Henry VI, Part 3 - Sources

Sources

Shakespeare's primary source for 3 Henry VI was Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548). Also, as with most of Shakespeare's chronicle histories, Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577; 2nd edition 1587) was also consulted. Holinshed based much of his Wars of the Roses information in the Chronicles on Hall's information in Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families, even to the point of reproducing large portions of it verbatim. However, there are enough differences between Hall and Holinshed to establish that Shakespeare must have consulted both of them.

For example, when Henry is urged by Clifford, Northumberland and Westmorland to engage the Yorkists in combat within the parliamentary chambers, he is reluctant to do so, arguing that the Yorkists have more support in London than the Lancastrians; "Know you not the city favours them,/And they have troops of soldiers at their beck" (1.1.67–68). Both Hall and Holinshed report that the Yorkists invaded the parliament house, but only Hall reports that Henry chose not to engage them because the majority of the people supported York's claim to the throne. Rutland's death scene (1.3) is also based on Hall rather than Holinshed. Although Clifford is reported as murdering Rutland in both Hall and Holinshed, only in Hall is Rutland's tutor present, and only in Hall do Rutland and Clifford engage in a debate about revenge prior to the murder. The depiction of Edward's initial meeting with Lady Grey (3.2) is also based on Hall rather than Holinshed. For example, Hall is alone in reporting that Edward seemingly offered to make her his queen merely because he wanted to have sex with her; Edward "affirming farther that if she would thereunto condescend, she might so fortune of his paramour and concubine to be changed to his wife and lawful bedfellow." Later, Holinshed does not mention any instance where George and Richard express their dissatisfaction with Henry's decision (depicted in the play in 4.1), or their questioning of Edward as to why he is favouring the relations of his wife over his own brothers. Such a scene occurs only in Hall, who writes that George declared to Richard, "We would make him know that we were all three one man's sons, of one mother and one lineage descended, which should be more preferred and promoted than strangers of his wife's blood He will exalt or promote his cousin or ally, which little careth for the fall or confusion of his own line and lineage." A more general aspect unique to Hall is the prominence of revenge as a motive for much of the cruelty seen throughout the play. Revenge is cited many times by numerous different characters as a guiding force behind their actions; Northumberland, Westmorland, Clifford, Richard, Edward and Warwick all declare at some point in the play that they are acting out of a desire to achieve vengeance on their enemies. Revenge however plays little part in Holinshed, who hardly mentions the word, and certainly doesn't offer it as a major theme of the war.

On the other hand, some aspects of the play are unique to Holinshed rather than Hall. For example, both Hall and Holinshed represent Margaret and Clifford torturing and taunting York after the Battle of Wakefield (depicted in 1.4), but Hall makes no mention of a crown or a molehill, both of which are alluded to in Holinshed (although in the chronicle, the crown is made of sedges, not paper); "The duke was taken alive and in derision caused to stand upon a molehill, on whose head they put a garland instead of a crown, which they had fashioned and made of sedges or bulrushes." More evidence that Shakespeare must have used Holinshed is found when Warwick is in France, after he has joined the Lancastrians (3.3), and Louis assigns his Admiral, Lord Bourbon, to aid Warwick in assembling an army. In Holinshed, the Admiral is referred to as 'Lord Bourbon' as he is in the play (and as he was in reality), but in Hall, the Admiral is erroneously called 'Lord Burgundy'. Another aspect of the play found only in Holinshed is when Edward offers Warwick peace terms prior to the Battle of Barnet; "Now Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,/Speak gentle words and humbly bend thy knee?/Call Edward king, and at his hands beg mercy,/And he shall pardon thee these outrages" (5.1.21–24). This offer from Edward is not reported in Hall, who makes no reference of any kind to a Yorkist attempt to parley with Warwick. Such an incident is found only in Holinshed.

Although Shakespeare's main sources for factual material were Hall and Holinshed, he seems to have used other texts as well, often for thematic and structural purposes. Such a source was almost certainly Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's Gorboduc (1561), a play about a deposed king who divides his land between his children, and which Shakespeare also used as a source for his later play King Lear. Gorboduc was reprinted in 1590, the year before Shakespeare wrote 3 Henry VI, and he seems to have used it as his "model for exploring and representing the destruction of civil society by factional conflict." More specifically, Gorboduc is the only known pre-seventeenth century text containing a scene where a son unknowingly kills his father, and a father unknowingly kills his son, and as such, almost certainly served as the source for Act 2, Scene 5, where Henry witnesses just such an incident.

