The original box set

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown....

Snappy titles
I am frequently astonished when I contemplate the scale of the sequence of Shakespeare’s history plays. If Shakespeare had been writing today, the credits would have probably had to include “based on Holinshed’s Chronicles with ideas from Edward Halle and Samuel Daniel” with Henry VI Part One (the third written) probably having to admit – “adapted from a play by Thomas Nashe.” The scholarly best-guess is that the first to be written was Henry IV Part Two AKA “The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade: and the Duke of Yorke's first claim unto the crowne” – a snappy title if ever there was one.

Sequels and prequels
This roaring success was followed by the sequel with another memorable title: “The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses, Lancaster and Yorke.” (PS Shakespeare couldn’t spell for toffee, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere.) A collaboration with (or adaptation of) Thomas Nashe's earlier material then rushed in the PREQUEL to this pair of plays in order to cash in on the popularity of the first two. The First Part Of Henry The Sixth appeared and the earlier-written plays were then re-titled Henry VI Part Two and Henry VI Part Three. This sequence of three plays became the first entertainment franchise since Ancient Greek times, topped off with a quadrilogy when Richard III roared onto the stage. Richard III was Shakespeare’s breakthrough work, popular immediately and increasingly popular all the way through to the present time.

“that bottled spider… that poisonous bunchback’d toad”

Four famous Richard IIIs: Ian McKellen, Antony Sher, Simon Russell Beale and Jonjo O'Neill

Mind-boggling!
Four plays, twelve hours of stage entertainment recreating the Wars of the Roses in a series of blistering set-pieces, comic interludes, heartbreaking anti-war speeches alongside patriotic calls to arms. It shows a whole nation. Some scenes are set in France. It presents Joan of Arc, Jack Cade, Margaret of Anjou, Richard Duke of York, Richard Duke of Gloucester, Warwick the Kingmaker, Suffolk, the saintly Henry VI, the charismatic Edward IV, the pitiful Edward V…. characters that come to vivid life whenever the plays are staged even metaphorical characters like A Son that has Killed his Father and A Father that has Killed his Son echoing each other in their grief and anguish at the horrors of civil war.

Memorable moments: Katy Stephens as Joan of Arc and, later, as Margaret of Anjou

Four successes; why not four prequels?
Not content with a quadrilogy, Shakespeare then went on to write four even more successful plays. In historical terms, these prequels led up to the events of the Wars of the Roses, starting with the lyrical Richard II, continuing with the sweep and grandeur of Henry IV Parts One and Two and the play that WInston Churchill and Laurence Olivier purloined for the British efforts in the Second World War, Henry V and the point at which Henry VI Part One takes off and the two quadrilogies become an octology. Characters have teemed from this second quadilogy into the national subconscious: Northumberland, Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt, Hal, Falstaff, Mistress Quickly, Poins, Bardolph, Hotspur, Glendower, Lady Percy, Pistol, Silence, Shallow, Fluellen, the Dauphin and Princess/Queen Katherine – not to mention the three very different titular kings.

A state of the nation series of plays
At the end of Richard III, Queen Elizabeth I’s grandfather is crowned saviour of the realm (a propagandist portrayal to flatter the queen and slander the Yorkist line.) Through the eight plays we see the rise and fall of great figures in history, both men and women; we see the disorder and chaos of a country in the throes of a civil war; we see the lurch from medieval to modern times; we see what it means to be a strong leader and a weak leader; we see murders, plots, secrets, betrayals, invasions, sieges, riots, miracles, political scheming, religious hypocrisy, family loyalty and family tragedy, the burden of power, the abuse of power; we see virtues and vices, reasons to be patriotic and reasons to attack your government.

Not-so-long-ago
The Wars of the Roses, the underlying political tension in eight of Shakespeare’s English history plays, was as far removed from the English citizens during Shakespeare’s time as the Boer War is from us.  Richard III died in 1485 and the plays were written between 1590 and 1601.  The way we perceive the late Victorian and Edwardian period is how the original audiences would have thought and felt about the events that were being portrayed at the jam-packed outdoor playhouses. At the premieres of these plays there would have been people whose grandparents had lived through (or indeed been killed) in the convulsive events depicted on stage. The nearest equivalent to their cultural spirit in modern times, to my knowledge, is Rona Munro’s glorious James Plays first shown at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014.