2 Henry VI – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Commentaries on
Shakespeare’s History Plays

Shakespeare, William [and possibly Christopher Marlowe]. The Second Part of Henry the Sixth. Folio. (The Norton Shakespeare: Histories, 3rd ed. 147-218.) *Norton lists Shakespeare as sole author of this play.

Comprehensive Shakespeare: Folger Shakespeare Library | RSC Shakespeare’s Plays | Shakespeare-Online (Mabillard) | Internet Shakespeare Editions (U-Vic)

Hundred Years’ War: Medievalists.net | 100 Years’ War (Britannica) | 100 Years’ War (WHE) | 100 Years’ War Timeline

The Tudors: Tudor Society | TudorHistory.org | The Tudors (Eng-Heritage UK) | Life in Elizabethan England (M. Secara) | Elizabethan Era.org

Date and New Oxford Shakespeare Attribution Note: The editors of the Oxford Shakespeare give a date for 2 Henry VI of 1590, with a range of 1587-91, and probable revisions by Shakespeare in the mid-1590s. As for authorship, they identify in their Folio-based 1623 copy Scenes 9-12 (i.e., Act 3) and Young Clifford’s speech at Scene 24.31-65. Marlowe, they suggest, probably wrote in large part the Jack Cade material in Act 4. Authorship for all else in this play is described as “contested.”

ACT 1

Act 1, Scene 1 (148-54, King Henry VI meets his Queen consort Margaret, whom Suffolk has transported from France; Cardinal Beaufort, Buckingham, and Somerset wrangle with Gloucester, who is backed by Salisbury and his son Warwick; in soliloquy, York expresses his strong ambition to become king.)

In Act 1, Scene 1, the Marquess of Suffolk [1] returns from France in April 1445 to present the young English king, Henry VI, with his queen consort, Margaret of Anjou, niece of the French King Charles VII and daughter of King René of Naples. The Marquess himself explains that he served as ceremonial or proxy husband to Margaret while still in France, saying, “I have performed my task and was espoused, / And humbly now … / Deliver up my title in the Queen / To your most gracious hands …” (148, 1.1.9-13). [2]

2 Henry VI begins, then, with a delighted Henry, who historically would have been 23 years old, and his new queen consort, who, born in 1430, was considerably younger but seems more mature than her new husband. Henry praises God, and finds, as he says, in his bride’s “beauteous face / A world of earthly blessings to my soul, / If sympathy of love unite our thoughts” (149, 1.1.21-23).

The young man can’t know how badly the match will betray that fond “If,” but for now, the bride refers effusively to “The mutual conference that my mind hath had— / By day, by night, waking and in my dreams, / In courtly company or at my beads …” with her “alderliefest [most precious] sovereign …” (149, 1.1.25-28). This dependence by Margaret on her own imagination to deliver to her the king she wants is ominous in its own right since the king she has, Henry VI, will by no means live up to her bright imaginings. Still, the opening vignette is impressive, bordering as it does on ecstasy.

This Henriadic or Lancastrian idyll does not, however, last a moment longer than the “articles of contracted peace” (149, 1.1.40) that Suffolk presents to the king’s uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. [3] What are those articles? Mainly, the young woman has been offered for the price of two of England’s French possessions, Maine and Anjou. [4] Oh, and there will be no proper dowry. These hardly seem like small matters, given that England and France have been gnawing at each other’s territories since the Hundred Years’ War began in 1337. [5] Then, too, Anjou is the origin-point of the so-called Plantagenet dynasty, descending from Geoffrey d’Anjou. [6]

The terms of the eighteen-month truce immediately shatter the brittle presentation of concord among Henry’s great English officers. Gloucester actually drops the paper he is reading to the ground, and professes, he says, that “Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart / And dimmed mine eyes that I can read no further” (149, 1.1.52-53). The Cardinal, for his part, [7] sounds none too pleased with either of the treaty’s provisions.

King Henry VI, however, refuses to let these grave dignitaries ruin his happy mood. He promptly declares Suffolk marquess no more, but now a duke, which is above the rank of earl and marquess. [8] Then, he utters a by-now delusional sentence to cap off the soured festivities: “We thank you all for this great favor done / In entertainment to my princely Queen” (150, 1.1.68-69). The queen can hardly have failed to notice the insult implied towards her and her impoverished royal father, René, but Henry VI remains oblivious to it or unwilling to acknowledge it.

The king, queen, and Suffolk depart, leaving behind key members of his government. Gloucester, who was Henry V’s brother and so is Henry VI’s uncle, complains that the accomplishments of the late king, along with the diplomatic and military efforts of another of his brothers, John of Lancaster, 1^st Duke of Bedford, [9] and many others whom he names have evidently gone to waste since young Henry VI values his new queen Margaret above all that blood and toil: “Shall Henry’s conquest, Bedford’s vigilance, / Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die? / O peers of England, shameful is this league … (150, 1.1.93-95).

Gloucester’s uncle and frequent opponent, Cardinal Beaufort, tries to tamp down such negativity, but to no avail. Gloucester lays the blame on “Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roost …” (150, 1.1.106) and he and Salisbury chime in with mentions of the loss of Anjou and Maine, which counties Salisbury (father of the 16^th Earl of Warwick, in future aka “the kingmaker”) [10] calls ruefully “the keys of Normandy” (150, 1.1.111). [11] Warwick, Salisbury’s son, also refers to Anjou and Maine as territories that he himself helped win for the English. [12]

Richard Plantagenet, 3^rd Duke of York, [13] then adds to the verbal complaint box his own hatred of Suffolk and his sense that England has been slighted. This match with Margaret, he says, “brings no vantages” (151, 1.1.128).

Next, Gloucester and the cardinal get into a word-scuffle, as they have long done over matters of war and peace, power and policy. [14] Gloucester soon leaves in a huff, saying to the cardinal, “If I longer stay / We shall begin our ancient bickerings” (151, 1.1.140-41). When he leaves, the cardinal simply continues his commentary against this nephew of his. The sole fact that Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester is Henry VI’s heir presumptive (since the young king as yet, in 1445, has no children) is enough to bring him under suspicion. The cardinal fears what he supposes is Humphrey’s ambition for the crown, and fears his charming way with a crowd, too.

We should note here that the playwright reconstructs history very broadly. At the beginning of the play it is 1445, but he casts Duke Humphrey as still playing the role of “protector” to Henry VI, who began to rule in his own right in 1437, at 15 years of age. Historically, Duke Humphrey held this office from 1422-29, and then he participated in the king’s “minority council” up to 1437. This makes sense of Buckingham’s question, “Why should he, then, protect our sovereign, / He being of age to govern of himself?” (151-52, 1.1.162-63) The plan among Somerset, [15] Suffolk, Buckingham, and the Cardinal is to oust the Duke of Gloucester from his powerful position.

When the cardinal leaves, Somerset airs his conviction that the prelate’s “insolence is more intolerable / Than all the princes’ in the land beside” (152, 1.1.172-73). Buckingham assures him that either he or Somerset himself will serve as Henry’s protector, not the cardinal.

Remaining to be heard from are Salisbury, Warwick, and York. Salisbury praises the influence of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and the accomplishments of Warwick and York, and he lays out a cogent scheme to set the pride of Suffolk and the cardinal against the ambition of Somerset and Buckingham. Salisbury says that they three will thus “cherish Duke Humphrey’s deeds / While they [i.e., the deeds] do tend the profit of the land” (152, 1.1.200-01).

York remains alone to end this scene so full of the causes of England’s impending factional woes. Sounding a good deal like his ultra-wily son “Richard of Gloucester” and subsequently “King Richard III” that Shakespeare delivers to us in 3 Henry VI and Richard III, the 3^rd Duke of York gives us his impressively sociopathic perspective on current political affairs. His understanding is that the king and many others are so nonchalant about giving up Maine and Anjou, and possibly losing Normandy altogether, because these places are his, York’s, not theirs.

York believes as he does because his double claim to the throne is clearly stronger than that of Henry VI and his Lancastrian predecessors, Henry IV and Henry V, who based their claim on being descended from John of Gaunt, Edward III’s third surviving son. York can lay claim to the throne through two routes.

The first is through his mother, Anne de Mortimer, daughter of Roger Mortimer, 4^th Earl of March, the grandson of Lionel of Antwerp, 1^st Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of King Edward III. Second is his claim as a direct male descendant of Edward III’s fourth surviving son, Edmund of Langley, 1^st Duke of York, father to Richard of York’s ill-fated father, Richard of Conisbrough.

Still, York will need to take the throne. So how is he going to do that? He says, “I will take the Nevilles’ parts / And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey, / And when I spy advantage, claim the crown …” (153, 1.1.237-39). He will insert himself into the confidence of these other great lords and bide his time, working actively where he can. Then he will, like the adder springing forth from under the rock, strike them to his own benefit. This play-version of York—though this version of the man is almost certainly very different from the actual Duke—would no doubt get on famously with Niccolò Machiavelli. [16]

Just when “childish” and “church-like” Henry VI begins to fall out of love with his new queen, and when the Duke of Gloucester (“Humphrey”) starts wrangling interminably again with other high officials, says clever, watchful York, he will take his opportunity: “Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose, / With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed, / And in my standard bear the arms of York / To grapple with the house of Lancaster” (153, 1.1.242, 244, 251-54). [17]

Act 1, Scene 2 (154-56, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester reproaches his wife the Duchess for her ambition to become queen, but the treasonous clergyman John Hume encourages her in this hope.)

In Act 1, Scene 2, we move from the maneuvering and posturing involved in affairs of state to a private, domestic scene—a fairly common perspectival shift in Shakespeare’s plays. Here, though, what we get is more politics, even if moderated by some genuine spousal affection on Gloucester’s part. The Duke visits his wife, Eleanor, [18] only to find that she is all on fire with the notion that she and her husband should be king and queen. Sounding like a London-based Lady Macbeth, she tells him, “Put forth thy hand; reach at the glorious gold. / What, is’t too short? I’ll lengthen it with mine …” (154, 1.2.11-12).

If Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester was hoping to find approval in the Duke’s heart, she must be disappointed in his admonition to “Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts” (154, 1.2.18). Still, Humphrey recounts a strange dream, in which his ceremonial staff of office was broken in two, perhaps by Cardinal Beaufort, and, he says, “on the pieces of the broken wand / Were placed the heads of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, / And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk” (154, 1.2.28-30). The Duke has no idea, he insists, what this frightening dream portends.

Duchess Eleanor tells him it’s a warning to his enemies that they had better not try to harm him, and proceeds to expound her own more direct dream: she saw herself sitting on the throne in Westminster, and then came King Henry VI and Queen Margaret, who, she says, “kneeled to me / And on my head did set the diadem” (154, 1.2.39-40). The Duke can’t restrain his annoyance at what he calls “treachery” in the teeth of all the privilege both of them enjoy. Eleanor’s unsublimated lust for power is flatly unacceptable to her diplomatic-spirited husband.

Is the duchess really so determined, Duke Humphrey asks her, to send them both tumbling from near the height of fortune to its base, from “top of honor to disgrace’s feet”? (155, 1.2.49) Still, the duke can’t stay mad at his beloved wife for long, so he soothes her hurt feelings with “Nay, be not angry; I am pleased again” (155, 1.2.53-54). Just then, a messenger arrives with news that the king has invited the duke to ride to St. Albans to do some hawking—that is, hunting with the aid of a trained hawk, which was a near-obsession among medieval aristocrats— [19] so he invites his wife along, too.

The duchess likes that plan just fine, but first, she must spend a few minutes tending to that other aristocratic obsession, the pursuit of power. She declares to herself that if she were a man, she would be strong: “Were I a man, a duke and next of blood, / I would remove these tedious stumbling blocks / And smooth my way upon their headless necks …” (155, 1.2.63-65). But as she is a woman, says the duchess, she will do what she can, which is to “play my part in Fortune’s pageant” (155, 1.2.67).

As the Norton editor writes in footnote 4 for pg. 155, line 67, the reference here is to directing a medieval pageant play, or to “leading a ceremonial procession.” The point seems to be, then, that as a real-life “showrunner,” she will tend to the architectonics, the subtle and overarching structure, of the drama of power to be acted, and/or that she will deal skillfully with the ceremonial, diplomatic aspects of the necessary approach towards the height of power.

