DRAMATIS PERSONE.

1. HENRY VI. was the only son of Henry V. and Katharine, daughter of Charles VI. of France. He succeeded to the throne in 1422 at the age of nine months, or thereabouts; and reigned really, or nominally, till 1461, when Edward IV. was proclaimed king. He was restored, by the Earl of Warwick, the King-Maker, for a brief period, in October, 1470; but, after the battle of Barnet in April, 1471, he was committed to the Tower, where he diedprobably by the hand of an assassin-on the 23rd May in that same year.

2. JOHN DUKE OF BEDFORD, third son of Henry IV. by his first wife, Mary Bohun, daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Nottingham, was born in 1390; created Constable of England about 1403, and Duke of Bedford in 1414. In 1416 he was sent with a large fleet to the relief of Harfleur, and gained a most important victory over the French. After accomplishing the relief of Harfleur he returned into England. Later on in the same year he was made " gouernour or regent of the realme, to hold and enioie the office so long as the king was occupied in the French wars" (Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 88). In 1420 he took part in the siege of Melun, and afterwards accompanied King Henry V. in his triumphal entry into Paris the same year. He was one of the godfathers of Henry VI., and helped to escort the queen from France in 1422. He was with Henry V. during his last illness. The king on his deathbed appointed him regent of France in 1422, and he continued to hold that position till his death in 1435, at Rouen; he was buried in Rouen Cathedral.

He appears among the Dramatis Personæ of Henry V., and in II. Henry IV. as Prince John of Lancaster. The Duke of Bedford was twice married; first to Anne, sister of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who died November 14, 1432, without issue; secondly to Jacqueline, daughter of Peter, Count of St. Pol (or "S Paule," as Holinshed writes it), by whom he had no issue.

Lewis XI, having been urged to deface a monument erected to the Duke of Bedford in Rouen Cathedral, refused to do so, declaring that he accounted it an honour to have the remains of so brave and illustrious a man in his dominions.

3. HUMPHREY DUKE OF GLOUCESTER was the fourth and youngest son of Henry IV. He married as his first wife, Jacqueline, Countess of Holland and Hainault, which union was annulled by Pope Martin V. Gloucester immediately married his mistress Eleanor, daughter of Lord Cobham. He was created Duke of Gloucester by his brother Henry V. in 1414. He fought with great bravery at Agincourt. He opposed at first the marriage of Henry VI with Margaret, the daughter of René, Duke

of Anjou and titular king of Naples; but afterwards appears to have expressed approbation of it. He excited the enmity both of the queen and of Suffolk, and was arrested on February 11th, 1447, on a charge of high treason. Seventeen days later he was found dead in his bed. There were no marks of violence on the body, and it is doubtful whether the suspicion of murder was really justified. He appears as Prince Humphrey of Gloucester in II. Henry IV., and as Duke of Gloucester in Henry V.; in the next play the circumstances of his disgrace and tragical death are treated. The Dukes of Gloucester seem to have been peculiarly unfortunate. Our readers will remember that Thomas of Woodstock, son of Edward III., afterwards Duke of Gloucester, was murdered in the reign of Richard II.

4. THOMAS BEAUFORT, Duke of Exeter, great uncle of Henry VI., was the third son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III., "who caused all his natural children by Catherine Swinford, daughter of Sir Payn Roet, alias Guyen, king of arms, and widow of Sir Otes Swinford, Knight, to whom he was afterwards married, to be called Beaufort, from the Castle of Beaufort in the county of Anjou, the place of their nativity; which castle came, A. D. 1276, to the house of Lancaster by the marriage of Blanch, daughter of Robert I. Count of Artois, and widow of Henry I. King of Navarre, with Edmund (surnamed Crouchback) Earl of Lancaster, second son of Henry III. King of England." (Collins's Peerage of England, vol. i. pp. 222.)

