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.

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.”

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.

Telling the Story: Shakespeare's Histories in Performance

1990 ◽  
Vol 6 (23) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
Andrew Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
History Plays ◽  
English History ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Henry Vi

The English Shakespeare Company was founded in 1986 by Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington with a commitment to take large-scale productions to regional venues. Henry IV, Parts One and Two and Henry V opened at the Plymouth Theatre Royal in November 1986 under the title The Henrys: they were then staged at the Old Vic and toured extensively. In December 1987 Richard II, with a two-part adaptation of the three parts of Henry VI (House of Lancaster and House of York) and Richard III, were added to the previous trilogy to create a complete cycle of history plays – The Wars of the Roses. The cycle was toured in England and abroad before playing at the Old Vic in the spring of 1989. It has since been filmed for television by Portman Productions. The only comparable treatment of the histories in the theatre took place at Stratford in 1964. when Peter Hall and John Barton staged seven plays as a sequence spanning English history from the reign of Richard II to the downfall of Richard III. Andrew Jarvis has been with the English Shakespeare Company since 1986 when he played Gadshill, Douglas, Harcourt, and the Dauphin. He has since played Exton, Hotspur, and Richard III. In 1988 he won the Manchester Evening News Award for Best Actor in a Visiting Production for his portrayal of Richard III. Prior to joining the ESC he had played many roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Here, he is interviewed by Stephen Phillips, lecturer in drama at the College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth, who is currently preparing a study of Shakespeare's history cycles in performance in the twentieth century.

Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry IV.

1959 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Robert Adger Law ◽  
Derek Traversi
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry Iv

The Deposition of Richard II and the Accession of Henry IV

1939 ◽  
Vol LIV (CCXIV) ◽  
pp. 215-239
Author(s):  
WILKINSON B.
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry Iv
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