Shakespeare's Kings (72 page)

Another
year
was
to
pass
before
bride
and
groom
were
united.
The next
winter
Suffolk
returned
to
France,
this
time
to
Lorraine
where King
and
Count
were
together
besieging
Metz;
not
till
the
end
of February
1445
did
the
city
surrender,
and
only
then
did
the
French
and Angevin
courts
return
together
to
Nancy,
where
the
final
negotiations were
completed.
It
was
probably
this
unexpected
delay
that
led
to
the widespread
delusion
in
England
that
Charles
and
Rene
had
insisted
on fresh
concessions
-
including
the
surrender
of
all
the
territories
that
the English
possessed,
or
claimed
to
possess,
in
Maine
and
Anjou.
In
fact there
is
no
evidence
that
they
did
anything
of
the
kind,
still
less
that Suffolk
agreed
to
any
such
demands;
Henry's
voluntary
surrender
of Maine
to
his
new
father-in-law
at
the
end
of
the
year
seems
to
have been
at
the
instigation
of
his
young
Queen
alone.
But
the
rumour
was enough
to
destroy
such
popularity
as
Suffolk
enjoyed,
and
was
certainly a
contributory
cause
of
his
downfall
less
than
five
years
later.

Early
in
March
1445
the
royal
marriage
was
celebrated
at
Nancy
by the
Bishop
of
Toul,
after
which
Margaret,
escorted
by
Suffolk
and
a numerous
following
of
her
own,
made
her
way
by
easy
stages
via
Paris and
Rouen
to
England,
where
she
arrived
at
Portsmouth
on
9
April, 'sick
of
the
labour
and
indisposition
of
the
sea'.
She
remained
ill
for
a fortnight;
not
till
the
23rd
was
she
well
enough
to
travel
the
nine
miles to
the
Abbey
of
Titchfield,
where
Henry
-
now
twenty-three
-
was anxiously
awaiting
her
and
where
the
two
were
quietl
y
married
by
his confessor,
the
Bishop
of
Salisbury.
Their
movements
over
the
next
few weeks
are
unknown,
but
they
entered
London
in
triumph
on
28 May,
and
two
days
later
Margaret
was
crowned
by
the
Archbishop
of Canterbury,
John
Stafford,
in
Westminster
Abbey.

Her
compatriot
Queen
Isabella,
who
had
been
primarily
responsible for
the
deposition
of
her
husband
Edward
II
one
hundred
and
eighteen years
before,
had
been
known
to
her
English
subjects
as
'the
she-wolf of
France'.
For
Margaret,
as
will
soon
become
clear,
such
a
description would
have
been
an
understatement.

exeter
.

This late dissension grown betwixt the peers

Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love,

And will at last break out into a flame;

As fester'd members rot but by degree

Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,

So will this base and envious discord breed.

And now I fear that fatal prophecy

Which in the time of Henry nam'd the Fifth

Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:

That Henry born at Monmouth should win all, And

Henry born at Windsor should lose all.
. .

king henry vi part i

The First Part of King Henry VI
is
-
with
the
arguable
exception
of
Titus Andronicus -
probably
the
earliest
of
Shakespeare's
plays
to
have
come down
to
us.
Like
its
three
sequels
-
for
Richard III
is
so
closely
connected to
the
others
that
it
can
be
considered
part
of
a
single
series
-
it
appears in
the
Stationers'
Register
after
Spenser's
The Faerie Queene,
which
is dated
December
1589;
on
the
other
hand
it
must
surely
predate
the reference
to
'braue
Talbot
(the
terror
of
the
French)
.
.
.
that
hee
should triumphe
againe
on
the
Stage'
in
Pierce Penilesse his Supplication to the Divell
by
Thomas
Nashe,
registered
on
8
August
1592.
All
three
plays, therefore,
are
those
of
a
young
man,
written
when
their
author
was still
in
his
twenties.
Perhaps
partly
for
this
reason,
their
authorship
has been
queried
again
and
again,
though
the
various
arguments
put
forward have
no
place
in
this
book.
Suffice
it
to
say
that
few
modern
scholars have
any
serious
doubts
that
all
are
essentially
from
Shakespeare's
pen. The
question
for
us
is,
as
always,
how
closely
do
the
plays
conform
to historical
truth?

This
time
the
short
answer
is
'not
very'.
The
young
Shakespeare seems
to
have
been
a
good
deal
less
conscientious
in
these
youthful productions
than
he
was
when
he
came
to
write
those
histories
which come
earlier
in
the
chronological
canon
and
which
have
conseque
ntly
been
discussed
in
earlier
chapters
of
this
book.
In
his
defence,
however, it
must
be
said
that
he
was
attempting
something
different,
and
a
good deal
more
ambitious.
His
aim
in
these
four
plays
is
to
portray
not
just the
character
of
a
King
but
a
vast
sweep
of
history.
Henry VI Part I
alone
covers
the
period
from
the
funeral
of
Henry
V
in
1422
to
the death
of
John
Talbot,
Earl
of
Shrewsbury,
in
1453.
The
need
to
compress
over
thirty
years
into
the
two-hour
traffic
of
his
stage
obliges
him to
take
considerable
liberties
with
strict
chronology,
and
the
need
to provide
his
audience
with
excitement
and
drama
involves
him
in
a good
many
more.
But
there:
historical
playwrights,
like
the
authors
of lapidary
inscriptions,
are
not
on
oath;
and
few
of
us,
I
suspect,
will
find it
in
our
hearts
to
blame
him.