Act IV, sc. i, viii

Willoughby, Lord, King Rich-
ard II: Act II, sc. i, iii; Act
III, sc. i

AVoLSEY, Cardinal, King Henry
VIII: Act I, sc. i, ii, iv; Act
II, sc. ii, iv; Act III, sc. i, ii

WooDviLE, Lieutenant of the
Tower, King Henry VI: Part
1, Act I, sc. iii



X, Y, Z

York, Archbishop of, King
Richard III : Act II, sc. iv

York, Duke of, son to King
Edward IV, King Richard III :
Act II, sc. iv; Act III, sc. i

York, Richard Plantagenet,
Duke of: King Henry VI:
Part I, Act II, sc. iv, v; Act

III, sc. i, iv; Act IV, sc. i, iii;
Act V, sc. iii, iv; Part 2, Act
I, sc, i, iii, iv; Act II, sc. ii,
iii; Act III, sc. i; Act V, sc.
i, ii, iii; Part 3, A.ct I, sc. i,
ii, iv

York, Duchess of, King Richard
II: Act V, sc. ii, iii

York, Duchess of, mother to
King Edward IV, King Rich-
ard III: Act II, sc. ii, iv; Act

IV, sc. i, iv

York, Duke of, cousin to King
Henry V, King Henry V:
Act IV, sc. iii

Young Lucius, a boy, son to
Lucius, Titus Andronicus: Act
III, sc. ii; Act IV, SC i, ii, iiij
Act V, sc. iii



222



THE FIRST PART OF
KING HENRY VI



All the unsigned footnotes in this volume are by the
writer of the article to which they are appended. The in-
terpretation of the initials signed to the others is: I. G.
^Israel Gollancz, M.A. ; H. N. H.= Henry Norman
Hudson, A.M.; C. H. H.= C. H. Herford, Litt.D.



To those Gentlemen, hia Quondam acquaintance, that spend
their wits in making Plaies, K. G. xcisheth a bet-
ter exercise, and zvisdom to present
his extremities.

Tliou famous graccr of Tragedians, . . . 3'oung
Juvenall, that byting Satyrlst, . . . and thou no less
deserving than the other two. . . . Base-minded men
al three of you, if by my miserie ye be not warned, for unto
none of you (hke me) sought those burres to cleave: those
Puppets (I mean) that speake from our mouths, those an-
ticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I, to
whom they all have been beholding ; is it not like that you,
to whom they all have been beholding, shall (were ye in
that case that I am now) be both at once of them for-
saken ? Yes, trust them not : for there is an upstart Crow,
beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers heart
wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to
bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you ; and being
an absolute lohannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the
onely Shake-scene in a countrie. O that I might entreate
your rare wits to be imployed in more profitable courses:
and let these Apes imitate your past excellence, and never
more acquaint them with your admired inventions.

Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a Million
of Repentance (written before his death [1592],
and published at his dying request).



PREFACE TO THE THREE PARTS

By Israel Gollancz, M.A.

FIRST EDITIONS

(T.) The First Part of Henry the Sixth was In all prob-
cibilit}' printed for the first time in the First Folio. On
November 8, 1623, Blount & Jaggard entered, among
other copies of Shakespeare's works "not formerly entered
to other men," "the Thirde Parte of Henry the Sixt," by
which term they evidently referred to the play which,
chronologically considered, precedes the Second and Third
Parts.

The opening linos of the play are sufficient to render it
well-nigh certain that 1 Henry VI is not wholly Shake-
speare's ; ^ and there can be little doubt that " the hand
of the Great Master is only occasionally perceptible "
thei'ein. Probabl} - we have here an inferior production
by some unknown dramatist,^ writing about 1589, to which
Shakespeare made important "additions" in the j^ear 1591 ;
to him may safely be assigned the greater part of Act
TV. ii.-vii., especially the Talbot episodes (scene vil., in
spite of its rhyme, has the Shakespearian note, and is note-
worthy from the point of view of literary history) ; the
wooing of Margaret by Suffolk (V. iii.) has, too, some-

1 Cp. Coleridge, "If you do not feel the impossibility of [these
lines] having been written by Shakespeare, all I dare suggest is,
that you may have ears, — for so has another animal, — but an ear
you cannot have, me judice."

