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Shakespeare's Histories

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Henry IV,
Part 1

Shakespeare's histories

These are the plays usually considered Shakespeare's "histories", although they include only the British histories. The Roman and other historically based plays, like Julius Caesar and Macbeth, are generally considered tragedies.

The source of most of the material Shakespeare dramatizes in the historical plays is thought to be Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, often called just Holinshed's Chronicles. It was published in 1577 and enlarged in a later second edition that provided subject matter for Elizabethan dramatists, including Shakespeare.

By order of historical events depicted in the plays:

Play	Actual events	Written	Historical comparison
King John	1203-1216 John had become king in 1199. He had his nephew Arthur killed in 1203, fought with Philip II of France in 1204-5 over the Aquitaine, quarrelled with the Church 1206-1213. He died of dysentery in 1216 while fighting the barons.	1594-96 1592 or earlier, according to some scholars	• Shakespeare condenses the time period, adds a confusion over Arthur's death, and conflates the battles with the Church and barons. • John, youngest son of Henry II and known as John Lackland, is also a villain in the Robin Hood stories as the usurper of his brother King Richard's throne. All the sons of Henry II are portrayed as schemers in James Goldman's play (and film) The Lion in Winter. • Historically John is best known for having been forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, transferring some of his power to the barons.
Richard II	1397-1400 Richard had become king in 1377 at age 10. He had Gloucester murdered in 1397 and banished Bolingbroke (future Henry IV) in 1398. John of Gaunt died in 1399. Bolingbroke deposed Richard in 1399 and Richard died of starvation in 1400.	1595	• The first of a tetralogy (four-play cycle) dealing with early 15th-century British history and written in order. • Shakespeare obviously sides with Bolingbroke. Although he makes him responsible for Richard's death, he also has him repent. • Queen Elizabeth thought she might be identified with Richard and had the deposition scene struck from the play. When Essex rebelled against her, he bribed Shakespeare's company to put the scene back in.
Henry IV, Part 1	1401-1403 Henry IV had become king in 1399. Glendower started a Welsh rebellion in 1401 and allied with Henry Percy Hotspur. Hotspur was defeated and slain at Shrewsbury in 1403.	1597	• The wildness of Prince Hal's youth is exaggerated and Shakespeare plays with the time sequence. • Shakespeare makes the Shrewsbury battle more dramatic by arranging personal confrontations between the leaders, culminating in Prince Hal killing Hotspur. • Falstaff and company appear to be completely invented characters.
Henry IV, Part 2	1403-1413 Northumberland (the Percy family) continued to fight until finally defeated in 1408. Glendower and other rebels carried on spasmodically to the end of Henry IV's reign. Henry died in 1413.	1598	• Again Shakespeare drastically compresses time. • There was likely no sudden change of heart by the prince nor deathbed acceptance of his son by the king, as the prince had been involved in fighting rebels on his father's behalf and holding civic positions since 1402.
Henry V	1415-1420 Henry V had become king in 1413. He invaded France in 1415 and won the battle of Agincourt. The peace treaty was signed and Henry married Katherine in 1420.	1599	• The play is relatively faithful to history, although all the subplots of Henry's eve-of-battle rambles, the glove in the hat episodes, and the exploits of Falstaff's successors in roguery, Pistol and Bardolph, are undoubtedly fictional.
Henry VI, Part 1	1422-1445 Henry V died in 1422 and Henry VI succeeded at the age of one. Joan of Arc helped capture Orleans in 1429. She was captured and executed in 1431. Henry was crowned king of France in 1431 at age 10 and married Margaret of Anjou in 1445.	1591-92	• This starts another dealing with British history, written first but taken from a later historical period. Scholars are undecided whether Shakespeare wrote only a few scenes in this play, especially the apocryphal origins of the War of the Roses in a garden debate, or wrote it all. • Henry VI's age is increased to make him part of the intrigue. Years, even decades, between actual events are wiped out. • Joan of Arc is a loose-living witch in this British play, rather than the heroic, sainted virgin of French legend.
Henry VI, Part 2	1430s-1455 Gloucester was Protector or Regent off and on until 1437. His wife was exiled for witchcraft in 1446. He was charged with treason in 1447 but died of natural causes. Cardinal Beaufort also died in 1447. John Cade led the London rebellion in 1450 and died of wounds afterwards. York seized power as Protector in 1454. He won the first battle of the War of the Roses at St. Albans in 1455.	1591-92	• Again it is uncertain how much of this play was written by Shakespeare. In any case, it compresses the timeline, mixes up historical events, and hypothesizes events with little evidence, such as the supposed murder of Gloucester. • However these inaccuracies, like many of those in Shakespeare's plays, may have been based on the chronicles available at the time, rather than been created by the playwright.
Henry VI, Part 3	1450s-1471 York is killed in battle in 1460. The battle of Towton was fought in 1461 and led to the royal family fleeing to Scotland and York's eldest son, Edward, being crowned. Henry returned to fight in 1464 but was captured. He was restored to the throne in 1470 but lost it to Edward IV again the next year at the battle of Tewkesbury. He was murdered in the Tower in 1471.	1591-92 (as late as 1599, according to some scholars)	• The third Henry VI play is thought more likely to have been written by Shakespeare. Once more the events are compressed into a much shorter period, and principals are shown committing acts personally that would have have been carried out through intermediaries. But the events do more or less follow historical order.
Richard III	1470s-1485 Edward IV's brother Clarence was charged with plotting his death and was killed (rumoured by drowning in wine) in 1478. When Edward died in 1483 from natural causes, his son succeeded as king. But Edward's youngest brother Richard took the throne and imprisoned Edward's two sons who later disappeared. He put down a rebellion by Buckingham the same year and had him executed. He was killed in the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 by the forces of the Earl of Richmond, Henry Tudor, who was crowned as Henry VII and married Edward IV's daughter to end the War of the Roses.	1595-96 (1594 or earlier, according to some scholars)	• The most controversial of Shakespeare's histories, it follows the practice of the Tudors—of which Queen Elizabeth I was the latest representative—of vilifying the Plantagenets. Richard was depicted as an evil hunchback who pitted his brothers against each other, seized power illegally and had his nephews murdered. • Historians have argued about how much of that picture is true. The Plantagenet Society has long argued that Richard was not the monster depicted in this play. • One point is certain though, Richard was not slain in battle personally by Richmond (Henry VII).
Henry VIII	1530-1536 Henry VIII had succeeded Henry VII in 1509. After failing to win a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his elder brother's widow, he married Anne Boleyn in defiance of the Roman Catholic church in 1533. Cardinal Wolsey was arrested and died in 1530. Elizabeth (to be Elizabeth II) was born in 1533. Catherine died in 1536. Boleyn was beheaded the same year.	1613	• Shakespeare was brought out of retirement to collaborate on this drama with his successor John Fletcher. Its original title was All Is True. It isn't. The events did happen, though not in that order. • More importantly, motivations have been warped to turn the rapacious Henry VIII, Elizabeth's father, into a conscience-stricken and noble monarch. • And what's been left out! How about the fact that Boleyn was soon executed. • A boring play. A political apology wrapped in spectacle.

