SHAKESPEARE—THE HISTORY PLAYS

[Notes prepared for graduate students—S. Sreekumar]

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 generated tremendous popular enthusiasm for the history and traditions of the past. Some three hundred historical plays were written during that period. Peele wrote Edward I, Marlowe wrote Edward II, and Greene wrote James IV. Shakespeare wrote ten plays based on British History.

They are:--

King John, Richard II, Henry IV Part I & Part II, Henry V,

 Henry VI Part I, Part II & Part III, Richard III and Henry VIII.

Roughly speaking these plays cover the Hundred Years’ Civil War in England. They can be regarded as a grand Epic Cycle with King John forming a prologue and Henry VIII the epilogue. This Epic Cycle includes the Lancastrian trilogy— Henry IV Part I & Part II, Henry V  where the success of the dynasty on the throne is the theme and a tetralogy— Henry VI Part I, Part II & Part III, Richard III where the dynasty’s slow decadence and fall is the theme. Richard II is a prelude to the first trilogy.

    Unfortunately, the plays cannot be placed in the chronological pattern mentioned above. Though Henry VI (I, II, III) and Richard III stand last in the series, they were probably some of Shakespeare’s earliest works for the stage. Henry VI was largely retouched and revised from an earlier version by another dramatist while Richard III was written after the model of Marlowe’s Edward II

The history plays are not mere dramatization of the past. They are better considered as political plays, as L. C. Knights calls them. Therefore, knowledge of the ‘Tudor view’ of history will help us greatly in the appreciation of these plays. Nowadays, one may sense a tinge of irony in the ‘Tudor view’ of history because the view most suited the convenience of Tudor monarchs. However their concern about internal strife and dissensions was shared by most English men of 16^th century.

So the painful disposition of Richard II from the throne and the providential accession of Henry Tudor by which the civil strife of more than half a century was brought to an end were the great historical themes of the era. Elizabethans also believed that knowledge of the past furnished a valuable guide to the present. History was also considered as a mirror from which one got not only information or entertainment but also moral examples.

Another Tudor political principle most likely to have influenced the mind of Shakespeare is the principle concerned with the necessity for authority, order and degree. There was as yet no fully developed theory of the divine right of kings, but it was natural that supporters of the Tudor monarchy should put a good deal of weight on the virtue of obedience in the subject. In the ‘Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion’ (1570) issued after the failure of the Rebellion of the North it is stated that rebellion is “worse than the worst government of the worst prince”; since the miseries of mankind sprang from Adam’s disobedience. This love of order and established government is stated again and again in the Histories. Dr. E. M. W.  Tillyard calls this “the steady political theme: the theme of order and chaos, of proper political degree and civil war, of crime and punishment”.

Shakespeare has dramatized the reigns of practically all the kings from Richard II to Richard III. But why he chose this period, the period of the Wars of Roses, can easily be guessed though not known for certain. He was very much interested in the unity of England and wished to warn people against the dangers of civil strife. When the Queen’s reign was drawing to a close, the people of England were worried about the question of succession to the throne, and the prospects of civil strife seemed real and imminent. Viewed from this point, the History Plays assume tremendous importance. Now let us consider the plays one by one.

King John

King John is a study on kingly weakness. The play is like a prologue to the epic cycle of history plays where all the major themes are hinted at. Shakespeare’s direct source is the anonymous Troublesome Reign of King John.  John is a usurper, yet this does not prevent him publicly announcing that he is ‘God’s wrathful agent’. The world of the play is the world of ‘policy’, of Machiavellian statecraft. There is none of the anti-catholic bias of the earlier ‘John plays’ here. Shakespeare displays his patriotism in the finale of the play. Shakespeare presents in the death of his hero an opportunity for his successors to rule without sharing the former’s guilt.

Richard II

Richard II is also a political play but with a difference. Here political interest is linked to the psychological one. Richard is an ‘unkingly’ king, an egotist who constructs an unreal world that finally collapses about him. Most of Richard’s actions have to do with the exercise of kingly power, or the failure to exercise it. Of the kingly graces ‘Justice’ stands first, and Richard is not just. In depriving Bolingbroke of his inheritance he strikes at the foundations of his own power. Bolingbroke ultimately dethrones him. About the political situation that arises out of this, Rossiter says, “Richard is wrong, but Bolingbrok’s coronation is not right and Richard’s murder converts it to the blackest wrong”. 

The disposition of Richard II and his murder is not viewed kindly by Shakespeare. Bolingbroke may be a stronger man but not a better man. The two parts of Henry IV continue the story of the usurper. The fruits of ambition turn to dust and ashes in his mouth. The man who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind. Richard in his grief-inspired wisdom had foretold as much. So the two parts of Henry IV emphasizes the political as well as moral aspect of the Lancastrian usurpation. Bolingbroke himself expiates his crime in bitter humiliation and repentance. He constantly meditates a fuller atonement of his sins of usurpation and regicide by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But his journey on earth ends before the planned pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He dies in the Jerusalem Chamber, a room in his palace.

The problem of good government and civil disorder are the concerns in the ‘Henry IV’ plays. Shakespeare deals with the Percy rebellion of 1403 in Part I and the Scorpe rebellion of 1405 in Part II. The debt which the king owed to the Percys for their help in the seizure of the crown makes dealing with them difficult. The nature of his kingship also troubles Henry. Moreover he is afraid that riot and discord may return after his death. However these fears are unfounded, for Prince Henry is deeply concerned with the nature of kingship, and is preparing himself throughout the play for his ultimate destiny as England’s ideal warrior king. He mixes with low company and these scenes also show us the dangers of disorder on a lower social scale than the political insurrections of Scorpe and the Percys. Dover Wilson in The Fortunes of Falstaff sums up the ‘Henry IV’ plays thus: “Justice triumphs over iniquity and Hal, escaping from feigning flatterers, emerges as the type of the Prince, the Ruler”.

In Henry V, Shakespeare shows us the ruler in action. The play is devoted to a public theme. In Henry’s reign there are neither internecine wars nor domestic tribulations. The young Hal is popular with the crowd, feared and obeyed by the nobles, flattered and favored by the church. He leads an army to France and wins riches and renown abroad. His title is never questioned and his peace is never seriously disturbed.

But his brief respite during Henry’s rule is but a lull in the storm. The tetralogy constituting of Henry VI Part I, II & III tells the story of the downfall of the House of Lancaster. The seeds of evil sown by Bolingbroke begin to sprout in Henry VI’s time. Henry VI ascends the throne when England is in the throes of a furious civil war. The Wars of Roses convulse the nation for three generations till the battle of Bosworth in 1485 ushers an era of peace and prosperity. The three parts of Henry VI and Richard III form a tetralogy dealing with the beginning, the progress and the end of the Wars of Roses.

In this teratology, Richard III is the most important play because it deals with the providential accession of the House of Tudor to the throne which led England to an era of peace and prosperity. 

Shakespeare, in these plays, examines the contradictions and illusions involved in political action. However what gives his plays their distinctive quality is the fact that they are part of the same continuous and continually deepening exploration of the nature of man that includes the great tragedies. The late professor Harold C. Goddard wrote in his ‘The Meaning of Shakespeare’ about the significance of the ‘Histories’---

Here writ large was the truth that chaos in the state is part and parcel of chaos in the minds and souls of individuals, that the political problem is, once and for all a function of the psychological problem”.

[Notes prepared for graduate students—Dr. S. Sreekumar]