The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
and the Case for Oxford as their Author
Attribution . Collaboration . Dating . Chronology . Sources . Topicalities . Historiography
by Kevin Gilvary
Most of us know Shakespeare’s History plays as two great tetralogies covering 100 years from the
downfall of Richard II through the civil wars and the clash with France, culminating in the defeat of
Richard III and the establishment of the Tudor Dynasty. No other dramatist has ever formed such a
grand conception of history as this. When we add other history plays King John and Henry VIII (and
probably Edward III), we are stunned by the extraordinary scale of Shakespeare’s achievement.
The plays Richard II and Richard III deal with régime change. Both events were known to have
happened and both are presented as necessary only under the most extreme of circumstances. These plays
have had such a pervasive influence on the imagination of the English people that few seriously question
whether Richard II was so inept or whether Richard III was in fact. Similarly, the glorification of Prince
Hal leads most of us to accept that Henry V was the embodiment of national heroism. These
characterisations derive from Shakespeare and are deeply embedded in our national consciousness; but all
are open to doubt on historical grounds.
Which plays are Shakespeare’s Histories?
In general, scholars restrict the term to ten plays published in the First Folio (F1) in 1623. These were
arranged in historical sequence and were named after the reigning king, who is usually, though not always,
the protagonist. Henry VIII stands by itself as the play dealing with the most recent historical events (c.
1520-1533). Eight plays fall neatly into two sequences of four plays: Richard II through the Henry IV plays
to Henry V is usually called the Lancastrian tetralogy dealing with the rise of the House of Lancaster (c.
1398-1420). The three parts of the Henry VI plays and Richard III and are known as the Yorkist tetralogy.
These plays treat events continuously from the funeral of Henry V (1422) to the accession of Henry VII
(1485). In 2005-08, the Royal Shakespeare Company performed these eight history plays in sequence as
the ‘History Cycle’. Both the director, Michael Boyd, and the company believed that the eight plays were
conceived as a continuous sweep of history – an octology. Members of the ensemble give fascinating
accounts of the endeavour in Players of Shakespeare 6 (ed. Robert Smallwood). It is usually claimed that the
Yorkist tetralogy was composed before the Lancastrian tetralogy but there is no direct evidence to support
this, and is doubtful if we accept that the author probably revised his plays at a later stage.
The Life and Death of King John (KJ) stands by itself as the play dealing with the earliest historical events (c.
1200-1216). This play is strange in that it ignores John’s conflict with Robin Hood and it plays down his
submission to the barons with Magna Carta. Instead it concentrates on the legitimacy of John’s accession,
with emphasis on the ahistorical figure of Philip Falconbridge. A very similar play called The Troublesome
Raigne of lohn King of England, (TR) was published anonymously in two parts in 1591, which has a more
hostile anti-Papist line than Shakespeare’s play. The relationship between the two plays has been the
subject of much debate. The title pages of subsequent editions of TR in 1611 and 1622 attributed the play
to ‘W Sh’ and to ‘W Shakespeare’ respectively. Meres in 1598 mentions a play by Shakespeare called King
John. The general consensus is that Troublesome Raigne was not by Shakespeare but by another playwright
and that Shakespeare revised this into his own version of King John in 1595-96.
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
Which other plays can be considered History Plays?
Some plays which were classed as tragedies in the F1 might also be considered histories. Troilus &
Cressida was placed at the end of the Histories section of F1 but as it is not mentioned in the catalogue, it
is not clear whether the editors considered it a history or a tragedy. In addition, the Roman plays Julius
Caesar, Antony & Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, might be considered histories. We might even include the
anonymous play Edward III, which was published in 1596 and 1599, as a History play by Shakespeare (see
the edition by Giorgio Melchiori). The title page of King Lear in 1606 refers to the play as the “true
Chronicle History”. Other chronicle plays have at various times been ascribed to Shakespeare, notably:
Thomas of Woodstock (?1 Richard II)
Edmund Ironside
Arden of Faversham
Edward III
manuscript (MS Egerton 1994, British Museum)
manuscript (MS Egerton 1994, British Museum)
1594 (SR); 1598 (quarto)
1595 (SR); 1596 (quarto)
In general, however, Shakespeare’s History Plays are the ten which deal with English history and are
named after English kings.
Other History Plays in the Elizabethan Period
Irving Ribner believes that only a small number of History plays had been performed on stage by
1592, when he assumes Shakespeare began writing. A small number of these early histories were derived
from the Chronicles: the anonymous Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (1588) and The Troublesome Raigne of
King John (1588-89). Richard Legge’s Ricardius Tertius was a play in Latin, which is only known to have
been performed in Cambridge in 1579. Other plays to pre-date Shakespeare’s history plays, according to
Ribner, were George Peele’s The Life and Death of Jack Straw (c.1587-90), The True Tragedy of Richard the Third
(c. 1588-90), Peele’s Edward I (c. 1590-1), and Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (c. 1591).
Edward II is said to have influenced Richard II. Marlowe’s play was registered in 1593 and published in
1594. Because it concentrates on the character of the king, it is taken to be a development from the Henry
VI trilogy (where the emphasis is on events and characters in the reign) and thus Edward II seems to have
influenced both Richard III and Richard II. Further thematic links exist between the portrayal of Edward II
as a weak king fatally overcome by his choice of favourites and Richard II. The direction of influence has
not, however, been firmly established; it is possible that Richard II was the earlier play.
Audiences and venues
It is commonly assumed that Shakespeare wrote the history plays for performance by the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men at the Globe. However, the Globe was not constructed until 1599 and the only
known performances of Shakespeare’s history plays there were Richard II in 1601 (on the eve of the Essex
Rebellion) and Henry VIII in 1613, when the roof caught fire and the theatre burned down. Assuming that
Shakespeare wrote the history plays for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (who were formed in 1594), then
most public performances would have taken place at The Theatre in Shoreditch. However, the main
purpose of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men was to provide entertainment for the Queen, the courtiers, and
foreign dignitaries, perhaps at Whitehall Palace or at Greenwich Palace. Given the regal and aristocratic
content of the plays, many have surmised that they were in fact composed for a courtly audience.
Another area of uncertainty surrounds the relationship between the repertoire of the Queen’s Men and
Shakespeare’s plays. The Queen’s Men were formed in 1583 on the express orders of the Queen under
the control of Francis Walsingham. Their main duty was to play in the provinces and promote national
unity in the face of a foreign invasion. Some of their plays were published anonymously in the 1590s:
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
Troublesome Reign of John, King of England
The True Tragedie of Richard the Third
Famous Victories of Henry V
1591 (quarto)
1594 (SR & quarto)
1594 (SR); 1598 (quarto)
It is usually argued that Shakespeare revised these plays, but were they written by Shakespeare as a
state-employed playwright? The anonymous Troublesome Reign of King John, the first history play to be
published in the Elizabethan period, Another play which is usually assumed to have been written by
another author was Famous Victories, which it is said Shakespeare expanded into three plays (the two parts
of Henry IV, and Henry V). The famous clown actor, Richard Tarlton, who died in 1588, performed in a
Hal play:
At the [Red] Bull at Bishops-gate, was a play of Henry the fift, where in the judge was to take a
box on the eare; and because he was absent that should take the blow, Tarlton himself, ever
forward to please, took upon him to play the same judge, besides his owne part of the clowne.
