childhood; and the overwork, telling upon a frame in which the germs of hereditary insanity already existed, broke down both mind and body, at the most critical period of his reign. Henry was perhaps the most unfortunate king that ever reigned. And he was, without doubt, most innocent of all the evils that befell England because of him."-STUBBS, vol. iii. p. 130.

(b) QUEEN MARGARET OF ANJOU (in both Second and Third Parts). "In Margaret, from the very moment of her arrival, was concentrated the weakness and the strength of the dynastic cause,-its strength in her indomitable will, her steady faithfulness, her heroic defence of the rights of her husband and child; its weakness in her political position, her policy, and her Ministers. To the nation she symbolised the loss of Henry V.'s conquests, an inglorious peace, the humiliation of the popular Gloucester [Duke Humphrey], the promotion of the unpopular Beauforts."-STUBBS, vol. iii. p. 192. "From Shakspeare and the Chroniclers we receive a very harsh impression of the character of Margaret of Anjou; for they represent her in repulsive, if not hideous, colours. She is portrayed unfeminine, arbitrary, revengeful, licentious; and even her energy and fortitude are distorted into unnatural ferocity and obduracy. I greatly distrust this representation, not because I am able to find historical authority for a different and better character, but because there was so much that would almost irresistibly render the English judgment on her memory prejudiced and unjust."-Professor REED, p. 176, sq. "As regards Queen Margaret, she came to England little more than a child,-beautiful, accomplished, feminine, amiable; and when we consider her whole career, we must admit that she was more sinned against than sinning. There was nothing in her early years which marked her out for an Amazon,— though there certainly were some indications of that unyielding spirit which afterwards hurried her into acts of perfidy, violence, and crime. When goaded into madness by the unmanly assaults of men, who sought to blacken her chaste character, to insult her husband, and to bastardise her child, she mistook cruelty for firmness; and she, who at this time fainted at the sight of blood, could afterwards command its effusion without remorse. ... Delighting to show the moral influence she exercised over a husband who adored her, she was ere long made use of to influence his mind to party ends and objects. She naturally fell under the sway of that party to which she was indebted for her high position. And in whom indeed could she confide but the Duke of Suffolk, whom she regarded as a father?"-Dean Hook's Lives, vol. v. p. 153, sq.

...

...

Speaking of the delineation of the character, as we have it in these plays, Mrs Jameson remarks: "I discern the hand of Shakspeare in particular parts, but I cannot recognise his spirit in the conception of the whole he may have laid on some of the colours, but the original design has a certain hardness and heaviness very unlike his usual style. Margaret of Anjou, as exhibited in these tragedies, is a dramatic portrait of considerable truth, and vigour, and consistency; but she is not one of Shakspeare's women. . . The bloody struggle for power in which she was engaged, and the companionship of the ruthless iron men around her, seem to have left her nothing of womanhood but the heart of a mother,--that last stronghold of her feminine nature! So far the character is consistently drawn it has something of the power, but none of the flowing ease, of Shakspeare's manner."-Pp. 367-369. See also Introduction to King Richard III. The poet Gray, speaking of Margaret in reference to her having been the foundress of Queen's College, Cambridge, describes her as "Anjou's heroine," in his "Installation Ode," and in his "Bard" celebrates her conjugal fidelity.

:

(c) KING EDWARD IV.-See Introduction to King Richard III. (d) HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOSTER (in First and Second Parts).— "Duke Humphrey of Gloster, who appears in the Second Part totally different from the Gloster of the First [which I have supposed not to be Shakspeare's], is here invested with the great qualities of consummate mildness and benevolence, with a Solomon-like wisdom, with freedom from all ambition, and with severe Brutus-like justice towards every one, even towards his wife [Eleanor Cobham-se Stubbs, vol. iii. p. 127], in whose last dishonour he, notwithstanding, shares as a private character."-GERVINUS, p. 127. The estimates formed of Duke Humphrey's character differ greatly. According to Canon Stubbs, "He was the evil genius of his family his selfish ambition abroad broke up the Burgundian alliance; his selfish ambition at home broke up the unity of the Lancastrian power. ... Clever, popular, amiable, and cultivated, he was without strong principle; and, what was more fatal than the want of principle, was devoid of that insight into the real position of his house and nation which Henry IV., Henry V., and [his brother, the Duke of] Bedford undoubtedly had."-Vol. iii. p. 95. In like manner, Dean Hook speaks of him as a bad man, who, nevertheless, for his party connections, was known as 'the good Duke of Gloucester.'"-Vol. v. p. 156. And again, ibid., 211: "Humphrey, Duke of Gloster, was a man utterly devoid of principle, both in domestic life and in the affairs of State. Nevertheless, he obtained the title of the 'Good

Duke Humphrey" [see Pt. 2, i. 1. 158, and 179], because he took the popular side, and advocated the war, to which his uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, was opposed." On the other hand, Mr Furnivall describes him as "the noble Humphrey, the sole support of King Henry's throne."-P. xxxvii.