2 Dr. Furnivall sees at least four hands in the play; Mr. Fleay
assigns it to Peele, Marlowe, Lodge or Nash, and Shakespeare. The
attempt to determine the autliorship is futile, owing to the absence
of all evidence on the point.

is



Preface PARTS I, II AND III OF

thing of Shakespeare's touch; finally, there is the Temple
Garden scene (II. iv.), which is certainly Shakespeare's,
though, judged by metrical peculiarities it may well have
been added some years after 1591. We may be sure that
at no time in his career could he have been guilty of the
crude and vulgar presentment of Joan of Arc in the latter
part of the play.

(II.) The Second and Third Parts of Henry the Sixth,
forming together a two-sectioned play, have come down to
us in two versions: — (a) The Folio version, authorized
by Shakespeare's editors; (6) a carelessly printed early
Quarto version, differing in many important respects from
(a) ; about 3,240 lines in the Quarto edition appear either
in the same or an altered form in the Folio edition, while
about 2,740 lines in the latter are entirely new.^ The title-
pages of the first Quartos, corresponding to Parts. I.
and II. respectively, are as follows: — (i.) "The First
part of the Con | tention betwixt the two famous houses
of Yorke | and Lancaster, with the death of the good |
Duke Humphrey: | And the banishment and death of
the Duke of | Suffolk, and the Tragical! end of the
proud Cardinall | of Winchester, with the notable Re-
bellion I of lacke Cade: \ And the Duke of Yorke's first
claime unto the \ Crowne. London. Printed by Thomas
Creed, for Thomas Millington, | and are to be sold at his
shop vnder Saint Peter's | Church in Cornwall. | 1594." ^
[Q.I.] (ii) "The | true Tragedie of Richard | Duke
of Yorke, and the death of \ good King Henrie the
Sixt, I with the whole contention hetweene \ the two Houses
Lancaster | and Yorke, as it was sundrie times | acted by
the Right Honoura | ble the Earle of Pem-brooke his
Seruants. | Printed at London by P. S. for Thomas Mill-
ing- I ton, and are to he sold at his shoppe under \ Saint

1 "Out of 3075 lines in Part II., there are 1715 new lines and some
840 altered lines (many but very slightly altered), and some 520
old lines. In Part III., out of 2902 lines, there are about 1021 new
lines, about 871 altered lines, and above 1010 old lines."

2 Entered in the Stationers' Register, March 12, 1593.

X



KING HENRY VI Preface

Peter's Church in | Cornwall, 1595." [Q. 1.] Second edi-
tions of both (i.) and (ii.) appeared in 1600, and in 1619
a third edition of the two plays together: — "The | Whole
Contention | bctweene the two Famous | Houses, Lancas-
ter and I YoRKE. | With the Tragicall ends of the good
Duke Humfrey, Richard Duke of Yorke, and King Henrie
the Sixt. Divided into two Parts : and newly corrected and
enlarged. Written by William Shakespeare, Gent, j
Printed at London, for T. P." [Q. 3.]

(Both the First and Third Quartos have been reproduced
by photolithography in the series of Quarto Facsimiles
issued under the superintendence of Dr. Furnivall ; Nos. 23,
^â– i, 37, 38.) In the comparison of Quartos 1 and 3 one
finds that the corrections are principally in Part I. ; in Part
II. the alterations are almost all of single words ; taken alto-
gether, however, the changes are slight, and are such "as
may have been made by a Revizer who heard the Folio Play
(3* Henry VI) with a copy of Q. 1 or Q. 2 in his hand,
or who had a chance of taking a note or two from the
Burbage-playhouse copy, and then made further correc-
tions at home." At all events, Q. 3 is a more correct copy
of the older form of 2, 3 Henry VI than we have in Q. 1,
though its superiority does not bring it much nearer to the
Folio version.^

THE RELATION OF THE QUARTOS TO 2 AND 3 HENRY VI

The most cursory glance at the Quartos is enough to
convince one that scant justice has been done to the author
of the plays, and that the printers of the Quartos must
have had very careless copy before them. Pi-obably many
errors may be referred to the indifferent reporters em-
ployed by the pirate publisher.