Thomas Beaufort held the offices of Admiral of the Fleet, Captain of Calais, and Lord Chancellor of England under Henry IV. By the same king he was created Earl of Dorset and Knight of the Garter, and on November 18th, 1416, by Henry V. Duke of Gloucester. He figures in Henry V., where he is called by anticipation Duke of Gloucester, and is wrongly stated to have held the command of the rearguard at the battle of Agincourt. When that battle was fought he was at Harfleur, having been left in charge of that town after its capture by the king's army. He died, December 27th, 1426, and therefore could not have been present at the coronation of Henry VI., 1431, as he is represented to be. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Neville, and left no issue; his large estates passing to his nephew, John Beaufort, second Duke of Somerset. He was buried at the abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, where in 1772 his body was found by some workmen employed in the ruins (see Collins, p. 223).

5. HENRY BEAUFORT (Cardinal Beaufort), brother of the above, was created Bishop of Lincoln in 1397; Bishop of Winchester in 1404; nominated Cardinal and Papal Legate in 1417; but did not obtain the royal license to accept these preferments till 1426. The quarrels between him

and the Duke of Gloucester were constant, the greatest jealousy existing between them. The Cardinal won his great triumph over his rival in 1439; when, in spite of Gloucester's strong opposition, the Duke of Orleans was released from prison. He followed Gloucester to the grave, within six weeks, on April 11th, 1447, after a lingering illness.

6. JOHN BEAUFORT, Earl, afterwards Duke of Somerset, was the second son of John, second Earl of Somerset, and grandson of John Beaufort, the eldest brother of the two Beauforts mentioned above. He succeeded his father, in consequence of the death of his elder brother Henry, who was unmarried, in 1418, "as third Earl of Somerset; and in 1443, was created Duke of Somerset, and Earl of Kendale, and constituted lieutenant and captain general of Aquitain; as also of the whole realm of France, and duchy of Normandy. His Grace departed this life on May 27th, 1444 (some say in 1443), and was buried at Winborne minster in Dorsetshire; leaving issue by Margaret his wife, widow of Sir Oliver St. John, and daughter to Sir John Beauchamp, of Bletshoe in the county of Bedford, Knight, (and heir to John her brother) an only daughter, Margaret, married to Edmund of Hadham, Earl of Richmond, eldest son of Owen ap Merideth ap Tudor, and Catherine of France, Queen of England, dowager to Henry V., and by him was mother of Henry VII." (Collins's Peerage of England, vol. i. p. 223). He was the chief supporter of the Lancastrian party at court, and bitterly opposed to the Duke of York. He was succeeded by his brother Edmund, who is the Duke of Somerset of II. King Henry VI.

7. RICHARD PLANTAGENET was the only son of Richard, Earl of Cambridge, the younger son of the Duke of York who figures in Richard II., and brother to the Aumerle of the same play, who afterwards became Duke of York, and was killed at Agincourt. His mother was Anne, daughter of Roger Mortimer; through whom, and her mother Philippa, he traced his descent from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. His father was executed for conspiracy against Henry V. in the year 1415. In 1425 he became Duke of York; Constable of England, 1430; Regent of France, after the death of the Duke of Bedford; recalled in 1446. He opposed Queen Margaret with the strongest persistence. In 1449 he was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland, and Protector of the Kingdom, 1454; the next year the Wars of the Roses began. He was killed at the battle of Wakefield, December 30, 1460. It is a remarkable thing that Henry IV. should have spared the uncle, Aumerle, when he joined a conspiracy against him; and that Henry V. should have spared Aumerle's nephew, who was destined in his own person, and in that of his son, to ruin and dethrone the House of Lancaster.

8. EARL OF WARWICK. There are supposed to be two Earls of Warwick introduced in this play. The first, who, according to this supposition, appears only in act i. scene 1, and is a persona muta, was, undoubtedly, Richard Beauchamp, who succeeded to the title in 1401, on the death of his father Thomas Beauchamp, condemned as a traitor in the reign of Richard II., but not executed.

