The First Part of King Henry the Sixth

Abstract

The series of histories comprising the three parts of Henry VI and The Life and Death of Richard III begins with the death of Henry V and deals with the loss of his French conquests and the coming of civil war during his son Henry VI’s reign; it ends with Henry Tudor’s invasion, his defeat of Richard III, and the inauguration of a new order under the family of Tudor. The plays cover sixty-three complicated years from 1422 to 1485, and the general theory under which the dramatist arranged his materials was familiar because it provided a well-publicised case for the Tudors’ legitimacy. Edward Hall, whose The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York was in itself and through Holinshed’s Chronicles Shakespeare’s chief source, announces the theory in his opening sentences:

What mischief hath insurged in realms by intestine division, what depopulation hath ensued in countries by civil dissension, what detestable murder hath been committed in cities by separate factions... this noble realm of England can apparently declare and make demonstration.

... But the old divided controversy between the fore-named families of Lancaster and York, by the union of matrimony celebrate and consummate between the high and mighty prince King Henry the Seventh and the Lady Elizabeth his most worthy queen, the one being indubitate heir of the house of Lancaster, and the other of York, was suspended and appalled in the person of their most noble, puissant and mighty heir King Henry the Eight.¹