KING HENRY VI.

PART I.

VOL. VI,

B

King Henry the Sixth.

Duke of Glofter, uncle to the king, and Protector.

Duke of Bedford, uncle to the king, and Regent of France. Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, great uncle to the king. Henry Beaufort, great uncle to the king, Bishop of Winchefter, and afterwards Cardinal.

John Beaufort, Earl of Somerfet; afterwards, Duke.
Richard Plantagenet, eldeft fon of Richard late Earl of
Cambridge; afterwards Duke of York.

Earl of Warwick. Earl of Salisbury. Earl of Suffolk.
Lord Talbot, afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury:
John Talbot, his fon.

Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.

Mortimer's Keeper, and a Lawyer.

Sir John Faftolfe. Sir William Lucy.

Sir William Glanfdale. Sir Thomas Gargrave.

Mayor of London. Woodville, Lieutenant of the Tower Vernon, of the White Rofe, or York faction.

Baffet, of the Red Rofe, or Lancaster faction.

Charles, Dauphin, and afterwards king of France.
Reignier, Duke of Anjou, and titular king of Naples.
Duke of Burgundy. Duke of Alençon.

Governor of Paris. Baftard of Orleans.
Mafter-Gunner of Orleans, and his fon.
General of the French forces in Bourdeaux.
A French Serjeant. A Porter.

An old Shepherd, father to Joan la Pucelle.

Margaret, daughter to Reignier; afterwards married to King Henry.

Countess of Auvergne.

Joan la Pucelle, commonly called, Joan of Arc.

Fiends appearing to La Pucelle, Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Meffengers, and feveral Attendants both on the English and French.

SCENE, partly in England, and partly in France.

KING HENRY

ACT I. SCENE I.
Weftminster-Abbey.

VI'.

Dead march. The corpfe of King Henry the Fifth dif covered, lying in ftate; attended on by the dukes of BEDFORD, GLOSTER, and EXETER; the earl of WARWICK; the Bishop of Winchefter, heralds, &c. Bed. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states,

Brandish

The hiftorical transactions contained in this play, take in the compafs of above thirty years. I must obferve, however, that our author, in the three parts of K. Henry VI. has not been very precife to the date and difpofition of his facts; but shuffled them, backwards and forwards, out of time. For instance; the lord Talbot is killed at the end of the fourth act of this play, who in reality did not fall till the 13th of July 1453 and The Second Part of Henry VI. opens with the marriage of the king, which was folemnized eight years before Talbot's death, in the year 1445. Again, in the fecond part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced to infult queen Margaret; though her penance and banishment for forcery happened three years before that princess came over to England. I could point out many other tranfgreffions against hiftory, as far as the order of time is concerned. Indeed, though there are feveral master-ftrokes in these three plays, which incontestably betray the workmanship of Shakspeare; yet I am almost doubtful, whether they were entirely of his writing. And unless they were wrote by him very early, I fhould rather imagine them to have been brought to him as a director of the ftage; and to have received fome finishing beauties at his hand. An accurate obferver will eafily fee, the diction of them is more obfolete, and the numbers more mean and profaical, than in the generality of his genuine compofitions. THEOBALD.

Having given my opinion very fully relative to thefe plays at the end of the third part of King Henry VI., it is bere only neceffary to apprize the reader what my hypothefis is, that he may be the better enabled, as he proceeds, to judge concerning its probability. Like many others, I was long ftruck with the many evident Shakspearianifms in thefe lays, which appeared to me to carry fuch decifive weight, that I could fearcely bring myfelf to examine with attention any of the arguments that have been urged against his being the author of them. I am now furprifed, (and my readers perhaps may fay the fame thing of themselves,)

B 2

that

Brandish your crystal treffes in the sky;
And with them fcourge the bad revolting stars,

that I fhould never have adverted to a very ftriking circumftance which
diftinguishes this first part from the other parts of King Henry VI. This
circumftance is, that none of these Shakspearian paffages are to be
found here, though feveral are scattered through the two other parts.
I am therefore decifively of opinion that this play was not written by
Shakspeare. The reasons on which that opinion is founded, are stated
at large in the Dissertation above referred to. But I would here requeft
the reader to attend particularly to the verfification of this piece, (of
which almost every line has a paufe at the end,) which is fo different from
that of Shakspeare's undoubted plays, and of the greater part of the two
fucceeding pieces as altered by him, and fo exactly correfponds with
that of the tragedies written by others before and about the time of his
first commencing author, that this alone might decide the question,
without taking into the account the numerous claffical allufions which
are found in this firft part. The reader will be enabled to judge how
far this argument deferves attention, from the feveral extracts from
those ancient pieces which he will find in the Effay on this subject.

With refpect to the fecond and third parts of K. Henry VI. or, as they were originally called, The Contention of the two famous boufes of Yorke and Lancaster, they ftand, in my apprehenfion, on a very different ground from that of this first part, or, as I believe it was anciently called, The Play of K. Henry VI.-The Contention, &c. printed in two parts, in quarto, 1600, was, I conceive, the production of fome playwright who preceded, or was contemporary with, Shakspeare; and out of that piece he formed the two plays which are now denominated the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI.; as, out of the old plays of King John and the Taming of a Sbrew, he formed two other plays with the fame titles. For the reafons on which this opinion is formed, I muft again refer to my Effay on this fubject.

This old play of King Henry VI. now before us, or as our author's editors have called it, the first part of King Henry VI. I fuppofe, to have been written in 1589, or before. See An Attempt to ascertain the order of Shakspeare's plays, Vol. I. The difpofition of facts in these three plays, not always correfponding with the dates, which Mr. Theobald mentions, and the want of uniformity and confiftency in the feries of events exhibited, may perhaps be in fome measure accounted for by the hypothefis now ftated. As to our author's having accepted thefe pieces as a Director of the stage, he had, I fear, no pretenfion to fuch a fituation at so early a period. MALONE.

2 Brandish your cryftal treffes-] Chrystal is an epithet repeatedly bestowed on comets by our ancient writers. So, in a Sonnet by Lord Sterline, 1604:

"When as thofe chryftal comets whiles appear." "There is also a white comet with filver haires," says Pliny, as tranflated by P. Holland, 1601. STEEVENS.

That

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