the movement of the drama ; and perhaps it was only by
exaggerating her or some other of the persons into a sort
of representative character, that the springs and processes
of that long national bear-fight could be developed in a
poetical and dramatic form. Her peneti'ating intellect and
Unrestrainable volubility discourse forth the motives and
principles of the combatant factions ; while in her remorse-
less impiety and revengeful ferocity is impersonated, as it
were, the very genius and spirit of the terrible conflict. So
that we may regard her as, in some sort, an ideal concen-
tration of that murderous ecstasy which seized upon the
nation. Nor is it inconsiderable that popular tradition,
sprung from the reports of her enemies, and cherished by
patriotic feeling, had greatly overdrawn her wickedness,
that it might have whereon to father the evils resulting
xiv
KING HENRY VI introduction
from her husband's weakness, and the moral distemper of
the times.
The dramatic character of ^Margaret, whether as trans-
piring at court or in the field, is sustained at the same high
pitch throughout. x\fHictions do but open in her breast
new founts of embittermcnt : her speech is ever teeming with
the sharp answer that engenders wrath; and out of every
wound issues the virulence that is sure to provoke another
blow. And even in tlic next play, when she is stripped of
arms and instruments, so that her thoughts can no longer
be embodied in acts, for this very cause her energies con-
centrate themselves more and more in words : she talks with
the greater power and effect, for that she can do nothing
else; and her eloquence, while retaining all its point and
fluenc}', waxes the more formidable, that it is the only organ
she has left of her will. So that she still appears the same
high-grown, wide-branching tree, rendered leafless indeed,
and therefore all the fitter for the blasts of heaven to howl
and whistle through.
Much might be said by way of explaining how, in the
drama, the union of Henry and Margaret has the effect
of making them both more and more what they ought not to
be; his doing too little evermore stimulating her activity,
and her doing too much as constantly opiating his. And
by their endeavoring thus to repair each other's excess, that
excess is not only heightened in itself, but rendered on both
sides' more mischievous in its effects, forasmuch as it prac-
tically inverts the relation between them: her energy can-
not make up for his imbecility, because in either case the
quality does not fit the person. For in seeking to make his
place good she only displaces both herself and him, and,
of course, the more she docs out of her place, the more
she undoes her cause. All which shows that in such mat-
ters it is often of less consequence what is done, than by
whom, and how ; for the simple reason that the issue de-
pends not so much on the form of the act, as on the man-
ner in which it is viewed by those to whom it refers.
Finally, if any one think that Margaret's ferocity is
XV
Introduction THE THIRD PART OF
strained up to a pitch incompatible with her sex, and un-
necessary for the occasion ; perhaps it will be deemed a
sufficient answer, that the spirit of such a war could scarce
be dramatically conveyed without the presence of a fury,
and that the Furies have always been represented as fe-
males.
Warwick and Clifford are appropriate specimens of the
old English feudal baronage in the height of its power and
splendor; a class of men brave, haughty, turbulent, and
rough, accustomed to wield the most despotic authority
on their estates, and therefore spurning at legal restraint in
their public capacity ; and individually able, sometimes, to
overawe and browbeat both king and parhament. In the
play, however, we see little of their personal traits, these
being, for the most part, lost in the common habits and
sentiments of their order; not to mention that, in the col-
lision of such steel-clad champions, individual features are
apt to be kept out of sight, and all distinctive tones are
naturally drowned in the clash of arms. It is mainly what
they stand for in the public action, that the drama con-
cerns itself about, not those characteristic issues which are
the proper elements of a personal acquaintance. Yet they
are somewhat discriminated : Clifford is more fierce and spe-
cial in his revenge, because more tender and warm in his
affections ; while Warwick is more free from particular
hate, because his mind is more at ease in the magnitude of
his power, and the feeling of his consequence. It is said
that not less than thirty thousand persons lived daily at
the tables of his different castles and manors. Add to
this, that his hospitality was boundless, his dispositions
magnificent, his manners captivating, his spirit frank,
forthright, and undcsigning, and it may well be conceived
why his "housekeeping won the greatest favour of the
commons," insomuch that, though but an earl in style, he
could in effect force kings to reign as viceroys under him.