Perhaps Shakespeare wrote the originals and then revised them.
Sources
The two major sources for Shakespeare were the Chronicle Histories by Edward Hall and by Raphael
Holinshed. However, he also drew details from an astonishing range of sources, some of which were in
French or Latin. Such was the conclusion of Geoffrey Bullough in Narrative and Dramatic Sources of
Shakespeare who conducted a very thorough review of the sources used by Shakespeare.
Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke
(1548-50). Bullough argues that the author began his plan for both the tetralogies by studying Hall’s
moralising narrative of English History from Henry IV to Henry VIII. Hall’s account described cause and
effect, crime and punishment, across many generations. Hall emphasised the providential pattern of
history in the coming of the Tudors, which ended the disastrous Civil Wars. His account begins half-way
through the reign of Richard II in 1387 with the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray – exactly
where Shakespeare begins Richard II. The titles of chapters in Hall clearly anticipate Shakespeare’s plays:
i
The unquiet time of King Henry the Fourth
ii
The victorious acts of King Henry the Fifth
iii
The troublous season of King Henry the Sixth
iv
The prosperous reign of King Edward the Fourth
v
The pitiful life of King Edward the Fifth
vi
The tragical doings of King Richard the Third
vii
The politic governance of King Henry the Seventh
viii
The triumphant reign of King Henry the Eighth
E. M. W. Tillyard argued (and Bullough agreed) that Hall provided the moral framework for the two
tetralogies, although there has been extended criticism of Tillyard’s view of the ‘Tudor myth’. Hall’s
Chronicle was prohibited and burnt under Mary for giving support to Henry VIII and Protestantism; his
publisher, Richard Grafton, escaped with his life and produced a revised text after Elizabeth’s accession.
While Shakespeare followed Hall’s general outline up to the Battle of Bosworth and the defeat of
Richard III in 1485, he seems to have derived most of his material from Raphael Holinshed, The
Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande. The first edition appeared in two volumes in 1577
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
and the second was greatly expanded into three volumes in 1587. Holinshed and his co-authors were more
like editors as the work is really a compendium of previous chroniclers and geographers, drawing
especially on Hall, but also on writings by Robert Fabyan, The New Chronicles of England and France (1516),
Grafton’s Chronicle (1569), and John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments (1583). Bullough demonstrates
how Holinshed is frequently the principal source for the detailed material in the plays, furnishing details
names and events for the Mowbray-Bolingbroke quarrel. Shakespeare also used the description from
Holinshed of a jousting tournament in 1389. In fact, so close is Shakespeare to Holinshed e.g. in
Canterbury’s speech in Henry V at 1.2, that Bullough believes the dramatist had the work open in front of
him as he composed. Boswell-Stone established that for most readings the second edition was used by
Shakespeare. It is, however, possible that the playwright used these sources independently of Holinshed.
Like Hall, The Mirror for Magistrates (1559; revised 1563; revised 1578) influenced Shakespeare
in providing a tragic framework for his characters in that they often owed their downfall to their own
actions. All the narratives in the Mirror for Magistrates which influenced Shakespeare’s Histories were found
in the first edition of 1559. There were nineteen first person narratives, in which ghosts from English
history, principally from Richard II to Richard III, lament their losses and warn future rulers to
moderate their conduct. These narratives provided material for many characters in the plays: in Richard II,
the king laments the ‘sad stories of the death of kings’ as he meditates on Salisbury and Northumberland
whose deaths featured in later plays (1 Henry VI and 2 Henry IV).
Samuel Daniel’s epic poem The First Fowre Bookes of the Civile Wars was registered on 11
October 1594 and published twice in 1595 (according to the title page) i.e. two years before the
registration and publication of Richard II. The first three books deal with the story of Richard II. Bullough
follows Chambers in viewing Daniel’s poem as derivative from the Chronicles (to which it is very much
closer) and therefore influential upon the play. Both play and poem make the Queen (historically aged 10)
a mature woman and lover of Richard, with special resonance at 5.1. Both play and poem make Prince Hal
and Hotspur (historically two years older than Bolingbroke) roughly contemporaries. It is not thought that
Shakespeare knew Daniel personally or that they realised that they were dealing with the same material on
a big scale. The problem is knowing whether Daniel embarked on his epic poem before Shakespeare
began his tetralogy, or whether Shakespeare’s handling of various themes influenced Daniel.
John Stow’s Chronicles of England (1580) and Annals of England (1592) were indirect sources for
Henry IV Part 2. The Chronicles were almost certainly used by the author of FV for Hal’s madcap antics so
whether this is a direct or an indirect source depends on the view taken concerning the authorship of FV.
Sir Thomas Elyot The Governour (1531) provided the basis for the conception of justice in the speech
by the Chief Justice in 2 Henry IV (5.2). Beatrice Groves shows that Shakespeare also drew on a range of
religious source material, both Catholic and Protestant, especially for the Prince Hal plays and King John.
However, she sees no particular inclination towards Catholicism.
Obscure Sources
Each of Shakespeare’s History plays shows knowledge from at least one obscure source. The great
achievement of the dramatist is to integrate arcane details seamlessly into the dramatic narrative; here is a
sample of obscure sources:
King John
Richard II
1 Henry IV
2 Henry IV
Henry V
The Wakefield Chronicle (in Manuscript)
French Chronicles Histoire du Roy d’Angleterre Richard II
Legal case involving Sir John Fastolf of Nacton (in Suffolk)
anonymous play Hicks Corner
Latin Chronicle Gesta Henrici Quinti
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
1 Henry VI
2 Henry VI
3 Henry VI
Richard III
Henry VIII
Talbot’s epitaph in the Cathedral at Rouen
Grafton’s Chronicles (for the Simcox miracle)
Ovid’s Heroides
Dr Legge’s Ricardus Tertius
Margaret of Navarre’s Dream
Dating the History Plays
There is no direct evidence for the date of composition of any of Shakespeare’s plays or the sequence
of composition. There are no letters or journals, no interviews or contemporary memoirs, no notes or
first drafts, and no books with revealing marginalia.
