Shakespeare's Kings (99 page)

And
so
to
Act
III,
which
opens
with
another
imaginary
scene
in which
Henry
VI,
wandering
the
countryside
in
disguise
after
the
battle of
Hexham,
is
finally
recognized
and
arrested.
For
Shakespeare,
this occurs
not
at
Waddington
Hall
but
in
'a
chase
in
the
north
of
England'. It
hardly
matters:
his
purpose
is
simply
to
provide
another
of
those scenes
of
quietness
-
one
might
almost
say
religious
quietism
-
during which
the
deposed
King
can
reflect
upon
his
fate.
After
just
a
hundred lines
we
are
transported
to
London.
Edward,
now
crowned
and
a dramatically
different
character
from
his
predecessor
on
the
throne,
is obsessed
by
Elizabeth
Grey
(nee
Woodville)
whom
he
is
determined to
take
to
his
bed.
She
for
her
part
holds
out
for
marriage
-
Shakespeare has
clearly
read
his
Mancini
¹
—
to
which
he
eventually
agrees.
The
stage

i. See Chapter 15, p. 29m.

is then left empty but for Richard of Gloucester, who in a long and magnificent soliloquy makes his first clear declaration
of his
ambitions:

I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,

Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,

And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon,

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? Tut!

Were it further off, I'll pluck it down.

Scene iii brings us to the French court. Queen Margaret, still determined on revenge, has taken refuge with Louis XI, from whom she is seeking military assistance. Warwick, all unaware of recent developments, arrives to negotiate on behalf of his master for Princess Bona, whose hand Louis immediately grants — though not without another outburst of anger from Margaret, who bitterly accuses them both of disloyalty to her husband. At this point a messenger arrives from London with letters informing all three
of the
m of Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Grey; and in a moment the entire situation is changed. Warwick instantly transfers his loyalties to Henry VI; the Queen is triumphant at this new proof of Edward's duplicity; and Louis hesitates no longer in promising her the aid she seeks. To seal the new alliance, Warwick and Margaret agree that his daughter shall forthwith be married to her son, Edward Prince of Wales.

Once again, history has been drastically compressed: the events related in this single scene cover some nine years. Warwick did indeed go to France to sue on Edward's behalf for the hand of Bona; but that was in
1461,
three years before the King's marriage. The visit from which he returned in rebellion was in
1470,
five years after it. It was in the later year, too, that Warwick's younger daughter, Anne (not the 'eldest', as the play has it), was betrothed to the young Prince - his elder, Isabel, having already been given to Clarence in
1469.
In spite of everything, however, the diplomatic consequences of Edward's ill-advised marriage are admirably illustrated. Once again one is left with the conviction that, whatever liberties Shakespeare might take with strict historical truth, in the essentials he was almost invariably right. For the non-scholar,
seeking
merely
an
overall
view
of
Plantagenet
history,
there
are
many worse
guides
to
follow.

One
of
the
inevitable
consequences
of
Shakespeare's
telescoping
of time
is
that
we
are
occasionally
obliged
to
put
back
the
clock;
the opening
of
Act
IV,
in
which
King
Edward
asks
his
brothers
their
opinion of
his
'new
marriage',
can
be
dated
no
later
than
1464.
Basically,
its purpose
is
to
emphasize
the
almost
universal
unpopularity
of
Edward's action.
First
the
brothers
themselves
leave
him
in
no
doubt
of
their own
feelings:
they
complain,
in
particular,
about
the
heedless
way
in which
he
is
marrying
off
all
his
new
Woodville
relations.
Then,
most convenie
ntly
,
a
messenger
arrives
from
France
to
report
the
fury
of King
Louis,
of
the
wronged
and
humiliated
Bona
and,
as
always,
of Queen
Margaret,
who
is
'ready
to
put
armour
on'.
She
has
also,
he continues,
made
up
her
differences
with
Warwick,
whose
daughter
is to
marry
the
young
Prince
of
Wales.
(Shakespeare's
confusion
between the
Earl's
two
daughters
is
once
again
in
evidence,
expressed
this
time by
Clarence.)
At
the
end
of
the
scene,
as
a
result
of
the
quarrel,
Clarence and
Somerset
¹
leave
to
join
Warwick;
Richard
of
Gloucester,
Hastings and
Montagu
assure
the
King
of
their
support.

The
next
scene
brings
us
forward
again
to
1469.
Warwick
has
landed in
Kent
with
his
'articles
of
petition'
and
has
hurried
north-westwards in
the
hopes
of
meeting
up
with
the
rebel
Robin
of
Redesdale
in
the north.
(The
stage
directions
tell
us
that
he
is
accompanied
by
French soldiers,
but
this
is
incorrect:
King
Louis's
men
did
not
in
fact
appear on
the
field
until
the
Battle
of
Tewkesbury,
still
two
years
in
the
future.) In
Warwickshire
he
is
joined
by
Clarence
and
Somerset
and
suspiciously inquires
whose
side
they
are
on;
reassured,
he
reiterates
his
promise that
Clarence
shall
have
his
daughter
to
wife.
Here
again,
however, Shakespeare
errs:
both
enquiry
and
promise
would
have
been
unnecessary,
since
Clarence
had
already
married
Isabel
Nevill
a
week
or
so before.
Scene
iii
then
follows
straight
on
its
predecessor,
with
what
is

1.
Three Dukes of Somerset were killed during the Wars of the Roses. Edmund Beaufort, second Duke, was killed at the first
Battle
of St Albans; Henry, third Duke, at first a loyal Lancastrian, went over to Edward in 1462 but soon returned to his old allegiance and was executed by the Yorkists after the
Battle
of Hexham in 1464; his brother Edmund, fourth Duke, who remained firmly Lancastrian, was also executed, two days after Tewkesbury. The present Somerset is a compound of the second two.

presumably the field of Edgecote in which, contrary to what we see on the stage, neither King Edward nor Warwick took part. Edward was indeed captured soon after the battle, but by the king-maker's brother, the Archbishop of York.

At this point we realize that Shakespeare has been telescoping again, and that King Edward's two successive defeats - the first his captivity after Edgecote, the second his flight to Holland fifteen months later -have been deliberately run into one. In scene iv Queen Elizabeth first tells Lord Rivers that her husband has been captured and is in the hands of the Archbishop; immediately afterwards, she tells him of her pregnancy and her determination to seek sanctuary. We can thus date the first half of this extremely short scene to July
1469,
the second half to October
1470.
This contrivance certainly streamlines the action, but it also raises new problems for the author: if Edward is a prisoner in England, how can he land from abroad with an army? Shakespeare's solution is to invent a totally fictitious rescue of the King by Richard of Gloucester and others, after which he takes refuge in Flanders. This enables Warwick to release Henry VI from the Tower and reinstate him on the throne — which did indeed occur when Edward was away in the Low Countries — and Edward to disembark at Ravenscar for the last triu
mphant chapter of his long battl
e against the Lancastrians.