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The Danger of Division
The greatest threat England faces in this play is an internal one. The danger of division looms from the very first scene, when a messenger interrupts Henry V’s funeral to announce that the French have recaptured several towns the late king had won. Shocked by the news, the noblemen ask how this could have happened, and the messenger responds that factionalism among the English military leadership has eroded their power in the region. Thus, a new war begins across the Channel. Meanwhile, in London, the noblemen of the court are busy sowing new divisions of their own. The first major division occurs between Gloucester and Winchester, who vie over the power to influence of the young king. The second major division occurs between Richard Plantagenet and the earl of Somerset, who argue over a point of law that seems related to matters of inheritance. In both cases, the original dispute quickly grows, yielding distinct factions with devoted followings. When the young king first identifies the danger of these widening rifts, he attempts to heal them, but he’s too late: they’ve already taken on a life of their own. The cancer soon spreads across the Channel, infecting the war effort.
If anyone knows the danger of division, it’s the English general Lord Talbot. Guided by the traditional ideals of chivalry, in which knights cultivate individual honor in the service of the Crown, Talbot sees himself as one part of a larger whole. He makes this point eloquently and dramatically in a scene that Shakespeare likely invented to serve this thematic purpose. Shortly after Talbot is released from captivity and resumes his fight against the French, he receives an invitation from the Countess of Auvergne. Though she claims to want to meet this famed warrior, her real intention is to capture him and remove him from the war. Talbot accepts the invitation knowing it’s a trap, and when he easily defuses it, he explains to Countess that the “Talbot” she sought to capture isn’t just one man. Rather, his heroism is given substance by the coordinated actions of his entire army. Such is the first lesson of Chivalry 101: valor can only come from cultivating strength in unity. Talbot’s commitment to this ideal makes his ultimate demise that much more tragic, since it’s caused indirectly by the enduring dispute between Plantagenet (now York) and Somerset. And with his death, England’s chances in France diminish greatly.
The Decline of the Old Order
The specter of decline hangs over the action of the play from the very beginning, when nobles gather to mourn the death of King Henry V. The late king was indeed great, having seized control of much of France. However, there is also a prophecy going around that predicts how everything lately won by Henry V will soon be lost by his successor, Henry VI. Growing division among the English makes this decline seem like an inevitability. Yet Henry VI, Part 1 isn’t just concerned with the loss of France; it’s also concerned with the loss of an older order of chivalry, along with the ideals that defined it. Characters in the play make numerous references to this old order. For instance, the French lord Alençon recalls a history he once read that celebrated the formidable military heritage of England—a heritage that’s on clear display in the English army’s present ferocity. At another point, when the aging and infirm Bedford demands to remain seated to watch an unfolding battle, he cites the example of Uther Pendragon, father to the legendary King Arthur. Despite being ill, Pendragon still “came to the field and vanquishèd his foes” (3.5.55), and Beford wishes to do the same.
Yet no one in the play represents the old order of chivalry more plainly than Lord Talbot. Firmly committed to the ideal of strength through unity, Talbot goes to great lengths to keep his soldiers’ spirits up. He conducts himself honorably at all times, always seeking to meet his foes in single combat and never endeavoring to win through covert attacks. Talbot desires victory, of course, but he’s also bound by a commitment to fight fairly. After all, the only way to earn valor on the battlefield is to prove one’s true strength. Increasingly, however, Talbot witnesses the erosion of chivalric ideals. Most symbolic here is the cowardice of Sir John Fastolf, whose repeated desertion from battle has endangered the English army and even resulted in Talbot’s own capture. In the first scene of act 4, Talbot confronts Fastolf and banishes him from the chivalric Order of the Garter. But Talbot can’t stop the degradation of chivalric principles, which also face an external threat in the form of Joan la Pucelle. Joan approaches warfare with a cold pragmatism that dispenses with the pomp and circumstance associated with chivalric codes. For her, there is no honor to be gained in war—only victory or defeat.
The Selfish Drive to Power
Henry VI, Part 1 is a play driven by political and military conflicts, and these conflicts all seem to originate in individual characters’ selfish drive to gain power. For instance, the dispute between Winchester and Gloucester centers on the bishop’s envy of the Lord Protector’s influence over the young king. Aside from this envy, there seems to be little that legitimately motivates Winchester. Thus, his arc in the play is defined by a desperate drive for more power, which he eventually achieves when he bribes his way into a promotion from bishop to cardinal. This promotion will, he claims in an ominous aside, finally enable him to ascend higher than Gloucester and exert his own influence on the Crown. Another key power seeker in the play is the earl of Suffolk, who in the play’s final scenes brokers a new marriage arrangement for the king. Although he initially seems to be motivated by his own sexual attraction to the new future queen, it later becomes clear that he’s using Margaret of Anjou as something of a Trojan Horse. Once she becomes Henry’s queen, Suffolk will be able to use his influence over her to gain power over the king.
The drive to power exhibited by Winchester and Suffolk is essentially selfish, and a similar claim could be made about other figures who are keen to assert influence or command, such as Somerset and Joan la Pucelle. But not all attempts at gaining power in the play are purely selfish. As an example, consider Richard Plantagenet. His attempt to regain his lost inheritance isn’t framed as a mere power grab, but rather as a struggle for legitimacy. His concern is partly organized around rehabilitating his father’s reputation, which was lost when he was deemed a traitor and executed without trial. When Plantagenet is successful in his legal claim to land and title, the victory does come with material rewards, but he doesn’t use them to exert power over others. Once he becomes the duke of York, he seems to commit himself fully to the kingdom’s cause. A similar struggle for legitimacy may lie at the root of other figures in the play. Winchester, for example, is the illegitimate son of John of Gaunt. But though his bastardy may offer a deeper explanation for his actions, his drive for power is clearly destructive and thus inherently selfish.