Holinshed speaks of him thus: "Full fraught was this
nobleman with good qualities right excellent and many, all
which a certain natural grace did so far forth recommend,
XV i
KING HENRY VI Introduction
that with high and low he was in singular favor and good
liking, so as, unsought-for it seemed, he gi'ew able to com-
mand all alone." And his bearing in the play is answer-
able to the character that history assigns him ; though it
were to be wished, that in the doings of the king-maker the
Poet had given us more taste of the individual man.
The representation of Suffolk in the Second Part might
also be cited in disproof of Shakespeare's alleged bias to
the Lancastrian side. Ambitious, unprincipled, impatient
of every one's pride and purpose but his own, a thorough-
paced scoundrelism is depicted in him without mitigation
or remorse. Yet if his dramatic character be compared
with the worst that history has alleged concerning him, the
portrait will probably appear to have rather the overcol-
oring of a young author aiming at effect, than the temper-
ance and moderation of conscious strength. Generally,
however, the Second Part and the Third are in effect a
pretty fair revivification of history, in that they set before
us an overgrown nobility, a giant race of iron-bound war-
riors, who being choked off from foreign conquest, and
unused to the arts of peace, their high-strung energies got
corrupted into fierce hatreds and revengeful passions ; and
the}'^ had no refuge from the gnawings of pride and ambi-
tion, but to struggle and fight at home for that distinc-
tion which they had been bred to anticipate by fighting
abroad.
In the Second and Third Parts of Henrij VI the charac-
ter of Richard is set forth in the processes of development
and formation ; whereas in King Richard III we have little
else than the working-out of his character as already
fomied. In Shakespeare's time the prevailing idea of
Richard was derived from the History of his Life and
Reign, put forth by Sir Thomas More, but supposed to
have been partly written by Dr. John IMorton, himself a
part of the subject, who was afterwards Cardinal, Primate
of England, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VII. ]More's
History, as it is commonly called, was adopted by both Hall
and Holinshed into their Chronicles. In that noble piece
Silk- 1-28 xvii
Introduction THE THIRD PART OF
of composition the main features of the subject are digested
and drawn together as follows :
"Richard, the th.ird son, was in wit and courage equal with
either of them, little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-
backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-
favored of visage; malicious, wrathful, envious, and from
afore his birth ever froward. It is reported that he came
into the world with the feet forward, and not untoothed;
whether men of hatred report above the truth, or else
that nature changed her course in his beginning, which in
his life many things unnaturally committed. Free he was
called of dispense, and somewhat above his power Ub-
eral : with large gifts he gat him unsteadf ast friendship, for
which he was fain to pill and spoil in other places, and
gat him steadfast hatred. He was close and secret, a deep
dissembler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart; out-
wardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not let-
ting to kiss whom he thought to kill ; despiteous and cruel,
not for evil will always, but oftener for ambition, and either
for the surety or increase of his estate." In another place
he is spoken of thus : "His face was small, but such, that
at the first aspect a man would judge it to savor and
smell of malice, fraud, and deceit. When he stood musing,
he would bite and chaw his nether lip; as who said, that
his fierce nature in his cruel body always chafed, stirred,
and was ever unquiet: besides that, the dagger which he
ware he would, when he studied, with his hand pluck up
and down in the sheath to the midst, never drawing it fully
out." And elsewhere he is noted by the same writer as be-
ing inordinately fond of splendid and showy dress, thus
evincing an intense craving to be "look'd on in the world ;"
to fill the eyes of men, and ride in triumph on their
tongues.
It is evident that this furnished the matter and form of
the Poet's conception ; his character of Richard being little
other than the historian's descriptive analysis reduced
to dramatic life and expression. In accordance with
Shakespeare's usual method, at our first meeting with Rich-
xviii
KING HENRY VI Imroduction
arcl, in the Second Part, act v. sc. 1, is suggested the first
principle and prohfic germ out of which his action is
mainly evolved. He is called "foul stigmatic," because
the stigma set on his person is both to others the handiest
theme of reproach, and to himself the most annoying; like
a huge boil on a man's face, which, because of its un-
sightliness, is the point that his enemies see most, and, be-
cause of its soreness, strike first. And his personal de-
formity is regarded not only as the proper outshaping and
physiognomy of a certain original malignity of soul, but
as yielding the prime motive of his malignant dealing, in
so far as this dealing proceeds from motive as distinguished
from impulse; his shape having grown ugly because his
spirit was bad, and his spirit growing worse because of his
ugly shape. For his ill-looks invite reproach, and re-
proach quickens and heightens his malice ; and because men
hate to look on him, he therefore cares all the more to be
looked on ; and as his aspect repels admiration, he has no
way to win it but by power, that so fear may compel what
inclination denies. Thus experience generates in him a most
inordinate lust of power; and the circumstantial impossi-
bility of coming at this, save by crime, puts him upon
such a course of intellectual training and practice as may
enable him to commit crimes, and still avoid the conse-
quences, thus reversing the natural proportion between suc-
cess and desert.