The duchess must even now tend to the pursuit of power by checking in with the priest John Hume, who as her confidant, startles her by addressing her as “your royal majesty” (155, 1.2.70). That is an address proper only to kings and queens; dukes and duchesses are addressed, “your grace.” He promises that, as apparently arranged some while since, he has spoken with the witch Margery Jordan and the conjurer Roger Bolingbroke, [20] who, together, will raise a spirit that can answer all the questions she means to ask it. The spirit, we may want to note, is gendered as male (155, 1.2.81).

The duchess is pleased to hear such news, and gives Hume gold. What she doesn’t know, however, is that this priest is playing a double game, acting as the agent of no lesser operatives than Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Suffolk, who are wise to Eleanor’s ambitions and no doubt to her dabbling in witchcraft, too.

Hume is satisfied with Beaufort and Suffolk’s gold, and he knows that, as he says, his scheming will likely prove the ruin of both Eleanor and Duke Humphrey: “I fear at last / Hume’s knavery will be the Duchess’ wrack, / And her attainder will be Humphrey’s fall” (156, 1.2.104-06). But Hume doesn’t care – “Sort how it will,” he says, “I shall have gold for all” (156, 1.2.107). Listening to this knave who has taken holy orders, it’s hard to disagree with Sir Francis Bacon when he writes in his 1625 essay “Of Truth,” echoing Jesus in Luke 18:8, “when ‘Christ cometh,’ he shall not ‘find faith upon the earth’.” [21]

ACT 1, PART B [c. 2249 I have proofread this, down to end of Act 1]

Act 1, Scene 3 (156-61, Queen Margaret and Suffolk wave off some common people who seek Gloucester’s help, and then begin plotting against him; Somerset and York wrangle, and so do Suffolk and Gloucester; York comes under scrutiny for treason when it’s claimed that his own armorer has said he is the true king.)

Some ordinary people are in the king’s palace at London, hoping to catch the Duke of Gloucester, whom they respect, so he can address their petitions for redress. The first petitioner embarrasses himself and Suffolk when, mistaking him for Gloucester, he hands him a paper complaining about the cardinal’s man John Goodman regarding a personal and property matter. The second petitioner’s complaint concerns Suffolk’s own alleged injurious enclosing of “the commons of Mel- / ford” (156, 1.3.21-22). [22] Suffolk’s tone indicates that he is not amused, now that he has been brought into the mix.

It is the third petitioner, though, whose complaint strikes home in a way that will reverberate. His petition is “Against my master Thomas Horner, / for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the / crown” (157, 1.3.25-27). Master Horner is sent for at once, and Queen Margaret haughtily tears up the people’s petitions, telling them that if they want the “protector’s” protection, they will need to write up some new petitions and give them to him.

There’s your medieval tax money at work, folks—refusal of service with a haughty glance and a wave of dismissal. The English monarchy did develop a bureaucracy that some modern historians describe as rather impressive in its way, but in the main, medieval government was about collecting tax monies and asserting control, not about helping the commonfolk. [23]

Speaking alone among her peers, Queen Margaret is incredulous that the lower orders have developed such a tender regard for Duke Humphrey, a man she resents for the power he continues to exercise over and above her husband the king. A gaggle of commoners are allowed to bust into the palace in this manner and expect their favorite aristocrat to address their concerns personally? She asks, “Is this the fashions, in the court of England?” (157, 1.3.42)

Margaret tells Suffolk that when he participated in a joust for her in France, she naively thought that in Henry, she would be getting the same kind of man. She admits to him, “I thought King Henry had resembled thee / In courage, courtship, and proportion, / But all his mind is bent to holiness / To number Ave-Maries on his beads” (157, 1.3.52-55). It’s obvious by now that the ambitious, wily Margaret is fundamentally mismatched with saintly, simple Henry VI, at least as our playwright casts him.

Margaret ticks off a list of the kingdom’s most talented, ambitious, and worrisome lords, all of whom are more powerful, she says, than the king: Cardinal Beaufort, Somerset, Buckingham, and “grumbling York” (158, 1.3.69, see 67-70). To this list, Suffolk adds the indomitable Neville duo, Salisbury and Warwick, who are, he says, “no simple peers” (158, 1.3.73). All of these great lords aside, admits Margaret, the subject who gives her the most vexation is “that proud dame, the Lord Protector’s wife” (158, 1.3.75). This woman, huffs the queen, traipses through the palace in all her finery, “More like an empress than Duke Humphrey’s wife …” (158, 1.3.77).

We can hardly miss the Frenchwoman Margaret’s deep shame over her spendthrift father René’s poverty—English Eleanor née Cobham’s ostentatious display of wealth, she admits, reminds her of her comparatively humble beginnings in Europe, even though France was at the time far richer and more populous than England. The other day, she says of Eleanor, “The very train of her worst-wearing gown / Was better worth than all my father’s lands / Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter” (158, 1.3.84-86). [24]

Suffolk calms Margaret’s fit with respect to Eleanor, telling the queen that he has set a dandy trap for this presumptuous noblewoman. He also shares with her some strategic counsel: for now, they must combine with the cardinal and certain troublesome lords until they manage to topple Gloucester from his post. As for York, well, the petitioner’s accusation against his master the fanatical York-promoter is bound to do some damage. If all goes well, says Suffolk, Margaret will truly be in charge. He tells her, “you yourself shall steer the happy helm” (158, 1.3.99). We should note that Margaret will steer, not the ineffectual Henry VI.

The king and several lords enter to deal with the subject of the regency of France, a key office given England’s interest in its imperiled French possessions. Should it be Somerset or York? The king says he doesn’t much care. Warwick speaks up for York, but is dressed down by the cardinal for daring to speak among his “betters” (158, 1.3.108). That’s a dangerous thing to say to a man who will one day pride himself on making and unmaking kings. Then—inevitably—everyone attacks Gloucester for his “insolence” as lord protector, for French gains during his tenure, and for his alleged financial malfeasance and general corruption (159, 1.3.121, see 117-36).

Facing this revolt among the lords, Gloucester stomps off, and Margaret adds one final insult: she drops her fan near Duchess Eleanor, and boxes her on the ear when the duchess fails to pick it up for her. King Henry tries to calm Eleanor, but his words are disregarded, and Eleanor, who has already directly threatened the queen with physical violence, proceeds to insult her in turn. She lashes out to Henry, “She’ll pamper thee and dandle thee like a baby” (159, 1.3.144). It is Margaret, Eleanor suggests, who rules the royal roost, not the king. Poor Henry! For him, at least, no charitable deed goes unpunished.

Devious Buckingham says he’ll go after the duchess in hopes of hearing her implicate herself and her husband in some treachery. Just then, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester reenters, saying that he has recovered from his anger at recent insults. He now suggests that York would be the best man for the French regentship, and immediately runs into opposition from Suffolk. York then brings up old wounds pertaining to previous French campaigns wherein Suffolk failed, as the Norton editor notes, to supply him with additional troops when they were needed. Says York further, “Last time I danced attendance on his will / Till Paris was besieged, famished, and lost” (161, 1.3.170-71). [25]

The wrangling among such great lords is settled in comic fashion when Peter the petitioner enters along with Horner, the master he has accused of treasonously promoting York for king. Peter repeats his accusation, and Horner vociferously denies he ever said that York was the rightful king or that the Lancastrian Henry VI usurped the throne. Still, the damage is done: Gloucester rules that since this matter has brought York under some suspicion, it would be best that Somerset should serve as regent in France.

As for the two commoners, they must undergo trial by single combat, which, as the hapless Peter indicates, is very unfair to a poor man like him. Horner is able to say, “I accept the combat willingly” (161, 1.3.211) since he most likely has some training as a fighter. Peter, however, has no means and no training, so all he can say is, “O Lord, have / mercy upon me; I shall never be able to fight a blow” (161, 212-24). Many poor conscripts in medieval and early modern England’s wars must have felt this way! [26] King Henry, unfortunately, seems perfectly willing that this parody of aristocratic honor-fighting should go forward.

Act 1, Scene 4 (161-63, the Duchess of Gloucester listens to a spirit offering her a prophecy about her enemies’ doom, but Buckingham and York surprise her as she does so.)

Act 1, Scene 4 marks the downfall of Eleanor, Duchess of York. The priest John Hume summons the witch Margery Jordan and the conjurer Roger Bolingbroke, who in turn summon a spirit named “Asnath.” In Genesis 41:50-52, this is the name of an Egyptian woman (a daughter of the priest or military captain Potiphera/Potiphar) who marries Joseph and bears his sons Manasseh and Ephraim. The significance of naming the spirit after this woman may be that through her, Joseph gets fully accepted by the Egyptian ruling order. The Englishwoman Eleanor also seeks greater recognition and status for herself and her husband, though it would be within their own nation’s royal order. [27]

The recognition Eleanor receives, however, is not of the accepting kind. Instead, York and Buckingham pounce after they have watched the whole sorry séance, arresting Eleanor and her little coven of summoners and prognosticators. York calls his and Buckingham’s work “A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon” (162, 1.4.55). It’s worth noting that the actual arrest and punishment of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester happened in the summer of 1441, some four years before the action of 2 Henry VI begins. Compressing the date as the playwright does allows him to intensify the drama of Gloucester’s fall as Henry VI’s protector. [28]

The playwright’s construction of this scene’s supernatural dimension—whether by “playwright” we mean Shakespeare or one of his collaborators, since authorship is a lively issue for 2 Henry VI—is worth focusing on at least briefly. Should we, like many Elizabethan audience members, accept that a spirit has genuinely been raised, or should we put it all down to the cynical, adroit fakery of Eleanor’s experienced crew of rogues?

Shakespeare often seems to represent the supernatural in a deliberately vague, nebulous manner—is Macbeth’s “dagger” genuinely a supernatural vision, or is it, as he says in Act 2, Scene 1, “a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain”? [29] What is the precise status of the wonderful sights and sounds that Prospero commands via the spirit Ariel in The Tempest? [30] Does it matter, so long as some material effect in the “real world” figured by the drama is thereby achieved? The dagger, as Macbeth says, “marshall’st me the way that I was going.” [31] That’s worth something, if we are discussing real-life consequences.

But before we dismiss the question of genuineness vs. fraud, we should pick up on something that Bolingbroke the conjuror says. He refers to “The time of night when Troy was set on fire” (161, 1.4.16). The Norton editor glosses this line in connection with to Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 2, which is of course accurate, but if we change the point of reference to Homer’s Odyssey, Book 4, where Menelaus fills in some downright spooky details about his straying queen’s role in the affair of the so-called Trojan Horse, we may find our viewpoint shifting a little.

The semi-divine Helen of Sparta, who tells us that she had long since come to regret her flight from Sparta to Troy, circles the Horse in the dead of night, tapping on the planks and calling eerily in the exact tonalities of the Achaean men’s wives, trying to get them discovered and destroyed. Menelaus describes Helen as a woman possessed, “roused / by some dark power” favoring Troy. [32]

So while the explicit reference to this “Trojan Horse” affair may seem to refer merely to trickery and cynical, highly motivated fraud, what today we would call the full autonomy of human agents is always in question in Homer, especially in a scene involving Troy’s fall. Magic or the imperatives of the supernatural and the divine invade the field of human agency and intention. Whatever text Shakespeare and his contemporaries may have been working from, they would almost certainly have been familiar with this tendency in Homer.

Here in 2 Henry VI, our witch and conjurer and company seem to have written down their “prophecies” in advance by way of responding to the questions prefabbed by Eleanor herself, if that is the right way to understand the action. This bespeaks fraud, but at the same time, as the prophecies are about to be uttered, the Folio’s stage directions say grandly, “It Thunders and Lightens / terribly: then the Spirit riseth.” [33] This scene could easily be played comically, with all concerned getting quite a surprise when Asnath actually shows up as bidden.

In any case, the key “answer” that she provides proves to be of almost Delphian nimbleness: with regard to Henry VI, Asnath says maddeningly, “The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose / But him outlive and die a violent death” (162, 1.4.29-30). Will the duke (whichever one is meant) depose Henry, or will Henry depose the duke? “The duke yet lives” doesn’t narrow the field much because, after all, you can’t depose a dead duke, can you? Alright, Asnath, be that way.

