Shakespeare's Kings (75 page)

Orleans
was
a
symbol.
To
every
loyal
Frenchman
the
city
stood
for France,
and
the
victory
-
which
was
unquestionably
due
in
large
measure to
Joan
-
was
seen
as
conclusive
proof
of
her
divine
mission
and
of
the truth
of
her
message.
It
comes,
therefore,
as
something
of
a
surprise
to find
Shakespeare,
at
the
very
beginning
of
Act
II,
representing
the
quite unhistorical
recovery
of
the
city
by
Talbot
and
his
men.
He
draws
here on
Hall's
account
of
the
taking
of
Le
Mans,
when
'the
French
men which
wer
scarce
u
p,
and
thought
of
nothyng
lesse
then
of
this
sodain approchement,
some
rose
out
of
their
beddes
in
their
shertes,
and
lepte ouer
the
walles,
other
ranne
naked
out
of
the
gates
for
sauyng
of
their Hues,
leuyng
behynde
theim
all
their
apparell,
horsses,
armure
and riches'.

There
follows
Talbot's
lament
over
Salisbury,
for
whom
he
vows
to erect
a
tomb
'within
the
chiefest
temple'
of
the
French.
(The
body
was in
fact
carried
back
to
England
and
buried
in
the
family
priory
at
Bisham in
Berkshire.)
Scarcely
has
he
completed
his
speech
than
a
messenger arrives
with
an
invitation
for
him
from
the
Countess
of
Auvergne
— which
he
suspects,
ri
ghtly
,
of
being
a
trap.
Once
again
the
source
is Hall,
but
the
story
itself
is
clearly
fictitious:
such
stories
are
common
in the
border
ballads,
as
they
are
in
the
legends
of
Robin
Hood.
It
is
surely unthinkable
that
so
experienced
a
soldier
as
Talbot
should
knowingly or
unknowingly
deliver
himself
into
the
hands
of
so
powerful
a
woman as
the
Countess,
who
could
easily
have
had
him
killed
before
he
could summon
his
soldiers.
And
she
for
her
part
would
have
been
fully conscious
of
the
fact.

We
return
now
to
London,
but
simultaneously
(as
it
later
appears) go
back
a
few
years
in
time.
The
scene
in
the
Temple
¹
Garden
is
as

1. The Temple is the home of two of London's four Inns of Court - the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple - which have the exclusive right of admitting young lawyers to practise at the Bar.

imaginary as that of Talbot and the Countess; but it is of considerably more importance, since it introduces the incipient power struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York, identifying them for the first time with the red and the white rose respectively. For Lancaster, the protagonist is the Earl of Somerset, the grandson of John of Gaunt through John Beaufort - Gaunt's eldest son by Katherine Swynford -and conseque
ntly
a first cousin of Henry V. (He appears later in the play as a Duke, which he became in
1443.)
He picks a red rose for his badge, and the Earl of Suffolk plucks another after him. Chief spokesman for the house of York is the man who appears in the
dramatis personae
as 'Richard Plantagenet,
afterwards Duke
of
York
^’
- although in fact he had already succeeded to the dukedom on the death of his uncle at Agincourt. He picks a white rose, and is followed by the Earl of Warwick, the enthusiastic Yorkist Vernon,
¹
and a lawyer.

Already in this scene - which, being fictitious, is undatable - we are reminded of Richard's claim to the throne, when Warwick points out that

His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,

Third son to the third Edward, King of England:

while Richard himself replies to Somerset's taunt that his father, the Earl of Cambridge, was executed for treason (after the Southampton Plot) with the words

My father was attached, not attainted,
²

Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor.

Scene iii provides a further opportunity to emphasize the Yorkist claim, with Richard's last visit to the dying Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who has appare
ntly
been long imprisoned in the Tower. Here Shakespeare may once again be deliberately adjusting historical truth in the interests
of his
drama; it is possible, on the other hand, that Hall

has
led
him
astray.
He
was
never
very
clear
in
his
mind
about
the Mortimers:
he
confused
them
in
Henry IV Part
J,
and
was
to
confuse them
again
in
Henry VI Part IV
There
can
be
no
doubt
that
the
aged prisoner
whom
we
see
here
is
meant
to
be
Edmund
Mortimer,
fifth Earl
of
March
and
uncle
of
the
Duke
of
York,
who
on
his
deathbed passes
on
to
his
nephew
his
title
to
the
throne;
unfortunately
the
historic earl,
born
in
November
1391,
died
of
the
plague
in
Ireland
in
January 1425,
when
he
was
only
thirty-three
and
Richard
of
York
just
thirteen. Shakespeare's
Mortimer
reveals
to
his
nephew
that
he
has
been imprisoned
ever
since
the
Southampton
Plot;
but,
as
we
well
know,
²
March
-
who
was
potentially
the
beneficiary
of
the
plot
-
was
also
the one
who
revealed
it;
and
although
he
was
perhaps
a
little
more
hesitant in
doing
so
than
Henry
V
would
have
liked,
the
King
soon
restored him
to
favour
and
gave
him
his
complete
trust.
It
is
perhaps
significant in
this
connection
that
in
his
treatment
of
the
conspiracy
in
Henry V,
II.ii,
Shakespeare
makes
no
mention
of
March
at
all;
he
may
well
have remembered
the
dying
prisoner
whom
he
had
invented
a
few
years before
and,
rather
than
admitting
that
he
was
a
fabrication,
preferred to
omit
the
character
altogether
from
his
new
play.

'In
the
iiii.
yeare
[of
the
reign,
i.e.
1426-7]
fell
a
greate
diuision
in
the realme
of
England,
whiche
of
a
sparcle
was
like
to
growe
to
a
greate flame.'
So
wrote
Edward
Hall
of
the
feud
between
Bishop
Beaufort of
Winchester
and
Duke
Humphrey
of
Gloucester,
which
was
now threatening
the
country
with
civil
war.
The
specific
incident
represented at
the
beginning
of
Act
III,
in
which
Gloucester
charges
the
Chancellor with
having
refused
him
admittance
to
the
Tower
(see
I.iii),
with attempting
to
have
him
murdered
at
London
Bridge
and
even
with having
designs
on
the
King
himself,
actually
occurred
during
the
parliament
which
met
at
Leicester
on
18
February
1426;
Shakespeare
moves it
to
the
Parliament
House
in
London
and
conflates
it
with
what
had happened
at
London
Bridge
some
four
months
previously,
when
the Duke
had
persuaded
the
Mayor
to
hold
the
bridge
against
the
Bishop. Stones
had
been
thrown,
there
had
been
a
number
of
casualties,
and the
shops
had
been
shut
throughout
the
city.
At
Leicester
the
Lords