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The Place of 1 Henry VI in the York-Lancaster Tetralogy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

C. A. Greer*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon

Extract

Under date of March 3, 1592, Henslowe's Diary records the acting of the “new” play “Harry the Sixth.” In 1 Henry VI as we now have it, the General of Bordeaux addresses Talbot as “our nation's terror and their bloody scourge,” and Thomas Nashe in his famous allusion to a Talbot play (Piers Peniless, Stationers' Register, Aug. 8, 1592) speaks of him as “brave Talbot the terror of the French.” All this, according to general belief, refers to the same play, “Harry the Sixth,” or the earliest form or version of what we now call 1 Henry VI.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , September 1938 , pp. 687 - 701
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1938

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References

1 The Yale Shakespeare, The First Part of King Henry the Sixth, p. 133.—Hereafter cited as Yale Shak.

2 1 Henry VI, vi.ii.16.—All references to the Folio plays in this paper are to the Globe Edition unless otherwise indicated.

3 Yale Shak., p. 133.

4 Edmund Malone, in The Plays of William Shakespeare, edited by Isaac Reed, xiii, 179, 182.

5 Dr. Samuel Johnson, ibid., xiii, 178–179.

6 Yale Shak., p. 139, n. 1.

7 John Bell Henneman, in PMLA, xv, 290–296.

8 Yale Shak., pp. 133–137, 151–154.

9 Allison Gaw, The Origin and Development of “1 Henry VI,” pp. 162–168.

10 Yale Shak., pp. 135–136.

11 Ibid., p. 124.

12 Richard Crompton, The Mansion of Magnanimitie (1599), Signature E 4 (Copy in the Huntington Library).

13 Yale Shak., p. 125.

14 Ibid., p. 136.

15 Crompton, op. cit., pp. E3–E4 (Copy in the Huntington Library).

16 Ralph Brooke, A Catalogue and Succession of the Kings, Princes, Dukes, Marquesses Earls, and Vicounts of This Realme of England (1619), pp. 196–197 (Copy in the Huntington Library).

17 1 Henry VI, iv.vii.85–86.

18 “Cronique Martiniane,” in Bibliothèque Du XVe Siecle, edited by J. B. Champion, ii,63.

19 Edward Hall, Chronicle, edited by Henry Ellis, 1809, pp. 229–230; Raphael Holinshed, Chronicle, 1808 Edition, Vol. 3, p. 236; John Stow. Annales, augmented by Edmond Howes, 1615, p. 392.

20 W. A. Neilson and A. H. Thorndike, The Facts about Shakespeare, 1931 Edition p. 72.

21 Tucker Brooke, Shakespeare of Stratford (1926), p. 127.

22 Ibid., p. 127 and inserted sheet opposite p. 120.

23 See Neilson and Thorndike, op. cit., p. 72; Tucker Brooke, Shakespeare of Stratford (1926), p. 127.

24 H. D. Gray, “Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays,” MLN, xlvi (1931), 148.

25 For the full-play figures in this table, see Gray, op. cit., p. 148.

26 If Shakespeare did not write all of 1 Henry VI, and quite possibly he did not, then we can ignore the figures for that play as a whole and still in no way weaken the argument as to the alleged Shakespearean epitaph in connection with Henry V and Richard III. Or as a matter of fact, we can substitute for the figures of 1 Henry VI those of plays usually given a date close to that play and even then likewise not alter the force of the argument.

27 Yale Shak., pp. 141–142.

28 Tucker Brooke, Shakespeare of Stratford (1926), p. 127.

29 Gray, op. cit., p. 148.

30 Ibid., p. 148.

31 Yale Shak., p. 135.

32 1 Henry VI, iv.ii. 10–11.

33 Henry V, Prologue, 5–8.

34 1 Henry VI, i.ii. 9–12.

35 Henry V, iii.vii. 160–162.

36 W. G. Boswell-Stone, Shakespeare's Holinshed, p. 185, n. 3.

37 Ibid., p. 166.

38 1 Henry VI, i.i. 162–164.

39 Ibid., i.i. 165–166.

40 Ibid., i.i. 170–172.

41 Ibid., i.iii. 23–24.

42 Ibid., i.iii. 33–34.

43 Ibid., ii.v. 82–92.

44 Ibid., iii.i. 194–200.

45 Ibid., iii.iv. 17–19.

46 Ibid., v.i. 30–33.

47 Ibid., i.iv. 79.

48 Boswell-Stone, op. cit., pp. 208, 209, 213, 224, 236.

49 2 Henry VI, i.i. 76–104, ii.iii. 34, iv.viii. 37–40, 59–61; 3 Henry VI, i.i. 107–109, 140, iii.ii. 37–38, 150–162, vi. 15, iii.i. 76–77, iii. 85–90.