Tetralogies and the Henriad In
Divine Providence in the England of Shakespeare’s Histories (1970), the academic H. A. Kelly examines Shakespeare's political bias and analyses his historical assertions about the earthly influence of divine Providence in: (a) the contemporary historical chronicles, (b) the Tudor historians, and (c) the Elizabethan poets—notably the two tetralogies: (i)
Henry VI to
Richard III and (ii)
Richard II to
Henry V. As an
historiographer and as a
dramaturgist, Shakespeare displaced divine Providence from the historical sources and presented divine influence as the opinions of spokesmen-characters; thus Lancastrians speak the sentimental myth of the House Lancaster, Yorkists speak the sentimental myth of the House of York, while Henry Tudor personifies the sentimental myth of the House of Tudor. That literary recasting of divine dialogues to mortal men and women allows each play to create, develop, and establish a unique
ethos and
mythos from which spring the actions of protagonists and antagonists. Whereas the chroniclers explained that historical events were influenced and decided by the
divine justice of Providence, the playwright Shakespeare placed the earthly influence of Providence in the dramatic background. In defending his claim to the
Throne of England, Richard, Duke of York, stressed the justification of providential justice to Parliament. To reject Richard's claim to the English throne, Shakespeare did not develop that theme in the scene at Parliament (
3 Henry VI). In the first tetralogy, Henry VI does not perceive his troubles as divine retribution; in the second tetralogy, there is no thematic leitmotif of Providential punishment for Henry IV. The allusions to hereditary punishment by Providence are Richard II's prediction of
a civil war at his abdication; Henry IV's fear of punishment through his wayward son; Henry V's fear of Providence punishing him for the sins of his father; and Clarence's fear of providential retribution against him through his children. Whereas the chroniclers of history explained that divine Providence was twice displeased—first, by the marriage between the English King Henry VI and the French duchess
Margaret of Anjou, and second, because of Henry's broken vow to the Armagnac girl—the playwright Shakespeare has Duke Humphrey object to Margaret as queen consort because the marriage would lose England possession and control of the
Duchy of Anjou and the territory of the
Maine. Dismissing the chroniclers' historical opinions that Talbot's victories were divinely ordained, Shakespeare shows that the defeat and death of Talbot were consequences of dissention among the ranks of the English. Shakespeare further presents the outcomes of political and military events and of personal drama as the results of
poetic justice, as established in
Senecan dramaturgy; thus dreams, prophecies, and curses are of narrative importance in the early tetralogy, which shows poetic justice take effect — especially Henry VI's prophecy about the future Henry VII. Accordingly, Shakespeare's
moral characterisation and
political bias, Kelly argues, change from play to play, "which indicates that he is not concerned with the absolute fixing of praise or blame", though he does achieve general consistency within each play: Shakespeare meant each play primarily to be self-contained. Thus in
Richard II the murder of
Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, inaugurates the action—John of Gaunt places the guilt on Richard II—but Woodstock is forgotten in the later plays. Again, Henry IV, at the end of
Richard II, speaks of a crusade as reparation for Richard's death: but in the next two plays he does not show remorse for his treatment of Richard. As for the
Henry VI plays, the Yorkist view of history in
1 Henry VI differs from that in
2 Henry VI: in Part 1 the conspiracy of the Yorkist Richard Earl of Cambridge against Henry V is admitted; in Part 2 it is passed silently over. Henry VI's attitude to his own claim undergoes changes.
Richard III does not refer to
any events prior to Henry VI's reign. Henry VI is weak and vacillating and overburdened by piety; neither Yorkists nor Queen Margaret think him fit to be king. The Yorkist claim is put so clearly that Henry admits, aside, that his own is weak—Kelly notes that this is "the first time that such an admission is conjectured in the historical treatment of the period". Shakespeare is suggestively silent in Part 3 on the Yorkist Earl of Cambridge's treachery in Henry V's reign. Even loyal Exeter admits to Henry VI that Richard II could not have resigned the crown legitimately to anyone but the heir, Mortimer. Edward (later IV) tells his father York that his oath to Henry was invalid because Henry had no authority to act as magistrate. As for
Lancastrian bias, York is presented as unrighteous and hypocritical in
2 Henry VI, and while Part 2 ends with Yorkist victories and the capture of Henry, Henry still appears "the upholder of right in the play". In
Richard III in the long exchange between Clarence and the assassins we learn that not only Clarence but also implicitly the murderers and Edward IV himself consider Henry VI to have been their lawful sovereign. The Duchess of York's lament that her family "make war upon themselves, brother to brother, blood to blood, self against self" derives from Vergil and Hall's judgment that the York brothers paid the penalty for murdering King Henry and Prince Edward. In the later tetralogy Shakespeare clearly inclines towards the Lancaster myth. He makes no mention of Edmund Mortimer, Richard's heir, in
Richard II, an omission which strengthens the Lancastrian claim. The plan in
Henry IV to divide the kingdom in three undermines Mortimer's credibility. The omission of Mortimer from
Henry V was again quite deliberate: Shakespeare's Henry V has no doubt about his own claim. Rebellion is presented as unlawful and wasteful in the second tetralogy: as Blunt says to Hotspur, "out of limit and true rule / You stand against anointed majesty". Shakespeare's retrospective verdict, however, on the reign of Henry VI, given in the epilogue to
Henry V, is politically neutral: "so many had the managing" of the state that "they lost France and made his England bleed". In short, though Shakespeare "often accepts the moral portraitures of the chronicles which were originally produced by political bias, and has his characters commit or confess to crimes which their enemies falsely accused them of" (
Richard III being perhaps a case in point), his distribution of the moral and spiritual judgements of the chronicles to various spokesmen creates, Kelly believes, a more impartial presentation of history.