"Some by stenography drexo
The plot, put m print, scarce one word true";

1 A condensed version of the three parts of Henry VI., in ont
play, was prepared by Charles Kemble, and has recently been printed
for the first time in the Irving Shakespeare from the unique copy
in Mr. Irving's possession.



Preface PARTS I, II AND III OF

so complained Thomas Heywood of the treatment to which
one of his productions had been subjected; he complained,
too, that "plays were copied only by the ear," "publisht
in savage and ragged ornaments." But this probable
cause of much corruption in Tlie Contention and The True
Tragedy will not account for {a) the inherent weakness
of a great part of both plays; (6) the un-Shakespearean
character of many important passages and whole scenes.
On the other hand, many of these latter passages are to
be found (it is true, often in an improved form) in the
Second and Third Parts of Henry VI, as printed in the
Folio. Hence arises the most complex of Shakespearean
problems, and scholars are divided on the question; their
views may be grouped under four heads, according as it is
maintained (1) that Shakespeare was the author of th«
four plays ; ^ ( 2 ) that Shakespeare was merely the reviser^
retaining portions of his predecessor's work, altering por-
tions, and adding passages of his own; ^ (3) that the por-
tions common to the old plays, and 2, 3 Henry VI, were
Shakespeare's contribution to the original dramas (by
Marlowe, Greene, Shakespeare, and, perhaps, Peele;^ (4)
that INIarlowe, Greene, and, perhaps, Peele, were the au-
thors of the old plays, while Shakespeare and Marlowe were
the revisers, working as collaborators. The fourth view
has been strenuously maintained in an elaborate study of
the subject, contributed to the Transactions of the new
Shakespeare Society,* where the Marlowan passages in
the Quartos are definitely attributed to Marlowe, the Green-
ish to Greene, and others to Peele, while the Marlowan
lines which occur for the first time in 2, 3 Henry VI are
accounted for by assuming that Marlowe and Shakespeare
jointly revised the older plays; so that in some cases we

1 Cp. Knight's Essay on the subject in The Pictorial Shakespeare.

2 Malone, Variorum Shakespeare, 1821, Vol. XVIII.

8R. Grant White, Shakespeare Vol. VII. Cp. Halliwell, First
Sketches of 2 and 3 Henr;/ VI; 8h. Soc. Reprints, 1843; Swin-
burne, Study of Shakespeare; &c.

4 Miss Jane Lee, New Shak. Soc, 1876.

Zll



KING HENRY VI Preface

have Shakespeare revising the work of Marlowe and
Greene, at others Shakespeare and Marlowe revising the
work of Greene.^

It is undoubtedly true that many passages in The Con-
tention and The True Tragedie arc reminiscent of Mar-
lowe and Greene, and that such a passage as 2 Henry VI
(IV. i. 1-11), which occurs for the first time in the Folio,
is also strongly Marlowan in character, but this and sim-
ilar rhetorical sketches may very well have been in exist-
ence before 1594, being omitted from the acting version
of the play, and hence not found in The Contention.
Again, the famous Jack Cade scene (Act IV. ii.) is com-
mon to the Quarto and Folio ; according to this fourth
view it must be attributed to Greene, but there is nothing
in the whole of his extant plays to justify the ascription.

1 Miss Lee's conjectural table of Shakespeare's and Marlowe's
shares in 2, 3 Henry VI is none the less of value, as indicating the
doubtful elements of the plays, though one may not accept her final
conclusions. It is here printed as simplified by Prof. Dowden
(Shaiicspeare Primer, p. 76; cp. Shale. Soc. Trans., 1876, pp. SOS-
SOS). "The table shows in detail how the revision was effected.
Thus 'Act I. Sc. i. S., M. and O.' means that in this scene Shakespeare
was revising the work of :\Iarlowe and Greene; 'Act IV. Sc. x. S.
and M., G.' means that here Shakespeare and Marlowe were revising
the work of Greene."

