_Written._ 1591-2.

_Produced._ 1592.

_Published_, in the crude original form, 1593. When first
published, the play was called "The First part of the Contention
betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster." This
version seems to have been written by Greene and Peele. It contains
passages (improving additions) that resemble Shakespeare's work;
but the work is very crude. The version as a whole reads like a
long scenario.

After the first production of this version, Shakespeare and some
other writer, possibly Marlowe, revised, improved and enlarged it.
This revised version, the _Second Part of King Henry VI_, as we now
have it, was first published in the first folio in 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ Edward Hall's _Chronicle_.

_The Fable._ The play begins with the arrival of Margaret of Anjou
at the Court of King Henry VI. An altercation among the Lords in
scene i. explains the political situation to those who have not
seen the first part of the trilogy. The subject is the gradual
ascent to power of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. The play is
turbulent with passions. The subject is obscured and made grander
by the war of interests and lusts among the nobles of the Court.
The Queen's party, the Duke Humphrey's party, and Cardinal
Beaufort's party, make a welter of hate and greed, against which
the Duke of York's cool purpose stands out, as Augustus stands out
against the wreck of old Rome. The action is interrupted and
lightened by the cheat of Simpcox and by the rebellion of Jack
Cade. In modern theatres the passage of time is indicated by the
dropping of a curtain and by a few words printed on a programme.
The Elizabethan theatre had neither curtain nor programme. The
passage of time was suggested by some action on the stage as here.
The play advances the tragedy of the King by removing the figures
of Duke Humphrey, the Cardinal, and the Earl of Suffolk. It ends
with the first triumph of the white rose faction, under the Duke of
York, at the battle of St. Albans.

It is plain that Shakespeare worked upon the revision of this play with
a big tragic conception. The first half of the piece is very fine. He
makes the crude, muddy, silly welter of the Contention significant and
complete. He reduces it to a simple, passionate order, deeply