So many captains, gentlemen and soldiers
That in this quarrel have been overthrown
105
And sold their bodies for their country’s benefit,
Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?
Have we not lost most part of all the towns,
By treason, falsehood and by treachery,
Our great progenitors had conquered?
110
O Warwick, Warwick, I foresee with grief
The utter loss of all the realm of France.
WARWICK Be patient, York. If we conclude a peace
It shall be with such strict and severe covenants
As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.
115
Enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, the BASTARD and REIGNIER.
CHARLES Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed
That peaceful truce shall be proclaimed in France,
We come to be informed, by yourselves,
What the conditions of that league must be.
120
YORK Speak, Winchester, for boiling choler chokes
The hollow passage of my poisoned voice
By sight of these, our baleful enemies.
WINCHESTER Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:
That, in regard King Henry gives consent,
Of mere compassion and of lenity,
125
To ease your country of distressful war
And suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,
You shall become true liegemen to his crown.
And Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear
To pay him tribute and submit thyself,
130
Thou shalt be placed as viceroy under him
And still enjoy thy regal dignity.
ALENÇON Must he be then as shadow of himself –
Adorn his temples with a coronet,
And yet in substance and authority
135
Retain but privilege of a private man?
This proffer is absurd and reasonless.
CHARLES ’Tis known already that I am possessed
With more than half the Gallian territories,
And therein reverenced for their lawful king.
140
Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquished,
Detract so much from that prerogative
As to be called but viceroy of the whole?
No, lord ambassador; I’ll rather keep
That which I have, than, coveting for more,
145
Be cast from possibility of all.
YORK Insulting Charles, hast thou by secret means
Used intercession to obtain a league
And, now the matter grows to compromise,
Stand’st thou aloof upon comparison?
150
Either accept the title thou usurp’st –
Of benefit proceeding from our king,
And not of any challenge of desert –
Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.
[The French turn to talk among themselves.]
REIGNIER My lord, you do not well in obstinacy
155
To cavil in the course of this contract.
If once it be neglected, ten to one
We shall not find like opportunity.
ALENÇON To say the truth, it is your policy
To save your subjects from such massacre
160
And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen
By our proceeding in hostility:
And therefore take this compact of a truce –
Although you break it, when your pleasure serves.
WARWICK
How sayest thou, Charles? Shall our condition stand?
165
CHARLES It shall:
Only reserved you claim no interest
In any of our towns of garrison.
YORK Then swear allegiance to his majesty:
As thou art knight, never to disobey
170
Nor be rebellious to the crown of England –
Thou nor thy nobles to the crown of England.
So, now dismiss your army when ye please.
Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,
For here we entertain a solemn peace. Exeunt.
175
5.4 Enter SUFFOLK in conference with the KING, GLOUCESTER and EXETER.
KING Your wondrous rare description, noble earl,
Of beauteous Margaret hath astonished me.
Her virtues, graced with external gifts,
Do breed love’s settled passions in my heart;
And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts
5
Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,
So am I driven, by breath of her renown,
Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive
Where I may have fruition of her love.
SUFFOLK Tush, my good lord, this superficial tale
10
Is but a preface of her worthy praise:
The chief perfections of that lovely dame –
Had I sufficient skill to utter them –
Would make a volume of enticing lines
Able to ravish any dull conceit.
15
And, which is more, she is not so divine,
So full replete with choice of all delights,
But with as humble lowliness of mind
She is content to be at your command –
Command, I mean, of virtuous chaste intents –
20
To love and honour Henry as her lord.
KING And otherwise will Henry ne’er presume.
Therefore, my lord Protector, give consent
That Margaret may be England’s royal queen.
GLOUCESTER So should I give consent to flatter sin.
25
You know, my lord, your highness is betrothed
Unto another lady of esteem;
How shall we then dispense with that contract,
And not deface your honour with reproach?
SUFFOLK As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths,
30
Or one that, at a triumph having vowed
To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists
By reason of his adversary’s odds.
A poor earl’s daughter is unequal odds
And therefore may be broke without offence.
35
GLOUCESTER
Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than that?
Her father is no better than an earl,
Although in glorious titles he excel.
SUFFOLK Yes, my lord, her father is a king,
The King of Naples and Jerusalem,
40
And of such great authority in France
As his alliance will confirm our peace,
And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.
GLOUCESTER And so the Earl of Armagnac may do,
Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.
45
EXETER
Beside, his wealth doth warrant a liberal dower,
Where Reignier sooner will receive than give.
SUFFOLK
A dower, my lords? Disgrace not so your king
That he should be so abject, base and poor
To choose for wealth, and not for perfect love.
50
Henry is able to enrich his queen,
And not to seek a queen to make him rich;
So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,
As market-men for oxen, sheep or horse.
