Shakespeare's Kings (84 page)

Or thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,

Despite Duke Humphrey or the Cardinal.

As
these
two
leave
in
their
turn,
Salisbury
turns
to
his
son
Warwick and
to
his
brother-in-law
Richard,
Duke
of
York,
and
urges
them
to join
him
in
support
of
the
Duke
of
Gloucester

In what we can, to bridle and suppress

The pride of Suffolk and the Cardinal,

With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;

And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds,

While they do tend the profit of the land.

Finally,
the
stage
is
left
to
Richard
of
York,
whose
closing
soliloquy leaves
no
doubt
of
his
own
intentions:

And therefore will I take the Nevils' parts

And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey . . .

Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,

With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,

And in my standard bear the arms of York,

To grapple with the house of Lancaster;

And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,

Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.

We are left as Shakespeare means us to be left, with a sentiment of bleak foreboding. The realm is being torn apart, with at least six separate factions intriguing for power under a weak, incapable King. It is perhaps unfortunate that the two principal themes running through this vitally important opening scene - the loss of the two French provinces and the office of Protector - should both be based on historical inaccuracies; but in a broader sense the scene carries its own truth. Dissatisfaction, resentment, personal ambition, spite: all these were real enough, and were running uncontrolled. It was a recipe for disaster, and that disaster was not to be long in coming.

With the second scene of Act I, Shakespeare begins to chronicle the slow succession of events which lead eventually to the death of Duke Humphrey. The disgrace of Humphrey's over-ambitious second wife, Eleanor Cobham - who is arrested in I.iv and sentenced in Il.iii - had actually occurred in
1441,
four years before the arrival of Queen Margaret in England,
¹
and thus properly belongs to the first part of the trilogy; but to have included it there would have meant losing the impact of a steady dramatic crescendo, for which strict chronological accuracy was surely a small enough price to pay. All those named as being associated with the Duchess in the black arts - Margery Jourdain, Roger Bolingbroke, John Southwell and the odious
agent provocateur
Hume (called John by Hall and Shakespeare but Thomas in the earlier chronicles) are historic personages. Shakespeare ignores Hall's reference to the slow melting of the wax image of the King, concentrating instead on the spirit (which makes its brief appearance in scene iv), and its answers to Bolingbroke's three questions concerning the fate of the King, Suffolk and Somerset.

Three times, however, he interrupts his story — on two of those

1
. See Chapter 11, p. 228-9.

occasions
deliberately
shifting
the
focus
back
to
Richard
of
York.
The first
is
in
I.iii,
when
Peter,
the
armourer's
apprentice,
accuses
his
master of
upholding
York's
claim
to
the
crown.
Clearly
the
Duke
cannot
be held
responsible
for
a
reported
remark
by
someone
else,
which
the accused
in
any
case
has
indigna
ntly
denied;
but
his
name
is
somehow tarnished
and
it
is
Somerset,
in
place
of
himself,
who
is
appointed Regent
in
France.
¹
(The
same
scene
contains
the
highly
enjoyable incident
where
the
Queen
gives
the
Duchess
of
Gloucester
a
box
on the
ear
and
the
Duchess
turns
on
her
like
a
fishwife.)
Richard
steps
still further
towards
the
centre
of
the
stage
in
II.ii,
when
—
presumably
in the
interests
of
those
members
of
the
audience
who
had
either
missed the
previous
play
or
forgotten
it
-
he
reiterates
the
details
of
his
claim,
²
with
Warwick
solemnly
pledging
his
support.

The
least
important
of
these
interruptions
is
the
scene
of
the
hawking party
(Il.i)
which
provides
the
nobles
with
yet
another
opportunity
for quarrelling
among
themselves
and
showing
their
animosity
towards Duke
Humphrey.
It
comes
as
a
distinct
relief
when
their
bickering
is brought
to
an
end
by
the
arrival
of
Buckingham
with
the
news
of
the Duchess's
arrest.
There
follow
her
trial
and
judgement,
the
surrender by
her
husband
of
his
Protectorship
(which,
as
we
have
already
seen, he
had
not
in
fact
possessed
for
well
over
a
decade)
and,
immediately afterwards,
the
duel
between
Horner
the
armourer
and
his
apprentice, where
the
apprentice
triumphs
and
the
dying
Horner
confesses
the truth
of
the
accusation
against
him.

The
second
act
ends
with
the
scene
of
the
Duchess's
penance.
Dressed in
a
white
sheet
and
holding
a
taper
in
her
hand,
she
pauses
on
her barefoot
three-day
march
through
the
city
streets
to
address
her
husband —
who
in
the
play
is
powerless,
rather
than
unwilling,
to
help
her.
(The penance
itself
is
a
historic
fact,
though
the
conversation
between
the two
must
clearly
be
Shakespeare's
invention.)
The
Duchess
warns
him of
his
imminent
fall;
he,
with
innocent
optimism,
reassures
her:

I must offend before I be attainted.

1.
Somerset actually superseded Richard in this position in the summer of 1448.

2.
As usual, muddling the Mortimers. See Chap
ter 6, p. 137-8 and Chapter 12,
p. 241.

The two are still in conversation when he is accosted by a herald and summoned to the Parliament at Bury St Edmunds where, as we know, he is to meet his death.

But what form was that death to take? For Shakespeare as for Hall, there was no question: Duke Humphrey was murdered, with the unanimous approval of
his enemies, all of them for once united against him. But Shakespeare and Hall were almost certainly wrong. The suddenness of Gloucester's death, following as it did so soon after his arrest, certainly looked suspicious; but those who knew him best were convinced that there was no foul play. He was admittedly only fifty-six, but years of drink and debauch had had their effect: the palsy was already upon him, and both his portraits
¹
show a worn, tired old man. Besides, what by then would have been the purpose in killing him? He had had no real power, and very little influence, since his wife's disgrace of six years before; he was not standing in the way of any of the presumed conspirators, and was doing no real harm to anyone. True, he was widely suspected of conspiring against his nephew, but there was not a shred of evidence to support it. Where his own death was concerned, nothing that we know of the two principal suspects, Suffolk and Beaufort, suggests that they would have been capable of such a crime. And if indeed he did come to a violent end, it is to say the least surprising that when Suffolk fell just three years later and was charged with a long list of crimes, the murder of Duke Humphrey was not among them.

The entire action of the third act takes place in Bury St Edmunds. The first scene, in the abbey,
²
covers the late arrival and immediate arrest of Gloucester and the nomination of Richard of York to put down a new rebellion in Ireland. Historically, seven months separated these two events: Gloucester died on
23
February
1447,
while Richard was 'retained' as the King's Lieutenant in Ireland on
29
September, his