Henry the sixth: A play about he war of the roses

Henry VI

2. Importance of the history
The importance of the history play as
a genre, stating that they helped to
preserve the memories of glorious
English heroes such as the chivalrous
Lord Talbot in this play.
Nashe also said that the history play
creates a collective memory of the
national past for the masses,
celebrating the realm's heroes and
particularly patriotic moments in English
history.
-Thomas Nashe
British playwright

3. HENRY VI Part 1
Henry VI (1421-1471) was
king of England from
1422 to 1461 and in 1470-
1471.
 He was known for his
piety and charity, but his
reign was marred by the
rivalries of his uncles and
ministers and by the loss
of the achievements of
his Lancastrian
predecessors.

4. SETTING
England, early 1400
France
Wars of the Roses
This period saw the loss of more English
holdings in France (Normandy in 1450 and
Guienne by 1453) and the rise of a popular
leader, Richard, Duke of York (Suffolk's father-
in-law), as the head of the prowar party that
had been led by Gloucester.

5. CHARACTERS and CHARATERIZATION
•King Henry VI is a
very young, rather
simple-minded
monarch, of excessive
piety and naiveté, who
relies almost entirely
on his uncle the Duke
of Gloucester.
 

6. Duke of Gloucest
er

•Duke of Gloucester
is King Henry’s uncle
and Lord Protector,
charged with the
safety of the King in
his youth and the
government of the
realm until he comes
of age.
 

7. Joan la Pucelle, (
Joan of Arc).
•Joan de
Pucelle is
history’s Joan
of Arc, though
she is no saint
in this play.
 

8. The English army suffers defeats in this play because of infighting
and the soldiers' failure to live up to the ideal of Talbot, but also
because of the strength of the charismatic Joan of Arc.
Although Joan claims to enjoy the praise of the French as a virginal
maid, the English call her a whore and attribute her powers to
witchcraft.
As a woman dressed in men's armor and playing a man's role on
the battlefield, Joan violates the assigned place of a woman; fearful
people often respond to such transgressive anomalies by labeling
them "witches."
Like many public figures of women, Joan's identity slips between
the two polarities of "innocent virgin" and "immoral whore," as
people assume a woman able to influence men must draw her
power from some extreme of sexual existence.
Queen Elizabeth, too, had the body of a woman yet the role of a
man; so too did her situation provoke both reverence and
demonization, both the title "The Virgin Queen" and malicious
rumors of infertility or a sexual defect.
Both Joan of Arc and Queen Elizabeth were unique figures who
could be read as exceptional people or as horrible fiends.

9. Charles, Dauphin of France
•Charles,
Dauphin of
France, and later
King, is King
Henry’s rival
claimant to the
throne of France.
 

10. Lord Talbot
•Lord Talbot, the Earl of
Shrewsbury, is the
greatest of the English
generals in France, a
man whose successes
are so great that the
mention of his name
alone is enough to
make the French run
away.
 

11. Bishop of
Winchester
•The Bishop of Winchester
is the diocesan bishop of
the Diocese of Winchester
in the Church of England.
•The Bishop of Winchester is
appointed by the Crown,
and is one of five Church of
England bishops who are
among the Lords Spiritual in
the House of Lords
regardless of their length of
service.

12. John Talbot
•John Talbot is
the son of Lord
Talbot, whom
he loves and
admires
deeply.
 

13. Characters

The English

•King Henry VI – King of England
•Duke of Bedford – Henry VI's uncle and regent of France
•Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester – Henry VI's uncle and Lord Protector of England
•Duke of Exeter – Henry VI's great-uncle
•Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester – Exeter's younger brother and Henry VI's
great-uncle
•Duke of Somerset (a conflation of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset and his
younger brother
•Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset)
•Richard Plantagenet – later 3rd Duke of York
•Earl of Warwick (Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick—often mistakenly
identified as
•Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, from Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3
[2]
)

14. Characters

The
English
Earl of Salisbury
•William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk
•Lord Talbot – Constable of France
•John Talbot – his son
•Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March (a conflation of Sir Edmund Mortimer and his
nephew, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March)
•Sir John Fastolf – a cowardly soldier
•Sir William Glasdale
•Sir Thomas Gargrave
•Sir William Lucy
•Vernon – of the White Rose (York) faction
•Basset – of the Red Rose (Lancaster) faction
•Richard Woodville – Lieutenant of the Tower
•Mayor of London

15. The French
Charles – Dauphin of France
•Reignier, Duke of Anjou – titular King of Jerusalem
•Margaret – Reignier's daughter, later betrothed to King Henry
•Duke of Alençon
•Bastard of Orléans
•Duke of Burgundy
•General of the French forces at Bordeaux
•Countess of Auvergne
•Master Gunner of Orléans
•Master Gunner's son
•Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc)
•Shepherd – Joan's father
•Governor of Paris (non-speaking role)

16. DIALOGUE
AND
ACTION

19. ANALYSIS
•In this play, he makes Henry VI older than he was at the
time of his succession; he was actually only nine months
old, but in the play is of marriageable age.
•Moreover, some of the play's most striking scenes are of
his own invention, not based in fact: for example, the
scene in the Temple Garden, in which the followers of
Richard Plantagenet and Somerset pick white and red
roses as emblems of their opposing opinions on a point
of law.
•This scene provides an explanation as to the origin of
the War of the Roses, an affair whose actual origins are
characterized by stultifying complexity and politics, not
the spare aesthetic elegance of this scene.

20. 1 Henry VI's plot is driven by conflict. On one hand,
there is the conflict between Henry's forces and the
forces of the Dauphin Charles. Then, the argument
between York and Somerset, echoing the struggle
between Winchester and Gloucester in Henry's
court, causes the Englishmen to give inadequate
support to Talbot in the battlefield, thus,
exacerbating the primary conflict.
The message within these court struggles is that
petty rivalries and internal divisions among the
nobility can be as dangerous to England as French
soldiers.
Henry seems to recognize this truth, when he
speaks about dissention as the "worm" gnawing on
his kingdom--yet he is unable to end the crisis.

