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All material © K.Bundesen 2016

What Shakespeare got wrong: How to take perfectly good history and

turn it into absolute fiction©


TodayLooking at plays and history

What is the relationship between history and fiction?

We’ll look at 4 plays

Edward III

Richard III

King John

Henry VIII


Tetralogy

Group of 4 related literary works

Shakespeare’s tetralogies are numbered in reverse order from the historical chronology they represent

First - Henry VI parts 1, 2, and 3 with Richard III

Second (Henriad) - Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V

Edward IIIRichard II

Grandson Deposed

Henry IV

LancasterHenry V

Son Lancaster

Henry VI

Son king at 9 monthsEdward IV

York

Henry VI

Lancaster Restoration

Edward V

York Prince in the tower

Richard III

York Uncle

Henry VII

Tudor Conquest

Henry VIII

Son 6 Wives

Edward VI

The boy prince

Mary I

Bloody Mary

Elizabeth I

Good Queen Bess

James I

Scottish Cousin

Large red circle are the monarchs after The last history play. The small red circle are the

monarchs under which the plays were written

Edward IIIRichard II

Henry IVHenry V

Henry VI

Edward IVHenry VI

Edward VRichard III

Henry VII

Henry VIIIEdward VI

Mary IElizabeth I James I

Shakespeare writesMonarchs in red circles have plays named after them

Monarchs in blue circles are characters in other plays. Edward II more recently added to the Shakespeare ‘brand.


Between the last play and the creation of the works

Henry VIII (All is True)

Followed by

Edward VI (The Boy King)

Mary I (Bloody Mary)

Elizabeth I (Good Queen Bess)

James VI of Scotland and I of England

Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

James VI of Scotland (1567 - 1625)

and I of England (1603 - 1625)

Plays assumed to be written between

25 plays 13 years

13 plays 13 years

1603 1616

William Shakespeare Dies

1590Elizabeth James


Plays have 3 time zones

1

The time they are set in

Time they are set in

How we see the same characters



2

The time they are written in

Elizabeth below. Spanish Armada burning above.

Elizabeth the warrior queen today. The Armada from The Golden Age movie.



3

The time they are performed or read in

Zeferelli’s Romeo and Juliet - gang warfare

Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet, gang warfare?

Lady Rose/Lily James and Rob Stark/Richard Madden on stage - young love?


Time has become interior to language

Michel Foucault French philosopher (1926-1984)


Time inside a play

A playwright is allowed to compress time

But is the playwright allowed to change the personal time lines in terms of age of the characters to create dramatic tension?

Clemence Poesy The Hollow Crown

Richard II on his wedding day His bride is 7 years old

Henry Percy, Hotspur (1364-1403)Henry V (1387-1422)20 year difference - a generation

The Hollow Crown

Tom Hiddleston b.1981. Joe Armstrong b. 3 years earlier in 1978. Michelle Dockery b. 1981.


The Raigne of King Edward III

"lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds” (94)

“scarlet ornaments” (142)

“Bootless Cries” (29)

It was published in 1996 by Cambridge University Press under Shakespeare’s name, and has been included in the Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare (2005)


Edward III

1. The time they are set in

2. The time they are written in

3. The time they are read, or performed, in.

1. Edward III (1327-1377)

2. 1590s under Elizabeth I

3. the 21st century


Edward III (b.1312-d.1377)

Moves from reigning to ruling by leading a violent coup against his mother and her lover.

Becomes king at 14

His father Edward II deposed by his mother

Considered a ‘true’ king for the times.

Battled Scotland and France regaining continental possessions

Battle of Crecy

Philippa of HainaultKing Edward III

Edward, Black Prince

John of Gaunt

Thomas of Woodstock

Edmund of Langley

Lionel of Antwerp

Order of the Garter today Edward III at the RSC


Edward III the PlayOpens with the king querying his rightful lineage for taking the throne of France.

Tries to seduce the Countess of Salisbury

Is redeemed when he sees his wife’s likeness in his son’s face - The Black Prince.

Battle of Crecy

Battle of Sluys and Poitiers

His Queen joins him outside Calais interceding for the lives of his prisoners


The Careys on the Scottish Marches 1568-1603

The ‘invasion’ is a border raid.

Description of Scottish soldiers is detailed/which weapons work on the border

The knighting of the Black Prince on the field reminiscent of the battlefield knighting of 3 of Hunsdon’s sons.