There is only one apparent allusion in any play of Shakespeare to a contemporary event: this occurs in
Henry V when the Chorus compares the cheering crowds welcoming the return of the King to the
anticipated return of “the General of our gracious Empress / As in good time he may – from Ireland
coming Bringing rebellion broached on his sword.” The speeches of the Chorus do not occur in the
quarto versions of the play, only in the Folio. Most scholars agree that this is a reference to Robert
Devereux, Earl of Essex, sent from London on 27 March 1599 as the Queen’s General Governor of
Ireland. This passage at least (if not the whole play) would appear to have been composed during the
spring and summer of 1599. Gary Taylor calls it the only “explicit, extra-dramatic incontestable reference
to a contemporary event anywhere in the canon.” Taylor, however, is not absolutely sure that the
reference is to Essex and considers whether the poet might be referring to a later general, Charles Blount,
Lord Mountjoy, who was serving in Ireland 1600-3. It is worth noting that only the rank, is mentioned
and no event is described – merely the hopes for the rebellion to be put down and for the General to
receive a victorious welcome on his return to London. Elizabeth had sent other generals Elizabeth to
Ireland before Essex.
It is usual to suppose that the plays were composed from about 1591 onwards, but there is no direct
evidence for this. The ‘scholarly consensus’ on the dating of Shakespeare’s History plays is based on the
magisterial work of Sir Edmund Chambers published in 1930. Chambers had proceeded with caution and
devoted 70 pages to his discussions of ‘The Problem of Authenticity’ and ‘The Problem of Chronology’.
His ordered list of dates is qualified: “There is much of conjecture, even as regards the order, and still
more as regards the ascriptions to particular years.” Later scholars, however, have not followed such a
cautious approach and simply accepted his dates as ‘fact’ rather than ‘conjecture’.
It is also believed that the tetralogies were composed in the sequence of publication and that they were
from page to print in a very short time. However, these are only working assumptions and cannot be
verified with respect to contemporary records. The title page of a quarto gives some useful information
including the date of publication, but this is not necessarily a reliable guide to the date of composition.
The Stationers’ Register (SR) notes the intention of a publisher to publish a work, establishing a kind of
copyright. Yet for some plays at least, there was a considerable delay between composition and
publication. The Famous Victories of Henry V dates from the 1580s, was registered in 1594 but was not
published until 1598. Similarly, 1 Henry VI is thought to have been composed c. 1591, but was not
registered or published until 1623.
Moreover, the sequence of composition within either tetralogy cannot be established. Some editors
posit a plain sequence, that each tetralogy was envisioned as a coherent series so as to work through a
grand scheme of history, in line with Hall’s Chronicle. Others follow Chambers who thought that Henry VI
Parts 2 & 3 were conceived as a two-part play, with Part 1 written afterwards as a prequel and Richard III
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
as a sequel. We would also like to know Shakespeare’s working practices. Did he work on his plays one at
a time and in sequence or did he leave some works to one side while he worked on others? Some editors
believe that Shakespeare broke off his work on 2 Henry IV to show Falstaff in Merry Wives. Others believe
that Falstaff in Merry Wives pre-dates the Lancastrian tetralogy and that when Shakespeare had to rename
Oldcastle, his errant knight, he used a name from a similar character in an otherwise unrelated play. Or
maybe the actors had to make the change at short notice before a performance.
There is a further question of possible revision. The First Part of the Contention (Q1, 1594) and True
Tragedie of Richard Duke of York (O1 1595) are much shorter than the versions of 2, 3 Henry VI in F1. Did
he revise his own plays? If so, when? And which versions were performed? We do not know how much
time elapsed between the completion of a play and its first performance. It is often assumed that the
earliest mention of a performance or a publication indicate that the play had just been completed yet Two
Gentlemen of Verona is mentioned by Meres in 1598 but does not appear in the SR until 1623. This play is
usually dated to the early 1590s, a time lag of about five years to its first mention and thirty years to its
first appearance in print. There are other unanswered questions: Did the author work alongside a coauthor or did a second author revise and expand a shorter piece by Shakespeare at a later stage?
Henry VIII presents special problems when attempting to fix its date. It is usual to call it a late play as
its earliest known performance was 1613. However, its rambling episodic nature suggests that it might
have been an early play. There are, in fact, several suggestions that Henry VIII was the subject of a play
(or plays) performed in the 1590s: Edward Alleyne left a list of costumes from the early part of his career
including a ‘Harry VIII gown’ and a ‘Cardinal’s gown’. Because Alleyne was born in 1566, the list would
seem to date to the late 1580s or early 1590s. Secondly Henslowe in his Diary records an inventory on 10
March 1598, which includes a costume for the part of Will Sommers, Henry VIII’s fool. Perhaps
Shakespeare composed Henry VIII to extol Elizabeth’s virtues in Cranmer’s speech and to exonerate her
mother Anne Boleyn of scheming. If so, the allusion to James I would have been added after his
accession, perhaps many years later.
Early Starter ?
Ernst Honigmann in 1985 proposed an alternative chronology for the dates of Shakespeare’s plays, in
particular for the History plays, a genre which he created. Although his premise that Shakespeare had a
catholic connection with Lancashire is doubted by many, Honigmann shows that the existing evidence
can support earlier dates than is usually proposed. His scheme of the early works is tenable:
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
Titus Andronicus
Two Gentlemen of Verona
1 Henry VI, Taming of The Shrew
2 Henry VI, Comedy of Errors
3 Henry VI; Richard III
King John, Romeo & Juliet
Honigmann supposed that Shakespeare wrote and published The Troublesome Reign of John, King of
England in 1590-1, because the Queen’s Men were in financial difficulties. His dating has been broadly
accepted by Katherine Duncan-Jones who portrayed Shakespeare as a dramatist working for the Queen’s
Men in the late 1580s. Other scholars reject the ‘early starter’ theory since by “filling one big vacuum in
the 1580s, we simply create other vacuums elsewhere ” (Wells and Taylor, William Shakespeare: A Textual
Companion). Yet Wells and Taylor acknowledge that the F1 version of King John could be dated anywhere
between the publication of Holinshed’s Chronicles in 1587 and Meres’s allusion to it in 1598.
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
In Overall, there is no possibility of a reliably dating any of Shakespeare’s plays or even of establishing
a meaningful chronology. Without such an outline, it is impossible to link any of the plays with certainty
to contemporary events. In short, we cannot be more precise as to when Shakespeare composed the
history plays than to suggest sometime after the publication of the second edition of Holinshed’s
Chronicles in 1587.
Topicalities: References in the Plays to External Events
As we do not know when the plays were composed, it is very difficult to establish any kind of
topicality. Furthermore, some topicalities may have been added (or removed) when the pay was in
production, perhaps many years after composition. A few editors, such as David Bevington in Tudor
Drama and Politics (1968), believe that the plays only reflect general matters of contemporary concern
without alluding to specific events.
Two major studies have been made of Shakespeare’s History plays: Peter Saccio in 1977 argued that
Shakespeare is the Tudor apologist: ‘The deposition of Richard II is seen as a sacrilegious act interrupting
the succession of God’s anointed kings, a kind of original sin for which England and her rulers must
suffer.’ He notes the tendentious view of history which presented Henry VII as the saviour of England
and justified the Tudor acquisition of the throne. He argues that Shakespeare surpasses these: ‘Richard III
is made more villainous than any man could possibly be,’ so that Henry VII and the Tudor monarchy may
appear more desirable. A more recent study by John Julius Norwich (1999) also sees the plays as
representative of Tudor orthodoxy: ‘The overall message of the plays . . . was one which the Queen would
have taken instantly to her heart: the supreme importance – and the ultimate triumph – of the state.’