Wider Shakespearean history John F. Danby in
Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature (1949) examines the response of Shakespeare's history plays (in the widest sense) to the vexed question: "When is it right to rebel?", and concludes that Shakespeare's thought ran through three stages: (1) In the
Wars of the Roses plays,
Henry VI to
Richard III, Shakespeare shows a new thrustful godlessness attacking the pious medieval structure represented by Henry VI. He implies that rebellion against a legitimate and pious king is wrong, and that only a monster such as Richard of Gloucester would have attempted it. (2) In
King John and the
Richard II to
Henry V cycle, Shakespeare comes to terms with the Machiavellianism of the times as he saw them under Elizabeth. In these plays he adopts the official Tudor ideology, by which rebellion, even against a wrongful usurper, is never justifiable. (3) From
Julius Caesar onwards, Shakespeare justifies
tyrannicide, but in order to do so moves away from English history to the camouflage of Roman, Danish, Scottish or Ancient British history. )—according to Danby, "in every sense, the bigger man" than Hal Danby argues that Shakespeare's study of the Machiavel is key to his study of history. His Richard III, Faulconbridge in
King John,
Hal and
Falstaff are all Machiavels, characterised in varying degrees of frankness by the pursuit of "Commodity" (i.e. advantage, profit, expediency). Shakespeare at this point in his career pretends that the Hal-type Machiavellian prince is admirable and the society he represents historically inevitable.
Hotspur and Hal are joint heirs, one medieval, the other modern, of a split Faulconbridge. Danby argues, however, that when Hal rejects Falstaff he is not reforming, as is the common view, but merely turning from one social level to another, from Appetite to Authority, both of which are equally part of the corrupt society of the time. Of the two, Danby argues, Falstaff is the preferable, being, in every sense, the bigger man. In
Julius Caesar there is a similar conflict between rival Machiavels: the noble Brutus is a dupe of his Machiavellian associates, while Antony's victorious "order", like Hal's, is a negative thing. In
Hamlet king-killing becomes a matter of private rather than public morality—the individual's struggles with his own conscience and fallibility take centre stage. Hamlet, like Edgar in
King Lear later, has to become a "machiavel of goodness". In
Macbeth the interest is again public, but the public evil flows from Macbeth's primary rebellion against his own nature. "The root of the machiavelism lies in a wrong choice. Macbeth is clearly aware of the great frame of Nature he is violating."
King Lear, in Danby's view, is Shakespeare's finest historical
allegory. The older medieval society, with its doting king, falls into error, and is threatened by the new Machiavellianism; it is regenerated and saved by a vision of a new order, embodied in the king's rejected daughter. By the time he reaches Edmund, Shakespeare no longer pretends that the Hal-type Machiavellian prince is admirable; and in
Lear he condemns the society which is thought to be historically inevitable. Against this he holds up the ideal of a transcendent community and reminds the audience of the "true needs" of a humanity to which the operations of a Commodity-driven society perpetually do violence. This "new" thing that Shakespeare discovers is embodied in Cordelia. The play thus offers an alternative to the feudal–Machiavellian polarity, an alternative foreshadowed in France's speech (I.1.245–256), in Lear and Gloucester's prayers (III.4. 28–36; IV.1.61–66), and in the figure of Cordelia. Cordelia, in the allegorical scheme, is threefold: a person, an ethical principle (love), and a community. Until that decent society is achieved, we are meant to take as role-model Edgar, the Machiavel of patience, of courage and of "ripeness". After
King Lear Shakespeare's view seems to be that private goodness can be permanent only in a decent society. ==Shakespeare and the chronicle play genre==