"Henry VI. Part 77.— Act I. Sc. i. S., 31. and G.; Sc. ii. S., O.;
Sc. iii. S., G. and M.; Sc. iv. S., G. Act II. Sc. i. S., G.; Sc. ii. S.,
M. and (?) G.; Sc. iii. S. and (?) M., G.j Sc. iv. S., O. Act III.
Sc. i. S. and (?) M., 37. and G.; Sc. ii. S. and M., M. and G.; Sc.
iii. S., M. Act IV. Sc. i. M., G.; Sc. ii., iii., iv. S., G.; Sc. v. un-
revised, G.; Sc. vi., vii., viii., ix. S., G.; Sc. x. S. and M., G. Act V. Sc
i. M. and S., M. and (?) G-j Sc. ii. M. and S., G. and M.; Sc. iii.
S., G. and M.

"Henry VI. Part 777.— Act I. Sc. i. S., 3/.; Sc. ii. M., 37.; Sc. ui.
unrevised, 3/.; Sc. iv. S., 37. and (?) G. Act II. Sc. i. M. and (?)
S., 3/. and (?) G.; Sc. ii. (?) M., 37., G., and (?) P.; Sc. iii. S. and
M., 37.; Sc. iv. M., G.; Sc. v. S. and (?) M., G.; Sc. vi. M., 37. and
G. Act III. Sc. .. S., G.; Sc. ii. S., G. and (?) 37w; Sc. iii. (?) M.,
G. and (?) P. Act IV. Sc. i. S., G.; Sc. ii. M., 37.; Sc. iii. S., 3f.;
Sc. iv. S., G.J Sc. v. S., (?) G.; Sc. vi., vii. S., G.; Sc. viii. S. (?).
Act V. Sc. i. M., G. and (?) P.; Sc. ii. S., 37. and G.; Sc. iii. M., G,;
Sc. iv. S., G. and (?) P.; Sc. v., vi. S., 3/.; Sc. vii. unrevised, G."

xiii



Ireface PARTS I, II AND III OF

The most striking speech in the whole of 2, and 3, Henry
VI — viz., York's " She-wolf of France, but worse tlian
wolves of Irancfy" is to be found verbatim in the older
Quartos. That Marlowe was capable of this and of higher
efforts none will deny, but there is in the speech, high-
sounding as it is, a certain restraint and sanity, an absence
of lyrical effect, v»'hich would make one hesitate before as-
signing it to jMarlov/e, even if external evidence told in
favor of, and not against, his authorship. Weighing care-
fully all the evidence, one is inclined to see in the Quartos
of 1594-5, a garbled shorthand edition of an acting ver-
sion, popular at the time, perhaps chiefly by reason of
Shakespeare's "additions" to earlier plays, previously un-
successful, possibly the work of Mariov.e and Greene, or of
some clever disciple ; the correct copy of this pirated edi-
tion may have served as basis for the revised version which
Shakespeare subsequently prepared, though he did not in
this instance attempt a thorough recast of his materials:
tlie comparatively few important "additions" which appear
in the Folio version, and only there, may be (i.) Shakes-
peare's contributions to the older plays before 1594 ; or
(ii.) the work of the original author or authors, omitted
from the acting version; or (iii.) new matter added by
Shakespeare any time between 1594 and 1600 {e.g., 3
Henry VI, v., 11. 1-50 ).i

DATE OF COMPOSITION

(I.) There is no mention of Henry VI in Mere's famous
list in Falladis Tamia (1598), although reference is there
made to so doubtful a production as Titus Andronicus;
the omission must have been due to the yesed question of
authorship, and not to any want of popularity on the part
of the plays: as early as 1592 Nash in his "Pierce Permi-

1 The Cambridge editors put the matter cautiously: — "We cannot
agree with Malone on the one hand, that they (the old plays) con-
tain nothing of Shakespeare's, nor with Mr. Knight on the other,
that they are entirely his work; there are so many internal proofs
of his having had considerable share in their composition."

