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Summary
Young King Henry enters the Parliament house, along with many lords. Gloucester tries to post a bill, but Winchester seizes it and tears it up, accusing him of coming with prewritten remarks and of being unable to speak extemporaneously. Gloucester accuses Winchester of being a greedy power seeker who plotted to kill him at London Bridge as well as at the Tower. Winchester, in turn, accuses Gloucester of trying to assert his influence over the king. The two men continue to insult each other, each one declaring his superiority based on his position. The other nobles step in and stop the argument, and Henry asks the two men to make peace.
The Mayor of London then enters to tell of how Winchester and Gloucester’s men, forbidden to use weapons in their conflict, have resorted to hurling rocks at each other. The servants enter the court, where the king orders them to cease fighting, yet they continue. Henry then asks Winchester to order his tawny coats to yield, but Winchester says he will never yield until Gloucester submits. Gloucester offers Winchester his hand in conciliation, and after further urging by the king, Winchester agrees. They shake hands while muttering to themselves that the argument is not yet over.
Warwick then presents Plantagenet’s request to have his hereditary rights restored. The king says that he will not only restore him to the earldom of Cambridge (inherited from his father), but he will also give him the dukedom of York (inherited from his uncle Mortimer). Plantagenet thanks the king, and everyone cheers for him except for Somerset, who curses him under his breath.
Gloucester now urges the king to go to France and be crowned as king there; he hopes this will establish English control over France once and for all. The king agrees to go. As everyone exits, Exeter remains onstage and comments that the nobles will march to France blindly: they do not see that these disagreements between the lords, now reduced to a slow burn, will someday break into open flame.
Analysis
This scene brings together the two key personal and political disagreements that have been brewing thus far: that between Gloucester and Winchester, and that between Plantagenet and Somerset. Much of the scene involves argument, as noblemen hurl insults and accusations at each other. Despite taking place within the supposedly hallowed halls of Parliament, these men seem like little boys quarreling in a schoolyard. In each of the two conflicts spotlighted here, factions have already formed. The serving men of Gloucester and Winchester, no longer able to draw weapons, have resorted to throwing stones in the streets. So vicious is their mutual hatred that one serving man even declares that, “if we be forbidden stones, we’ll fall to it with our teeth” (3.1.92–93). The acolytes of Plantagenet and Somerset are also present here, though their dispute is more visual than verbal, as they stand silently watching the action with their color-coded roses on proud display.
In this scene, Shakespeare suggests that the precise nature of these disagreements may ultimately prove less significant than their sheer emotional force. Winchester, for instance, is so committed to his hatred of Gloucester that he doesn’t back down until the king himself points out the bad optics involved in the local head of the Church refusing to settle for peace. The bishop’s stubbornness is as much about personal dislike as it is about a desire for power, and the same might be said for Plantagenet and Somerset. In any case, the obstinacy these nobles display doesn’t bode well for the nation, and the young Henry struggles to keep them in line. He isn’t yet officially crowned as king, and in his inexperience he pleas with his inferiors rather than commanding them. Though he does eventually get them to stop quarreling, we in the audience can sense that he isn’t really in control. Exeter echoes this sentiment in his closing speech, where he functions as much as a soothsayer as a traditional chorus. Summarizing the events that have just taken place, he also prophesies: “This late dissension grown betwixt the peers / Burns under feigned ashes of forged love, / And will at last break out into flame” (3.1.193–95).
Exeter’s ominous words suggest that the “history” of England’s decline is already written and therefore unalterable. For Elizabethan theatergoers, this sense of prewritten history would have been connected to the fact that what we now call Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3 were written and produced first, making this play something of a prequel. Audiences who had already seen the duet of “later” plays would have experienced this one as forecasting events they had already seen play out onstage. The sense of inevitability built into Henry VI, Part 1 is thus a key element, and one that generates a strong sense of pathos for a character like Talbot, who believes that any victory is obtainable if only one fights hard enough for it. The conflict between what we might call fate and free will appears elsewhere in the play as well. For example, whenever conflict occurs between Joan (with her access to higher powers) and Talbot (with his earthly strength), we see the collision of fate and free will. Neither force prevails: both Joan and Talbot perish before the end of the play. Yet fate may prove stronger, as suggested by Exeter’s closing reminder of the prophecy dictating that “Henry born at Windsor should lose all” (3.1.203).