— Eric

See also:

William Shakespeare

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Virginia Woolf

Quotations about Shakespeare by other writers

He was not of an age, but for all time!
Ben Jonson, First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works, 1623
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
Charles Darwin

He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul.
John Dryden, "Essay of Dramatic Poesy", 1668
We can say of Shakespeare, that never has a man turned so little knowledge to such great account.
T.S. Eliot, lecture

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good—in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
Robert Graves, The Observer, "Sayings of the Week", 1964
Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.
Samuel Johnson, Life of Johnson (James Boswell), 1769
Shakespeare — whetting, frustrating, surprising and gratifying.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up, 1945

(He) has become a black hole. Light, insight, intelligence, matter — all pour ceaselessly into him, as critics are drawn into the densening vortex of his reputation; they add their own weight to his increasing mass. The light from other stars — other poets, other dramatists — is wrenched and bent as it passes by him on its way to us. He warps cultural space-time; he distorts our view of the universe around him.... But Shakespeare himself no longer transmits visible light; his stellar energies have been trapped within the gravity well of his own reputation. We find in Shakespeare only what we bring to him or what others have left behind; he gives us back our own values.
Gary Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare, 1989

(The) Shakespearean cast of thought (is) a fine credulity about everything, kept in check by a lively skepticism about everything.
Robertson Davies, Murther and Walking Spirits, 1991

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder
That such trivial people should muse and thunder
In such lovely language.
D.H. Lawrence, When I Read Shakespeare
With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his.... It would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.
George Bernard Shaw, Dramatic Opinions and Essays, 1907
One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.
Horace Walpole, letter, 1764

Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.
Denis Diderot, "On Dramatic Poetry", 1758

Shakespeare was the great one before us. His place was between God and despair.
Eugène Ionesco, interview International Herald Tribune, 1988

I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.
Virginia Woolf, diary entry, 1930

Shakespeare’s name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.
George Gordon Noel Byron, letter, 1814