Shakespeare's Kings (97 page)

Whatever
those
audiences
might
have
felt,
however,
the
opening
of the
play
is
not
such
as
to
fill
the
historian
with
confidence.
'I
wonder how
the
King
escap'd
our
hands!'
says
Warwick,
after
the
first
Battle
of St
Albans.
The
short
answer
is
that
he
did
not
escape:
as
we
have
seen, he
and
the
Queen
remained
in
the
town
for
the
night,
and
Warwick himself,
with
Salisbury
and
Gloucester,
most
deferentially
escorted
them back
to
London
the
following
day.
Within
the
first
ten
lines,
too, Shakespeare
has
changed
his
own
story:
he
allows
York
to
report
that his
old
enemy
Clifford
was
'by
the
swords
of
common
soldiers
slain', whereas
at
the
end
of
Part II
Clifford
is
killed
by
York
himself.
¹
Finally, he
perpetuates
the
solecism
of
the
earlier
play
in
the
matter
of
Prince Richard's
age
-
to
have
'best
deserv'd
of
all
[York's]
sons'
is
a
remarkable tribute
to
a
two-year-old
-
but
this
is
of
course
deliberate:
now
more than
ever,
historical
time
must
be
telescoped
if
it
is
to
fit
the
two-hour traffic
of the
Shakespearean
stage.

So
drastic
is
this
telescoping
that,
the
play
having
begun
in
May
1455, by
line
35
of the
first
scene
we
find
ourselves
already
in
October
1460 when
York,
having
recently
returned
from
Ireland,
makes
his
first
open claim
to
the
crown,
laying
his
hand
on
the
cushion
of
the
throne
in Westminster
Hall.
It
need
hardly
be
said
that
the
appearance
of
King Henry
at
this
point
is
an
invention.
(Even
had
it
not
been,
the
King
is unlikely
to
have
said
that
he
was
crowned
at
the
age
of
nine
months; although
this
was
indeed
his
age
at
his
accession
he
received
his
first coronation,
in
London,
shortly
before
his
eighth
birthday.)
His
presence, however
-
together
with
that
of
Queen
Margaret,
who
enters
a
few minutes
later
with
the
seven-year-old
Prince
of
Wales
—
allows
a
brilliant dramatization
of
the
Act
of
Accord
²
and
the
Queen's
furious
protest
at her
son's
disinheritance.
³

Two
months
pass.
Scene
ii
is
set
at
York's
castle
of
Sandal
in
Yorkshire,
where
he,
with
his
eldest
and
youngest
sons
Edward
and

1.
See Chapter 14, p. 280. But Shakespeare soon ret
urns to his earlier version: in
Part III,
I.i.166, young Clifford is made to refer to York as 'him that slew my father'.

2.
See Chapter 15, pp. 284-5.

3.
'The feare y
^l
thei had
of the
quene, whose countenance
was so fearfull, and
whose looke was so terrible, that to al men . . . he
r frounyng was theyr vndoyng, &
her indignation was their death'
(Hall,
241).

Richard,
¹
are
about
to
engage
Northumberland
and
the
Lancastrians
of the
north.
With
them
is
John
Nevill,
Marquis
of
Montagu,
who
had in
fact
remained
in
London
and
who
is
unaccountably
addressed
by York
throughout
the
scene
as
his
brother
-
although
he
was
in
fact only
his
nephew
by
marriage.
The
likeliest
explanation
here
is
that Shakespeare
substituted
Montagu
at
the
last
moment
for
his
father
the Earl
of
Salisbury,
who
was
certainly
at
Sandal
but
whom
-
since
he
was to
be
executed
immediately
after
the
coming
battle
-
he
had
decided
to leave
out
of
the
play
altogether.
The
scene
begins
with
a
chilling
conversation
in
which
Richard
(who
in
1460
was
still
only
eight
years
old)
reveals his
precociously
Machiavellian
nature
by
encouraging
his
father
to
seize the
throne,
on
the
grounds
that
the
oath
he
has
recently
sworn
to
allow King
Henry
to
reign
in
peace
is
technically
invalid.
A
messenger
then arrives
to
announce
that
Queen
Margaret
has
arrived,
with
the
northern lords
and
an
army
of
20,000,
and
is
about
to
besiege
the
castle
.

The
last
two
scenes
of
Act
I
are
given
over
to
the
battle
of
Wakefield. Like
all
Shakespeare's
battles
it
is
inevitably
impressionistic,
consisting as
it
does
of
two
main
episodes:
first,
the
vengeful
killing
by
young Clifford
of
York's
second
son,
the
seventeen-year-old
Earl
of
Rudand ('Thy
father
slew
my
father;
therefore
die');
second,
the
capture
and death
of
York
himself,
stabbed
first
by
Clifford
and
then
by
the
Queen in
person.
Shakespeare,
of
course,
knew
as
well
as
we
do
that
Margaret was
not
at
Wakefield
at
all;
at
the
time
of
the
encounter
she
was
still
in Scotland,
whence
she
was
to
join
the
triumphant
Lancastrians
at
York only
some
three
weeks
later.
Once
again,
however,
her
sudden
appearance,
her
savage
mockery
of
her
captive
(made
to
stand
on
a
molehill with
the
paper
crown
on
his
head)
and,
worst
of
all,
that
terrible
moment when
she
herself
drives
her
dagger
into
York's
heart
-
all
this
adds immeasurably
to
the
drama,
as
well
as
casting
a
new
and
hideous
light on
her
character.