Shakespeare's Richard II, Hayward's History of Henry IV, and the Essex Conspiracy

PMLA ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 694-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn May Albright
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
History Of ◽  
Earl Of Essex

Mr. Ray Heffner's article, “Shakespeare, Hayward, and Essex,” is confused and at times self-contradictory; but the main points which he attempts to maintain against my paper, “Shakespeare's Richard II and the Essex Conspiracy,” seem to be these:1. That the play, founded on Hayward's history of Henry IV, which Essex is said, in Item 5 of the “Analytical abstract of the evidence in support of the charge of treason against the Earl of Essex,” to have witnessed, could not have been the play on the deposition of Richard II which the Essex conspirators are known to have attended in a group on February 7, 1601, the day before the rebellion; and that the performances referred to in this Abstract were not of a play by Shakespeare, nor acted by his company, but of an unknown play, performed perhaps by Essex's own actors at his house on some unknown occasion, which Mr. Heffner dates first as necessarily “after February, 1599,” later, as “in February, 1599,” and, in conclusion, as “in January, 1599.”

Shakespeare, Hayward, and Essex

PMLA ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 754-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Heffner
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Earl Of Essex

In her article “Shakespeare's Richard II and the Essex Conspiracy,” Miss Evelyn May Albright seeks to establish a “vital connection” between Shakespeare's Richard II and John Hayward's Henry IV. Such a connection she thinks would prove Shakespeare's interest in and adherence to the Earl of Essex in his quarrel with the Queen and certain of her counsellors. In presenting her case, however, Miss Albright has failed to give full evidence which, if given in an unprejudiced manner, would destroy the value of her conclusions. It is my purpose in this paper to supply the evidence available concerning both the playing of Shakespeare's Richard II on February 7, 1601, and the publication of Hayward's Henry IV. This account will, I think, show that there is no evidence of any connection between either Hayward and Shakespeare or Shakespeare and Essex.

Hark what discord follows

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Ian Linklater
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second Tetralogy

"Richard II" is the first play in the second Tetralogy or group of plays broadly about the history of England from 1399 to 1415. It is followed by the two parts of Henry IV and climaxes in the so-called English Epic play Henry V. The first Tetralogy, obviously written before, comprises the three parts of Henry VI and culminates in "Richard III" and deals with the period of the Wars of the Roses from 1420 to the accession of Henry Tudor in 1485, which final date marks the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty.

Councils and Councillors of Henry IV, 1399–1413

1964 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 35-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.L. Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Privy Council ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Continuous Record ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Official Records ◽  
Made In

The one important, indeed invaluable, source for the history of the council in the early-fifteenth century is the Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 10 Richard II–33 Henry VIII, edited by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas and published by the Record Commission in seven volumes in the years 1834 to 1837, but in so far as the title of this work implies a formal and continuous record of proceedings it is misleading, for, unlike parliament, the council left no regular account of its activities. The Rolls of Parliament, even though their account of the proceedings is one-sided, official and incomplete, do at least record such bare facts as the dates of meeting, the names of the Speakers, and usually the dates of adjournment; but there are no similar rolls for the council. The phrase ‘privy council’ in Nicolas's title is also something of an anachronism, at least for the early part of the period covered. At this time the future privy council was generally known simply as the council or the king's council, although it was sometimes called the continual council to distinguish it from the larger body known to contemporaries as the great council. This distinctionis usually made in official records, but chroniclers often referred indifferently to either body as the council, and the differences are not now always apparent to us.

The First Part of the History of Henry IV

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Shakespeare
Keyword(s):  
Henry Iv ◽  
History Of

Petrified Unrest

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-132
Author(s):  
Alex Davis
Keyword(s):  
Regime Change ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Troy Book

In 1399, Henry Bolingbroke seized the throne from Richard II. This chapter examines the crisis of legitimacy that marked the rule of Henry IV and his successors as it plays itself out in two key poems of the period: John Lydgate’s Troy Book, and Thomas Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes. These texts aim to praise and legitimate the new Lancastrian regime and to efface the facts of Richard II’s deposition. They also make key moves in the establishment of an English literary canon, in particular through Hoccleve’s influential invention of the figure of ‘Father Chaucer’. These are texts that want to claim that succession is a matter of nature, blood, or kind; of some principle of precedence woven through the fabric of created things. At the same time, they are shot through with moments of ambivalence that suggest their uncertainty about the project of Lancastrian regime change.

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