Shakespeare's Complete Works Reading Challenge: Sixth Day of Henry VI

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT? Last year I had a hankering to half-liveblog all of Shakespeare's plays ... in chronological order, onward from Henry VI, Part 1: written by Shakespeare (b. 1564) in 1591. Time travel to Elizabethan Age literature also feels strangely Christmassy, and therefore seasonal again.

Previous Henry VI blog posts

Act I Scene 1: Henry V's funeral | Scenes 2, 3 & 4: French dauphin meets Joan of Arc, Duke of Gloucester clashes with Bishop of Winchester, the Earl of Salisbury is killed in fighting in Orléans | Scenes 5 & 6: Joan of Arc fights Lord Talbot, French celebrate lifting of siege on Orléans | Act II Scene 1: The English reconquer Orléans | Scenes 2 & 3: Charles VII and Joan of Arc are defeated & on the lam. Countess of Auvergne tries and fails to kill Lord Talbot.

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December 1
10:20 p.m.

Act II.
Scene IV.

Mary would have certainly disapproved of fighting...
La Vierge nourrissant le Christ, miniature d'un livre d'heures paris
by the Master of the Munich Golden Legend (fl. 1420-1460)
via Wikimedia Commons

A squabble amongst English lords takes place in London, in a garden where roses grow, beside the Temple Church that is run by the Knights Hospitaller and serves generations of lawyers-in-training. The future Duke of York lodges in a chamber at the Temple, too. Richard of York (Plantagenet) is the leading figure on one side of the squabble, the Duke of Somerset on the other side.

They want the Earl of Warwick to decide who is right.

Warwick diplomatically (albeit with arguably false modesty) offers a refusal:

Between two Hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
Between two Dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two Blades, which bears the better temper,
Between two Horses, which doth bear him best,
Between two Girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of Judgement

...But, he adds elaborately, in this case he doesn't have a clue.

York and Somerset reply heatedly that it's not such a tough question, each one claiming that anyone who has eyes to see could see that they are in the right.

Then, eager to end the dispute, York (who seems the cleverer character of the two) asks the men around him to pluck flowers from the red rose bush to show that they are on his side.

The Bard doesn't make clear which legal matter York and Somerset were arguing about — Wikipedia suggests that the matter was trivial. Essentially, however, the two lords are discussing the line of succession to the throne of England. York's mother's parentage has given him a strong claim; but York's father was considered a traitor, imprisoned, and beheaded when young Richard was fewer than five years old.

It is the rosebushes in Shakespeare's telling that eventually led Sir Walter Scott and his 19th-century contemporaries to refer to the English civil wars of 1455 to 1487, i.e. the fight between the House of York and the House of Lancaster for the throne, as the Wars of the Roses:

At any rate, the men who believe in York's side of the argument are instructed to pick white roses; the men who believe in Somerset should pick red roses.

Warwick begins the selection, picking a white rose from a bush. Next Suffolk picks a red one.

But Vernon intervenes. He says that the lords should only keep up the exercise if it would truly end the dispute: the side that ends up with the fewest roses should concede defeat.

Although at first York and Somerset both agree with Vernon's intervention, the losing side changes its mind. As more and more white blossoms are picked, Somerset and his friend the Duke of Suffolk exchange insults with the York faction rather than give up.

York concludes by telling his enemy,

And by my Soul, this pale and angry Rose,
As Cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
Will I for ever, and my Faction wear,
Until it wither with me to my Grave,
Or flourish to the height of my Degree.

Suffolk and Somerset flounce off the stage.

Somerset: Farewell ambitious Richard.

Afterward Warwick predicts,

And here I prophecy: this brawl today,
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
Shall send between the Red-Rose and the White,
A thousand Souls to Death and deadly Night.

York thanks his supporters, and as they leave the stage he tells them,

Come, let us four to Dinner: I dare say,
This Quarrel will drink Blood another day.

Rather than plucking flowers to decide whether 1. Shakespeare's version of history or 2. my doubt of Shakespeare's version of history, is correct, I've checked with Wikipedia. In fact the Bard was not very accurate. It is beyond the scope of this blog to properly research the leading figures and events and causes of the Wars of the Roses. But I recommend a quick look at the biographies of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, and Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, because they are entertaining tales in themselves.

"Detail on the West Door of Temple Church, London"
by Ethan Doyle White (2018)
Temple Church had to be reconstructed after WWII
but I am fairly certain that Shakespeare might have seen these capitals
in their original state.
via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

December 2

6 p.m.

Scene V.

The dying Lord Mortimer, uncle to Richard of York, is released from prison. York arrives for a friendly family visit. In this ahistorical scene, Shakespeare changes a few small details — like the fact that the real Lord Mortimer had revealed York's father's plot against Henry V and later sat on the commission that passed the father's death sentence.

I'm wondering whether to borrow Lord Mortimer's terminology the next time I visit the doctor:

Even like a man new haled from the Wrack,

So fare my Limbes with long Imprisonment:

And these gray Locks, the Pursuivants of death,

Nestor-like aged, in an Age of Care,

Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.

These Eyes, like Lamps, whose wasting Oil is spent,

Wax dim, as drawing to their Exigent.

Weak Shoulders, over-borne with burdening Grief,

And pith-less Arms, like to a withered Vine,

That drops his sap-less Branches to the ground.

Yet are these Feet, whose strength-less stay is numb,

(Unable to support this Lump of Clay)

Swift-winged with desire to get a Grave,

As witting I no other comfort have.

He later adds, to let his nephew know without ambiguity that he is tottering on the brink of death:

the Arbitrator of Despairs,

Just Death, kind Umpire of men's miseries,

With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence

In real life, Lord Mortimer was sent to Ireland because he had a confrontation with the Duke of Gloucester. There he died of the plague, at the age of only 33 years — three decades before the Wars of the Roses began. That said, York really was his heir.

In Shakespeare's play, York tells his uncle Mortimer of the Duke of Somerset's insults in the Temple garden (Somerset had unkindly mentioned York's father's execution). He embraces his uncle's (fictional) cause to install the House of York on the throne of England.

Lord Mortimer is more cautious, telling York,

With silence, Nephew, be thou politick,

Strong fixed is the House of Lancaster,

And like a Mountain, not to be remov'd.

And so Richard leaves for Parliament, to settle the score with the Duke of Somerset...