21. All the other women in this play are dangerous to varying
degrees.
The Countess of Auvergne lures Talbot to her castle with the
intention of entrapping him, and Margaret so enchants Suffolk
that he convinces the king to marry her and, thus, gains undue
influence over the throne.
While all three women function as threats to English men, they
are also more complicated than merely being the vessels for
the birth of more warriors.
We see Suffolk's uncontrollable desire to turn Margaret into
something greater than a pawn for international settlements,
and we see the French unable to win without the extraordinary
aid of a woman.
And we see that even strong kings like Henry V do not
necessarily create strong successors in their sons. This play
creates heroes of a masculine world, but it also acknowledges
the potential weaknesses of men. Sometimes, in the case of
Queen Elizabeth, a woman must step in, even becoming king.

22. Women’s position in the Play
•All three of the women characters nevertheless exceed their
traditionally limited role.
• On the one hand, each of the women has her problems, especially
as seen from the particularly masculine viewpoint of the male
characters here--all public gentlemen and men of war.
• The Countess of Auvergne is a schemer who tries to entrap Talbot,
as is Margaret, though she more innocently succeeds in her
entrapment.
•And Joan is a very complicated figure, ambivalently sliding from
being described as a holy virgin to a whore. Because she dons both a
man's armor and a man's role, because she enjoys much power, the
male soldiers and politicians demonize her. Yet while none of the
women emerge as particularly honorable or admirable, they
nonetheless contribute to the efforts of their nations in bold ways--not
simply as mothers to new citizens.
•The Countess acts strategically to try to bring down her nation's
enemy, Margaret becomes a complex maneuvering device in a
political sphere, and the French men depend on Joan for their
victories.

23. Conflict (War of the Roses)
•The scene in the Temple Garden seems at first to represent both
sides equally favorably; the play never explains the nature of the
point of law at the root of the argument, and, thus, we have no basis
on which to judge the ensuing conflict.
•And both sides appear equally absurd in their squabbling over who
will wear what color rose. Yet by the end of the play the audience
may tend to lean more in favor of York, away from Somerset--toward
the white, away from the red.
•Somerset's dealings with York in the wars in France appear to have
directly brought about the death of Talbot, the most heroic figure in
the play.
•York says that Somerset didn't send reinforcements in time; and
indeed, Somerset basically admits that he didn't want to help York,
and he generally exhibits no real sorrow over the death of the
honorable Talbot. York, on the other hand, grieves in his inability to
save Talbot. Thus, York ultimately appears the better man.

24. THEME:
The decline of England’s fortunes,
the decay of the aristocracy, and
civil dissent.
The play covers the decline of England’s
fortunes in the reign of Henry VI, from its
pinnacle during the reign of Henry V. This
decline, Shakespeare suggests, was
caused by the decay of what he saw as
the ancient and honorable role of the
nobility or aristocracy, as they slipped into
civil dissent.

25. In his plays, Shakespeare consistently celebrates the old aristocratic values of
loyalty to the monarch, chivalry, honor, and military valor.
He shows adherence to the traditional social order as paramount in the health
of a nation. Personal ambition, greed, and the pursuit of power for its own sake
(i.e. not in the service of the crown) lead to dissent among the nobles and are
seen as divisive and destructive.
In Henry VI, Part One, the motives for the nobles’ disagreement are never
precisely laid out, reinforcing the sense that they are destroying England’s
empire in France for trivial and selfish reasons.
The theme of the destructiveness of dissent is summed up by Henry VI in his
first appearance in Act 3, scene 1, when he says: “Civil dissention is a viperous
worm / That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth” (lines 73-74).
Henry’s words are proven correct in Act 4, scenes 3 and 4, when Somerset
refuses to send the reinforcements needed by Talbot because the ‘middle man’
is Richard, Duke of York.
Somerset is already in a dispute with Richard that will lead to the Wars of the
Roses, but his refusal to send the troops seems to boil down to a personal
dislike of the man: “I owe him little duty and less love” (line 34).

26. Shakespeare also suggests that civil dissent among the
leaders of society, the nobles, filters down to infect society as a
whole.
This is made clear in Henry VI, Part One in the brawl between
Gloucester and Winchester in Act 1, scene 3, when the Mayor
of London, representing civil society, is forced to intervene to
prevent further breach to the peace.
The Mayor rebukes the lords, saying, “Fie, lords, that you,
being supreme magistrates / Thus contumeliously should
break the peace” (lines 57-58).
The Mayor is expressing what is clearly the author’s view that
the leaders of society, the aristocracy, are the moral exemplars
of society.
The fact that the citizens’ representative has to rebuke two
nobles for bad behavior is a sign of decay in the state.

27. REFLECTION
•"If you look to others for fulfilment, you will
never be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on
money, you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the
way things are. When you realize there is
nothing lacking, the world belongs to you.“
- Lao Tzu

28. •Do not eye for others property!
•Learn to sweat and labor.
•Manifest goodness.
•Quench of power does not do
goodness.

29. Live simply!
“Be happy with what
you have. Be excited
about what you
want.“
- Alan Cohen
Be contented!
RECOMMENDATION

30. HOLA! Buenas Tardes! Me Llamo,
NENETH Catedrilla CABILDO
ENGLISH 207 ANALYSIS OF SHAKESPEARE’S ARTS
“BE THE BEST OF WHATEVER YOU ARE!”

31. Gracias!
Hasta la
Proxima Vez!
[email protected]
Go for love!
Always claim it!