He was made lieutenant and deputy-regent in France by the Duke of Bedford when he was sent for into England by Cardinal Beaufort in 1425 (see Hall, p. 130). In 1427 he was recalled from France and appointed "governor" of the young king, Henry VI., and held this office nine years. In 1437 he was appointed Regent of France, and died at Rouen in 1439. He is the same Warwick who appears in Henry V. and also frequently in Henry IV., where Shakespeare makes the mistake of causing the king to address him as "Nevil," and not as "Beauchamp" (II. Henry IV. iii. 1. 66). He was called "the Good," and "the Father of Courtesy."

The second Earl of Warwick of this play is supposed to be Richard Neville, called "the King-Maker," who is undoubtedly one of the principal characters in the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. He was the eldest son of Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, who was son of Ralph de Neville, Earl of Westmoreland (see First and Second Parts of Henry IV. and Henry V.) by his second wife Joan, daughter of John of Gaunt and sister of the Duke of Exeter, and became Earl of Salisbury by his marriage with Alice, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Salisbury (see below). The young Richard Neville married Anne, the daughter of Richard Beauchamp mentioned above; and through her inherited the vast estates of the Warwick family; he was created Earl of Warwick, 1449, when he was about twenty-one years old, and not till five years after the marriage of Henry VI, and Margaret of Anjou, with which this play ends. As he was not born till 1428, that is six years after the play opens, it is difficult to see how he could have taken the prominent part assigned to the Earl of Warwick in act iii. and act iv. There is no reason why the Earl of Warwick, all through the play, should not be Richard Beauchamp; except that he is represented as being present at the execution of Joan of Arc; when, according to history, he would have been in England, as he was at that time governor of the young king Henry VI. That, however, is a very much slighter historical discrepancy than to suppose that the Warwick in all the scenes of this play, except act i. scene 1, was "the King-Maker." We have therefore only given Beanchamp Earl of Warwick among the Dramatis Personæ of this play.

9. EARL OF SALISBURY. Thomas Montague, or Montacute, fourth Earl of Salisbury, was the son of John the third Earl (see note to Dramatis Personæ, Richard II.). When Beauchamp was recalled from France to become the young king's governor, or tutor, the Earl of Salisbury was sent to take his place with the army. It was at his instigation that a determined attempt was made to take the city of Orleans, an attempt only partially successful: an outwork was captured, including a tower, in which the earl met his death a few days afterwards, on the 3rd November, 1428. He is supposed to have been "the first English gentleman that was slain by a cannon-ball" [French (on the authority of Camden), p. 130]. He married first Eleanor Holland, daughter of Thomas, second Earl of Kent, by whom he had issue one daughter, Alice, who married Richard Neville, father of "the KingMaker" (see above, under Earl of Warwick). This Earl of Salisbury was a patron of English literature in the

person of Lydgate, and he married, as his second wife, the grand-daughter of Chaucer; but by her he left no issue.

10. EARL of SUFFOLK. William de la Pole, Earl, Marquis, and Duke of Suffolk, was the grandson of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, one of the favourites of Richard II. His father fell at the siege of Harfleur, 1415. His elder brother Michael de la Pole was killed at Agincourt. He distinguished himself at the battle of Verneuil, and succeeded to the chief command at the siege of Orleans after the death of Salisbury. He was taken prisoner at the siege of Jergeau, May 18, 1429, and one of his brothers, Sir Alexander Pole, was killed. He and his other brother were the only ones among the prisoners taken whose lives were spared. He was present at the coronation of Henry VI. in Paris in 1431. He was one of the representatives of the king at the diet" held at Tours in 1443 (see Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 206), when a truce between the kings of France and England was arranged. He is one of the characters in the next play, in which his death is recorded. In 1450 he was impeached by the Commons, and the king was compelled to banish him. The ship in which he sailed was taken by one of the ships of the Duke of Exeter, who was then Constable of the Tower. The captain of the ship took upon himself to behead Suffolk, without any trial, on the coast of Kent near Dover.