Other critics see much closer topical allusions. Christopher Highley argues that Shakespeare changed
historical details about Richard II’s campaigns in Ireland to reflect specific concerns of Burghley and
Walsingham. He demonstrates close correspondence between Tyrone’s Rebellion and the depiction of
Glendower in 2 Henry IV and between the death of Talbot in 1 Henry VI and the internal dissension
among commanders in Ireland in 1585.
In King John, the treatment of inheritance, wills and primogeniture is very relevant to Elizabeth’s
legitimacy as Queen. Thus KJ can be seen as a direct commentary on Elizabeth’s succession, a topic which
was forbidden to be discussed in public.
Richard II & Elizabeth
Elizabeth also prohibited discussion of Richard II’s deposition. “I am Richard II. Know ye not that ?”
Queen Elizabeth remarked in 1601 to William Lambarde, Keeper of the Records of the Tower. “He that
will forget God will also forget his benefactors; this tragedie was played 40tie times in open streets and
houses.” Simply owning a book about Richard II caused trouble to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex when
he returned from Ireland. The author of the prose account of Richard’s abdication, Sir John Hayward,
was tried in the Star Chamber in 1600 and spent the rest of Elizabeth’s reign in the Fleet prison.
Yet Essex sent his steward, Sir Gilly Merrick, to offer the Lord Chamberlain’s Men forty shillings to
perform Richard II, two days before the planned uprising against Elizabeth in 1601. When the Privy
Council investigated, the spokesman for the company, Augustine Phillips, claimed that they had been
reluctant to put on a play “so old and so long out of use.” The plot failed and the rebels were tried and
found guilty: the Earl of Essex was beheaded, Merrick was hanged at Tyburn and the Earl of
Southampton was condemned to death. He remained on Death Row in the Tower until his sentence was
commuted by James I in 1603. Strangely, the author of the play, which had been published under the
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
name ‘William Shake-speare’ in 1598 and 1599, was not summoned before the Privy Council at
Westminster Hall.
Clearly the play Richard II is an outstanding piece of spin-doctoring. Richard was known to have had
his favourites and been forced to abdicate. The play, however, while admitting his faults, portrays him as
favourably as possible, without conceding that it was right for Bolingbroke to rebel.
Sorcery and Scandal
The Duchess of Gloucester in The First Part of the Contention is accused solely of treason. However, in 2
Henry VI, the Folio version of the play, this is significantly changed so that she is merely guilty of
participating in sorcery to find out if her husband, the good duke Humphrey, will succeed as king.
Eleanor is discovered and exiled to the Isle of Man. Gloucester will not interfere in the administration of
justice. This historically attested event mirrors the actions of Margaret, Countess of Derby. Margaret
Clifford (1540-96) was the grand-daughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister and she became Countess of
Derby in 1554. According to Henry VIII’s will, which was adopted as the Third Act of Succession in
1543, her cousins Mary and Catherine Grey had a prior claim. When they died in 1568, Margaret became
was next in line to the throne. However, in 1579, she was accused of sorcery and of prophesying the
Queen’s death. She remained under house arrest until her death in 1596.
It is likely that the Lord Strange’s Men played The Contention and that the change in the portrayal of
Eleanor resulted from political pressure, especially after the trial and execution of William Hackett in 1591
for speaking out against Elizabeth’s legitimacy. Margaret’s son, Ferdinando, Lord Strange, and heir to the
Earldom, would have pressured his players to change Eleanor’s guilt from treason to prophesying. Such
an interpretation involves dating The Contention to the 1580’s and published in its original form in 1594.
Historiography
The portrayal of historical events on stage produced a mixed response from Elizabethans. Sir Philip
Sidney in his Defence of Poesie, which was composed 1581-3 and circulated in manuscript among the
aristocracy before it was published in 1595. Sidney complained about the inadequacy of a theatre stage to
represent grand events: “two Armies flye in, represented with foure swords and bucklers, and then what
harde heart will not receive it for a pitched fielde?” However, in Pierce Penniless (1589; 1592), Nashe
defended the idea of History plays: “Wherein our forefathers' valiant acts (that have lain long buried in
rusty brass and worm-eaten books) are revived, and they themselves raised from the grave of oblivion,
and brought to plead their aged honors in open presence.” Nashe continues: “How it would have joyed
brave Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that after he had lyne two hundred years in his Tombe,
he should triumph againe on the Stage, and have his bones embalmed with the tears of ten thousand
spectators at least.” Nashe’s comments seem to attest to the popularity of 1 Henry VI on stage in and
early 1590s and perhaps in the late 1580s.
Even if Shakespeare did not invent the History play, he certainly extended the use of it. While some of
Shakespeare’s histories follow the pattern of tragedy in depicting the fall of a great person, most notably
Richard II and Richard III, most other history plays depict history as a process, with a focus on moral
issues. Andrew Hadfield has shown how Shakespeare drew on discussions of republican themes,
including political assassination, elected government, alternative constitutions, and, perhaps most
importantly of all, the problem of power without responsibility. Nevertheless, The Yorkist tetralogy
serves as a reminder of the terrors of civil dissension.
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
Revision and Collaboration
Like many other plays of Shakespeare, some of the histories plays exist in distinct versions: a shorter
version published in quarto and a similar, but longer version published in the Folio. The shorter versions
in quarto are: The First Part of the Contention (1594; F1 1 Henry VI), The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York
(actually published in octavo, 1595; 3 Henry VI) and Henry V (1600). In addition, plays such as The
Troublesome Raigne (1591), The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York (1595) and the Famous Victories of Henry
V (1598) show enough similarity to King John, Richard III and the Henry IV-Henry V plays as to lead some
editors to suggest that these versions were also by Shakespeare. The traditional view, however was to
dismiss these shorter versions as “bad” quartos, pirated copies hastily scribbled down and published
without authorial permission. However, the more modern view is to see the shorter versions as
Shakespeare’s early versions for the stage, later revised and expanded, perhaps for reading rather than
performance, as Lukas Erne has argued.
A few editors have seen co-authorship in some of the History plays. Sir Brian Vickers has argued that
John Fletcher composed more than half of Henry VIII. He has also argued that les than half of 1 Henry IV
was composed by Shakespeare while the majority of the play was probably written by Thomas Nashe. As
with other plays that are thought to have been co-authored, these plays are among those which are
thought to be inferior. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the authors actually worked together on a
piece, in which case it would be very difficult to disentangle who wrote which passage, or whether one
author expanded a shorter version at a later stage.