Father-son relationships a Carey specialty

References within the play allude to war between Austria and Turkey (1593)

Henry Carey Lord Chamberlain


Richard III




1. Edward IV (1471-1483) Richard III (1483-1485)

2. 1592? under Elizabeth I

3. the 21st century


12 - Lord Commissioner of Array for Western Counties

17 - Constable of England. Lord Chief Justice of North Wales, hereditary Warden of the West Marches

18 - key role in the Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, made Lord High Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine (Edward restored)

19 - Marries Anne Neville, The Kingmaker’s daughter, granted lordship of Warwick’s lands (12 July 1472)

20 - High Sheriff of Cumberland, Commander in Chief against the Scots, marches into Edinburgh, sieges Berwick-upon-Tweed

21 - Son is born, Edward Middleham

Richard III - the man


Duke of GloucesterAfter marriage to Anne, spends most of his time in the north. Frequently at Middleham, Pontefract and York.

Establishment of the Council of the North

1475 invasion to France - Richard had largest private contingent. Disapproved of outcome

Brother George tried for treason and executed 18 February 1478

Lieutenant General of the North against the Scots

When his brother Edward dies, he is in the north. Named Lord Protector.


King RichardIn the north when Edward dies

Named Lord Protector

Meets up with his nephew, King Edward V, at Stony Stratford.

They spend the night, and Richard and Anthony dine together

Next day, Rivers is arrested and hauled off to Pontefract where he is summarily executed.

Richard takes his nephew Edward to London, lodges him in the Tower 19 May 1483. Edward’s younger brother, Richard joins him 16 June


Titulus Regius

Declares Edward IV’s marriage to Lady Elizabeth Woodville Grey to be null and void due to pre-contract to Lady Eleanor Butler, daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury

Claims Elizabeth Woodville and her mother used witchcraft to entrap Edward.

Hints that both Edward and George were illegitimate

Therefore Richard is king - crowned 6 July 1483

"Rous Roll - Richard and family" by John Rous - Original from the Rous Roll, by John Rous, 15th century. Image is printed in: Jesse, John Heneage (1862) Memoirs of King

Richard the Third and Some of His Comtemporaries


1485 - Richard’s Annus Horribilis

16 March Anne dies age 27

total eclipse of the sun

Believed poisoned but most likely consumption

Buried with pomp and circumstance

Richard present

Relationship between Burgundy and France changes. King of France arms Henry Tudor.


Battle of Bosworth 22 August 1485

Richard III against Henry Tudor (Henry Richmond)

Richard has vastly more troops (12,000) than Henry (5,000)

The tide shifted when Lord Stanley threw his troops (8,000) into the fray on the Tudor side

Richard dies on battlefield

Henry crowned as Henry VII on the battlefield taking Richard’s crown from his dead body


Richard III the playRichard resents his elder brother and - from the very beginning - plots to overthrow him.

He manipulates Lady Anne into marrying him even though she knows he killed her first husband

Frames his older brother George, Duke of Clarence who is executed.

Stress contributes to Edward’s demise. Richard becomes Lord Protector.

He kills loyal noblemen including his in-laws. He gets others to lobby for him to be king.

He murders Lady Anne so he can marry his niece.


Shakespeare’s time-space continuum

In Act 1 of Richard III, Shakespeare has a number of events happening at the same time, which in reality happened some years apart:

George Duke of Clarence is arrested and subsequently executed in 1478.

King Henry VI’s corpse is being taken to Chertsey Abbey although he died in 1471.

King Edward IV is ill, yet he died very suddenly in 1483

Margaret of Anjou – Henry VI’s queen is still at court arguing with Richard. She was returned to her native France after the treaty of Picquigny in 1475. (Richard III Act 1 Scenes 1 and II)


Facts Shakespeare got wrong

Has Richard taking part in the 1st Battle of St Albans, fighting against and killing the Duke of Somerset. The battle was fought on May 22nd 1455. Richard not yet three years old. (Henry VI. Part II Act V Scene II)

In the play at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, Edward tells Richard that the three suns are for the sons of the Duke of York. Richard was in exile in Burgundy and 8 years old. (Henry VI. Part III Act II Scene 1)

The scoliosis was late onset, after the age of ten, so nothing visible at birth. There was no evidence of a withered arm or lameness. (Richard III Act 1 Scene 1)


In the play Richard is at court when Edward IV dies. (April 9th 1483) He actually was back in Middleham when Edward died. (Richard III Act II Scenes 1 and II)

We have no way of knowing if Richard said “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Nor for that matter did he fight Henry Tudor in single combat, although he did get close enough to kill William Brandon, Tudor’s standard bearer.

Even the official Tudor historian Polydore Virgil wrote “King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies.” (Richard III Act V Scene IV)


King JohnReigned (1199-1216)

Richard II starts his reign in 1377

John was the third surviving son of Henry II and the remarkable Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Henry II and Eleanor were sovereign of more land than any other monarch.