Well, York suggests that all this prognosticating comes down to mind-numbing sentence construction, citing as his example a prophecy referenced by Cicero in his treatise On Divination, “Aio [te], Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.” This is what the Oracle at Delphi supposedly tells King Pyrrhus. But is Pyrrhus going to conquer the Romans, or they him? [34] Oracle, can we please pose a follow-up question? Yes and No? What do you mean, “Yes and no”? We want our donation back, thank you.

Still, we may want to note that the other two prophecies have a spookiness all their own. Suffolk’s fate is, “By water shall he die and take his end” (162, 1.4.32), and as for Somerset, “Let him shun castles / Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains / Than where castles mounted stand” (162, 1.4.34-36). Stay tuned, folks!

ACT 2

Act 2, Scene 1 (163-68, while Henry VI and his retinue are hawking, news comes of a common man’s miraculous cure at St. Albans; Gloucester exposes the man and his wife, and mocks them; Buckingham then announces the Duchess of Gloucester’s arrest.)

Act 2, Scene 1 opens with a somewhat comical slanging match among Gloucester and his opponents Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole. Margaret and Henry are at least trying to enjoy their hunting excursion, but the cardinal and Suffolk are intent on baiting Gloucester with hawking terms, as in Suffolk’s taunt that Humphrey “bears his thoughts above his falcon’s pitch [height]” (163, 2.1.12). [35] The cardinal, for his part, chimes in with “Thy heaven is on earth: thine eyes and thoughts / Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart …” (163-64, 2.1.19-20). King Henry’s mild reproaches do nothing to still the rancor of the great lords surrounding him.

Just then news comes of a miracle that has supposedly been accomplished in St. Albans. The claim is that “a blind man at Saint Alban’s shrine / Within this half hour hath received his sight— / A man that ne’er saw in his life before” (165, 2.1.60-62). Pious Henry’s responds credulously, “Now God be praised, that to believing souls / Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!” (165, 2.1.63-64)

The allegedly ex-blind fellow is named Simpcox, and he is being treated like the man of the hour, along with his triumphant wife. Henry’s questions only enhance our sense that he is naïve since he misses the bawdy implications of what is said by Simpcox, his wife, and Suffolk. Leave it to Duke Humphrey to unmask this husband-and-wife duo of fakers for what they are. He gets Simpcox to identify the color of his (Gloucester’s) cloak as “red as blood” (166, 2.1.109). A man who had suffered from total blindness all his life would be unable to distinguish colors.

Gloucester has one last ordeal for Simpcox, and it’s a harsh one, considering that these people are merely conniving beggars, not rich, corrupt lords of the type Gloucester himself must deal with constantly. In any event, he commands the apparently lame not-blind man to jump over a stool and run away, lest he be whipped. Simpcox protests, but at the moment of truth, he leaps and runs away, and the townspeople cry in mockery, “A miracle!” and go their ways. Hard-edged Queen Margaret is amused, but Henry still sounds like a royal sap, intoning, “O God, seest thou this and bearest so long?” (167, 2.1.149)

Buckingham now breaks in with news that Duchess Eleanor and her witchy confederates have been made safe, shut up in prison to await trial. Buckingham calls Eleanor “The ringleader and head of all this rout …” (167, 2.1.164). Cardinal Beaufort jeers at Gloucester the protector, reminding him that they had agreed to calendar a duel between themselves, but now that’s probably a non-starter. Crestfallen, Gloucester agrees that he has no heart for such hijinks.

Margaret warns Duke Humphrey, “look thyself be faultless, thou wert best” (168, 2.1.183), and he replies that if, indeed, his wife has done what she’s accused of, so be it: “I banish her my bed and company / And give her as a prey to law and shame / That hath dishonored Gloucester’s honest name” (168, 2.1.191-93). That is scarcely heroic, but it’s understandable. As for King Henry, his assertion that justice will prevail sounds useless. As Shakespeare and his possible collaborators portray him, this king is the kind of man whom Machiavelli says can’t win: surrounded by rogues, he still tries to be unfailingly good. [36]

Act 2, Scene 2 (168-70, the Duke of York convinces Salisbury and Warwick that his claim to the throne is strongest.)

It’s time for the Duke of York to justify his claim to the throne in the presence of the powerful noblemen Salisbury and his son Warwick, both of whom are members of the northern English Neville family that York long ago married into—his wife since 1429 is Cecily Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 1^st Earl of Westmorland and Joan Beaufort. York lists the seven sons of king Edward III, five of whom survived to adulthood. [37] The latter are in order of seniority:

1. Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376).
2. Lionel, Duke of Clarence (1338-1368).
3. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340-1399).
4. Edmund Langley, Duke of York (1341-1402).
5. Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (1355-1397).

York reminds his hearers of recent royal history: Richard II inherited the right to the crown from his father the Black Prince, who predeceased him; Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt’s son and heir to the title “Duke of Lancaster,” deposed and murdered Richard II to rule as Henry IV.

As York explains, when Richard II died, the throne should have gone to the issue of Edward III’s next surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence. Lionel’s daughter Philippa of Clarence (1355-82) married Edmund Mortimer, 3^rd Earl of March (1352-81). He, in turn, had a son, Roger Mortimer, 4^th Earl of March (1374-98), who in his turn had three children: Edmund (5^th Earl of March, 1391-1425), Anne (1388-1411), and Eleanor (1395-1422). Anne Mortimer was York’s mother, and her husband was Richard, Earl of Cambridge, son of Edmund Langley, Duke of York. It is mainly through his mother Anne (née Mortimer), then, that York claims the throne. [38]

This history lesson is sufficient for York’s kinsmen by marriage to accept his claim to power. In an act that constitutes de facto treason since Henry VI is still on the throne, Salisbury and Warwick kneel down and say in unison, “Long live our sovereign / Richard, England’s king” (169, 2.2.63-64).

York, however, reminds them that while he appreciates their fervor, becoming king is not so easy as to declare oneself such: “I am not your king / Till I be crowned and that my sword be stained / With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster” (169, 2.2.64-66). He knows that this treason must come to violence, and he knows, too, that it must be preceded by “advice and silent secrecy” (169, 2.2.68). The supposedly righteous conspirators must, he says, pretend not to bristle at Suffolk’s “insolence,” Beaufort’s “pride,” Somerset’s “ambition,” and Buckingham generally. At least, they must not betray their fury at these men until they have served their purpose as useful idiots and “snared the shepherd of the flock,” who is “the good Duke Humphrey” (169, 2.2.70-71, 73-74).

York’s parting from Salisbury and Warwick sounds tight, but in truth it is ominous: Warwick says he is sure that he will “one day make the Duke of York a king,” and York says he is sure that he will “live to make the Earl of Warwick / The greatest man in England but the King” (170, 2.2.78-79, 81-82). In a sense, Warwick is correct—not Richard himself, but his son, Edward, will be “Duke of York” for a couple of months before he assumes power as King Edward IV.

In turn, if we interpret the expression “Richard shall live to make” in the sense of “However brief or long Richard’s life may be, he will live only for the purpose of making” [Warwick extremely important], that, too, is arguably true, though not in a happy way.

One last comment on this second scene in Act 2: Warwick’s psyche as a future “kingmaker,” we may assume—if, for interest’s sake—we are amenable to putting a medieval aristocrat on the analyst’s couch, must be as twisted as that of the anti-Yorkist playwright’s York or his son, the future Richard III. To hail oneself, as Warwick does repeatedly and with fulsome pride, as the power behind another’s throne would seem to flow from a sense of inadequacy that can never be made whole, but only furiously worse, by the sole action available, which is to remove a king one has installed and place yet another one in power.

By the way, if Warwick thinks that making a man king establishes a relationship of mutual obligation, he is mistaken. Competing for a fully operational crown is one of those areas of life wherein, truly, “No good deed goes unpunished,” and some degree of the inevitable sociopathy of power wards off kings, queens, and other key players in the royal game from upholding such otherwise common and beneficial traits as loyalty and good faith. [39]

Act 2, Scene 3 (170-72, King Henry VI sentences Duchess Eleanor to do public penance in the streets of London and then live in castle-exile; he removes her husband, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, from the protectorship; York’s armorer is killed by his servant-accuser Peter Thump in a trial by single combat, so everyone considers the armorer guilty.)

Act 2, Scene 3 is a time of reckoning for people not otherwise connected: Duchess Eleanor and her co-conspirators and Thomas Horner the Duke of York’s armorer. As for the duchess, she receives a sentence of three days of public penance and then permanent exile to a series of castles, one of them on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. [40] Thus, she will be exposed to the cruel jeering of the crowd in London’s streets, and then removed from the life she had known to live in unfamiliar (if not exactly impoverished) surroundings. Gloucester is disconsolate, but realizes he can do nothing to mitigate his wife’s punishment.

Neither can Gloucester hang on to the protector’s position that the playwright has somewhat ahistorically kept going for him many years after, historically speaking, he yielded it. But now, Henry demands Gloucester’s resignation as protector, and receives it on the spot, along with the relevant staff of office. Margaret can’t restrain herself from rubbing some salt in the wound, saying, “I see no reason why a king of years / Should be to be protected like a child. / God and King Henry govern England’s realm!” (170-71, 2.3.28-30) Or perhaps, “God and Queen Margaret.” That sounds more plausible.

As soon as the royals and the nobility have settled their matter, it’s time for the parodic yet still lethal death-match between Thomas Horner, the Duke of York’s armorer, and Horner’s accuser and servant Peter Thump. The two men’s respective supporters ply them with liquid courage, and in what sounds like a devastating first-round knockout, Peter Thump strikes down his master, Horner, which he never seems to have believed he could actually do. Honest in death, Horner blurts out, “Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason” (172, 2.3.89). As usual, Henry VI’s pious references to God’s will and justice come across as awkward and unflattering (172, 2.3.93-98).

Act 2, Scene 4 (172-75, Gloucester beholds Duchess Eleanor’s public shaming in London’s streets as she reproaches him and makes her way towards permanent exile; then, to his surprise, he is ordered to appear in Parliament.)

Gloucester is deeply saddened at the sight of Duchess Eleanor, who continues on the journey of public penance laid upon her by King Henry VI. The class dimension involved here makes everything much worse since many low-born people have come out to enjoy the duchess’s humiliation. This is basically the London public of Shakespeare’s own time, which was never known for tender sensibilities. It’s hard to imagine that the medieval public would have been any more refined or benevolent.

Eleanor’s words at times seem reproachful of her husband, as when she observes, “Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!” (173, 2.4.21) and complains bitterly that with all his power and influence, he does nothing to help her: “he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess, / Was made a wonder and a pointing stock / To every idle rascal follower” (173, 2.4.46-48).

The duchess warns Gloucester, too, that the enemies who brought her down will bring him down as well. His response to this admonition is worrisome in its naiveté: “I must offend before I be attainted; / And had I twenty times so many foes, / … All these could not procure me any scathe / So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless” (173-74, 2.4.60-64).

What the duke says simply isn’t true. In the environment within which he is trying to survive, an empty accusation, if sufficiently vituperative and repeated often enough, will do as well as one that’s full of truth.

In the England of medieval and early modern times—and in truth in practically any time or place (such is human nature)—it is a terrible and potentially lethal idea to assume that there’s anything your enemy will not do, or that there is any law or bond of faith he or she will not break, if the reward is significant enough. So Duke Humphrey is failing the lamentably required course titled, “Machiavelli 101.” Laws will not protect you if liars and knaves are in charge of upholding them—that’s as true today as it was in the Middle Ages.

No sooner does Gloucester try to reassure his humiliated wife that he will be fine than a herald shows up and speaks the words, “I summon your grace to his majesty’s parliament, / holden at Bury the first of this next month” (174, 2.4.71-72). When her husband departs, the duchess accuses herself of materialism, saying, “I wished this world’s eternity” (174, 2.4.91). In other words, she has lived her life impiously as a hedonist, and sought to live on earth as in a paradise. But her keeper, Sir John Stanley, offers her some comfort when he tells he that in her exile, she will be treated “Like to a duchess and Duke Humphrey’s lady” (174, 2.4.99).