Attribution
So who was the author of this grand sweep of English history, encompassing a century of turbulence
which closed with the accession of Henry Richmond and Elizabeth of York? The usual suspect is William
Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon, a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Yet how is it that there is
no mention of him by Elizabeth’s principal minister, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who had promoted
the Holinshed Chronicle so as to give a view of history favourable to the Tudors? Why was he never
mentioned by Edmund Tilney, who was Master of the Revels from 1579 – 1610 and who licensed the
plays? Why was he unknown to Thomas Walsingham, who ran the secret service and established the
Queen’s Men in the 1580s to promote the Elizabethan régime?
The Case for Oxford
Many commentators doubt that the true author was William Shakspere. These authorship skeptics find
it more likely that the author was initially an anonymous Tudor propagandist – a writer, who realistically
dramatised the personal situations of English kings while always retaining the fixed hierarchical view of
English society – an apologist whose identity was initially kept secret, but whose works were published
under a pseudonym from 1598. That he may have composed drama, not merely to provide entertainment
whether at court, in the London theatre or on tour to the provinces, but mainly to instill a sense of
national pride and unity in the face of foreign threats.
In seeking an alternative candidate as author of the plays, many Shakespeare lovers have been attracted
to the claims of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. As a senior peer of the realm, Oxford lived his life at
the centre of Tudor politics. His ancestors had played prominent parts in the Wars of the Roses. His great
grandfather had been executed in 1461. The 13th Earl, leading Richmond’s army, proclaims (Richard III
5.2.18-9): “Every man’s conscience is a thousand swords, / To fight against that bloody homicide.” The
9
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
14th Earl accompanied Henry VIII to the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1521. The 15th Earl (Edward’s
grandfather) carried the crown at the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533. The 16th Earl, Edward’s father,
entertained Elizabeth with dramatic interludes at Castle Hedingham in 1561.
Oxford’s education is well documented: he attended Queens’ College Cambridge and had among his
personal tutors, Sir Thomas Smith, the English scholar and diplomat. One uncle, Thomas Howard, Earl
of Surrey, had introduced the sonnet and blank verse to England. Edward was still a minor when his
father died and he became a Royal Ward, brought up at Cecil House. There his daily routine involving the
study of French, Latin and Greek were carefully prescribed. Another uncle, William Golding, was also
living in Cecil House at this time; his translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses became the most quoted secular
work in the Shakespeare oevre.
At the age of 21, he married Anne Cecil and became Burghley’s son-in-law. He visited Italy for a
lengthy period in 1575-6. When he returned to England, he was known as the Italianate Earl and write
comedies for performance at court which were highly praised. Like his father, he ran his own companies
of adult players, boy actors, tumblers and musicians. In the early 1580s, however, he fell from favour and
was sent to the Tower for his apparent catholic sympathies. Upon his release, his principal actor, John
Dutton was drafted into the newly formed Queen’s Men. For this company, William Cecil needed an
established dramatist with a royal outlook. He could find one in his own household: his own son-in-law.
Oxfordians believe that Edward was brought in to compose history plays as instruments of Tudor
Orthodoxy to represent the futility of dissension and disloyalty. The shorter versions were intended for
public theatres. The longer and more elaborate versions were written for performance at court before a
more sophisticated audience. In 1586, Oxford was granted an annuity of £1,000 (confirmed by James I in
1603) at a time when the Spanish threat was most pressing. Only the Lord High Admiral, Charles
Howard, received a larger annuity (£1200) and that was to secure the defence of the realm. As Oxford did
not participate in any military activity, the annuity can only have served to allow him to continue his playwriting and performance.
Oxford had close connections with Raphael Holinshed. The first edition of The Chronicles had been
dedicated to Oxford’s father-in-law, in 1577. Holinshed had issued a pamphlet in 1573 attacking a man
called Brown as the perpetrator of a murder in Shooters Hill, thereby deflecting blame from Oxford. The
incident is very reminiscent of Hal’s antics in Famous Victories and in 1 Henry IV. It is likely that Oxford
was composing the History plays from consulting the same sources at the same time in the 1580s and in
the same place (Cecil House) as Holinshed’s team were preparing the second edition of the Chronicles.
Oxford as author of Richard II
Plots against Elizabeth
There were four serious plots against Elizabeth, three of which aimed at putting Mary Queen of
Scots on the throne of England. The first was the Ridolfi Plot in 1571, which resulted in the
imprisonment of the Duke of Norfolk for nine months and his eventual execution. The second was the
Throckmorton Plot in 1583, which anticipated foreign invasions. Throckmorton was executed and Mary
remained in captivity. The third was the Babington Plot in 1586, which finally resulted in Mary’s trial
and execution the following year. The fourth rebellion, that of Essex in 1601, followed the publication
of Richard II in 1597.
Richard II is concerned with plots and conspiracies. The play opens with Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of
Hereford, and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, accusing each other of treachery, both claiming to
be loyal subjects. The King, unable to control their anger, shows his weakness. Initially, he allows them
10
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
to try their honour at Coventry, but then he exiles them both, one for life and one for ten (later six)
years. He fails, however, to deal with the cause of their grievances or to answer the concerns of his aged
and dying uncle. He illegally seizes monies and estates and promotes his own ill-deserving favourites.
Eventually, when distracted by rebellion in Ireland, he fails to guard against the invasion of a foreign
army. It is clear that the author of Richard II intended the play as an allegory of bad government, using it
to encourage the monarch and the government to take drastic action against the Queen’s enemies,
mainly those nobles who were disloyal. A date in the early 1580s before 1587 appears most appropriate
for composition. The group around the Queen most eager for her to take action against unruly nobles
and to execute Mary were Burghley and Walsingham.
We know that as Master of the Revels, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester had provided dramatic
entertainment at Elizabeth’s court in the 1570s and early 1580’s, often to support his political aims.
Richard II appears to be in this genre, demonstrating to a wavering monarch and discontented nobles the
pressing need for action at home.
Richard II and the Law
Shakespeare’s extensive and apparently effortless reference to the law has been widely admired for
over a century. Malone was aware of this in the eighteenth century. The great Victorian Chancellor,
Lord Campbell, stated in 1859 that Shakespeare’s law was inherent and infallible. In 1908, the barrister
George Greenwood declared that William of Stratford could not have acquired the legal knowledge
reflected in the works and therefore the author had to be someone else. In 2000, B. J. and Mary Sokol’s
dictionary, Shakespeare's Legal Language, provides a vast range of allusions showing an extremely detailed
knowledge and understanding of Elizabethan Law. The dictionary involves 400 pages of discussion of
over 200 distinct terms and concepts.
