Histories The Folio classification by kinds is rough (the Greek and Roman histories are classed as tragedies) and has caused trouble, for Shakespeare did not follow the classical division of dramatic experience into comedy and tragedy. He often put comedy into tragedy and vice versa, upsetting the classically-minded. The history, perfected and defined by Shakespeare’s example, is not a pure or classical kind of play. He wrote ten English histories in all, listed in the Folio in the order of the reigns of the kings in their titles. But the order of reigns was not the order of composition. The first tetralogy - the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III - was written in 1590-3. We shall look at the second tetralogy - Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, and Henry V - composed in 1595-9. The three Henry VI plays are loosely-constructed pageant-like epic drama - patriotic, military and spectacular. In contrast to these dramatized chronicles, Richard III is a drama. The Quarto title was The Tragedy of Richard of York, and it has tragic form. Compared with what followed, it is relatively crude, as are The Comedy of Errors, The Shrew and Titus Andronicus, early plays based on unsentimental classical precedents. Richard III is based on More’s prose History of Richard III (written in 1513 in Latin and English), a study in tyranny. Shakespeare’s twisted plotter comes from More (see page 80). Compared with medieval chroniclers who construct their narratives in terms of divine providence and personal character, humanists like More wrote analytic history in the mode of the Roman historian Tacitus (AD 55-after 115). Although he is modelled on the Vice figure from the Morality plays, Richard is not merely malignant. A central figure whose soliloquies show internal consciousness is found in the Morality play Everyman, but Richard is the first Shakespearean protagonist to soliloquize. Shakespeare’s reigns-on-stage stop with Richard III and the advent of the Tudors. Henry VIII’s three children had each in turn reversed preceding religious policy. As Shakespeare began writing, Mary Queen of Scots - mother of Elizabeth’s heirapparent, James VI of Scotland - lost her head. Dynastic historiography was dangerous. From 1547 the Tudors made sure that their subjects heard regularly from the pulpit about their duty to obey the Crown. Church attendance was the law, and nine times a year homilies were read on the divine appointment of kings and the duty of subjects to order and obedience. The manuscript of a play of c.1594 on Sir Thomas More survives, with contributions by six hands, one thought to be Shakespeare’s; it was not staged in the Queen’s lifetime. It was ten years after Elizabeth’s death that Shakespeare collaborated in a Henry VIII. The portrayals of More and of Katherine of Aragon are sympathetic. Shakespeare’s histories draw on the Chronicles of Holinshed (1587), and on plays such as Woodstock, about the murder of Thomas Woodstock, uncle of Richard II. On the afternoon before his attempted coup in 1601, supporters of the Earl of Essex commissioned a special performance of Richard ll. The players at first demurred, saying that the play was stale. The Queen said on this occasion that it had been played forty times (that is, since 1595). It was not stale, however, for she also said ‘I am Richard II, know ye not that?’ Richard had been deposed (and murdered) by Lancastrians, from whom the Tudors inherited their right to the throne. Essex was executed.

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