xiv



KING HENRY VI Preface

less" referred to the enthusiasm of Ehzabethan playgoers
for the Tulbot scenes: — '"How -would it have joyed brave
Talbot, the terror of the Freiich, to think that after he
had been two hundred years in his tomb he should triumph
again on the stage, and have his bones embalmed with the
tears of ten thousand spectators {at least at several times)
who, vn the tragedian that represents his person, behold
him fresh bleeding." There can be little doubt that 1
Henry VI is here referred to, and especially the Shakes-
pearian contributions to the play. According to Hens-
lowe's Diary Henry (or Hary Harey, &c.) the Sixth was
performed as a new play in March 1591 ; the repeated en-
tries in 1592 fully bear out Nash's eulogy. If, as seems
very probable, Henslowe's Henry VI is identical with 1
Henry VI, we have the actual date of Shakespeare's addi-
tions to an old and crude "chronicle drama," the property
of Lord Strange's Company.^

(II.) To the same year as Nash's Pierce Penniless be-
longs Greene's posthumous tract The Groatsworth of Wit
bought with a Million of Repentance? At the end of the
pamphlet, published by Chettle before Dec, 1592, oc-
curs the famous address "To those gentlemen his quon-
dam acquaintance," etc.^ The three playmakers to whom
his remarks are directed have been identified as (1) Chris-
topher Marlowe, (2) Thomas Nash (or possibly Lodge),
and (3) George Pcele. The point of the whole passage
is its attack on players in general, and on one player in
particular, who was usurping the playwright's province.*

1 Shakespeare in all probability belonged to this Company ; ia
159+ it was merged into the Lord Chamberlain's {vide Halliweli's
Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare).

2Cp. Shakspere Allusion-Books, Part I. Edited by C. M. Ingleby
for The New Shakespeare Society (1874).

3 Vide quotation on page v,

4 Nash, in his Apologie for Pierce Penniless, tells us that Greene
was "chief agent" of Lord Pembroke's Company, "for he wrote more
than four other." It is significant that the title-page of Quarto 1 of
The True Tragedie expressly states that the play had been acted by
this Company.

rv



Preface PARTS I, II AND III OF

The words "tiger's heart zcrapt in a 'player s hide"
parody the hne "0 tiger s heart wrapt in a woman's hide,"
which is to be found in both The True Tragedy and 3
Henry VI (h iv. 137). Some critics are of opinion that
Greene's allusion does not necessarily imply Shakespeare's
authorship of the passage in which the line occurs ; this
view, however, seems untenable, judging by the manner
in which the quotation is introduced. Nevertheless the
passage ma}^ perhaps show (i. ) that Greene himself had
some share in The Contention; (ii.) that Marlowe had like-
wise a share in it ; (iii.) that Greene and Shakespeare could
not have worked together ; and ( iv. ) that Marlowe and
Shakespeare may have worked together. One thing, how-
ever, it conclusively proves — viz., Shakespeare's connec-
tion with these plays before 1592. Furthermore, in De-
cember of the same year, Chettle apologized for the publi-
cation of Greene's attack on Shakespeare: — "Myselfe have
scene his demeanour no lesse civill, than he exelent in the
qualitie he professes ; besides, divers of worship have re-
ported his uprightness of dealing," etc.^ It is not likely
that the subject of this eulogy could have been a notorious
plagiarist ; ^ if, as some maintain, no line in the Quartos
can justly be attributed to Shakespeare, he would perhaps
have merited Greene's rancor. But "it is not so, and it
was not so, and God foi'bid that it should be so!"

(III.) In 1599 Shakespeare concluded his Epilogue to
Henry V with the following lines : —

1 Chettle's Kind Heart's Dream.

2 One does not deny that Greene may possibly have given Shake-
speare "the groinid" of these plays, as later on he gave him the stuff
for his Winte)-'s Tale. "R. B. Gent." has the following significant
verse in a volume entitled Greene's Funeralls (preserved in the
Bodleian Library) : —

"Greene is the pleasing object of an eye;

Greene pleased the eyes of all that looked upon him;
Greene is the (/round of every painter's die;

Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him;
Nay more, the men that so eclipst his fame.
Purloined his plumes; can they deny the same?"

xvi



KING HKNRY VI Preface

"Henry llic Sixtli, in infant bands crowned King
Of France and England, did this King succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,

That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown: and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take."

