'Crowned aged nine months, he is entirely unsuited to rule and hates it. Yet he knows what his responsibility to his people...' Photo: Chuk Iwuji as Henry VI in 2006, courtesy RSC
Play favourites: John Lampen revisits Shakespeare’s Henry VI
‘They present a world of politics with a very contemporary resonance.’
Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy was a big success in its time, but is seldom played today. The plays look boring on paper. Huge lists of characters have names that sound like county councils; long speeches are given in plodding end-stopped verse; indistinguishable battles recur. But past productions have shown how powerful they can be, so I’m glad to see Parts II and III on this year’s RSC programme. But will anyone want to see them?
I shall, for one, because they present a world of politics with a very contemporary resonance. They question whether true patriotism and principle can stand firm against ambitious and dishonest opponents.
Henry himself is a tragic figure. Crowned aged nine months, he is entirely unsuited to rule and hates it. Yet he knows what his responsibility to his people is:
My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
My mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs,
My mercy dried their water-flowing tears.
I have not been desirous of their wealth…
Nor forward of revenge though they much erred.
But getting control of Henry, whether as king or prisoner, is the key to power. So he is trapped at the centre of the action, watching and describing all that happens without the strength to resist it. Only after his death did people revere him like a saint.
Opposing Henry are two men whose claim to the throne is arguably better than his: Richard, the duke of York, and his son Richard of Gloucester. They are desperate for power – at any price and by any means, even civil war. The drama exposes their motives and methods. Can the king’s goodness stand against their evil? Will they stop short of destroying him?
It seems not. But Shakespeare also demonstrates how wickedness carries the seeds of its own destruction – it cannot keep control of the rivalry, malice, deceit and violence which it has set afoot.
The plays are set in a time like our own, when older values (mediaeval, faith-based) are giving way to exploitation and greed. It is no answer to take refuge in the past (which wasn’t perfect anyway); but where is the vision of a better way forward? Today we might say ‘only in the decency of ordinary people’. Shakespeare does show how this may be possible. But he also shows that mob rule can be tyrannical and murderous.
What is unmistakeable is the lesson (which humanity seems fated to relearn in each generation) of the horror of civil war. Harrowing episodes illustrate not glory but catastrophe. A quarrel in a rose garden becomes a first step on a journey that ends in family members butchering one another. These plays, like Jesus’ parables, do not offer answers – they ask fundamental questions.
Charney Manor’s Shakespeare Week (25-30 April) explores these plays through talks, workshops and theatre visits. To learn more visit www.charneymanor.com/events.
