Law COMPOSITIONSHAKESPEARESLANCASTRIAN 1961

THE COMPOSITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S LANCASTRIAN TRILOGY
Author(s): Robert Adger Law

Source: Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn 1961), pp. 321-327
Published by: University of Texas Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40753734
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THE COMPOSITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S
LANCASTRIAN TRILOGY
By Robert Adger Law
Scholars have not reached complete harmony concernin

composition of Shakespeare's First and Second Henry IV and Hen
Dover Wilson, for example, treats the two parts of Henry IV as a
unit, divided, probably, so as to be staged on successive nights.1 T
takes all three plays together with Richard II, Richard HI, and th
parts of Henry VI as divisions of a grand epic, of which England
is the heroine.2 Most American scholars, such as Kittredge,
Brooke, and Shaaber, account each of the "histories" a separate
individually conceived.3 Again, the consensus is that Holinshed's
icle is the primary source of all three plays with the anonymous
Victories of Henry the Fifth merely suggesting a few comic scen
each play.4 B. M. Ward, C. A. Greer, and Irving Ribner5 have at
more importance to The Famous Victories, Greer going so fa
question any dependence on Holinshed. They point out that t
play, like 1 Henry IV, begins action with the highway robbery at
hill, and, like Henry V, ends with the peace parley at Troyes an
wooing of Princess Katharine, meanwhile echoing phrases and sug
ing action of various situations, serious and comic.
Through analysis of each one of the three "histories" in turn,
try to show that most of the material used in 1 Henry IV, where
speare treats actual events of 1403 and supposed happenings of
1412, is drawn from Holinshed; that 2 Henry IV, owing little to
the Chronicle or the early play, repeats the structure, most of th
acters, and numerous situations of 1 Henry IV, but concentrate
tention on the double theme of historical occurrences in 1405 and the
legendary separation of Henry from his evil companions in 1413; and
that Henry V, in serious debt to the anonymous play, is concerned
1 J. Dover Wilson, The Fortunes of Falstaff (Cambridge, England, 1944), p. 4;

ibid., Henry IV, Part One (Cambridge, 1948) , p. xii.
2 E. M. W. Tillyard, Shakespeare's History Plays (New York, 1946), pp. 264-
265; ibid., "Shakespeare's Historical Cycle: Organism or Compilation?" Studies
in Philolosv, LI ( 1954) , 34-39.
3 Tucker Brooke, ed., Shakespeare's Principal Plays (New York, 1935), p. 285;
G. L. Kittredge, ed., Henry IV, Part 1 (Boston, 1949), p. viii; M. A. Shaaber,
"The Unity of Henry IV," Adams Memorial Studies (Washington, 1948), pp.
217-227.
4 See Footnote 11, below.
5B. M. Ward, Review of English Studies, IV (1928), 278-298; C. A. lireer,
Notes and Queries, CXCIC (1954), 238-240; Irving Ribner, The English History
Play in the Time of Shakespeare (New York, 1957) , pp. 73-74.
322 Shakespeare's Lancastrian Trilogy
mainly with historical events of 1415 and 1420. Differences
ception of the three plays make their composition as a sin
improbable.
All readers recognize in 1 Henry IV two plots, a serious one b
the Chronicle and telling chiefly of the Percy Rebellion of 14
and a comic plot borrowed from The Famous Victories tale of t
Prince Hal and his tavern companions. To join the stories t
Shakespeare changes the Holinshed portion in various details. N
does he make Hotspur younger and Hal older than each really
he presents one as a foil to the other and turns the entire pla
contrasting struggle between the two Harry's. King Henry twice
this contrast, even wishing that proof could be brought that fa
changed the two in infancy, following the well-known habit of
hospital nurses, so that Hotspur may turn out to be his own s
Hal Northumberland's.6 Then he has each youth comment
fully on his rival's habitual conduct, and Percy impatient on h
praise of Hal.7 Each joyfully anticipates the day when they wi
in combat, and they do meet in the Battle of Shrewsbury of the
where Hal unhistorically slays Hotspur. One other modification
tory is not always apparent to readers. The Chronicle states th
reports of his son's attitude toward him reaching the King abo
resulted in a conference between them and reconciliation.8 The
Victories presents this interview as the turning point in Hal's b
his real conversion. But Shakespeare antedates this incident by
ten years, placing it before Shrewsbury, connecting it with th
conspiracy and Hal's promise to fight with the royal army, n
the rebels, as his angry father charges. The play thus links actu
of 1403 with a pseudohistorical incident in 1412. The chara
Hotspur and Hal are fancifully developed in what becomes a r
comedy.
The Second Part of Henry IV presents a quite different picture,
though in a structural frame closely resembling the First Part. It gives
every evidence of having been composed after / Henry IV was staged,
when the public demanded more of Falstaff. Its action is practically
confined to three incidents: the shameful trickery at Gaultree Forest re-
sulting in the defeat of the rebels; then the crown-stealing episode, and
finally the rejection of Falstaff. In the first of these episodes Shakespeare
is following Holinshed. In the other two he is borrowing from The
Famous Victories. But his primary source for the play, as Tucker Brooke
6 / Henry IV, I.i.87 ff. I am using the Kittredge text.

