 Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Table of Contents Act III, Scene I Summary The Parliament is in session to settle the dispute between Winchester and Gloucester. The two men are engaged in exchanging bitter words, the young king asks them to put aside their differences and become friends. The mayor enters with the news of the fight between the two noblemen’s servants. At the King’s request, Gloucester bids his men to stop fighting and declares his peace with Winchester. Winchester agrees to it openly, but secretly he is still resolved to destroy Gloucester. The King makes Richard Plantagenet the Duke of York and the whole inheritance of the house of York is restored to him. The King leaves for France, where he is going to be crowned. Exeter, left alone, prophesies trouble arising from the dissension between the two English peers. He recalls the old prophecy according to which Henry VI, the present king, would lose all that his father won. Notes The meeting of the parliament has been called to establish peace between Winchester and Gloucester. The scene then opens on a note of irony when it shows these two noblemen flinging abuse at each other. There is a notably sardonic quality in the mutual abusing of the lords and churchmen who so short-sightedly and rapaciously indulge their absorbing appetite for power. These attitudes are contrasted with the ineffective and despairing commonsense which prompts the Mayor of London to cry, "City the city of London, pity us!" The formal session of the parliament is disturbed by back-stage shouts of "Down with the tawny coats!" and "Stones! Stones!" the mayor complains to the King that the factions, debarred the use of arms, are knocking each other’s brains with pebble stones, and what is worse, are breaking the windows of London shops. This part of the scene is repetition of the humorous one in Act I, Scene III, which also involves the mayor and two warring factions. The humor is extended, when the factions enter "with bloody pates," and "skirmish" in the very presence of the King until his Majesty’s piteous entreaty persuades their masters to shake hands in a hollow peace. Thereupon the rioters disperse, some to the surgeon’s to have their pates dressed, one cheerful soul to seek for "physic" in the tavern. This contributes to the lively action that characterizes the sparse humor in this play. This is a significant scene, in the sense that the king makes his first appearance her. His youth is underlined in his own words, "my tender years" as he pleads with the two angry noblemen for reconciliation. He is shown as an ineffectual figure that has no real command over his subjects, even though his intentions are admirable. He only manages to establish a false amity between the two peers. Then he makes the mistake of creating Richard Plantagenet, who has just been privately advised by Mortimer to make a bid for the crown, the Duke of York. This is to restore him the full inheritance of the house of York, of which his family had been deprived after his father’s treason in the previous reign. When the parliamentary session is over, Henry VI is credulously happy to have turned a quarrel into peace. He owes naïve optimism while others are concealing dark thoughts behind a display of backslapping bonhomie. But Exeter is not deceived. His role is entirely choric. His comments reflect the nature of the situation. Thus, it is he who stays behind to speak the uneasy epilogue foretelling the internal disputes and disastrous losses yet to come. Table of Contents | |
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