Well, I (finally) finished Henry VI Part 2. It took forever, not because of the play itself, but a stomach bug played havoc at my house. Gentle reader, it was bad. On to more pleasant matters…like treason, betrayal, and rebellion.
First, there are a LOT of characters to keep track of in this play. I thought I might need a spreadsheet. Second, this is Part 2 of the Henry VI set of plays. Why was it written before Part 1? I used my ‘phone a friend’, and my favorite theory of the ones he shared is…a cash grab. Part 2 and Part 3 were doing well, so Shakespeare wrote a prequel. I haven’t read Part 1 yet, but I do hope it’s better than Episodes I–III of a certain franchise that shall remain nameless. Third, historian me cringed every time Henry VI listened to his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and her lover (in the play; to my knowledge, there’s no actual proof of an affair), the duke of Suffolk, about Humphrey, duke of Gloucester. I wanted to shake the king because I knew what would happen once Gloucester was out of the picture. Fourth, the duke of York in this play struck me as whiny, crafty, and very concerned with his own dignity and (imagined) slights.
Despite the creative license, the play captures the intriguing at court. The shifting loyalties, the uncertainty of allies, the rapid change of fortune…all of that is well done. I do imagine it’s easier to follow on stage when the viewer has faces to go with the parts-if I was doing the costumes, I’d probably include a visual cue, too, maybe through the use of color. I did sometimes have to go back and remind myself who belonged in which camp. The play also presents a clear juxtaposition between Henry and Margaret. He is almost saintly and other-worldly, and he’s definitely too trusting; she cares about her position and privilege and is both ambitious and willing to countenance murder to achieve her ambitions. Given what historian me knows about the Wars of the Roses, she’s going to need that strength of purpose and will.
Added to the courtly intrigue there is York’s use of Jack Cade to incite a rising in Kent, thus creating an excuse for York to return from Ireland with an armed host. While I make no claim to be an expert on Cade’s actions in 1450, I know enough about the Peasant’s Rebellion of 1381 to recognize Cade and his men echoing the complaints of that earlier rebellion, specifically the attacks on those who could read and write. The thing is, Cade’s rebellion is one of the first in which the rebels used writing. (Side note: Stephen Justice’s excellent book, Writing and Rebellion, makes some fascinating arguments about the role of writing in the 1381 rebellion.)
It’s between Cade’s death (he gets caught sneaking herbs from a garden–done in by hunger, as he bemoans before his death) and York’s arrival that the king has his best line of the play: “Thus stands my state, ‘twixt Cade and York distress’d / Like to a ship that, having scap’d a tempest / Is straightway [calm’d] and boarded with a pirate.” (King, Henry VI pt 2, IV.9) Just so.
The play ends with York making his claim to the throne, a stage littered with bodies, and the king and queen fleeing back to London. En avant to Part 3.