Another thematic source may have been William Baldwin's The Mirror for Magistrates (1559; 2nd edition, 1578), a well-known series of poems spoken by deceased, controversial historical figures, who have come forward to speak of their life and death, and to warn contemporary society not to make the same mistakes as they did. Three such figures are Margaret of Anjou, King Edward IV and Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. York's final scene, and his last speech in particular (1.4.111–171), is often identified as being the 'type' of scene suitable to a traditional tragic hero who has been defeated by his own ambition, and this is very much how York presents himself in Mirror; a tragic hero whose dynastic ambitions caused him to reach too far and led to his ruin.

Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (1582–1591) may also have served as a minor influence. Of specific importance is the handkerchief soaked in Rutland's blood which Margaret produces during York's torture in Act 1, Scene 4. This could have been influenced by the recurring image of a bloody handkerchief in the immensely popular Tragedy, insofar as a handkerchief which has been soaked in the blood of his son, Horatio, is carried by the protagonist, Hieronimo, throughout the play.

A minor source that we can be certain of was Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which was also Shakespeare's source for Romeo and Juliet. Much of Margaret's speech to her army in Act 5, Scene 4 is taken almost verbatim from Brooke. In Romeus and Juliet, Friar Laurence advises Romeus to toughen up, stand up to his troubles, and be brave and discerning in the face of great danger;

A wise man in the midst of troubles and distress
Still stands not wailing present harm, but seeks his harm's redress.
As when the winter flaws with dreadful noise arise,
And heave the foamy swelling waves up to the starry skies,
So that the bruis'd barque in cruel seas betost,
Despaireth of the happy haven, in danger to be lost.
The pilot bold at helm, cries, 'Mates, strike now your sail',
And turns her stem into the waves that strongly her assail.
Then driven hard upon the bare and wreckful shore,
In greater danger to be wrecked than he had been before,
He seeth his ship full right against the rock to run,
But yet he doth what lieth in him the perilous rock to shun.
Sometimes the beaten boat, by cunning government -
The anchors lost, the cables broke, and all the tackle spent,
The rudder smitten off, and overboad the mast -
Doth win the long desir'd port, the stormy danger past.
But if the master dread, and overpressed with woe,
Begin to wring his hands, and lets the guiding rudder go,
The ship rents on the rock or sinketh in the deep,
And eke the coward drench'd is: So, if thou still beweep
And seek not how to help the changes that do chance,
Thy cause of sorrow shall increase, thou cause of thy mischance.

(ll.1359-1380)

This is very similar to Margaret's speech in 3 Henry VI;

Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallowed in the flood?
Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he
Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad,
With tearful eyes add water to the sea,
And give more strength to that which hath too much,
Whiles in his moan the ship splits on the rock
Which industry and courage might have saved?
Ah what a shame, ah what a fault were this.
Say Warwick was our anchor, what of that?
And Montague our topmast, what of him?
Our slaughtered friends the tackles, what of these?
Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
And Somerset another goodly mast?
The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
For once allowed the skilful pilot's charge?
We will not from the helm to sit and weep,
But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,
From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wrack.
As good to chide the waves as speak them fair;
And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?
What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?
And Richard but a ragged fatal rock -
All these the enemies to our poor barque?
Say you can swim; alas 'tis but a while.
Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink;
Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off
Or else you famish – that's a threefold death.
This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
In case some one of you would fly from us,
That there's no hoped-for mercy with the brothers
More than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks.
Why, courage then, what cannot be avoided
'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.

(5.4.1-38)

It has also been suggested that Shakespeare may have used several mystery cycles as sources. Randall Martin, in his 2001 edition of the play for The Oxford Shakespeare notes the similarities between York's torture in Act 1, Scene 4 and the torture of Christ as depicted in The Buffeting and Scourging of Christ, Second Trial Before Pilate and Judgement of Jesus. He also suggests a debt of influence for the murder of Rutland in Act 1, Scene 3 from Slaughter of the Innocents. Emrys Jones further suggests that Shakespeare may have been influenced in York's death scene by Desiderius Erasmus' Tragicus Rex and Thomas More's Utopia (1516) and History of King Richard III (1518), from which some of Richard's soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 6 is taken, especially the references to the need to play the actor.