And his extreme vanity naturally results in a morbid
sensitiveness to any signs of neglect or scorn ; and these
terms being especially offensive and hurtful to himself, he
therefore has the greater delight in venting them on oth-
ers: as taunts and scoffs are a form of power which he
feels most keenl}', he thence grows to using them as an
apt form whereby to make his power felt. For even so
bad men naturally covet to be wielding upon others the
causes and instruments of their own sufferings. Hence
the bitterly sarcastic humor which Richard indulges so
freely and with such prodigious effect ; as in what he says
to the Cliffords, at his first appearance in the play, and
xix
Introduction THE THIRD PART OF
again in the dialogue that takes places over the dead body
of the younger Clifford. Of course his sensitiveness is
keenest touching the very particular wherein his vanity is
most thwarted and wounded : he thinks of nothing so much
as the ugliness that balks his desire, and resents nothing so-
sharply as the opinion or feeling it arrays against him.
Accordingly his first and heaviest shots of sarcasm are at
those who were the first to twit him on that score. And in
the scene where Prince Edward is killed, he seems unmoved
till the prince hits him in that eye, when his wrath takes
fire at once, and bursts out in the reply, — "By Heaven,
brat, I'll plague you for that word."
All which indicates the cause of his being so prone to
"descant on his own deformity:" his thoughts still brood
upon it, because it is the sorest spot in his condition ; and
because he never forgets it, therefore he is the more in-
tent on turning it into the source of a dearer gratification
than any it withholds from him, the consciousness, namely,
of such an inward power as can bear him onward and up-
ward in spite of such outward clogs. Thus the shame
of personal disgrace, which in a good mind yields apt mo-
tive and occasion of a sweet and virtuous life, in the case
of Richard inverts itself into a most hateful and malig-
nant form of pride, — the pride of intellectual force and
mastery. Hence he comes to glory in the very matter of
his shame, to exaggerate it, and hang over it, as serving to
approve, to set off, and magnify the strength and fertility
of wit whereby he is able to triumph over it ; as who would
say, — Nature indeed made me the scorn and reproach of
men, nevertheless, I have proved too much for her, and
made myself their wonder and applause ; and though my
body be such that men could not bear the sight of me, yet
I have managed to chann their eyes.
It should be remarked that Richard, steeped as he is inj
essential villainy, is actuated by no such "motiveless ma-
lignity" as distinguishes lago. Cruel and unrelenting in
pursuit of his end, yet there is no wanton and gratuitous
cruelty in him: in all his crimes he has a purpose beyond
XX
XING HENRY VI Introduction
the act itself. Nor docs lie sccni properly to hate those
Avhom he kills : they stand bctw cen him and his ruling
passion, and he "has neither pity, love, nor fear," that he
should blench or scniple to hew them out of the way. And
he has a certain redundant, impulsive, restless activity of
nature, that he never can hold slill ; in virtue of which, as
his thought seizes with amazing quickness and sureness
where, and when, and how to cut, so he is equally sudden
and sure of hand: the purpose flashes upon him, and he in-
stantly darts to the crisis of performance, the thought set-
ting his wliole being a-stir with executive transport. It
is as if such an excess of life and energy had been rammed
into his little body, as to strain and bulge it out of shape.