* Ibid., I.iii.230-233; II.iv.14-22; IV.i.l 11-1 12.
« Holinshed, Chronicles, 1587, III, 539.
Robert Adger Law 323
contends, is I Henry IV? Recently by
proved beyond question that 2 Henry
structure used in the earlier play.10 Shaa
lows, the word "History" standing for
edy" for the Falstaff scenes:
FIRST HENRY IV SECOND HENRY IV
I. i. History I. i. History
ii. Comedy ii. Comedy
iii. History iii. History
II i. Comedy II i. Comedy
ii. Comedy ii. Comedy
iii. History iii. History
iv. Comedy iv. Comedy
III. i. History III. i. History
ii. History ii. Comedy
iii. Comedy
IV. i. History IV. i. History
ii. Comedy ii. History
iii. History iii. Comedy
iv. History iv. History
v. History
V. i. History, Comedy V. i. Comedy
ii. History ii. History
iii. History, Comedy iii. Comedy
iv. History, Comedy iv. Comedy
v. History v. History, Comedy
It will be noted that each play contains nineteen scenes, e
tributed in each act except that an extra scene in Act III of the f
is compensated for by an extra scene in Act IV of the othe
the plays generally correspond in presenting their respective
is not all, for certain similar situations of 1 Henry IV reap
actly the same point in the later play. In I.iii of both, Lady
leading role, in Part I, worried over her husband's secretly p
war, in Part 2, persuading her father-in-law to escape war
Both scenes are entirely fictional. Again, Ill.i of both plays
Head Tavern scene, in which Hal and Poins attempt to hum
staff, but he skilfully escapes from the trap, and the revelr
by a summons to Hal from his father. In each play Dame Qu
9 Tucker Brooke, The Tudor Drama (Boston, 191 1) , p. 234.
10 M. A. Shaaber, p. 222.
plains of Falstaff's borrowing money from her and not returnin
she soon forgives him. In each play King Henry denounces Hal f
behavior and bad company but hears his plea and forgives.
play Falstaff misuses the draft law to his financial advanta
Part Two in general structure and many specific details is
replica of Part One.
But in other respects there is a marked difference. With the d
Hotspur the dramatist needed a substitute for the Hal-Percy p
he used earlier. This he found in the conflict between Falstaff and the
Chief Justice for the favor of Hal. Such a contest repeats the familiar
morality theme of the strife between Good and Evil for the soul of man.
In the final scene of the play Falstaff is defeated and Prince John re-
joices with the Chief Justice over the new King's attainment of salva-
tion. That the dramatist had in mind morality tradition is confirmed
by certain names that do not appear in / Henry IV: Silence, Shallow,
fiery Pistol, Fang, Mouldy, Wart, Feeble, and Doll Tearsheet. Realistic
treatment of these characters with abstract names shows dramatic art,
as does the delightful picture of master and man in Gloucestershire,
where Justice Shallow abides.
From Holinshed are drawn a few incidents of the Northumberland-
York rebellion of 1405 against King Henry, which is treated by Shake-
speare unhistorically as a mere continuation of the Percy rebellion of
1402-1403. This second rebellion ended in Gaultree Forest and nat-
urally is not mentioned in The Famous Victories, a story concerned
with later years. From that point Shakespeare characteristically moves
quickly to the last days of Henry IV in 1413. Throughout the play Fal-
staff is more important than Hal or his father.
In the composition of Henry V, despite a general impression to the
contrary, Shakespeare probably owes to The Famous Victories or its
now lost predecessor as much as he does to the Chronicle. From Holins-
hed came, as Greer has not acknowledged, many of the very words
used by Canterbury in support of Henry's claim to the French crown,
the entire episode of the Scroop conspiracy to take the King's life with
immediate punishment of the conspirators, portions of the actual lan-
guage of the Treaty of Troyes, and several other details of the serious
drama. Yet the general structure of the play, with its emphasis on
Harry's conversion, his decision to engage in war, the siege of Harfleur,
the fears of the English and the supreme confidence of the French be-
fore Agincourt, the overwhelming victory there, quickly followed by
Henry's wooing of Katharine and the signing of the treaty of peace -
all these serious matters were selected by both playwrights to serve as the
core of the action. That the comic figures and their behavior had origin
in the earlier play is usually conceded.
omission by both dramas of so many e
by Holinshed, and the likeness betwee
that both include.
A brief survey of the main action of H
Most editors attribute to The Famous V
tennis-ball message, Pistol's capture of
of Katharine.11 In both extant dramas
commences when the King confers wit
and others concerning the Tightness of
At length the Archbishop persuades the
