Oh, Henry VI. You are an odd duck. Somehow sprung from the glorious loins of everyone’s favorite warlike Harry, Hal, King Henry V, and yet so like your first ascendant cousin twice removed, the verse-filled Richard II (what with his piety and unstable kingdom situation and all). But you had much more to lose, simply because your awesome badass father gained so much before his early death (a few weeks shy of his 36th birthday), in the form of, oh I don’t know, FRANCE.
To be fair, Henry VI was nine months old when his cool dad died. By the time he was grown enough to start participating in statecraft, his protector uncles only had a moldy civil-war infested shit sandwich left for Henry’s inheritance. Not his fault.
This First Part of Henry VI chronicles the many feuds and skirmishes in the Anglo-French realm. People are revolting in France, as led by the usurped Charles the Dauphin, who apparently grew balls in the form of Joan de Pucelle (aka Joan of Arc), and Henry’s uncles and cousins in the court of England are arguing over who among them has the most royal bloodline with the least amount of treason tainting it. Is it Richard Plantagenet, who is seeking a restoration of his titles and shit? Or is it Somerset, the haughty Duke who tangles with Plantagenet in the rose garden and plucks some thorny words of condescension with him? Which rose bush will get trimmed first? Will everyone just leave the gardener to do his damn job? Who IS the gardener anyway? Henry VI? His uncle the Duke of Gloucester? The Dauphin? By Act II, I’m already wishing Joan would just pull a Kill Bill on all of them.
This first play is largely disputed as one that Shakespeare merely collaborated on, and it shows. There’s none of the soul-stirring verbal flourish we’re accustomed to hearing from him. It’s pretty straight-forward sword-rattling man-fighting and whining.
Poor Lord Talbot, meanwhile, is busy trying his damndest to keep the French rebels at bay, and it’s tragically hilarious that the Real Housewives-level bitching and sniping between Somerset and Plantagenet-turned-York leads to Talbot dying just after his son John croaks in his arms. It’s frickin sad.
At one point, the Parisians get so revolted with everything that they want the Dauphin’s head, and a peace treaty must be brokered, but not before Joan makes a plea for one last stand, her “fiends” abandon her, and York and co. take her hostage. It wasn’t until this scene that I realized she actually had stage directions that required these “fiends” aka “demons” or “spirits” to follow her around on stage every other scene. This weirdness was done to paint Joan as a witch, as the English public saw her. When she is finally lashed to the stake, her humiliation is compounded with a cascade of proclamations about being descended from kings, being a virgin, and then being with child by three different Frenchmen, which just cements the English lords' usual litany about her being a whore (I’ve never come across so many synonyms for “whore” in such a short time). I mean, we all saw this coming, but I can’t be the only one who laments the loss of one of the only charismatic characters in the whole ding-dang play.
Luckily, right before we lose Joan, Margaret of Anjou is dragged out onto the battlefield by the incorrigible Earl of Suffolk. This scene stands out from the entire play in that you see an ambitious man instantly falling in love with a woman, and in a series of super awkward asides, lays out his plan to convince King Henry to wed her so he (Suffolk) can keep her near him for his own amorous pleasure. Like, OK jabrony, thanks. Through this whole #metoo scene, Margaret acts coy, but as proceeding plays will prove, Margaret has some vulpine (if not downright lupine) cunning to apply to her courtly intentions. As a result, she is the only character to appear alive in the entire tetralogy.
Of course, tender Henry accepts Suffolk’s offer to marry this French daughter with no dowry, and we end with Suffolk basically doing his impression of Mr. Burns. The end.
Super lame, but I suppose there was enough death to satiate the groundlings. I’m just looking forward to the future viperous sniping between Dicky and Maggie in Richard III.
The Riverside and many other critics hold that this play is problematic, and nobody is sure if it was written first or just serves as a tacked-on sophomoric prequel to Parts 2 and 3, which are notably more well-developed and nuanced. Tina Packer posits that Shakespeare probably hashed this play out as a young 'un, being an artist reacting to the unstable politics of his day (100 years after England lost France). Naturally, he longed to create a project that was relevant to his times, while showcasing his strengthening ability to present all sides of a situation through the unique voices of hic characters. Four whole plays, however, seems obsessive. But hey, people paid their pence to see the action. Plenty of bloody fight scenes for everyone.
Both the complexity of the court's politics and the relatively banal craftsmanship of 1 Henry VI has lead to a dearth of productions, especially filmed versions readily available to view online. Luckily, the good old BBC decided to go ahead with their second Hollow Crown season a few years ago (following the Henriad released as a pride puffing piece during the 2012 Olympics in London). Mercifully, they combined the three Henry VI into just two parts, which mostly served to cut out the frankly overzealous number of fight scenes. The three-part series is masterfully produced and acted, with Hugh Bonneville as Gloucester, Sophie Okenedo as Margaret, Andrew Scott as King Louis XI, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III. I'm sure many an English teacher is deeply thankful for such a grand set of filmed history plays to whet their young students' appetites for Shakespeare. And their appetites for Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch of course.
I am already so thankful to myself for hoisting this challenge upon myself. I barely remembered WTF had happened in any of the Henry VI plays (outside of featuring a young Dicky III at some point). Now I am obsessed.
Favorite line of the week, delivered by Joan de Pucelle, expounding on the powers of kings:
"Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught."
1 Henry VI, Act I, Sc. II
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