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Summary
Gloucester and his wife Eleanor, the Duchess, talk. She asks why he is so gloomy. Gloucester tells her about an unsettling dream: he saw his staff, the badge of his office, broken in two, and impaled on the end of each half were the heads of Somerset and Suffolk. The Duchess, too, has had a dream: she saw herself in Westminster Abbey, about to be crowned as queen, with Henry and Margaret at her feet. Gloucester, astonished, chides her for her ambition and warns against any treachery that would bring him harm.
A messenger enters, asking Gloucester to join the king and his company at Saint Albans, where they are hunting. He leaves. The Duchess considers how, if she were a man, she would easily remove the obstructions standing between her and the throne. She then summons the priest Sir John Hume to ask about a witch and a conjurer whom she hopes will advise her about the future. Hume says they have promised to raise a spirit to answer her questions. She gives him money to complete the deal, then she leaves. Hume remains and explains that Winchester and Suffolk have also given him gold to help undermine the Duchess. He’s playing both sides, and he will bring about Gloucester’s fall through the ruin of the Duchess.
Several petitioners, including Peter, enter the palace searching for the Lord Protector. When Suffolk and Margaret enter, one petitioner mistakes Suffolk for Gloucester. Suffolk asks what the petitioners want. One petitioner offers up his written complaint. Realizing they are addressed to Gloucester, Margaret eagerly reads the papers. The second petitioner’s complaint is against Suffolk, but nothing interests Suffolk until he hears Peter’s complaint against his master, the armorer Thomas Horner. Peter claims Horner has called the duke of York the rightful heir to the throne. Suffolk sends Peter off to make his complaint formally before the king. Meanwhile, Margaret rips up the other petitioners’ papers.
Margaret asks Suffolk if court details are normally dealt with by Gloucester instead of Henry. Must she, as the queen, be subject to the rulings of a mere duke? She tells Suffolk that she thought Henry would resemble Suffolk in bravery and seductiveness, but Henry is weak and more concerned with his religious life. Suffolk tells her to be patient; just as he made her queen, so will he make things work out for her in England. The two discuss their enemies at court, and Margaret notes her distaste for the haughty Duchess, who behaves as if she is queen. Suffolk says he has set a trap for her already. And while they don’t like Winchester, he says they must side with him until Gloucester has come to disgrace. As for York, Peter’s complaint may help bring him down. Little by little, they will weed out their enemies.
Henry enters with York and Somerset, who disagree about which of them should become regent of France. Henry says he doesn’t care who gets the job, but other lords join in, suggesting their preferred candidate. Gloucester says the king should decide, at which point Margaret demands to know Gloucester’s role now that Henry is of age. He reminds her that he is the Lord Protector, but that he would willingly resign at the king’s wish. Suffolk, Winchester, Buckingham, and Margaret then accuse Gloucester of making a mess of the kingdom. Gloucester, insulted, leaves. Then, Margaret drops her fan and, acting as though the Duchess was at fault, boxes her in the ear. The Duchess, enraged, vows revenge and storms out. Gloucester now reenters, calmer, and urges the king to make York the regent of France.
Suffolk interrupts to bring Peter and Horner forward. He explains that Peter accuses his master of saying York was the rightful heir to the throne. York asks the king to punish Horner to fullest extent of the law, but Horner denies such accusations and claims he has a witness. With this news, Gloucester acknowledges the suspicions about York and recommends that Somerset become regent instead. He then judges that Peter and Horner must settle their differences in single combat, and they are sent away.
At Gloucester’s house, a witch named Marjorie Jordan and a conjurer named Roger Bolingbroke arrive with Hume. The Duchess enters above and greets them. They begin their ceremony with Bolingbroke’s incantations. A spirit appears and says that he will answer their questions. Bolingbroke reads from a list of questions, asking first what will become of Henry. The spirit responds: “The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose, / But him outlive, and die a violent death” (1.4.30–31). Bolingbroke asks about the fate of Suffolk, whom the spirit says will die at sea. The spirit also says Somerset should avoid castles. The spirit then sinks back into the ground. At this point, York and Buckingham enter with soldiers, and York orders the arrest of the conjurers. Finding the list of questions, Buckingham also orders the Duchess’s arrest. All are led away, and Buckingham rides off to Saint Albans to tell the king and Gloucester about the Duchess’s arrest.
Analysis
The opening scene of act 1 introduced a series of plots in which the lords of court attempt to remove others from power to guarantee their own ascendence. The first plot to take center stage and begin unfolding for the audience is that against Gloucester. These scenes depict the first steps toward his eventual downfall, as his enemies come out of the woodwork and begin openly to disparage him. Margaret leads the charge here. When she questions why he remains Lord Protector now that Henry is of age, her inquiry creates an opportunity for his other enemies to point out how he was technically in charge in the waning days of England’s war in France. As such, he’s the one who’s most directly responsible for the state of the kingdom. Yet even though Gloucester’s enemies grow more open about their dislike for him, the true plot against the Protector starts with the targeting of his wife, the Duchess. Instigating a plot within a plot, Suffolk works closely with Hume, setting the Duchess up to be caught in the act of conjuration. The suspicion this will bring on Gloucester will, they hope, lead directly to his ruin.
The plot against the Duchess offers a powerful example of the danger posed by women in this play. From the moment we first meet the Duchess, it is clear that she is an ambitious woman with her sights set on becoming queen. She sees her husband as being held back by his genuine loyalty to the Crown. She laments his weakness and insists that were she a man, nothing would stand in her way. This masculine confidence recalls the mannish swagger of Joan la Pucelle in Henry VI, Part 1, a comparison that soon becomes even more powerful during the conjuration scene. Just as Joan summoned fiendish spirits to help her see into France’s future, the Duchess now does the same, hoping to divine what the future holds for the king, Suffolk, and Somerset. And just as Joan was caught in the act and executed, so too is the Duchess arrested. But whereas Joan’s danger was purged when the English burned her at the stake, the Duchess’s danger remains and will lead not to her execution, but to her husband’s.
Scenes 2–4 also reveal the danger posed by Margaret, whose political ambition leads her to make an enemy of everyone she sees as a rival. The Duchess is one such rival. Her rich wardrobe and haughty bearing have led many visitors to the court to mistake her for the queen—a misidentification that clearly enrages the true queen. Maragaret expresses her hatred for the Duchess with a petty scheme: dropping an item and pretending her rival knocked it from her hand. But Margaret also shows that she can be calculating in addition to petty. In addition to her public humiliation of the Duchess, she also leads the smear campaign against Gloucester. And behind the scenes she is further scheming with her secret lover, Suffolk. The full extent of Margaret’s threat is not yet clear. Even so, it is evident that the political ambitions of the women in this play are likely to prove as ruinous as the political ambitions of the men.