Shakespeare’s understanding of the Law of Succession is particularly impressive. An American
lawyer, Jack Benoit Gohn, wrote a 1982 article for The Georgetown Law Journal on Richard II as a legal
brief. Gohn points out how Shakespeare grasped the importance of law, especially as it affected human
history. He demonstrates that "Shakespeare used the historical overthrow of King Richard II to justify
the absolute power of the monarch and also provide for a method of choosing the monarch's successor
when the rules of succession failed" (943). For further details see Mark Alexander’s fascinating article on
Shakespeare and the Law in The Oxfordian (2001), which can be accessed on-line at www.shakespeareoxford.com. The uneasiness towards Bolingbroke’s succession is voiced by Carlisle:
Would God that any in this noble presence
Were enough noble to be upright judge
Of noble Richard. Then true noblesse would
Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
What subject can give sentence on his king,
And who sits here that is not Richard’s subject? (4.1.117-22)
Relating this astute legal knowledge to the biography of William of Stratford is impossible. Some
biographers assert that he obtained all his knowledge from working as a legal clerk in Stratford during
the ‘lost years; others minimise his knowledge; some even ignore the subject altogether. Edward de
Vere, on the other hand, attended Grays Inn. Throughout his life, he had contact with the most
important legal officers in Elizabethan era. Furthermore, de Vere frequently had recourse to litigation to
enforce his ancestral rights and claim new privileges. The Earl of Oxford is an ideal candidate in the
Elizabethan world to have acquired the legal knowledge displayed in Shakespeare.
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
Richard II & Ovid’s Metamorphoses
The Roman poet Ovid is the most quoted literary writer in Shakespeare. Ovid’s epic poem on
changing shapes, The Metamorphoses, was particularly influential, e.g. on comedies such as A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. Professor Jonathan Bate (Shakespeare and Ovid, 1993) has shown how Ovid supplies many
motifs for the history plays, especially Richard II. Ovid’s story of Phaethon (Metamorphoses i 747 – ii 400)
describes how an upstart could not control the horses of the Sun and scorched the Earth until he was hit
by Jove’s thunderbolt. This provides the pattern for the fall of Richard (who frequently refers to himself
in images of the sun). When the King stands on the walls of Flint Castle, Northumberland invites him to
‘come down’ as Bolingbroke attends him ‘in the base court’. Richard answers:
Down, down I come like glist’ring Phaethon,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court: base court where kings grow base
To come at traitors’ calls and do them grace
(Richard II 3.3.177-80)
Bate shows how Golding in his translation (1567) and epistles draws out the moral more clearly than
the original in terms of ‘ambition blynd and youthfull wilfulnesse.’ In prison, Richard reflects on ‘thoughts
tending to ambition’ (5.5.18). Golding continues that, ‘the end whereof is misery, and bringeth at the last
/ Repentance when it is to late that all redresse is past.’ (Epistle, 73-4). This is echoed by Richard at
2.3.171: ‘Things past redress are now with me past care.’ Golding explains that Phaethon is the rash
young prince and that the horses are the common people, who when promoted into high office, go out of
control and bring chaos to the body politic. The Bard used both the original Latin text of Ovid and
Golding’s translation. Rather strangely, Bate assumes that the Bard’s classical education finished at school
in Stratford by the late 1570s, but with complete retention for use and adaptation twenty years later.
A more likely explanation concerns Arthur Golding, who was De Vere’s maternal uncle. Golding
dedicated his translation in 1567 to William Cecil, Lord Burghley while his young nephew was a royal
ward at Cecil House. Oxford therefore had easy access to the excellent library of his guardian (and later
father-in-law). William of Stratford is not known to have visited any nobleman’s house, let alone studied
in any of their libraries. He is never mentioned in the vast Cecil Papers.
Oxford as author of Richard III
Richard III & the Classics
The influence of Seneca’s tragedies is evident throughout Richard III, especially in scenes involving
stichomythia (rapid interchanges) with or between mourning women. The wooing of Anne in 1.2
reflects a similar passage in Seneca Hercules Furens where the murderous king Lycus woos Hercules’ wife,
Megara. In Seneca’s Phaedra, the lustful heroine asserts to her step-son, Hipploytus: ‘shouldst thou send
me through fire and midst deadly battle ranks, I would not hesitate to offer my breast to naked swords.’
Richard similarly woos Anne:
Here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
Which if thou please to hide in this true bosom
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke
And humbly beg the death upon the knee.
(1.2.160-3)
Seneca’s Trojan Women contains great pathos and passion. In his Oxford Shakespeare edition, John
Jowett comments: ‘Seneca’s group of women lamenting the destruction of Troy anticipates
Shakespeare’s gathering of women who have lost children at Richard’s hands, with the Duchess of York
12
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
equivalent to Hecuba, the mother of the ill-omened Paris, grief stricken by the destruction his life has
caused.’
Ovid’s influence in the Richard III is no less evident. Bate mentions the link between the mourning
queens and Ovid’s Heroides. In Ovid’s poem, legendary heroines read their letters to their husbands or
lovers as dramatic monologues. They serve as studies of love from the woman’s point of view. In
Richard III, Lady Anne laments over the coffin of her dead father[-in-law] as well as her husband killed
previously. Clarence’s dream derives details from both Virgil’s Aeneid vi 336-371 (Death of Palinurus)
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses iii 792-798, where Acetis tells how he ‘stepped upon the hatches’ where a
ruffian gave him ‘such a churlish blow . . . that overboard he sent me.’ Compare Clarence:
. . . As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methoughts that Gloucester stumbled and in stumbling
Struck me, that sought to stay him, overboard.
(1.4.9-19)
Oxford was very highly educated, having gained a degree from Cambridge (as well as an honorary
degree from Oxford) and attended the Inns of Court. He was brought up in the house of William Cecil,
Lord Burghley, which contained an excellent library. In the same house at this time, Oxford’s maternal
uncle, Arthur Golding was preparing and publishing his translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1567).
Richard III and the Tower of London
The author of Richard III seems obsessed with the Tower in a way which is not reflected in the
sources. There are 26 references in this play, more than half the total citations in all the history plays:
His majesty / . . . hath appointed This conduct to convey me to the Tower
(1,1,45)
I do not like the Tower, of any place. Did Julius Caesar build that place ?
(3.1.68)
Think on the Tower and me: despair and die.
(5,3,105)
Think on thy cousins smothered in the Tower
(5.4.130)
The Tower is a symbol of Gloucester’s evil despotism and is used by the ghosts to taunt his
conscience. One important scene (1.4), in which Clarence recounts his dream, actually takes place in the
Tower. Clarence is treated most courteously by his guards in line with his rank of prince, not status as
prisoner. During the course of the play, it is clear who is on the Yorkist side: Gloucester, Clarence,
Buckingham, Howard (Norfolk), Ratcliffe, Catesby and Tyrrel. On the Lancastrian side we see:
Richmond, Dorset, de Vere (Oxford), Stanley (Derby), Lovel, Blount and Herbert.
