power to Lancaster. In the end
York is triumphant; and while Henry VI and his son are murdered, and
Warwick slain in battle at Barnet, Edward is crowned as Edward IV, and
Richard becomes the Duke of Gloucester.

+Authorship+.--The Three Parts of _Henry the Sixth_ were first printed
in the First Folio, 1623. Two earlier plays, _The First Part of the
Contention between the two Noble Houses of York and Lancaster_
(sometimes called _1 Contention_), and _The True Tragedy of Richard,
Duke of York... with the whole Contention between the two Houses of
Lancaster and York_ (2 _Contention_), appeared in quarto in 1594 and
1595 respectively. These are to be regarded as earlier versions of
_II_ and _III Henry VI_.[1] For the _First Part of Henry VI_ no
dramatic source exists. The ultimate source is, of course, Holinshed's
_Chronicles_.

The authorship of these plays is not ascribed to any dramatist, until
1623, although, as we have seen,[2] Robert Greene accuses {135}
Shakespeare of authorship in a stolen play, by applying to him a line
from _III Henry VI_ which had appeared earlier in 2 _Contention_.
Internal study of the three plays, however, has reduced the problem to
about this state:--

_The First Part of Henry VI_ is thought to have been written by Greene,
with George Peele and Marlowe to help. To this Shakespeare was allowed
to add a few scenes on a later revival of the play. Some critics give
to him the Talbot scenes and the quarrel in the Temple; but Professor
Neilson warns us that the grounds for this and other assignments of
authorship in the play "are in the highest degree precarious."

The two _Contentions_ are thought to have been chiefly the work of
Marlowe, with Greene to help him. Others are suggested as assistants,
such as Lodge, Peele, and Shakespeare. In the revival of the two
_Contentions_, Shakespeare's work amounted to a close revision, though
the older material remained in larger part, both in text and plot. In
this revision, Marlowe is thought to have aided, and Greene's bitter
attack on Shakespeare may have been caused by the fact that Shakespeare
had so supplanted him as collaborator with Marlowe, then the greatest
dramatist of England. It hardly seems likely that this attack would
have been made if Shakespeare had had any share in the first versions,
_The Contentions_.

+Date+.--_The First Part of Henry VI_ is thought to have been the play
at the Rose Theatre on March 3, 1591-1692, by L