The duchess’s final thoughts in this scene are penitential, as she says to Stanley, “Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison” (175, 2.4.111). In taking this attitude, the duchess seems characteristic of many of Shakespeare’s most humiliated or defeated characters. There are some who—to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas—“rage against the dying of the light” [41] —but many seem to be trying to make their thoughts and, as we would say, their “egos,” sort with their newly straitened existences.

This project of acclimation and penitence sometimes calls for embracing material pain and discomfort as well as the psychological injury of humiliation. The memento mori images and the monkish flagellants of the Religion of Sorrow, it seems, were never far from medieval and early modern consciousness.

ACT 3

Act 3, Scene 1 (175-83, in Parliament, Margaret, Suffolk, and others accuse Gloucester of harboring designs on the throne; King Henry doesn’t believe the charge, but still lets Suffolk and Cardinal Beaufort detain Gloucester for trial; Margaret, the Cardinal, Suffolk, and York plot to kill Gloucester, and Suffolk and the Cardinal say they will do the deed; news arrives concerning an Irish uprising, and York, happy with the troops granted to him, agrees to take care of the Irish problem.)

In Act 3, Scene 1, King Henry, Margaret, the Cardinal, Suffolk, York, Buckingham, Salisbury, and Warwick arrive at parliament, and the queen immediately claims that Gloucester has grown distant of late. No doubt, she suggests, he harbors dark designs on the crown: she reminds Henry, “should you fall, he is the next will mount” (175, 3.1.22). Suffolk professes to believe that Humphrey himself set on his “bedlam brain-sick Duchess” to her treasonous witchcraft (176, 3.1.51). What’s more, he says implausibly, Gloucester’s very silence damns him: “in his simple show he harbors treason. / The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb” (176, 3.1.54-55).

King Henry is as mild and trusting as ever, but he appears to see through this flimflammery on the part of his supposed well-wishers, and declares, “Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent / From meaning treason to our royal person / As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove” (176, 3.1.69-71).

Soon, Somerset arrives with terrible news: England has lost all of its possessions in France. In an aside, York feels this loss as his own, for he considers the French crown, like the English, his own. It’s well and good if Henry says only, “God’s will be / done” (176, 3.1.86), but that is not York’s reaction, and he is determined to recover French lands that he considers his own.

Gloucester finally enters, and professes to be nonplussed by the charge of “high treason” that Suffolk hurls at him (177, 3.1.97). “Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?” he asks, as if confident that no one will dare try to make good on Suffolk’s accusation (177, 3.1.103).

This conviction seems naïve of Humphrey, a man envied and surrounded by those who hate him. York, who must be aware of the lamentable truth that when it comes to charges of serious wrongdoing, to be accused is almost as bad as to be already found guilty, fills in the two-fold charges: the first is that Gloucester “took bribes of France” and then failed to pay his own troops (177, 3.1.104), thereby causing England’s military losses. The second claim has to do with the Duke’s administration of justice: York says that he “did devise / Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of, / That England was defamed by tyranny” (177, 3.1.121-23). [42]

Gloucester brushes both of these charges aside, claiming he never stole the smallest denomination coin, or visited undeserved and excessive punishments on anyone, even if he admits to being quite harsh with those whom he considers guilty enough to deserve such treatment. [43] Suffolk sidesteps these attempts at self-defense, insisting that Humphrey is guilty of “mightier crimes” still that he cannot hope to get free from (177, 3.1.134). Henry apparently considers it requisite to detain Gloucester on the demand of Suffolk, even though he still considers his uncle innocent.

Human evil always seems to strike Shakespeare’s Henry VI with amazement, as here, where he apparently feels powerless to do anything to help Gloucester. Henry marvels to his now-absent kinsman “That these great lords and Margaret our queen / Do seek subversion of thy harmless life” (179, 3.1.207-08). If there’s one quality that any leader can’t afford, it’s naiveté, and Henry possesses a most un-proto-Machiavellian abundance of it. You can’t manage human nature if you’re constantly shocked by the evil things that human beings are capable of doing.

Margaret, Cardinal Beaufort, Suffolk, and York remain behind to hash out how to bring about the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. They soon abandon all thoughts of deep policy, and light upon the course first announced by Suffolk: “Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety, / Sleeping or waking, ‘tis no matter how, / So he be dead …” (180, 3.1.262-64). Cardinal Beaufort agrees, and says he will “provide his executioner” (180, 3.1.276). To this offer, Suffolk, Margaret, and York add their voices, though the latter omits the cardinal when he counts the conspirators, saying, “And now we three have spoke it, / It skills not greatly who impugns our doom” (180, 3.1.280-81).

True, they three have spoken, but so did the cardinal. But no matter—a messenger arrives with news that the Irish rebels have slaughtered a good number of Englishmen, and pleads for help. York snidely says they should send Somerset since he has (not) been so successful in defending France. He directly blames Somerset for all the English losses there. [44] Cardinal Beaufort settles the bickering over France by ordering York to take the Irish mess upon himself.

No one is worried about consulting the king about such an important policy decision since, as Suffolk says, “our authority is his consent, / And what we do establish he confirms” (181, 3.1.316-17). There is no question who is really in charge here, and it isn’t King Henry VI. So it’s settled, then: York will go put down the Irish rebellion, and Cardinal Beaufort will do for Gloucester, once and for all.

York, alone, now provides us with wonderful insight into his true nature, and at least with regard to Shakespeare’s or his collaborators’ representation of him and (in the present play and in Richard III) his youngest son, it’s easy to see from whence the latter gets both his wiliness and his audacity. York begins, “Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts, / And change misdoubt to resolution. / Be that thou hop’st to be, or what thou art / Resign to death …” (182, 3.1.331-34).

This is the kind of ambition that the Victorian poet Robert Browning hints at when he makes the title character in “Andrea del Sarto,” his poem about a sociopathic, murderous artist, say about his too-perfect paintings, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?” Unlike, Andrea, York (even though he’s ultimately a failure at the business of “grasping” the crown) is hardly deficient in his desire to reach for it.

York is capable of strategic thought, too—what others might see as a trap, he receives as a blessing. So he’s to be sent to Ireland? Good! As he says, “’Twas men I lacked, and you will give them me …” (182, 3.1.345). To enhance his power, he will encourage one John Cade of Ashford in Kent [45] —we know him as the infamous “Jack Cade” who purports to be a Mortimer heir to the throne—as a touchstone by which he may delineate his own chances of taking the crown. [46]

If Jack Cade is captured and tortured, says York, the rebel still won’t be able to blame him for any uprising, but, York continues, “Say that he thrive, as ‘tis great like he will, / Why, then, from Ireland come I with my strength / And reap the harvest which that rascal sowed” (183, 3.1.379-81). Whatever the real York was like, our playwright’s “York” is a supremely opportunistic, wily predator when it comes to seeking royal status.

Act 3, Scene 2 (183-92, King Henry, informed that Gloucester has been murdered, passes out, and the commonfolk call for Suffolk’s exile; Henry is constrained to give them what they want; word comes that Cardinal Beaufort is near death.)

Suffolk checks in with the men he has hired to murder Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and they assure him that they have done the deed. The deceitful lord returns to King Henry’s presence, just as the duke’s trial is about to begin, and feigns shock at the news he must report: namely, that the great man is “Dead in his bed …” (183, 3.2.29). Henry faints, and when he comes to, he berates Suffolk, the bearer of this terrible news. Without missing a beat, Queen Margaret, like a true sociopath, manages to turn herself into the victim rather than Gloucester.

It seems that Margaret is offended by Henry’s blubbering about his dead uncle, even as he fails to show any regard for her plight. She reproaches the king with the pathetic complaint that everyone will blame her for Gloucester’s suspiciously convenient death: “So shall my name with slander’s tongue be wounded, / And prince’s courts be filled with my reproach” (184, 3.2.68-69). This is followed by an excruciatingly long piece of self-adulation.

Soon, Warwick bursts into the room, followed by Salisbury and a number of common people, all of whom believe that Suffolk and Cardinal Beaufort are responsible for Gloucester’s death. Warwick displays the body of the duke, and points out several marks of strangulation: the man’s face is “black and full of blood,” his eyes bulge unnaturally, and so forth (187, 3.2.168ff). Warwick works up the nerve to accuse Suffolk, and asserts that they are, indeed, the likeliest suspects since Gloucester was in their care, and they were his enemies.

This accusation on Warwick’s part earns him a quarrel with Suffolk and an argument with Queen Margaret, and just when it seems as if things will come to violence between the two men, Salisbury arrives and reports that the common people, uttering menacing words against Suffolk, insist on separating that lord from the King, whom they profess to hold blameless for Gloucester’s murder. Whether Henry likes it or not, they say, they will protect him from this devious and violent man. The king promises the people through Salisbury that he will, in fact, banish Suffolk after three days—he declares that he has come to distrust him greatly.

Margaret is inconsolable at this turn of events, but the queen being who she is, her despair only makes her tongue sharper in her pronouncements to Suffolk. She accuses him of effeminacy and of cowardice in not cursing his enemies as strongly as she would, but then when he curses them, she reproaches him for that, too. Still, the two speak as a true romantic couple, with asseverations of faith and expressions of deep love. Suffolk is no John Donne, but he does not disappoint, saying, “where thou art, / there is the world itself, / With every several pleasure in the world, / And where thou art not, desolation” (191, 3.2.364-66).

Vaux [47] steps in and tells Margaret that Cardinal Beaufort is dying, and raving as he does so: he is “Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth” (191, 3.2.374). He is also afflicted with visions of Duke Humphrey’s ghost, and Vaux is tasked with informing the king of this latest event.

At their parting, Suffolk begs Queen Margaret to let him stay with her and fall victim to Henry’s sentence for violating his terms of banishment, but she refuses, and promises to maintain contact with him through messengers. Since Margaret as yet has no children by Henry VI, [48] her reference to a messenger as an “Iris” may be of interest (192, 3.2.409). As the Norton editor points out in a footnote, Iris was one of the Greek gods’ messengers, and she was associated with Hera, goddess of childbirth and female interests more generally. Might Margaret’s reference be a way of envisioning her future not with Henry VI, but rather with Suffolk?

Act 3, Scene 3 (192-93, to King Henry’s distress, Cardinal Beaufort dies in guilt-ridden agony and great physical pain.)

Cardinal Beaufort lies in his bed, in the full agony of his illness and of the guilt he bears for Gloucester’s death, calling out, “Oh, torture me no more: I will confess” (192, 3.3.11). King Henry prays for the soul of the wretched sinner, but realizes that his prayers are probably in vain: when the king tells the cardinal, “Hold up thy hand; make signal of thy hope” (193, 3.3.28), the cardinal merely expires, making no sign. [49] Even the charitable Henry can’t work up much of a defense of the now dead man, and the third scene is concluded with the king’s call to prayer.

ACT 4

Act 4, Scene 1 (193-96, as he tries to set sail across the Channel towards exile in France, Suffolk is captured by the crew of a ship called the Nicholas of the Tower, denounced for his alleged crimes, and beheaded.)

Banished Suffolk must now make his way from England into French exile, but it is not to be. As he begins his journey, he is captured by a ship belonging to the Constable of the Tower. The ship itself is named the Nicholas of the Tower, [50] and its lieutenant speaks in a Marlovian style, with such audacious phrasing as, “The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day / Is crept into the bosom of the sea, / And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades / That drag the tragic melancholy night …” (193, 4.1.1-4).

The Norton editor explains that by “jades,” the playwright refers to “the dragons of Hecate that … drew Night’s chariot.” [51] Who but Marlowe (or a fellow playwright trying out his style) would import such an offbeat classical frame of reference into a scene like the present one? A couple of gentlemen captured along with Suffolk are induced to pledge their ransoms to the master and mate, a course that Walter Whitmore begrudges but does not counteract.

However, Whitmore, whose first name, as the Norton editor informs us, would have been pronounced “Water” rather than the modern “Walter,” is even less tractable when it comes to his own prisoner, the Duke of Suffolk. Walter says that he lost an eye in capturing the ship, and for that, Suffolk must pay with his life.

