Shakespeare's history plays used to be and still are regarded as a reliable source of information on English (medieval) history. According to Coleridge, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, was “not ashamed to confess that his principal acquaintance with English history was derived from Shakespeare's plays.” And David Scott Kastan, referring to this fact, continues: “No doubt he speaks for many more now […] whose acquaintance with England's medieval past comes via Shakespeare.” Furthermore, over the years Shakespeare's histories appear to have taken on a kind of popular mythical status and so themselves have shaped historical consciousness. Yet Shakespeare was a poet or dramatist rather than a historian, a distinction already established in the sixteenth century and defined by Sir Philip Sidney:

Shakespeare definitely does not turn history upside down, he always retains the basic outlines of what his audiences expected, yet at the same time does not feel “tied down” to the details of historical events and figures.