Henry VI, Part 3
Margaret and Clifford then capture and taunt York himself; forcing him to stand on a molehill, they give him a handkerchief covered with Rutland's blood to wipe his brow, and place a paper crown on his head, before stabbing him to death.
After Towton, Warwick goes to France to secure for Edward the hand of Louis XI's sister-in-law, Lady Bona, thus ensuring peace between the two nations by uniting in marriage their two monarchies.
Revenge is cited many times by different characters as a guiding force behind their actions; Northumberland, Westmorland, Clifford, Richard, Edward and Warwick all declare at some point in the play that they are acting out of a desire for vengeance on their enemies.
Another thematic source may have been William Baldwin's The Mirror for Magistrates (1559; 2nd edition, 1578), a well-known series of poems spoken by controversial historical figures who speak of their lives and deaths, and to warn contemporary society not to make the same mistakes they did.
As when the winter flaws with dreadful noise arise, And heave the foamy swelling waves up to the starry skies, So that the bruis'd barque in cruel seas betost, Despaireth of the happy haven, in danger to be lost.
Sometimes the beaten boat, by cunning government – The anchors lost, the cables broke, and all the tackle spent, The rudder smitten off, and overboad the |mast – Doth win the long desir'd port, the stormy danger past.
Is't meet that he Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad, With tearful eyes add water to the sea, And give more strength to that which hath too much, Whiles in his moan the ship splits on the rock Which industry and courage might have saved?
"[21] Similarly, in An Apology for Actors (1612), Heywood writes, "So bewitching a thing is lively and well-spirited action, that it hath power to new mould the hearts of the spectators, and fashion them to the shape of any noble and notable attempt.
"[22] More recently, speaking of 1 Henry VI, Michael Goldman has argued that battle scenes are vital to the overall movement and purpose of the play; "the sweep of athletic bodies across the stage is used not only to provide an exciting spectacle but to focus and clarify, to render dramatic, the entire unwieldy chronicle.
In True Tragedy, Margaret, Prince Edward, Oxford and Somerset are all introduced together, all taken captive at the same time, which is how the incident is reported in Hall; all the Lancastrian leaders were captured in the field and brought to the Yorkist camp together.
Traditionally, this has been a common way of interpreting the entire octalogy; advocated and elaborated upon by critics as diverse as August Wilhelm Schlegel,[35] Hermann Ulrici,[36] Georg Gottfried Gervinus,[37] Irving Ribner,[18] M.M.
Taking all of these differences into account, the argument is that "Shakespeare reconceived the action, toning down the sound and fury, and thereby altering the overall effect and meaning of 3 Henry VI as a play whose attitude to war is more rueful.
It is generally agreed amongst critics that the differences between these two passages represents authorial revision as opposed to faulty reporting,[43] leading one to ask the question of why Shakespeare removed the references to Salisbury, and why he wrote the preceding lines where Warwick re-introduces Montague as his brother.
Later, Warwick points out that Henry has been compelled to rescind his oath to yield the throne to the House of York; "Clifford and the Lord Northumberland/And of their feather many more proud birds,/Have wrought the easy-melting King like wax" (2.1.169–171).
Later, echoing Warwick's statement about his reasons for joining the Lancastrians, Richard outlines why he has remained loyal to the Yorkists; "I stay not for the love of Edward but the crown" (4.1.125), again showing the attraction of power and the subversion of all other concerns, including familial relations.
Michael Hattaway sees this scene as an important prologue to the play insofar as "the act of desecration signifies the extinguishing of the residual chivalric code of conspicuous virtue, the eclipsing of honour by main force.
"[51] Another example of barbarism perpetrated by the Yorkists is the abuse of Clifford's body in Act 2, Scene 6, where Edward, Richard, Clarence and Warwick all speak to the corpse in derision, sardonically wondering why it doesn't answer them.
As such, with power being seen by many of the characters as the ultimate goal, the play also deals with themes of disloyalty and betrayal, and outlines the results of political factionalism and social breakdown; a once calm world is seen spiralling toward chaos as barbarism and immorality come to the fore.
As such, a wide-ranging political debate spanning five years, and involving virtually every peer in the country is telescoped in the play to an immediate agreement between two men, thus illustrating the personal nature of the conflict.
Clifford also attempts to persuade him, arguing that fathers who do not pass on their successes to their sons are unnatural; Ambitious York, did level at thy crown, Thou smiling, while he knit his angry brows.
In 1994, Katie Mitchell directed the play as a stand-alone piece for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at The Other Place theatre in Stratford, under the title Henry VI: The Battle for the Throne.
Under the direction of Michael Boyd, the play was presented at the Swan Theatre in Stratford in 2000, with David Oyelowo as Henry, Fiona Bell as Margaret, Tom Beard as Edward and Aidan McArdle as Richard.
[62][63][64] Outside the UK, the first major American performance was in 1935 at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, directed by Gilmore Brown, as part of a production of all ten Shakespearean histories (the two tetralogies, preceded by King John and proceeded by Henry VIII).
Writing at the time of Popish Plot, Crowne, who was a devout royalist, used his adaptation to warn about the danger of allowing England to descend into another civil war, which would be the case should the Whig party rise to power.
However, after twenty-three lines, it then moves back to 3 Henry VI, quoting from Richard's soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 2; Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb, And for I should not deal in her soft laws, She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub, To make an envious mountain on my back Where sits deformity to mock my body, To shape my legs of an unequal size, To disproportion me in every part Like to a chaos, or an unlicked bear-whelp That carries no impression like the dam.
Directed by Michael Hayes and produced by Peter Dews, with a script by Eric Crozier, the production featured Terry Scully as Henry, Mary Morris as Margaret, Julian Glover as Edward and Paul Daneman as Richard.
Howell's presentation of the complete first historical tetralogy was one of the most lauded achievements of the entire BBC series, and prompted Stanley Wells to argue that the productions were "probably purer than any version given in the theatre since Shakespeare's time.
[98] Graham Holderness saw Howell's non-naturalistic production as something of a reaction to the BBC's adaptation of the Henriad in seasons one and two, which had been directed by David Giles in the traditional and straightforward manner favoured by then series producer Cedric Messina; "where Messina saw the history plays conventionally as orthodox Tudor historiography, and [David Giles] employed dramatic techniques which allow that ideology a free and unhampered passage to the spectator, Jane Howell takes a more complex view of the first tetralogy as, simultaneously, a serious attempt at historical interpretation, and as a drama with a peculiarly modern relevance and contemporary application.
Absent from Act 1, Scene 3 is Rutland's appeal to Clifford's paternal instincts; "Thou hast one son: for his sake pity me,/Lest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,/He be as miserably slain as I" (ll.41–43).
Aya Kanno's Japanese manga comic Requiem of the Rose King is a loose adaptation of the first Shakespearean historical tetralogy, covering Henry VI and Richard III.