The banished duke admits that Water/Walter’s name frightens him due to a prophecy about the manner of his death. We may recall that in Act 1, Scene 4 of the present play, the spirit raised by the Duchess of Gloucester’s confederates, when asked about Suffolk’s end, had uttered the words, “By water shall he die and take his end.” [52] This admission does nothing to slake Whitmore’s desire for revenge, and the lieutenant joins in and sasses the now-doomed Suffolk, which elicits from the condemned man a stream of insults and curses against this officer who, says the duke, once served as his lowly groom.

Suffolk’s angry words accomplish nothing, and the lieutenant orders that he be conveyed into the ship’s “longboat” (a large lifeboat or utility boat) and there beheaded. Suffolk is given a quick trial of sorts, [53] which in the present play simply amounts to being slapped with all of his supposed offenses against the realm: his corruption; his adultery with Margaret; his murder of Duke Humphrey; his arrangement of Margaret’s marriage to Henry; and his vending of Anjou and Maine to the French (195, 4.1.73-90 inclusive). The lieutenant praises Warrick’s rebellious actions and the Yorkists’ desire to take the throne from the usurping Lancastrians. He also praises Jack Cade’s rebellion, which he rightly sees as connected to York’s intentions.

After this recitation, the duke continues railing in the most class-saturated way against the lieutenant and his crewmen, and ends by calling the lot of them “pirates” (196, 4.1.139). Suffolk is led away to his execution, and the lieutenant decides to let one of the nameless “gentlemen” depart, whereupon, presumably, he will faithfully tender his ransom when he obtains the funds. The other gentleman is to remain with the ship.

When Suffolk’s trunk and detached head are brought back, Whitmore says callously, “There let his head and lifeless body lie / Until the Queen his mistress bury it” (196, 4.2.143-44). The first gentleman, who is to be set free, declares to himself and us that he will take up the head and body of the executed duke and bring it to King Henry for burial. He expects that revenge will be taken against the men who have killed the duke.

Act 4, Scene 2 (196-200, Jack Cade’s rebels trade humorous comments and then join up with their leader, who stresses his alleged standing as a Mortimer and promises that his reign will establish an English utopia; Cade and his subordinates condemn a clerk to hang for being literate; Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother challenge Cade’s invented genealogy and invite his men to reverse course and fight for King Henry; the Stafford brothers depart.)

Jack Cade’s blend of fanciful genealogy and military menace now come to the fore. He is ready—or so he thinks—to take the crown from Henry VI in the name of the Mortimer line. [54] The relevant scene opens with a couple of his rebels exchanging funny observations about their leader and the English conception of class status. The first rebel refers to their need for swords, even if “made of a / lath” (196, 4.2.1-2). The word “lath” refers to a mock-weapon made of plaster and bandied around by the “Vice” character in morality plays, as the Norton editor informs us, so there’s a hint of parody here at the expense of Jack Cade’s rag-tag soldiers.

Playing with a sartorial metaphor, both rebels air their hopes for a genuine reformation of English life and politics. The first rebel says that “Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it” (197, 4.2.4-6). In other words, as the Norton footnote suggests, he will retailor the social and political fabric and bring about a renewal of English life.

More bantering follows, and then Jack Cade arrives, no doubt hoping to overawe his supporters with a regal entrance. If so, Jack’s hopes are quickly dashed since his arrival is undercut by his subordinates’ sarcastic comments, even if they’re tendered as asides. When Cade insists, “My father was a Mortimer…,” Dick the Butcher snickers to himself, “He was an honest man and a good brick- / layer” (197, 4.2.37-38). On it goes, just like that. As William Blake says in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “He who has suffered you to impose on him knows you.” [55]

Still, Jack manages to convey to his rather jaded supporters his utopian vision, which contains plenty of particulars but boils down to a few statements such as, “there shall be no money; all / shall eat and drink on my score …” (198, 4.2.67-68). Dick the Butcher and the Weaver have some practical suggestions to enhance this utopia. Dick’s is the famous notion, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” (198, 4.2.71). He opposes lawyers because, of course, as Jack Cade points out, their “parchment”-based antics have ruined many poor men, including (so he says) Jack himself. Sign a contract and your property—nay your very life—is never yours again.

As for the Weaver, his contribution is that they ought to hang “the clerk of Chartham” because “he can write and read and / cast account” (198, 4.2.78-79). Jack Cade agrees that those are grave offenses, and after a thorough two-minute-or-so trial, the guilty clerk is marched off to be hanged “with his pen and ink-horn about his neck” (199, 4.2.98-99). Well, we can’t say he didn’t have it coming, no? But seriously, the clerk’s command of literacy makes him seem dangerous to poor workingmen who fear this skill as a corollary of the propertied, moneyed, and titled classes who oppress them throughout their lives.

The irony is that Jack Cade is almost certainly nowhere near as naïve and ignorant as he makes himself out to be in front of his followers. We may recall that even here in the present play, he makes a pun on the Latin derivation of his own name, “Cade.” As the Norton editor points out, Jack’s line, “For our enemies shall fall before us” (197, 4.2.32) puts Jack in mind of the Latin verb cado/cadēre, to fall. [56]

When the Stafford brothers arrive to parley, Jack seems quite ready to make a “falling” example of them, as being no better than he. Making a mockery of the ceremony establishing knighthood, he kneels and bestows upon himself the title “Sir John Mortimer,” then rises, newly knighted (199, 4.2.108-10). As such, he’s ready to confront the Stafford brothers, come what may. These two men make quick work, however, of Cade’s false genealogy as a Mortimer heir to the throne, and the snarky asides uttered by his followers help the Staffords even more.

One exchange with Stafford’s brother makes it obvious that Jack Cade’s claims about his ancestry are shameless fabrications. When the brother says, “the Duke of York hath taught you this” (200, 4.2.141), Jack’s aside is, “He lies, for I invented it myself” (200, 4.2.142).

On the whole, some of this conscious knavery appears to be attributed by the playwright to Cade’s followers as well. It’s clear that they know many of the claims he makes are whole-cloth nonsense, but they don’t care so long as he leads them in a direction that appeals to them and that seems likely to better their lot.

It’s hard to miss the sadistic and jaded energy in this mob. Like Cade, they are not as naïve as they pretend to be. This need not completely undercut the justice of their demands, but Shakespeare (if the author of the current scene is Shakespeare, that is) never seems to have encountered a mob or mob leader whom he really liked, and Jack Cade is no exception. The playwright seems more comfortable suggesting by the often vicious traits and actions of his aristocrats what the suffering members of the medieval or early-modern mob were up against.

Act 4, Scene 3 (200-01, Jack Cade defeats and kills his Stafford opponents, and undertakes a march to London.)

Jack Cade praises Dick the Butcher with the apt exclamation, “They fell before thee like sheep and oxen …” (200, 4.3.3), and promises him perks in the way of slaughtering animals during Lent. Jack himself picks up Stafford’s sword as a “monument of the victory,” and declares that he will, like Achilles did to the slain Hector thrice around Troy’s walls, drag the Stafford brothers’ bodies behind his horse until he reaches London, to which city he now heads.

Act 4, Scene 4 (201-02, King Henry flees London and Queen Margaret grieves for Suffolk; Lord Saye—a man hated by Jack Cade’s rebels—plans to hide in London)

The scene opens with Queen Margaret, almost mad with grief, carrying around Suffolk’s severed head, and talking to herself. “But who can cease to weep and look on this?” she asks herself (201, 4.4.4). Meanwhile, King Henry is determined to meet with Jack Cade and try to end his rebellion in a peaceable way. He says, “God forbid so many simple souls / Should perish by the sword” (201, 4.4.9-10).

Henry notices Margaret’s strange behavior and says to her, “I fear me, love, if that I had been dead, / Thou wouldst not have mourned so much for me” (201, 4.4.22-23). But from this strange sight, the king does not draw quite the admonitory lesson that a wise ruler would.

When a messenger arrives to inform the party that Jack Cade’s rebels have reached the London suburb of Southwark, a moment of decision is reached. Lord Saye, whom the people hate, declines the king’s offer to accompany him since he fears that he will only endanger him. Saye will remain in London and try to hide from the rebel forces. Henry and his party will take Buckingham’s advice and go to the castle at Kenilworth. A second messenger arrives to announce that “Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge” (202, 4.4.48). Margaret, sidelined in her extreme grief, can only say to herself, “My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceased” (202, 4.4.55).

The high treasurer Lord Saye, of the dead Suffolk’s faction and hated by the people, ends the scene on a jarring note, professing that “The trust I have is in mine innocence, / And therefore am I bold and resolute” (202, 4.5.58). As we will see in Act 4, Scene 7, Cade will give Lord Saye a kangaroo-court trial and put him to death. [57]

Act 4, Scene 5 (202-03, London’s citizens beg Lord Scales, commander of troops at the Tower, for assistance; he sends them the experienced soldier Matthew Gough.)

The citizens of London are terrified at the successes of Jack Cade, and they beseech Lord Scales, commander of troops at the Tower, to come down and save them. But alas, Scales is hard pressed where he is, and can advise the people only, “get you to Smithfield and gather head, / And thither I will send you Matthew Gough” (203, 4.5.9-10). Gough, a valiant Welshman, was killed while trying to defend London Bridge from Cade’s rebels. [58]

Act 4, Scene 6 (203, Jack Cade and his rebels enter London.)

Jack Cade sounds positively delusional by now, flush with his progress into London, and declares grandly, “Now is Mortimer lord of this city,” and, even more absurdly, “I charge and command that … the Pissing Conduit run nothing but claret wine / this first year of our reign” (203, 4.6.1-4). When a soldier inadvertently calls him merely “Jack Cade,” the man is knocked down and killed on the spot. This messenger’s burden was that the foe had fielded an army in Smithfield—useful information, that. Cade now orders that London Bridge and, if possible, the Tower, should be burnt. He will go and fight the king’s forces.

Act 4, Scene 7 (203-06, Jack Cade defeats Matthew Gough and kills him; Lord Saye is also captured and put to death.)

In short order, brave Matthew Gough is killed by the rebel forces, and Lord Saye is hustled into an audience with Jack Cade. Just before this reckoning with Saye, Cade makes a couple of astonishingly radical declarations. The first is, “Burn all / the records of the realm; my mouth shall be the Parliament of England” (203, 4.7.11-13). The second is, “henceforward all things shall be in common” (203, 4.7.16). Jack would, then, combine the authoritarian strongman’s insistence on taking sole and supreme power to himself with the communist utopian injunction of property-in-common. All in all, he is suggesting (seriously or otherwise) that his goal is the total transformation of English society.

Cade continues his wild discourse as the scene develops, saying like a medieval Travis Bickle [59] to the hapless Lord Saye, “I am the besom that must sweep the court / clean of such filth as thou art” (204, 4.7.27-28). What does he think this aristocratic nemesis has done to deserve the appellation of “filth”? Well, for one thing, says Jack, Saye has put up a grammar school, and for another, he has (anachronistically) caused a paper mill to be built for the ghastly purpose of printing books.

Cade also accuses Saye of condemning suspected criminals because they are illiterate—in truth, that’s a fair point since “benefit of clergy” was indeed a ridiculous loophole allowing learned men to get away with murder and any number of offenses, while the poor and illiterate would be open to the full savagery of medieval English law. We should mention that while Lord Saye, as an establishment figure, probably supported this injustice, he certainly didn’t establish it—that happened under Henry II, in 1176. [60] But let’s not get too logical around Jack Cade—like a certain modern would-be absolutist, he professes to “love the poorly educated.”

Lord Saye’s putdown of Kentish citizens is more than enough to condemn him. He appeals to Julius Caesar’s portrait of ancient Kent as “the civil’st place of all this isle …” (204, 4.7.54). Clearly, however, Jack Cade and his eminently non-ancient followers are not acting in “good governance” mode. They’re out for riot and blood. Well, Lord Saye soon falls to mere pleading for his life, and it even has some effect on Jack, who, as he says, feels “remorse” thanks to Saye’s words. All the same, he decides inwardly, “He shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for his / life” (205, 4.7.96-98).