In Elizabeth’s reign, there were many descendants of these families who remained in opposing
camps. Edward de Vere’s grandfather, the 15th Earl had sided with Richmond and led his army into
battle at Bosworth. He himself (as did all the nobles) allied his family to his loyal friends One daughter
married a Stanley; another married a Herbert. The nobles often remained in factions boasting to the
queen not only of their own unswerving loyalty, but also of their families’ devotion to the monarch’s
forebears. Among Oxford’s personal enemies were descendants of his grand-father’s enemies, the
Howards, who while being catholic themselves, accused de Vere of Popery in 1580 and caused him to
be sent to the Tower. A commoner such as William of Stratford would expect to be held prisoner in the
Fleet or the Clink. A nobleman such as Edward de Vere, however, would be a guest of her majesty at
the Tower of London. In fact, Oxford was a prisoner there twice. He thus had strong cause to taunt the
monarch for wrongful imprisonment. The Earl of Oxford is therefore the ideal candidate in the
Elizabethan world to have written the History Plays of Shakespeare.
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The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
Publication of History Plays
Anonymous
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
Attributed to Shakespeare
Q1 Troublesome Raigne of King John
Q1 First Part of the Contention
Q1 True Tragedie of Richard III
O1 True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York
Q1 Edward III
Q1 Richard II, Q1 Richard III,
Q1 Famous Victories of Henry V
Q1 1 Henry IV
Q2 Edward III
Q2 Richard III
Q2, Q3 Richard II
Q2 1 Henry IV
Q1 Henry V
Q2 First Part of the Contention
Q2 True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York
Q1 2 Henry IV
Q2 Henry V
Q3 Richard III
Q3 1 Henry IV
Q4 Richard III
Q4 Richard II, Q5 1 Henry IV
Q2 Troublesome Raigne by W. Sh.
Q5 Richard III
Q6 1 Henry IV
Q5 Richard II
Q2 Famous Victories of Henry V
Q3 Henry V (carries date 1608)
Q3 First Part of the Contention
Q3 True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York,
1620
1621
1622
Q6 Richard III, Q7 1 Henry IV, Q3 T. Raigne
14
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
Further Reading
Anderson, Mark, “Shakespeare” by Another Name. Penguin, 2005.
Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, vol. III (‘The Early Histories’) vol IV
(‘The Later Histories’), London, RKP, 1960 & 1962.
Campbell, Lily. Shakespeare's "Histories": Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy. Methuen. 1947.
Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare A Study of Facts and Problems. 2 vols. Oxford, 1930.
Duncan-Jones, Katherine. Ungentle Shakespeare. Arden, 2002.
Erne, Lukas. Shakespeare as a Literary Dramatist. CUP, 2003.
Gilvary, Kevin. Dating Shakespeare’s Plays. Parapress, 2010.
Groves, Beatrice. Texts and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare, 1592-1604. Oxford, 2007.
Hadfield, Andrew. Shakespeare and Republicanism. CUP, 2005.
Hattaway, M. J. Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays, CUP, 2002.
Highley, Christopher. Shakespeare, Spenser and the Crisis in Ireland. CUP, 1997.
Honigmann, E. A. J. Shakespeare: the ‘lost years’. Manchester, 1985.
Kewes, Paulina et al, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed's Chronicles, OUP 2012.
McMillin, Scott, and Sally-Beth MacLean. The Queen's Men and Their Plays. CUP, 1998.
Melchiori, Giorgio, ed. King Edward III. CUP, 1998.
Norwich, John Julius. Shakespeare’s Kings. Viking, 1999
Pugliatti, Paola. Shakespeare the Historian. Palgrave, 1996
Ribner, Irving. The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare, London, RKP, 1957 (reprinted 1965).
Saccio, Peter. Shakespeare’s English Kings. OUP, 1977 (reprinted 2000).
Smallwood, Robert. The Players of Shakespeare 6: Essays in the Performance of Shakespeare's History Plays, CUP,
2007.
Tillyard, E. M. W. Shakespeare's English History Plays, 1944.
Vickers, Brian. Shakespeare, co-Author. OUP, 2002.
Wells, Stanley & Taylor Gary, William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. OUP, 1986.
15
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
The following extract summarises a long article on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website in
the Newsletter section under the Publications tab. It appeared in Vol. 37, No. 2: Summer 2001:
Shakespeare's 'Prince Hal' Plays as Keys to the Authorship
Question
By Ramon Jimenez
Between February of 1598 and August of 1600, the following four plays were published in London: The
Famous Victories of Henry the fifth (1598); The History of Henrie the fourth (1598); The Second part of Henrie the
fourth (1600 ); and The Cronicle History of Henry the fift (1600). Despite their titles, the central figure in each
was Henry, Prince of Wales, also known as Prince Hal, who succeeded to England's throne as Henry V in
1413, and died only nine years later. As one of the country's most heroic kings, he had been the subject of
numerous biographies, ballads, and histories by the late sixteenth century, but so far as we know, these
four plays, in which six different publishers and printers participated, were the first printed dramatic works
about him.
These four plays about Prince Hal were almost certainly written by the same man: Edward de Vere,
seventeenth Earl of Oxford; he wrote them in the order shown above; he wrote the first, The Famous
Victories, at a very early age, possibly in his teens; that in his last Prince Hal play, Henry V, he responded
extensively, with both humor and sarcasm, to criticism of the first three by a fellow courtier-poet; and that
he did all this by the spring of 1584, before he reached the age of thirty-four.
Similarities between The Famous Victories and the Henry Plays
Regardless of its quality, the close relationship between The Famous Victories and the Shakespearean
trilogy has been observed and debated for more than two hundred years The events depicted in The
Famous Victories neatly bracket those of Shakespeare's Henry trilogy. The first scene of The Famous Victories
matches the second scene of Henry IV, Part 1, and the last scene of The Famous Victories, in which King
Henry woos the French Princess Katherine, matches the last scene in Henry V, in which he does the same
thing. The fifty-seven scenes in the Henry plays are a logical expansion of the twenty scenes in The Famous
Victories. Thus the anonymous play might be seen as a rudimentary skeleton within the full body of the
trilogy.
In 1954, C. A. Greer published a short essay in which he detailed Shakespeare's debt to The Famous
Victories (238-41). He cited fifteen plot elements that occur in both the anonymous play and in the Henry
trilogy. Here are some examples: the robbery of the King's receivers; the meeting of the robbers in an
Eastcheap Tavern; the reconciliation of the newly-crowned King Henry V with the Chief Justice; the new
King's rejection of his comic friends; the gift of tennis balls from the Dolphin; Pistol's encounter with a
French soldier (Derick's in The Famous Victories). Not only are all fifteen plot elements common to The
Famous Victories and the Henry plays, they all occur in the same order.
Greer also listed forty-two specific details of action and characterization that occur in both The Famous
Victories and in Shakespeare's trilogy. For example: the total of ten comic characters in each -- six who are
partially duplicated and four who are exactly duplicated; Gad's Hill as the name of both a robber and the
16
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
place of robbery; the reference to Prince Hal boxing the ear of the Chief Justice (dramatized in The Famous
Victories and referred to in Henry IV, Part 1); Prince Hal's theft of the crown at his father's deathbed; the
arrogance of the French in saying that Englishmen cannot fight without beef. Again, not only are all fortytwo specific details common to both, they occur in the same order. In fact, there is not a single scene in
The Famous Victories that is not repeated in the Shakespeare plays.