From these words we may infer (i.) that 1 Henry VI pre-
ceded Henry V; (ii.) that probably tlie Second and Third
Parts of Henry VI are also referred to; (iii.) that Shakes-
peare claimed in some degree these plays as his own.

(IV.) Finally, the intimate connection of ^, '3 Henry
VI (and The Contention and The True Tragedie) with the
play of Richard III, throws valuable light on the date of
composition, and confirms the external and internal evi-
dence for assigning Shakespeare's main contributions to
these plays to the year 1591-2, or thereabouts {Cp. Pref-
ace to '' Richard the Third'').

SOURCES OF THE PLOT

The materials for 1, 2, 3 Henry VI were mainly de-
rived from (i) Holinshed's Chronicles, and (ii.) Hall's
Chronicle; the account of the civil wars in the former
work is merely an abridgment of the latter; the author's
attention would therefore, naturally, be directed to the
chief history of the period covered by the plays [cp. title-
page of the first edition, 1548: — "The Union of the two
noble and illustre Famclies of Lancastre and Yorke, being
long in continual discension for the croune of this noble
realme, with all the actes done in bothe the tymes of the
princes, bothe of the one linage and of the other, be-
ginnyng at the tyme of Kyng Henry the fowerth, the
first ' Author of this division, and so successively pro-
ccadyng to the reigne of the high and prudent Kyng
Henry the eighth, the vndubitate flower and very heire of
both the sayd linages"].^ Although in no part of Henry

1 Knight points out an excellent instance of Hall's influence, as
compared with Holinslied's; in the latter's narrative of the interview
between Talbot and his son, before they both fell at the battle of

xvii



Preface KING HENRY VI

VI is Holinshed's Chronicles followed "with that par-
ticularity which we have in Shakespeare's later historical
plan's," it is noteworthy that it is the primary source of
Part I., the secondary of Parts II. and III. (On the his-
torical aspect of the plays, cp. Commentaries on the His-
torical Plays of Shakespeare, Courtenay ; Warner's Eng-
lish History in Shakespeare.)

DURATION OF ACTION

The time of the First Part is eight days, v/ith intervals ;
the Second Part covers fourteen days, represented on the
stage, with intervals suggesting a period in all of, at the
outside, a couple of years ; in the Third Part twenty days
are represented; the whole period is about twelve months.

HISTOmC TIME

Part I. deals with the period from "the death of Henry V,
August 31, 1422, to the treaty of marriage between Henry
VI and Margaret, end of 1444." Part II. covers about ten
years, from April 22, 1445, to May 23, 1455. Part III.
commences "on the day of the battle of St. Albans, May
23, 1455, and ends on the day on which Henry VI's body
was exposed in St. Paul's, May 22, 1471. Queen Mar-
garet, however, was not ransomed and sent to France till
1475." {Cp. Daniel's "Time Analysis," New Shah. Soc,
1877-79.)

Chatillon, we have no dialogue, but simply, "Many words he used
to persuade him to have saved his life." In Hall we have the very-
words which the poet has paraphrased.



XViU



INTRODUCTIOX

By Henry Norman Hudson, A.M.

In 1593 Thomas Nash put forth a pamphlet, entitled
Tierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil, in which
occurs the following: "Nay, what if I prove plays to be
no extreme, but a rare exercise of virtue? First, for tlie
subject of them: for the most part it is borrowed out
of our English Chronicles, wherein our forefathers' valiant
acts, that have been long buried in rusty brass and worm-
eaten books, are revived, and they themselves raised from
the grave of oblivion, and brought to plead their aged
honors in open presence ; than which what can be a sharper
reproof to these degenerate days of ours? ... In
plays, all cosenages, all cunning drifts, over-gilded with
outward holiness, all stratagems of war, all the canker-
worms that breed in the rust of peace, are most lively
anatomized. They show the ill success of treason, the fall
of hasty climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the misery
of civil dissensions, and how just God is evermore in pun-
ishing murder. And to prove every one of these allega-
tions could I propound the circumstances of this play
and that, if I meant to handle this theme otherwise than

obiter."

This passage yields a clear inference that dramas
founded on English history were a favorite species of