As the scene ends, Jack Cade’s depravity and delusions of grandeur are on full display. The despotic nature of his imagination is manifest when he declares, “The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his / shoulders unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a maid / be married but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they / have it …” (205-06, 4.7.109-12). Ironically, this modern medieval rebel’s imagination is not at all geared towards innovations in government—he looks back to absolute monarchism and lusts to enjoy the supposed aristocratic sexual tradition called “the ancient right of lords.” [61]

When the heads of Lord Saye and Sir James Cromer are brought back, Jack Cade vulgarly commands that they be made to appear to kiss. This obscene gesture should be repeated, he says, as the rebels make their way into London, presumably to terrify and titillate the population.

Act 4, Scene 8 (206-07, Lord Clifford and Buckingham convince Jack Cade’s rebels to again show allegiance to King Henry, and Cade, realizing his time is up, flees.)

Buckingham shows up in Smithfield and tells Jack Cade that he will offer “free pardon to them all / That will forsake thee and go home in peace” (206, 4.8.8-9). There follows a struggle between Clifford and Cade as orators in the service of their respective causes, with the people’s emotions being whipsawed back and forth between them. First it’s “God save the King!” and then it’s “We’ll follow Cade!” and finally, “We’ll follow the King and Clifford!” (206-07, 4.8.18, 31, and 51-52). In Shakespeare’s plays, where there’s a mob, it usually manages to embarrass itself (or us, at any rate) by its inconsistency and riotousness, and 2 Henry VI is no exception.

Bad as Jack Cade is, we may sympathize with him when he says about his disloyal ex-followers, “Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as / this multitude?” (207, 4.8.53-54) Not unwisely, he decides to hightail it away from Smithfield and leave his onetime army to the tender mercies of aristocratic promises. The behavior of the mob makes it clear that they do not seek justice so much as pleasure and plunder.

Act 4, Scene 9 (207-08, King Henry is elated at the destruction of Jack Cade’s rebellion; a messenger brings news of York’s approach with his Irish forces, supposedly demanding the arrest of Somerset on charges of treason; Buckingham is dispatched to inform York that Somerset will be confined in the Tower of London; Henry, sounding like a defeated man, resolves to “learn to govern better.”)

At Kenilworth Castle, King Henry, lamenting that “never subject longed to be a king / As I do long and wish to be a subject” (208, 4.9.5-6), is brought news that Jack Cade’s rabble of soldiers have sworn they will all follow the king now. Henry is joyful at this development, and tells the soldiers who come to him penitently “with halters on their necks” (stage direction, pg. 208) that he will show them all kindness and send them home in peace.

But then a messenger informs Henry that York is back from Ireland with his Irish army, claiming to Henry that “His arms are only to remove from thee / The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor” (208, 4.9.29-30). Henry at last gets the idea that Jack Cade’s rebellion and York’s maneuverings are linked—a bit of dramatic irony being let go since, of course, that’s something we in the audience already understood. Henry agrees to send Somerset to the Tower of London for now, until York disbands his army.

As usual, Henry’s humility is not only impolitic but unsettling. He says to Queen Margaret and Buckingham, “Come, wife, let’s in, and learn to govern better; / For yet may England curse my wretched reign” (208, 4.9.47-48). The capacity for such honest, humble self-criticism ought to be a strength, but in a corrupt and violent system like the one in which Henry finds himself trapped, it obviously isn’t. Alas! A double-scoop of “Dunning-Kruger” [62] would be more beneficial than good Henry’s searing self-examinations, which only paralyze his will to do what’s necessary.

Act 4, Scene 10 (209-10, Jack Cade, now starving and foraging for food in a private garden, is killed in a fight with the property’s owner, Alexander Iden of Kent; Iden says that he will bring Cade’s severed head to King Henry.)

Jack Cade has stumbled into the Kentish garden of one Alexander Iden, and things do not go well for him in his attempt to find something to eat. [63] When the two meet, Cade can’t get over his need to be treated with deference, and Iden is insulted that this trespasser speaks to him so disrespectfully: he demands of Alexander and his several companions, “thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?” (209, 4.10.33)

The two men finally come to blows, and soon Jack Cade is no more. Iden only learns who he has killed at the very end of the battle, and asks, “Is’t Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?” (210, 5.1.61) Henceforth, says this gentleman, his bloodied sword will be a monument for this special deed. Cade says with his dying breath that he has been “vanquished / by famine, not by valor” (210, 4.10.69-70). He does not, that is, see himself as having failed by any faults or misdeeds of his own. Iden plans to cut Jack’s head off and bring it to the king.

There is some irony in “Iden” being the name of Jack Cade’s killer—the word would probably have sounded very similar to “Eden,” so that this utopian dreamer and rascal wandered into “the Garden of Iden” and there met his death. As the saying runs, “You can’t go home.”

ACT 5

Act 5, Scene 1 (210-15, Buckingham satisfies York, or so it seems; King Henry rewards Alexander Iden for the killing of Jack Cade; York, when he sees that Somerset has been set free, stakes his claim to the throne, and his forces openly oppose King Henry’s.)

As the scene opens, we hear a brief soliloquy in which York, full of himself, exclaims, “This hand was made to handle naught but gold” (210, 5.1.7). In comes Humphrey Stafford, 1^st Duke of Buckingham, to demand on the king’s behalf why York has come so near to Henry’s court in peacetime. York’s dissembling answer is, “to remove proud Somerset from the King …” (211, 5.1.36). Buckingham implies rather deviously that “The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower” (211, 5.1.41).

York is satisfied that Somerset is about to be executed, but we notice that is not what Buckingham has promised. His statement was simply declarative. At the moment, Somerset is in the Tower, but tomorrow, perhaps he won’t be there. York, gullibly, dismisses his troops, and even offers his sons as pledges of his own good faith. For all his proto-Machiavellian airs, the Duke of York has allowed himself to be played.

Just then, in walks Alexander Iden with the head of Jack Cade, and King Henry is delighted to find that his enemy is dead. He at once knights Iden and orders that he be paid the substantial reward of a thousand marks. Iden will also attend upon the king from now on.

Then comes another surprise entrance, this time by Queen Margaret and Somerset. Things turn ugly, as York is astonished to see the duke walking about freely, and promptly insults King Henry, saying that he is “Not fit to govern and rule multitudes …” (213, 5.1.94). Somerset declares the arrest of York for treason, and demands that he kneel in obeisance. York calls in his sons to serve as his bail, and of course Edward and Richard offer to do so. But York is disappointed in old Clifford, from whom he had expected support, only to have him deny provision of bail and say, “He is a traitor; let him to the Tower …” (213, 5.1.134).

More revelations of loyalty follow, when Warwick and his father Salisbury declare their fealty to York, to Henry’s discomfiture. He asks Salisbury, “Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war, / And shame thine honorable age with blood?” (214, 5.1.169-70) Salisbury has indeed sworn to serve the king, but now he insists, “It is great sin to swear unto a sin, / But greater sin to keep a sinful oath” (214, 5.1.182-83).

The king tells Buckingham to arm for battle, and Warwick and Clifford promise to square off against each other. Young Clifford is eager to get into the fighting, and so is Richard, who tells Clifford, “you shall sup with Jesu Christ tonight,” only to be insulted as a “Foul stigmatic” (215, 5.1.214-15). As the Norton editor explains, the word “stigmatic” refers to one’s being branded as a criminal: Richard’s “brand” is his deformed body.

Act 5, Scene 2 (215-17, York slays Clifford, and York’s son Richard—the future Richard III—kills Somerset; once he has lost the battle, King Henry sets out for safety in London.)

Warwick and York have both been trying to kill the elder Clifford, and when the man shows up in both their presences, York tells Warwick to “seek thee out some other chase …” (215, 5.2.14). Clifford is his to vanquish, not Warwick’s.

The Norton editor points out that our present text, that of the 1623 Folio, represents a respectful fight scene between York and the elder Clifford. Contrasting this edition was the 1594 Quarto, which was reprinted in 1600 and 1619, with the last-mentioned comprising a two-play volume along with what we now call 3 Henry 6. The 1594 Quarto is titled The First part of the Contention betwixt the two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster, with the Death of the good Duke Humphrey. (Intro 144).

The 1594 Quarto, then, gives us an even more ominous version of events, with York saying to Clifford, “now my heart hath sworne immortall hate / To thee and all the house of Lancaster,” and Clifford returning, “neuer shall my heart be safe at rest, / Till I haue spoyld the hatefull house of Yorke” (3242.1ff). [64]

The 1623 Folio presentation has York admitting to Clifford, “With thy brave bearing should I be in love, / But that thou art so fast mine enemy” (216, 5.2.20-21), and Clifford saying to York, “Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem, / But that ‘tis shown ignobly and in treason” (216, 5.2.22-23). Whichever text we parse, York kills Clifford, and there’s an end of words between them.

The sight of the elder Clifford’s body now becomes for his son the foundation stone for Young Clifford’s monstrous slaying of the unarmed Yorkist youth Rutland in 3 Henry VI. Here in the second play, he says, “York not our old men spares; / No more will I their babes. Tears virginal / Shall be to me even as the dew to fire …” (216, 5.2.51-53). Perhaps it shouldn’t astonish us when the young man declares, “In cruelty will I seek out my fame” (217, 5.2.60). Somehow, though, even among so many jaded and violent scenes and gestures in the Henry VI and Richard III “minor” tetralogy, it does.

Young Clifford turns to Greek and Roman mythology to deepen our sense of his hatred for the House of York, saying that if he encounters a Yorkist child, he will chop it up “As wild Medea young Absyrtus did,” and when he picks up the body of his dead father, he does so “As did Aeneas old Anchises bear …” (216-17, 5.2.57-59 and 62-63). Medea, the legend goes (as noted by the Norton editor), murdered her brother and tossed parts of him overboard so that she might escape from her father’s pursuing ship when he stopped to gather up the pieces.

It is worth noting that in both classical allusions, there is a kind of irony or doom when we apply them to Young Clifford’s career: even though Medea’s death remains mysterious in the legendary accounts, the cost of her revenge and survival is tragic in its intensity and magnitude. As Young Clifford himself points out with respect to the Aeneas-Anchises reference, the prince’s father was still alive when he bore him away from the ruins of Troy.

Richard, York’s son, fights with Somerset, and kills him. Part of his triumph consists in recalling that a spirit summoned by the Duchess of Gloucester’s associates had (as the Norton editor reminds us, referring to 162, 1.4.34-36) warned him to stay away from castles. Who could have known that the spirit was pointing to a spot “underneath an alehouse’ paltry sign,” that alehouse being called “The Castle in St. Albans” (217, 5.2.67-68)?

As it becomes clear that what we call the First Battle of St. Albans in late May 1455 has been won by the Yorkist faction, Queen Margaret lashes out at King Henry for his fatalist question, “Can we outrun the heavens?” (217, 5.2.73) She asks him in return, “What are you made of? You’ll nor fight nor fly. / Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defense / To give the enemy way and to secure us / By what we can, which can no more but fly” (217, 5.2.74-77). Henry says nothing in response, and to end the scene, Young Clifford steps in to second Margaret’s counsel.

Act 5, Scene 3 (218, York and his victorious army head for London, where King Henry has gone.)

To everyone’s surprise, old Salisbury, aka Richard Neville, 5^th Earl of Salisbury, who once had supported the Lancastrian king but now is a strong Yorkist, has survived. Richard has just finished telling York that he assisted the frail Salisbury three times, no doubt preserving his life during the battle they have just won, when the old man shows up in the flesh. [65] Salisbury points out the problem with just about all ancient and medieval warfare victories: they are subject to quick reversal when, as the Norton editor says, the enemy resupplies and regroups, soon to hurl yet another army at yesterday’s, or last month’s, victors. [66]

York advises that his forces’ “safety” (218, 5.3.) is to pursue Henry VI’s defeated army to London, where, as he supposes, the king will call a “court of parliament” into session. [67] That eventuality, York is sure, must be prevented, lest the battlefield victory be turned by policy into a defeat. Warwick is in a celebratory mood, declaring, “St. Albans’ battle, won by famous York, / Shall be eternized in all age to come” (218, 5.3.30-31). Thanks in part to Shakespeare and to his collaborators in the writing of 2 Henry VI, Warwick’s prophecy turned out to be true: we still remember “First St. Albans.”