Angevin Empire12th Century

In Pink or outlined in pink


King John - Major EventsLikely named heir by his brother Richard on his death bed

Arthur, his nephew was in Brittany, dominated by the French

His mother Constance heiress to Brittany

His mother Eleanor a counselor

Battle of Angiers/Anjou was sporadic over 5 years

Extorted funds from the church to fund wars

He was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III

Catholics in his lands unable to partake of the sacraments

Oh yeah….Magna Carta!


King John - The PlaySuccession issues

Eleanor - “I am a soldier” Your strong possession more than your right

France as a power

Staving off the Catholic Church

Constance (1201) and Eleanor (1204) die at the same time - ending the battle of the moms.

John gives away more territory than in history as dowry for his niece Blanche.

The Bastard an ahistorical figure - proxy for nobility regardless of birth


Historical ResonanceElizabeth I declared a bastard by her father

Succeeds to the throne via Henry VIII’s will

Legitimacy of succession via will had been challenged

Mary Queen of Scots, her cousin, has a competing Catholic claim.

Elizabeth excommunicated by the Pope


England in 1596Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon, Elizabeth’s cousin/half brother dies. His son succeeds him.

Sir Francis Knollys, married to Elizabeth’s cousin/half sister dies. His son William succeeds him.

William Cecil, Baron Burghley ill, his son Robert becomes Secretary of State in his stead.

Kat Ashley’s husband, John, the queen’s cousin dies

Margaret Clifford Stanley Countess of Cumberland dies (potential heir)

Spanish seige Calais

Ambassadors travel to Ireland to parlay

Robert Devereux and Charles Howard singe the King of Spain’s beard Cadiz followed by a second armada


Contemporary interpretations

Performed to support loyalist opposition to the Catholic Jacobite invasion of England in 1745 “the Forty-Five” the year before Culloden

A justification of British imperialism during the Boer War (1899)

1961 production turned Angiers/Anjou into the divided city of Berlin

1988 in the wake of 2nd wave feminism a production that took a satiric view of male authority (directed by a woman)


Henry VIII




1. Henry VIII (1509-1547)

2. 1613 under James I

3. the 21st century

The man. The King


What do we know of Henry?

Divorced

Beheaded

Died

Divorced

Beheaded

Survived


Queen KatherineStarted systematic relief of the poor

Patron of Erasmus and More

Patronage of colleges

Loved falconry

English court hailed as a ‘model of Christian society’


Does not go quietly Katherine knows about spy craft

Communicates with her nephew and the pope

Henry forbids her from seeing or communicating with Mary

Refuses to enter a convent

In court appeals on her knees directly to Henry ‘who knew she was a maid’ and then leaves


Henry VIII - The Play Bears only a passing resemblance to the historical fact.

All the councillors that stand in the way of Henry being the father of Elizabeth meet their ends.

They do so with nobility and grace - dying well.

At the beginning of the play it is almost as though the king is watching the fates control his destiny.

The pageant of Queen Anne’s coronation spelled out.

Ends with birth of Elizabeth


Source material The technical stuff

Jean Froissart (1337-1405) medieval French court historian - Chronicles

Croyland/Crowland Chronicle - written at the Abbey of Croyland in Lincolnshire from 655-1486

Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (2nd edition)

Samuel Daniel - The Civil War Between the Two Houses of York and Lancaster

Sir Thomas More - History of King Richard III (1513-1515)

Polydore Vergil - Anglica Historia (drafted 1513, pub. 1534)


One book says Prince Hal did not have time to be a playboy because he was in charge of the troops guarding the welsh March

The other book says there was pretty good evidence that he was a playboy given to idle practices

Historians as fungible with the time space continuum as Shakespeare is

Ages can be tricky. Lettice Knollys, Countess of Essex and Leicester has the wrong age on her tombstone.

How much do we know of time?

Contemporary criticism and history can’t agree on fact.


What is history? What is fiction?

If Shakespeare was using Holinshed as a source and Holinshed had it wrong is it really the playwright’s fault?

If the playwright used Froissart to flatter Lord Hunsdon and changed some facts to suit his patron, can we blame him?

How do we know what we know and do we know it for certain.

Fiction can be intuitively correct if factually wrong.


Thank you

Questions?

Dr. Kristin Bundesen International Shakespeare Center

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

What Shakespeare got wrong: How to take perfectly good ...files.meetup.com/5245772/Shakespeare's HistoryFiction Handouts.pdfTudor Conquest Henry VIII Son 6 Wives Edward VI The boy