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If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
As he will have me, how am I so poor?
Or how haps it I seek not to advance
Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?
And for dissension, who preferreth peace
More than I do, except I be provoked?
No, my good lords, it is not that offends;
It is not that that hath incensed the Duke.
It is because no one should sway but he,
No one but he should be about the King;
And that engenders thunder in his breast
And makes him roar these accusations forth. (3.1.29–40)
Bishop Winchester addresses these lines to the king and his court, accusing Gloucester of wanting to be the only one with influence over the yet-to-be-crowned king. Winchester also paraphrases Gloucester’s accusation against him: that he is a power-hungry man seeking wealth and influence. Of course, Winchester only mentions this accusation to deflect it. But as it will turn out, the bishop is the one more clearly motivated by selfishness. He makes repeated asides about his plans to gain power, and later in the play he even buys himself a promotion to the rank of cardinal. Ultimately, then, Winchester is just what Gloucester claims he is: an irreligious clergyman who will do anything for self-gain.
Now Winchester will not submit, I trow,
Or be inferior to the proudest peer.
Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive
That neither in birth or for authority
The Bishop will be overborne by thee.
I’ll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,
Or sack this country with a mutiny. (5.1.56–62)
By the play’s final act, Winchester has managed to bribe his way into a promotion from bishop to cardinal. No longer the local head of the Church, he has now moved up into a position of leadership that places him in direct relation to the pope. In this aside, the new cardinal indicates that his drive for power is largely motivated by his enduring hatred for Gloucester. However, the final lines of this short speech also indicate a new horizon for his political ambitions. Though his new aspirations aren’t yet clear and won’t be revealed until later parts of the Henry VI sequence, he suggests that he intends to wield the power of the Church against the Crown.
Thus Suffolk hath prevailed, and thus he goes
As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,
With hope to find the like event in love,
But prosper better than the Trojan did.
Margaret shall now be queen, and rule the king;
But I will rule both her, the king, and realm. (5.7.103–108)
Suffolk closes the play with these ominous lines in which he plainly states his intention to hold sway over the kingdom by influencing the king through his new queen. Suffolk first met Margaret of Anjou when he captured her in battle. He felt an intense sexual attraction to her, but because he was already married, he decided to woo her on the king’s behalf. However, it’s only here, after he’s convinced the king to break his prior engagement and agree to marry Margaret, that Suffolk reveals his devious plan. Thus, he becomes yet another figure in the play who is only out for self-gain. Intriguingly, he likens himself to the Trojan prince, Paris, who stole Helen away from the Greek King Menelaus and thereby started the Trojan War. Perhaps unwittingly, this comparison signals the likelihood of great trouble ahead. Yet this reference to the legendary conflict also implicitly makes Margaret into something of a Trojan Horse—the device used by the Greeks to infiltrate Troy and finally win the war. Using Margaret, he too will sneak into the citadel of power and take control for himself.
