this statement Henry indicates that England respects an individual‟s freedom and that he does not expect people to be entirely engaged in service he demands.
I will finish the chapter with a deeper analysis of analogy or divergences between Shakespeare‟s text and the chief source for this play. I have chosen Act 2, scene
4 describing plans for the war with France and a threat given to the French King,
Charles VI. The material that French soldiers had knowledge of King Henry‟s preparations to invade France before is supplied from Holinshed. The chronicle says,
“the Dolphin [Dauphin, the son of the French King and his wife, Queen Isabel], who had the gouernance of the realme . . . sent for the dukes of Berrie and Alanson, and all the other lords of the councell of France: by whose aduise it was determined, that they should not onelie prepare a sufficient armie to resist the king of England . . . but also to stuffe and furnish the townes on the frontiers and sea coasts with conuenient garrisons of men” (77). In Shakespeare‟s Henry V, it is the French King who considers it necessary “to line and new repair our towns of war / With men of courage and with means defendant” (2.4.7-8). Later Exeter arrives with a message from King Henry
39 who has already landed in France. He demands that King Charles surrender and “lay apart / The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven, / By law of nature and of nations, longs / To him” (2.4.78-81). In Holinshed Henry commands Charles to give up the crown and restitute all what “he wrongfully withheld, contrarie to the lawes of God and man” (76). If Charles refuses, Henry promises to invade France and take it under “bloody constraint” (2.4.97). Holinshed claims that “the king further declaring how sorie he was that he should be thus compelled for repeating of his right and iust title of inheritance, to make warre to the destruction of christian people . . . he was forced to take armes” (76). The scene ends with Charles‟s promise to give an answer to the Henry‟s letter “as time and place should be conuenient” (76).
Shakespeare‟s Charles assures Exeter that “tomorrow shall you know our mind at full”
(2.4.140). If we compare the whole scene in Henry V with Holinshed‟s notes on history, we discover that the information provided in both works does not vary much.
Act 4 does not comprise the essential deviations from the past; or, at least, the historical events I regard as the real ones.
40 5 Conclusion
The objective of my thesis was to show history plays especially from the point of their reliability. The individual plays themselves can hardly serve as a reliable history; they do not attempt to recollect the past in every detail. As I have demonstrated above, historical material is often reordered or even ignored; sometimes there are purely fictional characters and events. I mentioned the principal divergences from Holinshed‟s
Chronicles, the source Shakespeare consulted the most when writing his plays. I also tried to prove the statement that Shakespeare derived material from the sources by analyzing certain scenes from each play and showing various deviations from Holinshed. This has indicated that Shakespeare selected and reshaped his historical material with specific dramatic skill. He telescoped events to enhance their dramatic impact, and he did it with brilliance.
I found also important to concern the question of what genre the history play was meant to be at the time when the Shakespearean histories were first printed and performed in front of the audience as well as how they are described nowadays.
I mentioned the typical themes and reasons which lead to the characterization of these plays.
My research would not be complete without the drawing of the situation in Elizabethan England and describing social background connected with important historical events. I have focused my attention to the perception of history plays especially in the Renaissance; however, I have also outlined the reception in quite recent history in the introduction to my thesis. It is interesting to see the diverse understanding of the plays; although, in most cases they were performed primarily for political purposes.
41 I would like to conclude my thesis by saying that the process of observing
Shakespeare‟s history plays in terms of their style, the author‟s intent, and the variety of possible sources and divergences from them is never-ending. Although many works on Shakespeare have been already written throughout centuries, the research of Shakespearean plays is continuous.
42 Works Cited and Consulted
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43 Saintsbury, George. “Chapter V. The Second Dramatic Period – Shakespeare.” A History
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Scott-Kilvert, Ian. Shakespeare: Henry V. London: British Council, 1975.
Shakespeare, William. King Richard II. Ed. Peter Ure. London: Routledge, 1994.
---. King Henry IV. Pt. 1. Ed. A.R. Humphreys. London: Routledge, 1996.
---. King Henry IV. Pt. 2. Ed. A.R. Humphreys. London: Routledge, 1996.
---. King Henry V. Ed. T.W. Craik. London: Routledge, 1995.
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Video
Henry V. Dir. Laurence Olivier. Perf. Leslie Banks, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Truman,
Ernest Thesiger, Harcourt Williams. Carlton Home Entertainment, 1998.
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