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Summary
Henry, Margaret, Gloucester, Winchester, and Suffolk are hunting in Saint Albans. Winchester and Gloucester bicker, and Henry asks them to try to get along. The two speak privately and challenge each other to meet later that evening with swords to settle the argument for good.
A commoner enters, telling of a miracle: a blind man just received his sight at the shrine of Saint Albans. The king asks to see this man, and Simpcox is brought in. Simpcox says he was born blind and that by a miracle Saint Albans gave him sight. This man also claims to be physically disabled from falling out of a tree. Winchester is suspicious: why was he climbing a tree if he was blind? Gloucester then asks Simpcox to identify the color of everyone’s robes. When Simpcox easily names the color of each robe, Gloucester accuses the man of being a liar; the newly sighted may well be able to distinguish between different colors visually, he wouldn’t be able to name the colors. Now determined to perform a “miracle” of his own, Gloucester calls for a stool and whip to be brought in. He instructs a local beadle to whip Simpcox until the man’s disability is cured and he can jump over the stool. At the first strike of the whip, Simpcox leaps over the stool and runs away.
Just then, Buckingham arrives to report the Duchess’s arrest. Buckingham explains the circumstances of the conjuration as well as the oracles related to the king, Suffolk, and Somerset. Winchester says quietly to Gloucester that their duel is probably off, implying that his rival will be facing charges. Gloucester, meanwhile, pledges his loyalty to the king and condemns his wife’s actions. The king says they will return to London the next day to deal with this business.
Back in the capital, York talks with Salisbury and Warwick at his house. York wants to tell them about his claim to the throne. He explains that Edward III had seven sons. The eldest son died before he could inherit the throne, but he left behind a son, Richard II, who became king. Richard ruled until he was deposed and murdered by Henry Bolingbroke, the duke of Lancaster, who descended from the fourth son of Edward III. However, York explains that as the direct descendent of Edward III’s third son, he has a stronger claim to the throne than the current king. Salisbury and Warwick are convinced and pledge their loyalty. York, meanwhile, says they must make their plans in secret. They must allow Suffolk, Winchester, Somerset, and Buckingham go through with their plot against Gloucester. Not only will their plot lead to their demise, but the removal of Gloucester from office will also leave Henry unprotected.
Analysis
Act 2 opens with a scene of hunting, a common royal activity that often bodes ill in Shakespeare’s histories and tragedies. In this case, there is a menacing air of danger hovering over Gloucester, who is once again the target of cruel words from Winchester and Suffolk. Both men accuse Gloucester of having ambitions that would allow him to climb higher than the hawks they’re using for the hunt. Gloucester struggles to keep his composure and eventually agrees to a duel with Winchester, hoping to end the taunting once and for all. The king, meanwhile, shows himself entirely ineffective in brokering peace between the two men. Although many at court have turned against Gloucester, the audience can see that Gloucester’s commitment to king and country remains steadfast. Already in this play we have seen him exercise careful judgment and make sensible recommendations to his king. Here again we see his judicious intellect when he detects the lie at the heart of Simpcox’s “miracle.” Showing a slight penchant for theater, Gloucester outs the man as a charlatan, thereby protecting his religious king from the humiliation of praising a fake. Even so, as the imminent announcement of the Duchess’s crimes will confirm, Gloucester’s fate is already written.
For those not familiar with the nuances of English succession rules, York’s explanation of his right to the throne may initially give the impression that his is a somewhat distant claim. However, his genealogical logic is relatively straightforward and correct. The basic point he’s making here is that the order of succession always proceeds systematically through the children of a king, from the eldest son to the youngest, then to the daughters. Richard II was the legitimate heir of Edward III, since he was the son of Edward’s eldest son, who happened to die before his father. However, the Crown was stolen by Henry Bolingbroke, the duke of Lancaster, who was the son of Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt. By skipping over Edward’s second and third sons (not to mention his own father), Bolingbroke thwarted the rules for succession. It turns out that Edward’s second son had no heirs, but his third son did, and York is descended from that line. Thus, York has a claim to the throne that is arguably more legitimate than Henry VI.
Shakespeare’s contemporary audiences would have been very aware of this history. And at the time there was a common belief that the disastrous violence of the French wars and the English civil wars had been rooted in the unjust murder of a rightful king: Richard II. In this view, the house of Lancaster, to which Henry VI belongs, was a house of usurpers. However high England may have risen under Henry V, the decline that followed under Henry VI and the despotism that came later with Richard III negatively marked the Lancaster house. From the point of Elizabethan England, then, York’s claim to the throne would generally have been seen as righteous and necessary to bring a terrible era to an end. It’s also important to note that Queen Elizabeth descended from the house of York, which may help further explain why Shakespeare allows York to go into so much detail in explaining his claim to the throne.