With that battle, what we know as the Wars of the Roses have begun in earnest. First St. Albans wasn’t the bloodiest of battles—in fact it was a small affair in purely military terms—but it was momentous in that King Henry VI was captured and York, who had been dismissed as lord protector a few months after the king recovered his wits late in 1454, would soon be at least briefly reinstalled as protector. The next full battle between the Yorkist and Lancastrian houses would take place at Blore Heath in late September 1459. [68]

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Histories + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93859-3.

Document Timestamp: 2/27/2026 5:36 PM

ENDNOTES

*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.

[1] Historically, that would be William de la Pole, 1^st Marquess and then, in 1448, 1^st Duke of Suffolk (1396-1450). See. Britannica.com’s article “William de la Pole, 1^st Duke of Suffolk.” See also Matt Lewis’s blog Jan. 23, 2014 entry “William de la Pole: the Most Despised Man in England” in Matt’s History Blog, and see Susan Abernathy’s essay, “The Death of William de la Pole.” The Freelance History Writer. Dec. 9, 2016. Articles accessed 2/21/2026.

[2] The proxy wedding took place on May 24, 1444. See “Margaret of Anjou” in warsoftheroses.com. See also the April 22, 2010 entry “A Happy Anniversary to Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou” by Susan Higginbotham of “History Refreshed.” Accessed 2/21/2026.

[3] Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1390-1447). Fourth and youngest son of Henry Bolingbroke and Mary de Bohun. He took part in the regency government of Henry VI, and feuded with his brother John, Duke of Bedford, with Cardinal Henry Beaufort, and with the Duke of Burgundy, an important but tenuous ally in France. His downward slide in royal influence began with an accusation of witchcraft against his second wife, Eleanor Cobham, in 1441. By 1447, Humphrey himself was accused of treason by powerful enemies such as the 1^st Duke of Suffolk, Cardinal Beaufort, and Queen Margaret. He died in custody not long after his arrest. See “Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester” at warsoftheroses.com and the 1907 biography Humphrey Duke of Gloucester by K. H. Vickers, M.A. at Gutenberg.org. Both texts accessed 2/22/2026.

[4] Maine is in northwestern France, bordered by Brittany to the west, Normandy to the north, and Anjou, the Plantagenet dynasty’s homeland, to the south.

[5] On the details of the Hundred Years’ War, see Medievalists.net, 100 Years’ War (Britannica), 100 Years’ War (World History Encyclopedia), and the 100 Years’ War Timeline. Accessed 2/22/2026.

[6] For the origins and significance of the House of Plantagenet, which began in France with Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou (1113-51) and Empress Matilda (1102-67, m. 1128-51), daughter of England’s King Henry I (1068-1135, r. 1100-35), see Britannica.com’s “House of Plantagenet” and World History Encyclopedia’s “The Plantagenets.”

[7][7] Historically, “the Cardinal” was Henry Beaufort (c. 1375-1447), a legitimized son of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. He was Bishop of Lincoln from 1398, Bishop of Winchester from 1404, and Cardinal from 1426. He also served three times as Lord Chancellor (first in 1403, thanks to Henry IV, then from 1413-17 and finally from 1424-26), and was part of the Regency government surrounding the young king Henry VI. The cardinal was an enemy of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. See Britannica.com’s “Henry Beaufort.” Accessed 2/22/2026. See also Matt Lewis’s 1/5/2016 entry, “The Fall of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester” on Matt’s History Blog. Accessed 2/25/2026.

[8] The order of English nobility proceeds as follows, starting with the highest ranking title below that of prince: duke/duchess, marquess/marchioness, earl/countess, viscount/viscountess, and baron/baroness. Hereditary peers are addressed as “Your Grace” (for dukes and duchesses) or “My Lord/Lady” (for those ranks aside from duke/duchess). Kings and queens are addressed as “Your Majesty,” while other senior royals are addressed as “Your Royal Highness.” After the initial addresses, the royals may be addressed as “Ma’am/Sir.” “Excellency” is a term applied to high-level officials, ministers, and others of importance. It is not used to address the nobility. See Debretts London 1769 and Candace Hern’s “Titles and Forms of Address” at Regency World. Accessed 2/22/2026.

[9] John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford (1389-1435). King Henry V’s younger brother, third son of Henry Bolingbroke and Mary de Bohun. He later became Regent of France for the young Henry VI. During his tenure, England began to lose its French territories. See warsoftheroses.com’s entry “John, Duke of Bedford.” Accessed 2/22/2026.

[10] The Earl of Salisbury (1400-60) was the father of Richard Neville, 16^th Earl of Warwick (1428-71), aka “the kingmaker.” On Salisbury, see warsoftheroses.com’s entry “Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury.”

[11] Normandy was, of course, vital as a connecting point between England and France at least from the time of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066. See thehistoryofengland.co.uk’s entry “The Normans—a Race Unbridled.” Accessed 2/22/2026.

[12] See Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: a Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare. Vols. 1-2 combined. New York: Wings Books, 1970. ISBN-10: 0517268256. The playwright may be conflating the present earl, Richard Neville the 16^th Earl of Warwick, with Richard Beauchamp, 13^th Earl of Warwick (1382-1439), who was instrumental in England’s fighting with France. Vol. 2, 579-80. As Asimov points out, Anjou was never actually in England’s possession. Vol 2, 577. On Beauchamp, see Britannica’s “Richard Beauchamp, 13^th Earl of Warwick,” and regarding Beauchamp and his wife Elizabeth Berkeley, see Jo Romero’s “Medieval Power Couple …” in lovebritishhistory.co.uk. On the 16^th Earl, see “Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (The ‘Kingmaker’)” in warsoftheroses.com. All accessed 2/25/2026.

[13] Richard Plantagenet (1411-1460), son of Richard of Conisburgh, 3^rd Earl of Cambridge (1385-1413, executed by Henry V for a treasonous plot) and grandson of Edmund Langley, 1^st Duke of York and Edward III’s fourth surviving son. He claimed the English throne through the male line as a descendant of Edmund Langley, and through the female line from his mother Anne Mortimer (1388-1411), daughter of Roger Mortimer, 4^th Earl of March (1374-98). Anne was the granddaughter of Edmund Mortimer, 3^rd Earl of March (1352-81) and Philippa, 5^th Countess of Ulster (1355-88). See warsoftheroses.com’s Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. Accessed 2/22/2026.

[14] Gloucester took a more aggressive stance than the Cardinal regarding the Hundred Years’ War, and they also fought with each other over power and policy during the years of Henry VI’s Regency Council. Again, see Matt Lewis’s 1/5/2016 entry, “The Fall of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester” on Matt’s History Blog. Accessed 2/25/2026.

[15] The “Duke of Somerset” in 2 Henry VI is Edmund Beaufort, 2^nd Duke of Somerset (c. 1406-55). Edmund, who inherited the title from his older brother John (Jr. 1404-44), was the fourth surviving son of John Beaufort, 1^st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410) and Margaret Holland (1385-1439). John, Edmund’s father, was the eldest legitimized son of Edward III’s third surviving son, John of Gaunt (1340-99), and thus he had a viable claim to the English throne, which put him in contention with Richard Plantagenet, 3^rd Duke of York, who through his mother Anne Mortimer was a descendant of Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, Edward III’s second surviving son. Edmund was also the cousin of Richard Plantagenet and of King Henry VI. During the Hundred Years’ War, in 1449-50 Edmund surrendered Rouen, and the war ended only a few years later with England having lost nearly all of its French holdings. See “Duke of Somerset” at shakespeareandhistory.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[16] In Act 1, Scene 5 of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth offers the clever but wicked counsel to her husband, “Look like th’innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t.” See Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 917-69. (926, 1.5.63-64). See also Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: a Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare. Vols. 1-2 combined. New York: Wings Books, 1970. ISBN-10: 0517268256. In Vol. 2, 615-16, Asimov eloquently summarizes the case for York’s longtime loyalty towards Henry VI—he was popular and had a number of opportunities to seize the throne, but he did not seize it. Asimov rightly points out that Richard Plantagenet only asserted his claim when he had no other choice, if he meant to save England from chaos. Queen Margaret’s hatred of him was implacable—she saw him as an existential threat to her continuance as queen, and her little son’s path to throne.

[17] On the legend of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, see warsoftheroses.com’s entry “White and Red Roses.” The playwright’s fictional scene in which Richard of York challenges Somerset has been aptly represented in Henry Payne’s painting “Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens.”

[18] As in previous notes, see Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: a Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare. Vols. 1-2 combined. New York: Wings Books, 1970. ISBN-10: 0517268256. Asimov points out that while the playwright’s representation of the feud between Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester and Queen Margaret makes sense dramatically, it is completely in error historically. The Duchess died four years before Margaret married King Henry. The two women never met, much less quarreled. Vol. 2, 586. See also Susan Higginbotham’s entry “Eleanor Cobham: The Duchess and Her Downfall” in her blog History Refreshed: New Perspectives on Old Times. Accessed 2/25/2026.

[19] Hawking was an important part of medieval and early-modern aristocratic life and status. Shakespeare incorporates references to this activity in many of his plays. See George Turberville’s 1611 Booke of Falconrie, at EEBO/U-Mich, “Falconry and Hawking” at internetshakespeare.uvic.ca, and “Elizabethan Hunting” at elizabethan-era.org.

[20] On Roger Bolingbroke, see partial copy of Robert Ralley’s article, “Stars, demons, and the body in fifteenth-century England.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences.” Sciencedirect.com. Accessed 2/26/2026.

[21] See Bacon, Sir Francis. “Of Truth” in “The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of Francis Ld. Verulam, Viscount of St. Albans. Gutenberg e-text. For the bible passage, see Luke 18:8: “I tell you he will avenge them quickly: but when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Geneva Bible, 1599. biblegateway.com. Both accessed 2/25/2026.

[22] Enclosure began to occur in Britain as early as the twelfth century. See Britannica.com’s “Enclosure.” See also ”A Short History of Enclosure in Britain” in thelandmagazine.org.uk and Simon Fairlie’s article “A Short History of Enclosure …” in hamptonthink.org. These two articles come at the topic from a progressive viewpoint. Accessed 2/22/2026.

[23] On the development of an English “bureaucracy,” see Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013 (repr.). ISBN-13: 978-1250037558. 117, 126, 201. See also “Bureaucrats: the Heroes of the Medieval Church.” July 2, 2021, Ecclesiastical History Society. Accessed 2/26/2026.

[24] See Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: a Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare. Vols. 1-2 combined. New York: Wings Books, 1970. ISBN-10: 0517268256. Asimov writes, “Anjou and Maine made up the hereditary dominions of Margaret’s father, René of Anjou, so he was only asking for his own” (576).

[25] York was appointed Lieutenant of France in May 1436, replacing Henry V’s brother John, Duke of Bedford. See “Richard Plantagenet, 3^rd Duke of York” at unofficialroyalty.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[26] On the matter of medieval military recruitment and conscription, see Sandra Alvarez’s essay, “The recruitment of armies in the early middle ages: what can we know?” De Re Militari Blog, June 30, 2014. Accessed 2/26/2026. Shakespeare offers an unsparing view of Sir John Falstaff’s lethally corrupt practices in this regard. Falstaff himself says, “I have misused the King’s press damnably. I have / got in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred / and odd pounds” (679, 4.2.11-13). Shakespeare, William. The History of Henry the Fourth. Aka The First Part of Henry the Fourth. In The Norton Shakespeare: Histories, 3rd ed. 629-95.

[27] See, for example, “Asnath.” Biblehub.com. Accessed 2/26/2026.

[28] Historically, Gloucester was only Henry’s official Lord Protector up to November 6, 1429. Moreover, Richard, Duke of York was in Ireland in 1441, so he was not actually present for the arrest of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester. See Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: a Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare. Vols. 1-2 combined. New York: Wings Books, 1970. ISBN-10: 0517268256. 589.

[29] See Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 917-69. 930, 2.1.33-35.

[30] Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. In The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems, 3rd ed. 397-448. Mainly, Ariel whips up St. Elmo’s fire to speed a feigned shipwreck; creates a banquet borrowed from The Aeneid and then makes it vanish before the aristocratic conspirator-guests can eat it; stages a masque of celestial spirits for the enjoyment of Miranda and Ferdinand; and generates hell-hounds to terrify and harass the base conspirators Caliban, Trinculo, and Stefano.