this Henry determines to fight. At th
France enters with an insulting gift of
infuriating the King, who decides to m
in the previous scene has suggested m
war rather than peace, and accounte
that Henry is a mere playboy. Thus th
itial incident of the plot. Now the Chro
states that the Dauphin sent "Paris ball
the Archbishop's discussion, which w
Parliament at Leicester, not to the Kin
the setting and the sequence of these
the earlier play, not Holinshed.
In all three accounts the King gather
France. Shakespeare pauses here to pre
Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge to murd
the sentence of the culprits to immedi
have provided material for this inciden
early play. But all these accounts go on
renders when the French government doe
The King begins in each of these ac
11 Typical expressions of recent editors of H
Living Shakespeare (New York, 1948), p. 4
satiric gift of tennis balls to the young Kin
soldier, M. le Fer, and for Henry's wooing
play." G. J. Sisson, Shakespeare: The Comp
"There is no difficulty about the source of the
Chronicle in the main. An old play, The Fa
which has survived in print, was known to S
it." John Munro, The London Shakespeare
speare's main source for the play was Holins
so closely that the book must have been o
known and used The Famous Victories of Hen
differences in detail between this play and
difference in conception and execution."
weakened by sickness, toward Calais. Near Agincourt he is halt
far larger forces of the French. His men fully realize their desperat
ation, while their foes, sure of easy conquest, send King Henry
ransom and build a chariot to convey the captured monarc
umphal procession. French common soldiers cast dice for the an
ransom of their English prisoners. But the English win overw
victory with unbelievably light losses. So run the three account
Now comes a surprising hiatus common to the two plays. All
currences just mentioned took place in 1414-1415, Holinshed's
Seventeen long double-columned pages of the 1587 Chronicle t
happened in the next four years of Henry's reign, including s
notable victories in a second invasion of France. All this The Famous
Victories omits, rushing on to the peace meeting at Troyes and the
wooing of Katharine by the English King. In this omission Shakespeare
absolutely follows suit except for a few lines of the Chorus. These facts
indicate that the anonymous play, perhaps in a form slightly differing
from the extant text, gave a pattern to Shakespeare just as / Henry IV
served him for 2 Henry IV.
I have so far left out of discussion the six Choruses of Henry V be-
cause they appear to have been composed after the rest of the drama.
Their purpose evidently is to stir patriotism in praise of the hero-king,
to link the five acts together, and to apologize for inadequate stage pres-
entation. Each one of them is widely independent of sources, but where
source material can be determined, the borrowing is always from Holin-
shed. Phrases such as "famine, sword, and fire" echo Holinshed's
"blood, fire, and famine." "But see thy fault" matches the Chronicle's
"But see the hap." Shakespeare has the French "play at dice" for the
ransom of Englishmen, corresponding to Holinshed's words, "had
plaied the Englishmen at dice." I have found no such echoes from the
other play in a single Chorus, nor does any Chorus seem to borrow ac-
tion or situation from that source. Yet several of them refer to incidents
of history not touched on in the older play, such as the Scroop con-
spiracy, the French King's offer of "petty" dukedoms to Harry, and the
King's triumph in London, all duly set down in the Chronicle. It seems
clear that the Choruses were composed by Shakespeare with the Chron-
icle before him after he had completed the body of the play.
Such different treatment of source material in each of the three
"histories" surely suggests their individual composition, not group writ-
ing. But minute tracing of source material for trivial as well as sig-
nificant action tends to magnify the borrowing and minimize the cre-
ative power of the playwright. If it were possible to place in parallel
columns the three texts that we have been following, we might realize
how slight was the broken skeleton th
Shakespeare and how skilfully he devel
Holinshed's plain narrative. Careful ex
however, should lead to higher appreci
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THE COMPOSITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S LANCASTRIAN TRILOGY

Author(s): Robert Adger Law

By Robert Adger Law

Scholars have not reached complete harmony concernin

1 J. Dover Wilson, The Fortunes of Falstaff (Cambridge, England, 1944), p. 4;

6 / Henry IV, I.i.87 ff. I am using the Kittredge text.

FIRST HENRY IV SECOND HENRY IV

The University of Texas

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