XXI
COMMENTS
By Shakespearean Scholars
THE ENGLISH CHRONICLE PLAY
Among the many and diverse forms which the English
drama displayed in the latter part of the sixteenth cen-
tury there is none which was at once so popular in its
d&y and so distinctively English as that which drew its
subject-matter from the historical lore of the national
chronicles. For 3^ears this variety of drama disputed with
Romantic comedy and tragedy the supremacy of the stage,
and only yielded to defeat with the subsidence of the
national spirit of which it was born. The English Chron-
icle Play began with the tide of patriotism which united
all England to repel the threatened invasion of Philip of
Spain. It ebbed and lost its national character with the
succession of James, an un-English prince, to the throne
of Elizabeth. — Schelling, The English Chronicle Play.
HENRY VI
In prison Henry at last is really happy ; now he is re-
sponsible for nothing; he enjoys for the first time tranquil
solitude; he is a bird who sings in his cage. His latter
days he will spend, to the rebuke of sin and the praise of
his Creator, in devotion. Henry's equanimity is not of the
highest kind ; he is incapable of commotion. His peace is
not that which underlies wholesome agitation, a peace which
passes understanding. "Quietness is a grace, not in itself;
only when it is grafted on the stem of faith, zeal, self-
abasement, and diligence." If Henry had known the no-
bleness of true kingship, his content in prison might be
xxii
KING HENRY VI Comments
admirable; as it is, the beauty of that content does not
strike us as of a rich or vivid kind. But the end is come,
and that is a gain. Henry has 3'iclded to the house of
York, and the evil time is growing shorter. The words of
the great Duke of York are confirmed by our sense of fact
and right:
King did I call thee? nay, thou art not king.
Give place; by heaven thou shalt rule no more
O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.
— DowDEx, Shakspere — His Mind and Art.
In the last scene of RicJiard II his despair lends him
courage : he beats the keeper, slab's two of his assassins, and
dies with imprecations in his mouth against Sir Pierce
Exton, who "had staggered his royal person." Henry,
when he is seized by the deer-stealers, onl}' reads them a
moral lecture on the duty of allegiance and the sanctity of
an oath : and when stabbed by Gloucester in the tower, re-
proaches him with his crimes, but pardons him his own
death. — Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespears Plays.
LADY GREY
She was a poor widow who came trembling before King
Edward, and begged him to restore to her children the
small estate which, after the death of her husband, had re-
verted to the enemy. The licentious king, who could not
stir her chastity, was so enchanted by her beauty, that he
placed the crown on her head. Her history, known to all
the world, announces how much misery to both came from
this match. — Heine, Florentine 'Sights.
THE WARWICKS
The magnificent and exceedingly romantic castle of
Warwick, was the seat of the powerful Earls of Warwick,
a brave and warlike race, which has played a prominent
xxiii
Comments THE THIRD PART OF
part in the history of England. The founder of the fam-
il}'^ is said to have been the legendary Guy of Warwick,
the subduer of the Danish giant Colbrand, who after his
warlike exploits retired to what is now called Guy's Cliff,
Where with my hands I hewed a house
Out of a craggy rocke of stone;
And lived like a palmer poore
Within that cave myself alone:
And daylye came to begg my bread
Of Phelis att my castle gate.
Not knowne unto my loved' wiffe
Who dayle mourned for her mate, &c.
The legends and ballads relating to Sir Guy must un-
doubtedly have been told or sung to the boy Shakespeare ;
and no doubt he had also seen the statue of the old hero
at Guy's Cliff. Among the famous Norman Earls of
Warwick are the Beauchamps, especially Thomas Beau-
champ, the fourth Earl, whom parliament appointed guard-
ian of Richard II ; and Richard Beauchamp, the fifth Earl,
surnamed the Good (1381—1439), who distinguished him-
self in the struggle with Owen Glendower, and at the battle
of Shrewsbury against the Percies ; it was he who negoti-
ated the marriage of Henry V with Catherine of France,
and was appointed "tutor" to Henry VI up to his fifteenth
year. This Richard Beauchamp was likewise one of the
heroes of the Wars of the Roses. He died as Regent of
France at Rouen, and his body was brought to Warwick
and buried in St. Mary's Church in the Beauchamp Chapel,
which had been erected there by him ; his tomb, v/hich is
said to have cost the extravagant sum of nearly £2,500,
is still an object of admiration to persons visiting War-
wick. His son Henry was not only made Earl of War-
wick, by Henry VI, but subsequently even King of the Isle
of Wight, of Jersey and Guernsey. With him the male
line of the Beauchamps became extinct in 1445, and the
lands and possessions passed, through the female line, into
the hands of the Nevilles, the first and mightiest of these
xxiv
KING HENRY VI Comments
being the famous Richard Neville, the "king-maker." He
was the mainstay of the Yorkists (the White Rose) for
whom he gained the victories of St. Albans and North-
ampton. He was less successful at the battle of Wake-
field and at the second battle of St. Albans. In conjunc-
tion with the Duke of York, however, he drove the
Lancastrian pai'ty back northwards, and in March, 1461,
proclaimed his cousin king in London, as Edward IV. By
his victory at Towton he secured the throne for the newly-
made king, who in return, showered honors and rewards
upon him and his family. Nevertheless, discords gradually
arose between the dependent king and his all-powerful vas-
sal, which ended in the latter having to flee to the Conti-
nent in 1470 ; while there he gave his daughter Anne in
marriage to Edward Prince of Wales, the son of Queen
Margaret. Thei'cupon at the head of a considerable force
he landed at Plymouth, and proclaimed Henry VI king.
