Henry VI Pt 3
Written: c. 1591; Texts: First Folio 1623 (History), octavo edition 1595
Source: Hall, Edward (1498-1547). The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (3rd. ed., 1550); Holinshed, Raphael (c. 1528-c. 1580). The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. (2nd ed., 1587); William Baldwin ed. The Mirror for Magistrates (1559 ed.); Edmund Spenser (c.1552-99). The Faerie Queene (1590) – descriptions of the sun at 2.1.; Brooke, Arthur (?-1563). The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (English translation in 1562) – Queen Margaret's speech at 5.4.; Kyd, Thomas (1558-94) The Spanish Tragedy (1588-9) and Soliman and Perseda (1590)
Characters: Earl of Warwick, Edward Earl of March, Richard, King Henry VI, Queen Margaret, Richard Plantagenet Duke of York, Lord Clifford, George, Lady Grey, Lewis the Eleventh King of France
Setting: London and France
Time: AD 1455-1471
Henry VI Part 3 was originally published in octavo format in 1595 and was titled, The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, with the Death of Good King Henry the Sixth, with the Whole Contention between the Two Houses Lancaster and York. It is the third of the four plays that comprise the First Tetralogy, which was written between 1591 and 1595: Henry VI Part 1, Henry VI Part 2, Henry VI Part 3, and Richard III.
Notes on Henry VI Pt 3
Shakespeare and the Casting Couch
Read the NoteStories about women summoned as supplicants to the portals of men with the power to grant their wishes, for a price, are common across professions, across countries, across millennia. Shakespeare dramatized the dilemmas some of these women faced in more than one of his plays.
In both Henry VI Part 3 and Measure for Measure, for example,
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Animal Imagery
Read the NoteAnimal imagery dominates Henry VI, Part 3, as in two passages here:
Margaret
And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds
The trembling lamb environèd with wolves.
Had I been there, which am a silly woman,
The soldiers should have tossed me on their pikes
Before I would have granted to that act…
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Town and Country
Read the NoteIn Cymbeline, Belarius advises his two adoptive sons to embrace the idyllic life in the country rather than the political life at court:
“O, this life
Is nobler than attending for a check;
Richer than doing nothing for a bable;
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,
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Tempter or Tempted?
Read the NoteIn Measure for Measure (2.2.197), Angelo confronts, possibly for the first time in his life, the temptation of lust. And since this is new to him and because he is highly moralistic, he is troubled and confused. He reacts by asking himself a series of questions for which he has no answers.
What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault,
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Seduction or Harassment?
Read the NoteShakespeare delights in the seduction ceremonies of bright men with even brighter women. These dialogues, whether between adolescents like Romeo and Juliet, more mature characters like Henry V and Princess Katherine, or seasoned adults like the widow Lady Grey and the sexual harasser King Edward, in this scene (3HenryVI 3.2.36), give Shakespeare opportunities to employ dazzling webworks of rhetorical exchanges.
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Sexual Extortion
Read the NoteIn Measure for Measure (2.4.95), Angelo, the classic sexual harasser, adopts a method of sexual extortion similar to King Edward’s in Henry VI Part 3 (3.2.36). Both men begin with oblique insinuations about their desires, which can be innocently misread. When the women, Isabella in Measure for Measure and Lady Grey in Henry VI,
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Quotes from Henry VI Pt 3
I wonder how the King escaped our hands
Read the QuoteWarwick
I wonder how the King escaped our hands.
York
While we pursued the horsemen of the north,
He slyly stole away and left his men;
Whereat the great lord of Northumberland,
Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,
Cheered up the drooping army; and himself,
Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast,
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Pardon me, Margaret.—Pardon me, sweet son
Read the QuoteKing Henry
Pardon me, Margaret.—Pardon me, sweet son.
The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforced me.
Queen Margaret
Enforced thee? Art thou king and wilt be forced?
I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch,
Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me,
And giv’n unto the house of York such head
As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance!
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I took an oath that he should quietly reign
Read the QuoteYork
I took an oath that he should quietly reign.
Edward
But for a kingdom any oath may be broken.
I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.
Richard
No, God forbid your Grace should be forsworn.
Therefore, to arms! And, father, do but think
How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,
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Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland
Read the QuoteBrave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,
Come, make him stand upon this molehill here
That raught at mountains with outstretchèd arms,
Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.
They place York on a small prominence.
What, was it you that would be England’s king?
Was ‘t you that reveled in our parliament
And made a preachment of your high descent?
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She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France
Read the QuoteShe-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,
Whose Synecdochetongue more poisons than the adder’s tooth:Metaphor, Diacope & Parenthesis
How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex
To triumph like an Amazonian trull
Upon their woes whom Fortune captivates.Simile
O, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide,
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Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear?
Read the QuoteWarwick
Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear?
For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine
Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry’s head
And wring the awful scepter from his fist,
Were he as famous and as bold in war
As he is famed for mildness, peace, and prayer.
Richard
I know it well,
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This battle fares like to the morning’s war
Read the QuoteThis battle fares like to the morning’s war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so,
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
Simile, Anaphora & IsocolonNow sways it this way,
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O God! Methinks it were a happy life
Read the QuoteO God! Methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain,
To sit upon a hill as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
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Ill blows the wind that profits nobody
Read the Quote Enter at one door a Son that hath killed his Father, carrying the body.
Son
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,
May be possessèd with some store of crowns,
And I, that haply take them from him now,
May yet ere night yield both my life and them
To some man else,
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Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?
Read the QuoteKing Edward
Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?
Lady Grey
Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.
Anadiplosis & EpistropheKing Edward
And would you not do much to do them good?
Lady Grey
To do them good I would sustain some harm.
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