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A day will come when York shall claim his own,
And therefore I will take the Nevilles’ parts,
And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,
And, when I spy advantage, claim the crown,
For that’s the golden mark I seek to hit.
. . . I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed,
And in my standard bear the arms of York,
To grapple with the house of Lancaster;
And force perforce I’ll make him yield the crown,
Whose bookish rule hath pulled fair England down. (1.1.239–43, 254–59)
York delivers these lines at the end of the play’s first scene. The structure of this scene helps to clarify the symbolic importance of York’s words. After opening with a large cast celebrating Margaret’s arrival in England, the number of people onstage gradually diminishes until York is the only one left. As each new group leaves, those who remain onstage gossip about the recently departed. Thus, once Gloucester exits, those left behind complain about his power over the king and initiate the plot against him. Then, when the key conspirators against Gloucester leave, York and his closest allies remain and agree to stay vigilant regarding the overly ambitious Suffolk and Winchester. Finally, York’s allies depart, and he stays behind to announce the most shocking plot of all: his plan to dethrone Henry and take the Crown for himself. This is the plan he articulates in these closing lines of his lengthy speech, and all his actions in the play to come will be guided by it.
In part, York’s desire to usurp the throne stems from his disapproval of the current king. He sees Henry as weak and excessively pious, resulting in a “bookish rule” that is leading England to ruin. However, there is a deeper reason behind his desire to become king. This deeper reason reaches back into Henry VI, Part 1, where York’s rivalry with Somerset has its origins. At the beginning of that play, York was not yet a duke. Rather, he was a yeoman named Richard Plantagenet. His father had been involved in a plot to overthrow Henry IV, who had stolen the crown from Richard II. However, he was caught, stripped of his land and title, and executed. Living in the shadow of his father’s dishonor, Richard pursued a legal loophole to regain his lost inheritance. In the process, the king also granted him the dukedom of York. His upward mobility infuriated the duke of Somerset, which led to the two men declaring a formal rivalry in which their houses would henceforth be associated with different-colored roses: a red rose for the house of Lancaster, and a white rose for the house of York. Thus began the Wars of the Roses, which now motivates York’s bid for the Crown.
What plain proceedings is more plain than this?
Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
The fourth son; York claims it from the third.
Till Lionel’s issue fails, his should not reign.
It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee
And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.
Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,
And in this private plot be we the first
That shall salute our rightful sovereign
With honor of his birthright to the crown. (2.2.53–62)
In act 2, scene 2, York takes aside the earl of Salisbury and his son, the earl of Warwick, to explain the details of his claim to the throne. According to his in-depth genealogical analysis, York believes that the rules of succession clearly favor him over Henry. These rules dictate that the first in line for the Crown are the king’s eldest son and his sons, followed by the king’s second son and his sons, then the third, and so on. As York explains, the only reason Henry is king is that his grandfather, Henry Bolingbroke, wrongly usurped the throne from Richard II. Bolingbroke was the son of John of Gaunt, who was Edward III’s fourth son. York, by contrast, descends from Edward’s third son, which gives him genealogical priority. If Shakespeare gives York the opportunity to explain his case in such detail, it’s likely because, from his audience’s perspective, York’s claim to the throne was indeed righteous. In fact, it was popularly believed that the politically tumultuous period of Lancaster reign originated with the wrongful dethroning and murder of Richard II. It should also be noted that Queen Elizabeth was descended from the house of York, so York’s righteousness also implicitly reflects hers.
Shakespeare seems to affirm York’s claim through Warwick, who speaks the lines quoted here. His paraphrase of York’s genealogical analysis shows his ready understanding of the conditions of his claim. His eagerness to proclaim York the king is also clearly on display. His father, the earl of Salisbury, also consents to address York as king. This moment is perhaps the first key moment in the development of York’s plot to usurp the throne. Up to this point he’s kept his belief in his right to the Crown to himself. Now, however, he’s taken the risk of sharing that belief, and the risk has paid off: he’s gained his first pair of true supporters. With the collaboration of these noblemen, he can now truly consider the possibility of making a move against Henry. That said, in a play where so much of the plotting is done by ambitious noblemen who are often secretly plotting against their own coconspirators, the audience may perhaps feel a hint of suspicion about Warwick. Does he truly believe in the righteousness of York’s claim, or is he simply trying to hitch a ride to greater status and power?
Well hath your highness seen into this duke,
And had I first been put to speak my mind,
I think I should have told your grace’s tale.
The duchess by his subornation,
Upon my life, began her devilish practices;
Or if he were not privy to those faults,
Yet by reputing of his high descent,
As next the king he was successive heir,
And such high vaunts of his nobility,
Did instigate the bedlam brainsick duchess
By wicked means to frame our sovereign’s fall.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,
And in his simple show he harbors treason. (3.1.42–52)
Act 3 opens with the king and his consort waiting for Gloucester to appear after being summoned to court. Before the duke arrives, those who have been actively conspiring against him attempt to convince the king that his beloved uncle is in fact a traitor. It is at this point that the plot to take down Gloucester finally becomes public. Although Margaret has previously baited Gloucester and his wife in the king’s presence, it isn’t until this scene that Henry becomes fully aware that a conspiracy is afoot. The lines quoted above are spoken by Suffolk, who begins by congratulating the king on “see[ing] into this duke.” This phrase references the king’s opening lines in the scene, where he says that it isn’t like Gloucester “to be the hindmost man” (3.1.2). Suffolk manipulates this observation into meaning that Gloucester’s present lateness is a sign that the man isn’t as he seems. He claims that the king’s uncle was responsible for the Duchess’s illegal employment of occultists, and that he “did instigate the bedlam brainsick duchess” out of a desire to kill the king and take his place.
