Shakespeare's Kings (77 page)

The
opening
scene
of
Act
IV
belongs,
dramatically
speaking,
more properly
to
Act
III.
There
is
no
interval
of
time;
the
location
is unchanged,
with
Henry's
French
coronation
taking
place
in
the
palace rather
than
in
Notre
Dame;
Talbot's
qualities
are
once
again
emphasized, the
better
to
show
up
the
cowardice
of
Sir
John
Falstaff,
whose
Garter is
ripped
by
Talbot
from
his
leg;
¹
and
the
insufferable
Vernon
and Basset
lay
their
differences
before
the
King,
supported
this
time
by the
protagonists
themselves,
York
and
Somerset.
Henry's
reaction
is typically
inept:
first,
with
the
words

I
see
no
reason
if
I
wear this rose,

That anyone should therefore be suspicious

I
more incline to Somerset than York

1. But see Chapter 6, p. 140 and above, p. 238. Monstrelet reports that Fastolf was stripped of his Garter by Bedford, not Shrewsbury; in fact it is far from certain that anyone but the King would have had the power to do so.

he
pins
to
his
robe
a
red
rose;
then,
in
an
apparent
attempt
to
oblige the
two
Dukes
to
forget
their
quarrel,
he
divides
the
army
in
France between
them
-
giving
Somerset
the
cavalry
and
York
the
regiments of
foot.
The
insanity
of
this
decision
is
made
all
too
clear
in
the
scenes covering
the
siege
of
Bordeaux
which
follow.

Unfortunately
this
sequence
of
cause
and
effect,
however
convincing on
the
stage,
is
set
at
naught
by
Shakespeare's
cavalier
chronology.
The siege
of
Bordeaux
took
place
in
1451,
exactly
twenty
years
after
Henry's coronation
in
Paris;
Talbot
died
two
years
later.
The
King
never
divided the
army
in
the
way
that
Shakespeare
suggests,
though
in
1443
he
did appoint
Somerset
Captain-General
of
Guyenne
-
much
to
the
fury
of York,
who
as
Regent
in
France
made
a
strong
protest.
Fortunately Somerset
returned
to
England
after
a
single
ineffectual
campaign
and died
a
year
later,
probably
by
his
own
hand.
It
follows
that
Sir
William Lucy's
interviews
with
him
and
with
York
in
scenes
iii
and
iv
are
both fictitious,
introduced
purely
to
illustrate
the
seriousness
of
the
breach between
the
two
leaders.
The
scenes
which
come
closest
to
historical truth
are
the
fifth
and
sixth
-
which,
with
the
first
part
of
the
seventh, cover
the
last
hours
of
the
Talbots,
father
and
son.
They
died
together, on
17
July
1453,
not
at
Bordeaux
as
Shakespeare
suggests
—
though
he does
not
specifically
say
so
-
but
at
Castillon
in
the
Dordogne,
Shrewsbury
having
tried
in
vain
(as
he
does
in
the
play)
to
persuade
his
son, Lord
Lisle,
to
save
himself.
They
were
the
last
heroes
of
the
Hundred Years
War.

The
action
of
Act
V
is
set
essentially
between
the
years
1442
-
when the
Count
of
Armagnac
offered
his
daughter
to
King
Henry
as
his
bride -
and
1444,
when
Henry
sent
the
Earl
of
Suffolk
to
France
to
seek
the hand
of
Margaret
of
Anjou.
The
passages
in
scenes
ii-iv
involving
the Pucelle,
however,
can
belong
only
to
1431.
It
would
be
tempting
to describe
them
as
flashbacks,
but
for
the
fact
that
Shakespeare
obviously intends
them
to
be
nothing
of
the
kind.
He
sees
them
as
an
integral part
of
a
continuous
story,
and
once
again
has
no
hesitation
in
sacrificing historical
truth
in
the
interests
of
his
drama.
The
scenes
themselves,
it need
hardly
be
said,
though
taken
from
Hall
and
Holinshed,
merely reflect
the
prevailing
sentiments
of
the
English
towards
Joan;
they
are too
grotesque
to
have
any
historical
basis.

There
is
a
curious
moment
in
the
opening
scene
of
the
act
when
K
ing
H
enry
VI
part
I

Exeter expresses surprise at seeing the Bishop of Winchester in his cardinal's robes:

What! is my Lord of Winchester install'd,

And call'd unto a cardinal's degree?

Then I perceive that will be verified

Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy:

'If once he come to be a cardinal,

He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.'

Beaufort had in fact been a member of the Sacred College since
1417,
and is plainly referred to as 'the Cardinal of Winchester' as early as Act I, scene iii. He has already appeared three times in the play, similarly attired and in Exeter's presence. This obvious inconsistency has been cited as an indication that the play may be by a number of different authors; all the stylistic evidence, on the other hand, points to a single, Shakespearean authorship of the play as a whole. What reason, then, can be found for this curious passage? It is difficult to accept that offered by the editor of the normally authoritative Arden edition that 'occasional errors and inconsistencies are to be expected, and are indeed characteristic, in authorial copy
...
It may be,' he continues, 'the author forgot what he had written earlier. The inconsistency is an argument for the authorial nature of the copy, since the prompter could be expected to iron out the discrepancy for the stage.' We can only say that he does not appear to have done so. Such a glaring contradiction might have escaped the printers of the First Folio, which was published only in
1623
— seven years after Shakespeare's death — and is our only text for the play; it is hard to imagine that it could have escaped Shakespeare himself as it apparently did. In the absence of any plausible explanation, the mystery remains.

Act V opens in London, with Humphrey of Gloucester informing his nephew of letters from the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor Albert II - who had acceded to the imperial throne in
1438
- urging the restoration of peace between England and France. To further this end, the Count of Armagnac has offered the hand of his daughter in marriage, and Gloucester warmly recommends its acceptance. Henry is unenthusiastic at the thought of
'wanton dalliance with a paramour',
but
characteristically
agrees
to
marry
anyone
his
advisers
think
suitable. The
court
then
retires
and
the
Bishop
of
Winchester,
left
alone
with the
Papal
Legate,
makes
it
clear
that
he
has
bought
his
cardinal's
hat
-though
there
is
no
historical
evidence
that
he
did
any
such
thing; Shakespeare
may
have
been
misled
by
a
somewhat
unclear
passage
in Hall,
139,
which
refers
to
Beaufort's
'purchase'
-
i.e.
acquisition
-
of
a 'Bull
legatyne'.
In
fact
the
cardinal
had
long
been
one
of
the
leading churchmen
of
Europe,
and,
as
we
have
already
seen,
had
even
been considered
a
candidate
for
the
papal
throne
during
the
long-disputed election
of
1417.