Marriage is a matter of more worth
55
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship:
Not whom we will, but whom his grace affects,
Must be companion of his nuptial bed.
And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,
Most of all these reasons bindeth us:
/> 60
In our opinions she should be preferred.
For what is wedlock forced but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife?
Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace.
65
Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,
But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?
Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,
Approves her fit for none but for a king.
Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit
70
(More than in women commonly is seen)
Will answer our hope in issue of a king.
For Henry, son unto a conqueror,
Is likely to beget more conquerors,
If with a lady of so high resolve
75
As is fair Margaret he be linked in love.
Then yield, my lords, and here conclude with me
That Margaret shall be queen, and none but she.
KING
Whether it be through force of your report,
My noble lord of Suffolk, or for that
80
My tender youth was never yet attaint
With any passion of inflaming love,
I cannot tell; but this I am assured –
I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,
Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,
85
As I am sick with working of my thoughts.
Take therefore shipping post, my lord, to France.
Agree to any covenants, and procure
That lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come,
To cross the seas to England and be crowned
90
King Henry’s faithful and anointed queen.
For your expenses and sufficient charge,
Among the people gather up a tenth.
Begone, I say, for till you do return
I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.
95
And you, good uncle, banish all offence:
If you do censure me by what you were,
Not what you are, I know it will excuse
This sudden execution of my will.
And so conduct me where, from company,
100
I may revolve and ruminate my grief. Exit.
GLOUCESTER
Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.
Exeunt Gloucester and Exeter.
SUFFOLK
Thus Suffolk hath prevailed, and thus he goes,
As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,
With hope to find the like event in love –
105
But prosper better than the Trojan did.
Margaret shall now be queen, and rule the King:
But I will rule both her, the King and realm. Exit.
King Henry VI, Part 2
Before its appearance as the seventh of the histories in the Folio of 1623, a version of King Henry VI, Part 2 was published in 1594 as The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster. The 1594 Quarto was reprinted in 1600, and in 1619 this play and King Henry VI, Part 3 (published in 1595 as The true Tragedy of Richard Duke of York) were combined and published as The Whole Contention between the two Famous Houses, Lancaster and York. These earliest printings of Part 2 differ from the Folio text: they are shorter by about a third and seem to represent a reported version, put together probably by actors who had performed the play. Thus, in general, they have less authority than the fuller and better text available in the 1623 Folio, but they do provide, by virtue of their provenance, important evidence of early theatrical practice.
King Henry VI, Part 2, continues the history soon after it breaks off in Part 1, but with its own formal and thematic integrity. The play covers ten years of Henry’s tumultuous reign, beginning with Margaret’s coronation (which took place in May 1445, two years after the disgrace of Duke Humphrey’s wife Eleanor, also included within the action), and continues to the Battle of St Albans (1455). France has now effectively been lost. The factionalism evident in Part 1 finally bursts here into fullfledged civil war, and the aristocratic struggles for the throne have a demotic echo in the emergence of the popular unrest that explodes into Jack Cade’s rebellion. Through it all, we can see the ominous emergence of one man able to impose his will on history, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York.
Part 1 plays off England against France, Talbot against Joan, mighty opposites that work to define a model of English greatness, however vulnerable it is finally shown to be; Part 2 confronts the stresses and tensions tearing at the fabric of the nation itself. This is a new world, no longer based on aristocratic honour and feudal obligation, but a world of appetite and ambition, a world in which neither Henry’s piety nor Gloucester’s virtue offers protection or relief.
Jack Cade’s rebellion is perhaps a mere inset into the dismal story of aristocratic wrangles, but it is a telling episode. It can be seen as evidence of the dangerous unruliness of the rabble, a degrading comedy of misrule, but the rebels voice legitimate social concerns and aspirations. If the uprising seems finally a travesty of the desire for social justice, it is because their leader, Cade, is revealed as a pawn of York’s ambitions and his pathetic mimic, rather than because the issues are themselves laughable.
Thirteen people die in King Henry VI, Part 2, none in easeful sleep. The language is of snakes, spiders and scorpions; bleeding heifers, slaughtered calves, innocent lambs threatened by wolves; butchers with axes and headless bodies on piles of dung. Not far beneath the veneer of courtly sophistication is a fierce and violent world that can no longer be ordered by the institutions and ceremonies designed to control the flux of reality. The fall of the good and innocent Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, is at once symptom and at least partial cause of the lawlessness that reigns. His absence leaves the state without any effective force of social coherence. The idea of kingship itself is endlessly appealed to, but it is never a unifying centre for the country or the play; for the ambitious York it is only the object of his brazen will to power, and for the inept Henry it is a condition to be escaped: ‘never subject longed to be a king / As I do long and wish to be a subject’.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 213