Suffolk closes his speech by likening Gloucester to a brook whose smooth surface conceals unfathomed depths. Although he started by claiming that the king has “seen into this duke,” Suffolk ends by implying that Henry’s perception has not plumbed the depths far enough—for what lingers at the bottom of this metaphorical brook is Gloucester’s secret commitment to treason. Margaret will follow up on Suffolk’s speech with another metaphor of deception, claiming that Gloucester is a “ravenous wolf” dressed up in the skin of a “lamb” (3.1.77–78). To the audience, the irony is plainly evident, for it is Suffolk and Margaret who are the traitorous deceivers—not Gloucester. For his part, the accused duke will defend himself against these conspirators with an implicit echo of Suffolk’s speech: “The purest spring is not so free from mud / As I am clear from treason to my sovereign” (3.1.101–102).
Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous.
Virtue is choked with foul ambition,
And charity chased hence by rancor’s hand;
Foul subornation is predominant,
And equity exiled your highness’ land.
I know their complot is to have my life;
And if my death might make this island happy
And prove the period of their tyranny,
I would expend it with all willingness.
But mine is made the prologue to their play,
For thousands more, that yet suspect no peril
Will not conclude their plotted tragedy. (3.1.142–53)
Gloucester addresses these words to Henry as he faces accusations of treason from Margaret and Suffolk. Prior to this showdown, the duke has shown himself to be politically naïve, believing that his honesty and steadfast loyalty will keep him from harm. But in his present situation, he sees how misguided he has been. Even though Henry clearly believes in Gloucester’s innocence, the king seems to quake in the face of his formidable wife and her co-conspirator. Gloucester is slowly coming to the realization that Henry cannot save him. But before he entirely gives up, the duke adopts the tone of a teacher attempting to instruct his pupil about what’s really happening. Turning Margaret and Suffolk’s charges of deception against them, he explains that their apparent “virtue” in sniffing out a traitor is nothing more than “foul ambition.” If the king would care to read between the lines, he would easily be able to interpret that what’s truly going on is a dishonest plot on his life.
Gloucester’s implicit call for Henry actively to read and interpret the events unfolding before him is significant for several reasons. For one thing, it employs the idea of plotting as a meta-theatrical metaphor. Shakespeare often uses such metaphors to draw attention to the fact that we are watching a play. In this case, Gloucester’s use of this metaphor reflects the fact that Henry has been reduced to little more than an observer. He’s watching a “plotted tragedy” in real time, and he isn’t doing anything to intervene. Yet the point Gloucester is trying to make is precisely that this isn’t a play. It’s real, and the political “complot” entails real danger. Even so, if Henry could engage the “bookish” tendencies that others have noted in him (see, e.g., 1.1.259), then he would be able to read these events for what they really are: a mere “prologue” to the “play” in which Suffolk and Margaret—and not Henry VI—have the starring roles.
False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,
Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?
“King” did I call thee? No, thou art not king:
Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,
Which dar’st not—no, nor canst not—rule a traitor.
That head of thine doth not become a crown;
Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer’s staff,
And not to grace an awful princely scepter.
That gold must round engird these brows of mine,
Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles’ spear,
Is able with the change to kill and cure.
Here is a hand to hold a scepter up
And with the same to act controlling laws.
Give place! By heaven, thou shalt rule no more
O’er him whom heaven created for thy ruler. (5.1.91–105)
At the top of act 5, York makes his triumphant return to English soil, accompanied by the army that he’s just led to quell an uprising in Ireland. The success of this campaign has surely cemented a relationship of trust between commander and soldiers, which gives York the confidence he needs to make his move against Henry. However, as the scene opens, he is still careful to conceal his true aims. When Buckingham arrives to confront him about his army, York lies and indicates that he’s only retained their services to back him in his charge against Somerset. Buckingham insists that Somerset has been put in prison, which then compels York to dismiss his army. However, when the king soon arrives with a consort in tow, York is appalled to see that Somerset is among them. It is at this point that York’s patience reaches an end and he makes his first public declaration against the king.
What’s most remarkable about this passage is the way York’s refined rhetoric matches the political heights to which he aspires. After denouncing Henry as a “false king” whose religiosity makes him better suited to hold a “palmer’s staff” than a “princely scepter,” York paints an inflated self-portrait. He sees himself as the very embodiment of royal power, such that his very “smile and frown” is sufficient to “kill and cure.” Perhaps most striking of all is his implicit self-comparison to Achilles, the legendary hero who was the most fearsome warrior among the Greeks. A figure of such high stature should bear the scepter of power, which is why York concludes by declaring that his rule is divinely ordained. Yet as Shakespeare’s audience no doubt remembers, despite being a great warrior, Achilles was famously killed by an arrow that pierced his heel—not typically understood to be a fatal wound. In this regard, York’s boastful words might symbolically portend his own undoing. He may well be a better leader than Henry, but he is by no means invincible.