11. LORD TALBOT. Sir John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, was the second son of Sir Richard Talbot by his wife Anne, the sister of Lord L'Estrange of Blackmere. He succeeded his brother Gilbert Talbot; he married Maude, the elder of the two daughters and co-heiress of Nevile Lord Furnivall, and was first summoned to Parliament in the eleventh year of the reign of Henry IV. by the title of Lord Furnivall, and afterwards by the name of John Talbot of Hallamshire; in 1412 he was appointed Justice of Ireland; in 1414 he was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland; and in 1419, on the death of his elder brother Gilbert, he returned to England, attended the king in France at the siege of Sene in Burgundy, and of Molyn (Moulins) on the Seine, and was with him at his triumphant entry into Paris in 1420. He continued with Henry V. till the death of that king. In 1423 he was elected Knight of the Garter, and in 1425 he was, for the second time, appointed Lieutenant of Ireland, and was made general of the army in 1427. In 1429 he was taken prisoner at the battle of Patay, and after three years' captivity was set at liberty for a very heavy ransom. He immediately raised new forces and returned to France; was created Earl of Shrewsbury May 20th, 1442, and Earl of Wexford and Waterford about 1445. On July 20th, 1453, in attempting to raise the siege of Châtillon, he was mortally wounded, being shot through the thigh by a cannon-ball, and his horse was killed under him. He died on the battle-field at the age of eighty; having been "victorious in forty several battles and dangerous skirmishes Peerage, vol. iii. p. 16).

(Collins's

12. JOHN TALBOT was the eldest son of the preceding by Margaret his second wife, who was daughter and coheiress of Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick. He was

killed at the same battle as that which proved fatal to his father, having refused to save his life by flight.

13. EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH. It is presumed that Shakespeare means Edmund Mortimer, the last Earl of March. He was the eldest son of Roger Earl of March and Eleanor Holland, and grandson of the Edmund Mortimer who married Philippa, the daughter of Lionel Duke of Clarence, the second son of Edward III. It was to avenge Roger Mortimer's death, in 1398, that Richard II. set out on that expedition to Ireland, from which he returned only to find his kingdom practically taken from him by Bolingbroke. Edmund Mortimer, who was only seven years old when Richard II. was deposed, became, through the death of his father, the rightful heir to the English crown. The usurper Bolingbroke did not venture to take his life, but always regarded him with great jealousy; and it was in order to set aside Mortimer's undoubted right to the throne that Bolingbroke, or his friends, invented the fiction that Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, the second son of Henry III., from whom he himself was lineally descended by his mother Blanch, was really the eldest son; and that his brother Edward, afterwards Edward I., was made eldest son because of the deformity of Edmund; but the manifest improbability of this story, which was in violation of all known facts, induced Bolingbroke's friends to advise him to claim the crown on the ground that Richard II. had adopted him as his heir; and that, failing the Earl of March, he was, undoubtedly, the next heir male. It would seem that the young Earl of March was kept in a kind of honourable imprisonment in Windsor Castle, and that he was ultimately placed under the guardianship of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V., to whom he was always a most devoted friend, serving under him at Harfleur and Agincourt, and at the siege of Melun. French says (p. 134) he "carried the sceptre at his queen Katharine's coronation, and was one of the chief, and without doubt one of the truest, mourners who followed his royal friend's protracted funeral procession through France to England." In 1422 Edmund Mortimer was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, where he died in January, 1424, at the age of thirtytwo, at Trim Castle, a place which was long the residence of the governors of Ireland. French (pp. 135, 136) gives several proofs, taken from official documents of the time, which leave no doubt that the Earl of March not only had his liberty in the reign of Henry V., but that he was treated with every honour befitting his rank. He was married to Anne Stafford, daughter of Edmund, fifth Earl of Stafford, but left no issue, so that Richard Plantagenet became his heir. Mortimer's sister, Anne, married Richard, Earl of Cambridge, the father of the abovementioned Richard Plantagenet who claimed the throne, through his mother, as the last descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The fearful obscurity that surrounds this character appears to have arisen from the mistake made by the chroniclers in confusing with the young Earl of March, his uncle, Edmund Mortimer, younger brother of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, a mistake which Shakespeare has followed in the First Part of Henry IV. The reader of history becomes further confused by the fact that Holinshed persists in calling this