In addition to the above similarities, there are several incidents and passages of dialogue attributed to
historical characters in Shakespeare's Henry trilogy for which there is little or no evidence in the more than
twenty historical chronicles available in the middle years of Elizabeth's reign (Taylor 28). However, many
of them appear in The Famous Victories - the most notable being the scene in which Henry woos the French
princess Katherine at the end of Henry V. Lastly, it was the author of The Famous Victories who introduced
the dramatic device of alternating comic scenes with those depicting characters from English history, a
technique duplicated in the Shakespeare trilogy (Ribner 70-1). This is not indebtedness. This is ownership.
In 1961 Seymour Pitcher published an entire book to support the claim that in writing his Henry trilogy
Shakespeare used The Famous Victories "ingeniously" and "instinctively." "He knew it by heart, by total
assimilation" -- because he wrote it himself (6, 182-3). To Greer's catalogue of similarities, Pitcher added
his own list of elements of plot, characterization, and language in The Famous Victories that recur in other
Shakespearean plays. The character of the stubborn porter, for instance, appears again in Comedy of Errors,
Timon of Athens, and Macbeth. The idea of the dagger as a proof of remorse shows up again in Julius Caesar,
Cymbeline, and Richard III. Prince Hal's condescending banter with the coy Princess Katherine, whom he
calls Kate, is repeated by several Shakespearean characters, notably Hotspur, Petruchio, and Dumaine in
Love's Labour's Lost. The exchange of identities by which Derick and John Cobbler pretend to be Prince
Hal and the Chief Justice in The Famous Victories is another Shakespearean trademark - the play within the
play. This particular scene is duplicated in Act II of Henry IV, Part 1. There are numerous other examples
(Pitcher 94-103).
In an article published in 1921, James Monaghan found the origins of Falstaff in two characters in The
Famous Victories- Sir John Oldcastle and Derick the Clown, especially the latter (354-5). He concluded: "A
superficial examination of the two plays [The Famous Victories and Henry IV, Part I] will show that in each
we have a swaggering soldier, in service against his will, aggressive when his enemies are unarmed, and
running away when they are armed; in each he is a coward, braggart, glutton, thief, rogue, clown and
parasite; in each he has the same monumental unblushing effrontery and loves a jest even at his own
expense" (358). He might have added that in each play the swaggering soldier is a companion of Prince
Hal, and tends to lead him into mischief. Clearly, the author of the Shakespeare canon wrote The Famous
Victories of Henry the Fifth.
Oxford and The Famous Victories
The playing company named on the title page of The Famous Victories, the Queens Men, had a
connection with the Earl of Oxford. When the company was assembled in 1583, leading players were
taken from three or four existing companies that had all recently appeared at Court, including one
sponsored by the Earl of Oxford.
The notorious prank robbery at Gad's Hill is the first comic incident in both The Famous Victories, and
Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I. The difference is that in the former play Prince Hal has just participated in
the robbery, but in the Shakespeare play he only robs the robbers, and then promises to pay back the
money. The incident is ultimately based on a passage in The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, an
anonymous biography written in 1513. According to the account in this manuscript, Prince Hal and his
"younge Lords and gentlemen would await in disguised aray for his own receiuers, and distres them of
17
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
theire money," which he later restored to them (Kingsford, First English Life 17). The playwright of The
Famous Victories crystallized this vague reference into a single robbery at a particular place-Gad's Hill in
Kent-and on a particular date-"the 20th day of May last past, in the fourteenth year of the reign of our
sovereign lord King Henry the Fourth" (Pitcher 24), that is, in 1413. As Ward first pointed out, the date is
spurious, Henry IV having died in March of 1413.
The most telling piece of evidence supporting Oxford's authorship, however, is the treatment of the
obscure Richard de Vere, eleventh Earl of Oxford, who died in 1417 at the age of thirty-one, and has
never even merited an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Nor do the English chroniclers of the
reigns of Henry IV and V mention the eleventh Earl, except to say that he was present with Henry V at
Agincourt in 1415.
But in The Famous Victories the eleventh Earl of Oxford is everywhere. He is one of the main characters
in the play, and speaks eighteen times in seven scenes, more than any other historical character except the
Lord Chief Justice and the two Henrys. He is the first historical character to speak, except for Prince Hal,
and he speaks only to Henry IV or to Prince Hal, who is crowned King between the eighth and ninth
scenes. More than that, in the anonymous play Richard de Vere has been elevated to the place of Henry
IV's principal counselor, even though the chronicles record that the King's counselors were the Earls of
Exeter and Westmoreland, and the Duke of York.
Without any basis in the historical sources, the playwright of The Famous Victories portrays the eleventh
Earl of Oxford in five separate incidents as generous, wise, informative, and brave. In the ninth scene
Richard de Vere urges the new King Henry V to ignore the advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury to
attack Scotland, and instead invade France. This was in fact the course that Henry took, but in the
chronicle sources it comes from the Earl of Exeter. On the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, Oxford asks
the King for command of the vanguard, but it has been promised to the Duke of York. On the morning
of the battle, Oxford brings information to the King about the number of French facing him, and a few
moments later volunteers to take charge of the archers whom the King has ordered to plant sharpened
stakes in the ground to break the French cavalry charge. The English were badly outnumbered, and
military historians agree that this strategem was the key to their victory. To this request, Henry V replies,
"With all my heart, my good Lord of Oxford. And go and provide quickly."
Whoever wrote the play was a good friend of the House of de Vere. This evidence connects Edward de
Vere more closely to The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth than any other dramatist.
18
The Problems of Shakespeare’s History Plays
References
Albright, Evelyn M. "The Folio Version of Henry V in Relation to Shakespeare's Times." Publications of the
Modern Language Association. 43 (1928): 722-56.
Alexander, Mark Andre. "Shakespeare's Knowledge of Law: A Journey through the History of the
Argument." The Oxfordian. 4 (2001): 51-120
Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare, Facts and Problems. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1930.
Craik, T. W. ed. King Henry V. The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series. London: Routledge, 1994.
Greer, Clayton A. "Shakespeare's Use of 'The Famous Victories of Henry V'." Notes & Queries. n. s. 1
(June, 1954): 238-41.
Gurr, Andrew, ed. The First Quarto of King Henry V. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Kingsford, C. L. ed. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1911.
----------"The Early Biographies of Henry V." English Historical Review 25 (1910): 58-92.
Law, Robert A. "The Choruses in Henry the Fifth." University of Texas Studies in English. 35 (1956): 11-21.
Monaghan, James. "Falstaff and his Forebears." Studies in Philology. 18 (1921): 353-61.
Norwich, John J. Shakespeare's Kings. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1999.
Pitcher, Seymour M. The Case for Shakespeare's Authorship of "The Famous Victories." New York: State
University of New York, 1961.
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