(e) CARDINAL BEAUFORT (in First and Second Parts).-If undue praise has been bestowed upon Duke Humphrey, it is equally certain that undue reproach has been cast upon Cardinal Beaufort. See Second Part, iii. 3, note (a). "The Monk of Croyland is the only contemporary who says anything [about the cardinal's death or character], and he, whose character of an ecclesiastic requires that what he says should be taken with allowance, only tells us that he was eminent for probity and wisdom as well as for riches and glory.' I presume that the exposure of a rich, haughty, and unscrupulous cardinal was a popular topic at the Court of the daughter of Anne Boleyn [Queen Elizabeth]."-COURTENAY, vol. ii. p. 293. Dean Hook writes: "Beaufort, as the representative of the Papists, has appeared in history with his character drawn in darker colours than it deserves."—Vol. iii. p. 97. And again: "There can be no doubt that Beaufort, though representing the unpopular party in the State, improved in character as he advanced in years. .. He found pleasure in employing his wealth in acts of munificence, which ought to have rescued his memory from some portion of that unpopularity attached to his name by tradition till the time of Shakspeare."—Ibid., 141. This less unfavourable estimate is confirmed by Canon Stubbs: "For fifty years Beaufort had held the strings of English policy, and done his best to maintain the welfare and honour of the nation. That he was ambitious, secular, little troubled with scruples, apt to make religious persecution a substitute for religious life and conversation; that he was imperious, impatient of control, ostentatious and greedy of honour ;these are faults which weigh very lightly against a great politician, if they be all that can be said against him.”—Vol. iii. p. 139.

(f) DUKE OF SUFFOLK (in First and Second Parts).—Closely connected by marriage with the Beauforts, "he was an old and experienced soldier, and if it were not for the cloud that rests on him in relation to Gloster's death, might seem entitled to the praise of being a patriotic and sensible politician."-STUBBS, vol. iii. p. 140.

(9) RICHARD DUKE OF YORK (in all three Parts).—" The principal figure of the two latter plays, Richard of York, is almost throughout delineated as if the nature of his more fearful son [Richard of Gloster] was prefigured in him. Far-fetched policy and the cun

ning and dissimulation of a prudent and determined man are blended in him-not in the same degree, but in the same apparent contradiction, as in Richard-with firinness, with a hatred of flattery, with inability to cringe, and with bitter and genuine discontent."-GERVINUS, p. 129. See Part 2, act v. sc. 1, note (a).

(h) EARL OF WARWICK (in all three Parts).-" During the whole extent of English history, the mightiest of her barons was the 'king-maker,' Warwick. It was his power that made Edward king, and his that unmade him. It was his power that dethroned King Henry, and it was his that restored him. Each monarch in turn became the captive and the prisoner of this great earl. With princely resources and estates, Warwick's vassals were an army; and some notion may be formed of the force he could, at will, bring into the field, from the fact that he is said to have daily feasted, at his numerous manors and castles, upwards of thirty thousand persons."-Professor REED, p. 172. "Warwick .. has always occupied a great place in the view of history; and his character, though in some respects only an exaggeration of the common baronial type, certainly contained some elements of greatness. He was greedy of power, wealth, and influence, and unscrupulous in the measures he took to gain these ends. He was magnificent in his expenditure, and popular in consequence. He was a skilful warrior both by land and by sea, and good fortune in battle gave him another claim to be a national favourite. From the

beginning of the struggle, when he was a very young man, and altogether under the influence of his father [Neville, Earl of Salisbury], he had taken up with ardour the cause of Duke Richard; and his final defection was the result of a profound conviction that Edward, influenced by the Woodvilles, was bent on his ruin. He filled, however, for many years, and not altogether unworthily, a place which never before or after was filled by a subject, and his title of 'king-maker' was not given without reason. But it is his own singular force of character, decision, and energy, that mark him off from the men of his time."-STUBBS, vol. iii. p. 211, sq.

4. MORAL LESSONS OF THE PLAY.-In one word, they consist of Nemesis tracking the House of Lancaster, "pede claudo" but surely, for its usurpation; and this-and more-is fully drawn out by Gervinus. "It is the subject that forms the grandeur and attraction of these pieces, and this even in the plainest historical structure. . . . The picture of the gradual decay of all the powers of the State is an image of pure historical truth and of great experience, far more than a delineation of poetic beauties, which influence

by harmonious arrangement; but that which invests it with the deep impression upon the mind produced by art, is, the moral or poetic justice, which we cannot spare from the drama, and which is nowhere lacking in the historical work of our great master. . . . We see foremost, in the Second Part, the protector of the kingdom (Duke Humphrey) perishing through his own weakness, and his queen [? wife, Eleanor Cobham] through her criminal pride. They fall by the cabals of the hostile nobility, who are leagued together for evil. . . . Again, the fall of Suffolk and the rebellion of Cade are entirely represented as a retributive judgment upon the aristocracy, as a rising of the suffering lower classes against the oppression, unscrupulousness, and severity of the rule of the nobles [as in Coriolanus]. This democracy we see in its turn quickly perishing in its own fury and folly; and on the ruins of the aristocracy, and the incited people, the tools of a crafty ambition, York raises himself to the dignity of a new protector, relying upon popular favour and upon his warlike deeds and merits. Having attained his object, he allows himself to be tempted to perjury, and vengeance follows his footsteps. Rutland, one of his sons, shares his terrible fall. The king himself, who stands in inactive weakness and contemplative devotion, scarcely accountable amidst the ruin of all things, is now, on his side, tempted by the queen to become a perjurer, and falls into the power and under the sword of his enemies. From the blood of Rutland, and of the Prince of Wales, springs a new harvest of avenging destinies. Clifford, the murderer of the former, falls; Edward, who was present at the assassination of the prince, totters on his throne; the valiant Warwick, who at last from personal indignation was unfaithful to his old party, perishes. Through all these disasters and retributions Queen Margaret passes unscathed, like some embodiment of fate, pursued by the most refined

vengeance of the Nemesis. . . She sees all her glory buried;

the source as she is of all these sufferings, she is to drink them to the dregs."-P. 120, sq.

5. TIME OF THE PLAY:

The Second Part contains the history and transactions of ten years, 1445-1455, from the marriage of King Henry (æt. 23, to Margaret of Anjou, at. 16) to the first battle of St Albans, won by

the Yorkists.

The Third Part contains the history of sixteen years, from 1455 to 1471, when the king was murdered in the Tower. It is only divided from the former part for the convenience of exhibition.