Edward IV, meanwhile, fled to Holland, where he likewise
raised an army, which he brought over and landed at
Ravenspurg, in Yorkshire, in March. 1471. At the battle
of Barnet, the Lancastrians were at iast thoroughly beaten,
but the King-Maker and his brother Lord Montague lost
their lives on the field of battle. Richard Neville left two
daughters, Isabella, married to the Duke of Clarence, the
brother of Edward IV, and Anne (mentioned above), who
after the murder of her first husband in 1741, married the
Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III.
These were the great historical characters whom young
Shakespeare could not fail to have thought of, when enter-
ing Warwick Castle by the passage cut through the solid
rock, and gazing at its massive towers built to withstand
the wear and tear of hundreds of years, — or when visiting
the Beauchamp Chapel and looking inquisitively at its
monuments and tombstones there. That Shakespeare, even
as a boy, wandered to Wanvick, which was only some eight
miles from Stratford, and became acquainted with all the
objects of interest there, will not admit of any reasonable
doubt. At Warwick he would at once be transported to
XXV
Comments THE THIRD PART OF
the time of the Wars of the Roses, to the scene of his His-
tories, and would ]earn the present as well as the past cir-
cumstances of the famous race of earls who figure in all
of these dramas. Would it be too much to maintain that
the youthful impressions which Warwick made upon Shake-
speare, were the first inspiration of his Histories? — Elze,
William Shakespeare.
RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER
If we may call the character of Henry VI Shakespeare's
own creation, that of Richard of Gloucester, on the con-
trary, was wholly prepared for his use in the Third Part.
The aspiring spirit inherited from his father ; the glance of
the eagle at the sun ; the great ambition, the indifference to
the means for an object; the valor, the superstition which
represents in him the voice of conscience ; the subtle art
of dissimulation ; the histrionic talent of a "Roscius," the
faithless policy of a Catiline ; these had been already as-
signed to him by Greene in this piece. But how excellent
even here have been Shakespeare's after-touches is evinced
in the soliloquy (Part III Act iii. sc. 2), where the am-
bitious projects of the duke hold counsel as it were with
his means of realizing them ; it is the counterpart to the
similar soliloquy of his father York (Part II Act iii. sc.
1), and permits us to anticipate how far the son will sur-
pass the father. The principal figure of the two plays,
Richard of York, is almost throughout delineated as if the
nature of his more fearful son was prefigured in him.
Far-fetched policy and the cunning and dissimulation of a
prudent and determined man are blended in him — not in
the same degree, but in the same apparent contradiction as
in Richard — with firmness, with a hatred of flattery, with
inability to cringe, and with bitter and genuine discontent.
With the same assurance and superiority as Richard the
son, he is at one time ready to decide at the point of the
sword, and at another to shuffle the cards silently and wait
"till time do serve;" both alike are animated by the same
xxvi
KING HENRY VI Comments
aspirations and ambitions. Had he been endowed with
the same favor of nature as his father, Richard would have
developed the same good qualities which the father pos-
sessed in addition to his dangerous gifts. Ugly, mis-
shapen, and despised, without a right to the throne and
without any near prospect of satisfying his royal projects,
his devouring ambition was poisoned ; in his father, called
as he was the flower of the chivah-y of Europe, convinced