Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Shakespeare's Complete Works Reading Challenge: Henry VI

I have a hankering to try to read all of Shakespeare's plays again, taking a certain U.S. vice-presidential candidate's completist approach to newspapers and applying it to Elizabethan drama. (Disclaimer: But I've never read King John.) Let's start in chronological order with Henry VI, Part 1: Shakespeare (b. 1564) wrote it in 1591. I'm using a vintage, turn-of-the-century clothbound Complete Works of Shakespeare edition from the Clarendon Press.

Disclaimer: Not all of these plays may be from Shakespeare. Maybe some of them were co-written. Maybe there are more plays by Shakespeare that are as yet undiscovered. And the chronological order is disputed as well.

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The History
We are in England before, then during, the Wars of the Roses: York and Lancaster battling to seize or keep the throne, as French peers look on with a beady, warlike eye. Henry VI ascended the throne as a baby, in 1422. The Wars began in 1455. In terms of historical distance, I guess that Shakespeare writing about Henry VI's early life is like a contemporary dramatist writing about the Crimean War.

7 p.m.
ACT I. Scene I.

King Henry V has just ascended to the throne in the sky. Shakespeare transports us to Westminster Abbey, where dukes have gathered for the King's funeral.

Duke of Bedford:
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars,
That have consented unto Henry's death!
Maybe I personally wouldn't say that a comet wields crystal hair; but who am I to judge?

But when the Duke of Gloucester, praising Henry V's reign as a warrior king during the Hundred Years' War, says, "His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings," I agree with the verdict that the Bard can do better than his writing in Henry VI. It sounds like a laboured metaphor; to me it recalls mental images of Fantastic Four superheroes .... But perhaps an Elizabethan would only have found it elegant.

[The Wikipedia article reports that there doesn't seem to have been any full performance of Henry VI, Part 1, between 1592 and 1738 – and after 1738, until 1906, even though Edmund Kean put on an adapted version of Henry VI in 1817, for example. I'm too ignorant of theatre to understand if this is coincidence, or logistics; or if this is evidence that for the past four centuries not just critics, but many other readers, have considered this play as a bit of a stinker by Shakespeare's standards.]
Upon a wooden coffin we attend,
And death's dishonourable victory
We with our stately presence glorify,
Like captives bound to a triumphant car.
Mourning for Henry V gives way, as the Duke of Gloucester and the Bishop of Winchester squabble about the royal succession. Gloucester has been made Protector to the infant Henry VI; but he accuses the Bishop of wanting to mould the prince into a weak tool of the Church.

Bedford intervenes. He reminds the two men that while they're arguing, their country is in danger: England is at war with France, and is much more vulnerable to France's armies now, in the wake of Henry V's death.

The Duke's speech was a prophetic speech: the first of three messengers arrives at that very moment, bearing bad news.

He tells everyone that France has just conquered cities from Guyenne to Poitiers. (Or, to put it poetically, "Of England's coat one half is cut away.")

When asked by the Duke of Exeter, more or less, what the heck happened, the messenger offers a detailed analysis:
No treachery; but want of men and money.
Then he adds that soldiers on the ground believe that the generals who lead the English military haven't agreed on their strategy:
One would have lingering wars with little cost;
Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;
A third thinks, without expense at all,
By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.
The Duke of Bedford is the Regent of France: as such, he takes the mess personally. Hollering, "Away with these disgraceful wailing robes," he demands that his armour be brought.  He darkly promises,
Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,
To weep their intermissive miseries.
Then the second messenger arrives. His report: Meanwhile in France, the Dauphin Charles has been crowned the king. The leaders of Orleans, Anjou, and Alençon have entered an alliance with him.

***As a side note: the scenario of England at war with part of Continental Europe was not so historical in Shakespeare's time. He wrote this play in 1591, apparently; in 1588, the Spanish Armada had been sent to invade England.***

On the English side, the third messenger also tells the English dukes in Westminster Abbey that Lord Talbot has been defeated by French forces. ("Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand before him," the man says of Talbot, before the defeat. In contrast, one of the English, Sir John Fastolfe, betrayed the cause and lost the fight for their side by running from the field of battle.)

Bedford – whose hyperaccelerated thought patterns seem like evidence of a coffee binge – declares
Is Talbot slain? then I will slay myself,
For living idly here in pomp and ease
Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,
Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.
But hearing that Lord Talbot was captured, not killed, Bedford speedily promises to stay alive, rush off to France, and topple the Dauphin. Ever the master of understatement, he adds,
Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,
Whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake.
The dukes depart Westminster Abbey. (What'll happen with the king's coffin is not wholly clear.) They plan to fight in France, or proclaim the new king, or set up a security concept to keep the new king alive, respectively. But the Bishop of Winchester's thoughts, while also dramatic, are also different: he plans to kidnap the young king.

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