Day Four

Henry VI, Part I

1.3

SYNOPSIS

Gloucester returns to the Tower of London where he is immediately refused entry. Eventually Woodgate comes and tells Gloucester he cannot be allowed to enter on Winchester's orders. Gloucester and his men (in blue) try to force their way in, battle with Winchester's men (in a tawny color), because Winchester refuses to acknowledge Gloucester's role as protector. Essentially Gloucester is King, pro-tem, and Winchester is a traitor. When the mayor shows up, W accuses G of trying to usurp the kingdom, they fight again, then challenge each other to fight even more.

G: Cardinal...we shall meet, and break our minds at large.

W: Gloucester, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure

thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work.

IMPRESSIONS

Well, okay, this part was pretty boring, but I think it was necessary/important to establish, perhaps, the disunion the English were experiencing post H5's death. Thankfully, whichever Shakespeare wrote however much of this segment, he kept it brief.

...AND THEN SOME

From the beginning, it seems, the full authorship of this play has been in contention. “...definitely a collaboration between Shakespeare and at least one, but probably more, other dramatists whose identities remain unknown, although Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene, George Peele, and Christopher Marlowe are common proposals.”   The questioning of the authorship first occurred around 1790, and in 1995 Gary Taylor surmised that our man only wrote about 20% of the play.