[31] See Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 917-69. 930, 2.1.42.

[32] See Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. Penguin Books, 1997. ISBN-13: 978-0140268867. The Greek phrasing of the lines in question run, ἦλθες ἔπειτα σὺ κεῖσε: κελευσέμεναι δέ σ᾽ ἔμελλε / δαίμων, ὃς Τρώεσσιν ἐβούλετο κῦδος ὀρέξαι …” (4.274-75). A plain translation would be, “Then you came to that place, and it must be that you were commanded by some god who planned to bestow glory on the Trojans ….” This is an eerie moment in Homer’s narrative since Helen tells us that even before this, she had already come to regret her stay in Troy. See the Perseus Project’s Greek edition of Homer’s Odyssey. Book 4.274-75. Accessed 2/26/2026.

[33] See Henry VI, Part 2. (Folio 1, 1623). Internet Shakespeare editions. Accessed 2/26/2026.

[34] See Cicero’s “On Divination.” The vagueness in the prophecy is that the address called for by the word “Aio” (I say) could refer to the accusative singular pronoun te (which is omitted from the Norton text but should be understood; Aeacida is the vocative singular of Aeacides, as in “O Pyrrhus of Epirus, descendant of Aeacus”) or to the accusative plural of the proper noun Romanos. Literally, “I say you” or “I say the Romans,” with the rest of the construction, vincere posse, meaning “to be able to conquer.” Vincere would also be followed by a noun in the accusative case: to conquer you or the Romans. In De Divinatione (2.116), Cicero uses this verse from Ennius as an example of a vague prophecy.

[35] Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 917-69. Macbeth’s hawking metaphor is striking: “Come, seeling night, / Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, / And with thy bloody and invisible hand / Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond / Which keeps me pale!” (942, 3.2.45-49).

[36] Machiavelli writes in The Prince (Il principe) Ch. XV (wr. 1513/pub. 1532) that a prince who tries to do only good when he or she is surrounded by wickedness will come to ruin. The original Italian text runs, “… uno uomo, che voglia fare in tutte le parte li professione di buono, conviene rovini infra tanti che non sono buoni. Onde è necessario a uno principe, volendosi mantenere, imparare a potere essere non buono, et usarlo e non usare secondo la necessità.” In colloquial English (commenter’s translation), the text reads, “a man who wants to act always in a way that matches his declarations of virtue must come to ruin among so many people who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary that a prince who wants to remain in power should learn to be capable of not being good, and to use that capability (or not use it) as needed.” In Il principe, G. C. Sansoni, Firense 1913. Internet Archive. Accessed 2/26/2026.

[37] Some confusion may arise here if one counts the sons who did not survive to adulthood. If that is done, Lionel becomes the “third” son, Gaunt becomes the “fourth” son, Langley the “fifth,” and Gloucester the “sixth.” That is indeed how Warwick counts Edward III’s sons, as he sums up York’s argument by saying, “Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt, / The fourth son; York claims it from the third [Lionel]” (169, 2.2.54-55).

[38] As the Norton editor points out in footnote 2 to 169, 2.2.36, Shakespeare conflates Edmund Mortimer “with his uncle of the same name who was captured by Glyndŵr ….” That Mortimer was Sir Edmund Mortimer IV (1376-1409), who died at the siege of Harlech. He did not become Earl of March because his elder brother Roger, the 4^th Earl, had a son also—confusingly—named Edmund, who became 5^th Earl of March and inherited his father’s claim to the throne. But for our purposes, the point is that York claims the title of King of England mainly through his mother, Anne Mortimer, a direct descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward III’s second surviving son, whereas the Lancastrians staked their claim on their descendance from John of Gaunt, the third surviving son.

[39] To put the case in terms that a modern student of abnormal psychology would understand, to be a fully empowered monarch or authoritarian leader of any kind, one must be to some extent a sociopath. This is a counterbalancing phenomenon to the feudal era’s traditional emphasis on reciprocal obligations between lord and serf, or lord and sovereign.

Those who think that a king or queen owes them a debt or favor for their loyalty are likely to be dangerously disappointed. A full-blown monarch or authoritarian ruler of any kind (not a constitutional monarch who merely “presides” rather than rules in earnest) is generally averse to acknowledging obligation. To express obligation or loyalty too fulsomely is to acknowledge weakness, or vulnerability, and an authoritarian cannot allow him- or herself to do that: it’s risky for a “strongman” not to look strong.

[40] See “The Isle of Man” at historic-uk.com. Accessed 2/26/2026.

[41] See Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night” at poets.org.

[42] See Boswell-Stone, Walter G. Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared. Wentworth Press, 2019 [repr. of London: Chatto & Windus 1907 ed.]. ISBN-13: 978-0530892863. The Duke of Gloucester was arrested for high treason either on February 11 or 18. Holinshed iii. 627/1/15 offers this gloss: “But, to auoid danger of tumult that might be raised, if a prince so well beloued of the people should be openlie executed, his enimies determined to worke their feats in his destruction, yer he should haue anie warning. For effecting whereof, a parlement was summoned to be kept at Berrie; whither resorted all the peeres of the realme …” (Boswell-Stone 263).

Incidentally, in 1723, playwright Ambrose Philips published a tragedy centered on Humphrey’s life, titled Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, to be acted at London’s Drury Lane. Internet Archive. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[43] Whatever the truth status of the accusations leveled against Gloucester, suggests Holinshed’s source, Edward Halle (209), so soon as Gloucester was shut out from power in 1446, he was effectively living under a death sentence. (Boswell-Stone 263). See Boswell-Stone, Walter G. Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared. Wentworth Press, 2019 [repr. of London: Chatto & Windus 1907 ed.]. ISBN-13: 978-0530892863.

[44] “Somerset” here is Edmund Beaufort, 2^nd Duke of Somerset (c. 1406-55). See “Duke of Somerset” at shakespeareandhistory.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[45] On Jack Cade, see note immediately below. See also “Jack Cade’s Rebellion—1450” at britainexpress.com and Cade’s charter “The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent” at wikisource.org. See also Holinshed’s copy, “The complaint of the commons of Kent, and causes of their assemblie at the Blackheath” at The Holinshed Project. Both accessed 2/27/2026.

[46] On York, see Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, at warsoftheroses.com. As an antidote to the oft-repeated claims that York was the instigator of Jack Cade’s 1450 rebellion, see Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: a Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare. Vols. 1-2 combined. New York: Wings Books, 1970. ISBN-10: 0517268256. Vol. 2, 611-13. Asimov covers Cade’s rebellion itself from 603-09.

[47] Vaux is a fictional character in 2 Henry VI, who appears in Act 3, Scene 2 to inform Henry that Cardinal Beaufort is gravely ill. The name may have had some real-life resonance, if we connect it to young Sir William Vaux, on whom see the 10/11/2023 entry “Sir William Vaux and his wife Katherine” at murreyandblue.wordpress.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[48] Queen Margaret’s only child, Edward of Westminster, was born in 1453, three years after Suffolk’s death in 1450.

[49] Shakespeare did not take the account of Cardinal Beaufort’s death from Holinshed, but seems to have intensified the sense of loathing that generally accompanies his representation of the grasping prelate. The chronicler writes of Beaufort, “his insatiable couetousnesse and hope of long life made him both to forget God, his prince, and himselfe.” In sum, the idea goes, he was a worldly man, more of a politician than a true churchman, and his death elicits little sympathy. See Henry VI’s regnal year 1447-48 at the Holinshed Project. Accessed 2/27/2026. See also Sir Joshua Reynolds’s painting “The Death of Cardinal Beaufort (1377-1447)” (1789) at commons.wikimedia.org and John Henry Fuseli’s drawing “The Death of Cardinal Beaufort” (1772) at liverpoolmuseums.org.uk. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[50] See the Dec. 9, 2016 entry “The Death of William de la Pole, 1^st Duke of Suffolk: Murder at Sea” at thefreelancehistorywriter.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[51] On the matter of attribution, which was glossed at the outset of this document, see Professor Hugh Craig’s “Ignore the doubters: here’s why Christopher Marlowe co-wrote Shakespeare’s Henry VI” at theconversation.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[52] 2 Henry VI 162, 1.4.32.

[53] Holinshed has Suffolk’s execution taking place at “Dover Road” the next day. He does not mention a mock trial of the sort that Shakespeare introduces into the event. See Boswell-Stone, Walter G. Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared. Wentworth Press, 2019 [repr. of London: Chatto & Windus 1907 ed.]. ISBN-13: 978-0530892863. 270. See also “Henry VI Regnal Year 1450-51” at The Holinshed Project. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[54] See Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: a Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare. Vols. 1-2 combined. New York: Wings Books, 1970. ISBN-10: 0517268256. Vol. 2, 604. The genealogy that Cade gives, Asimov points out, “would make Cade a first cousin of Edmund, the 5^th Earl of March …, and prior to him in his claim to the throne. It would also make Cade first cousin, once removed, of Richard of York, and prior to him in his claim to the throne too” (2.604).

[55] See William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell atAllpoetry.com.Accessed 2/27/2026.

[56] See Cade’s charter “The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent” at wikisource.org. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[57] See Holinshed’s account of Lord Saye’s death in “Henry VI, regnal year 1450-51” at the Holinshed Project. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[58] See the entry “Matthew Gough” at shakespeareandhistory.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[59] One of taxi driver Travis Bickle’s most powerful statements is the wish, “Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.” See Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver at IMDB. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[60] On the legal doctrine of “benefit of clergy,” see Britannica’s entry “benefit of clergy.”

[61] Jack may or may not know that this so-called tradition of le droit du seigneur or jus primae noctis was more fiction than established fact. There was, however, such a thing as the “formariage” or “merchet” act in some nations, requiring serfs who married outside their proper jurisdiction or manor to pay a fee to their lord for the privilege of so marrying. See Britannica’s entry “droit du seigneur.” See also the entry “Droit du Seigneur” at aprilmunday.wordpress.com, A Writer’s Perspective. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[62] The “Dunning-Kruger effect” is shorthand for the troublesome cognitive bias that social scientists David Dunning and Justin Kruger identify, whereby someone with quite limited knowledge of a given field or domain remains oblivious to his or her own knowledge deficit, and may therefore act with great self-confidence. In essence, you don’t know what you don’t know—so you assume you’re doing a wonderful job when, in fact and as many others can see, you aren’t. See Britannica’s entry “Dunning-Kruger effect.”

Some of Shakespeare’s lower-class comic characters would probably be a good example of “Dunning-Kruger,” as the effect is colloquially called: they try to impress by reproducing the language and manners of their social superiors or “betters,” but since they don’t really understand what they’re saying or doing, they fail with hilarious results. Recall the antics of Constable Dogberry in Much Ado about Nothing, for example, or Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice. It’s worth noting, however, that the effect covered here is by no means limited to totally ignorant, uneducated people. Fairly often, highly educated people assume that because they are experts in one field, they can easily function as experts in almost any other field. They may also assume that other highly educated colleagues can do the same.

[63] On Alexander Iden (1427-57), the squire who killed Jack Cade, see the appropriate sections of “Researches and Discoveries” (2021) at the Kentish Archaeological Society. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[64] For the 1594 Quarto 1 text of 2 Henry VI, see Internet Shakespeare Editions, lines 3242.1ff. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[65] Salisbury will live on to 1460, when he will be executed by the Lancastrians after the Battle of Wakefield.

[66] With regard to the pace of medieval battles, see “Intensity and Duration of Fighting in Ancient Medieval Battles.” Historum.com. Accessed 2/27/2026.

[67] The First Battle of St. Albans was precipitated by King Henry’s call for a Great Council at Leicester on May 21, 1455. The battle took place the next day, May 22. The Yorkists knew that the purpose of this council would be to act against them. See Britannica.com’s entry “The Battles of St. Albans.” See also “First Battle of St. Albans” at britishbattles.com. Both accessed 2/27/2026.

[68] See “Battle of Blore Heath” at britishbattles.com. See also “The Battle of Blore Heath” at the Richard III Society’s richardiii.net. Accessed 2/27/2026.