Today, I finished the Henry VI trilogy.
The plays ask a simple question: can a Christian be a good king? A straight reading of the plays says no. Henry VI is a devout man who is a bad ruler. Under Henry VI, the seeds for the War of the Roses were sown. He failed to govern his own land, and England lost the French territory they won under Henry V.
The plays are rife with spiritual allusions. The first part features Joan of Arc, whose visions inspire martial conquest. The second part features counterfeit conjurations meant to predict the kingdom’s future. The third part ends with a prophecy from Henry himself that the York clan will not survive.
Shakespeare connects England’s historical record to the books of Kings and Chronicles, tales of Israel’s unsuccessful monarch.
Here are two questions I don’t have the answer to yet:
- Is Shakespeare saying that Henry was a good Christian and a bad king, and are the two causally related?
- Is Shakespeare saying that Henry was, in fact, a bad Christian and a bad king, and are the two causally related?
The characters in the play assume that Henry is a devout man. It’s certainly a humanist assumption that a Christian can’t be a good king. I’ll have to meditate on this more.
Experiments in Criticism 