- Five years on the country is in the midst of civil war with Suffolk and Buckingham among the casualties at the battle of St Albans and the triumphant Plantagenet claiming the throne for the Yorkists. To avoid further bloodshed Henry agrees to make Plantagenrt his heir on his death, angering queen Margaret, who shocks her husband with a violent counter action. However the Yorkists triumph with Edward IV crowned king. Henry, descending into madness, is imprisoned in the Tower of London whilst Margaret and her son seek sanctuary in France. Yet Edward is not without his opponents, led by Margaret, whom he routs at the battle of Tewkesbury, aided by his brothers George, Duke of Clarence and Richard of Gloucester, a victory which will seal Henry's fate since Richard has ambitions of his own.—don @ minifie-1
- We open about 5 years after the end of Part 1, at the First Battle of St. Albans. King Henry is informed that Yorkist forces are near. Margaret and Somerset are continuing their affair. Somerset and Suffolk are both killed in battle. Suffolk's son Clifford comes looking for him, finds him dead, and vows revenge*. Margaret finds Somerset dead and mourns his loss. She and Henry flee back to London where Henry has more support.
(*NOTE: In the original play, it is his father Lord Clifford was killed, while the Duke of Suffolk WAS banished and murdered at sea by pirates).
York, Warwick, and York's two oldest sons Edward and George are celebrating their victory and put Somerset's head on a spike. They pick up York's third son Richard, then march triumphantly off for London. They break into the empty Parliment House and York helps himself to the throne. He resolves to unseat King Henry and take over. Henry arrives back in London to see Margaret and his son, Edward Prince of Wales. Henry and some of his soldiers including Exeter and Young Clifford stand outside and see York sitting on the throne. King Henry storms into the room and in a rare display of strength, demands to know what's happening and for York to step down. The two sides debate who has the greater title to the throne. King Henry makes the point that his father and grandfather were king and that King Richard II resigned the crown to Henry's grandfather King Henry IV. But York points out that Henry IV took the throne by force and he was not rightful heir at the time, and therefore Richard II "could not so resign the crown but then the next heir should succeed and reign." York's right-hand man the Earl of Warwick is calling in armed troops when King Henry at sword-point makes a bargain to allow York and his heirs to inherit the crown in exchange for ending the civil war and allowing Henry to remain as king. Westmoreland and Clifford are outraged at the King for dis-inheriting his son. The King and York's faction reconcile. Queen Margaret and their young son Prince Edward march in to Henry's chapel, enraged at his dis-inheriting Prince Edward. Margaret essentially disowns Henry, takes their son and determines to raise up Henry's army to get his throne back.
At dinner at his house at Wakefield, York's sons try convince him that the oath he took is not valid. York resists. One of his officers enters and announces they are under siege by Queen Margaret and her troops. York's wife Cecily gets away and younger sons Edmund and Richard stay behind and hide out while the older sons Edward and George go with him to battle. Margaret's men set fire to their house. Thinking that the troops have gone away, Edmund comes out from the barricade where he is quickly captured and stabbed to death by a revengeful Clifford. York had killed Clifford's father at St. Albans at the beginning of the episode. Richard, still in hiding, barely avoids crying out, then sees his younger brother dying on the ground, his throat sliced. Richard will not soon forget that sight. York watches in horror as his house burns to the ground. Soon York is captured by Margaret, Clifford, and their men. He tries to battle his way out but is outnumbered and held down. When Margaret arrives she humiliates and taunts York for a while. She offers to wipe York's tears with a handkerchief stained with his son Edmund's (Rutland's) blood, then attaches a crown of thorns to his head. York delivers an angry speech how the queen could murder a child and then force his father to wipe his tears with the child's blood. "O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide! How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child, To bid the father wipe his eyes withal, And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?" Margaret has him beheaded and the head put on top of the York city gates.
York's other sons (Edward, George, and Richard, in order) have re-grouped at what's left of their home after the battle. The three brothers notice three suns in the sky, which they take as prophesy that they together will still win the day. "Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun; Not separated with the racking clouds, But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky. See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss, As if they vow'd some league inviolable:" Their joy is short-lived. A messenger enters to inform the York brothers of the battle's events and the death of their father York and their young brother Edmund (Rutland). They noted how York's head has been set upon the gates of the town of York. The brothers are dejected but Richard cannot be sad. He is too angry and vows that they need to avenge the savage act. "I cannot weep...Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me. Richard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death, Or die renowned by attempting it." (It should be noted that Richard is the same person who will eventually become King Richard III).
Warwick enters soon after and receives the bad news. He wants to continue going after Henry VI in revenge. "For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head, And wring the awful sceptre from his fist, Were he as famous and as bold in war, As he is famed for mildness, peace, and prayer." Warwick encourages everyone else to continue the attack on London. He names Edward the new Duke of York and promising that the next title will be "King Edward."
Margaret, King Henry, and their entourage arrive in the city of York and see the heads upon the wall. King Henry is horrified at the sight and prays to God for forgiveness, but Margaret and Clifford chide him for being too gentle and forgiving, and for disinheriting his son. Margaret is angry at the King for bringing down the morale of his troops with his piousness. Margaret encourages henry to knight his son Edward. Then they find out that Edward's army is near. They try to encourage Henry to leave them be, since they have more success when he is away. ("I would your highness would depart the field: The queen hath best success when you are absent.") Henry replies that he is resolved to stay. The Battle of Mortimer's Cross ensues. Henry nearby mourns how he never wanted to be king and how he had it forced upon him at 9 months old. Richard mortally wounds Clifford in battle but Richard refuses to finish him off. Henry arrives and Clifford asks him to put him out of his misery but the king can't bear himself to do it. Clifford lays there dying.
Henry looks on as a young man enters with an older man that he has just killed. He is about to take the man's money when he realizes to his horror that the man was his own father! Another soldier enters with another slain warrior only to realize that it is in fact his own son.
A soldier finds Margaret and begs her to run away. The Yorkists are victorious and their troops hail Edward as King Edward IV. They hear moaning nearby - it turns out to be a dying Clifford. They taunt him as he dies. Warwick bids them to return to London and Edward be crowned. Edward creates George Duke of Clarence and Richard Duke of Gloucester. Nearby Henry wakes up, tosses his crown into the bloody river and escapes into exile. King Edward IV marches triumphantly into London.
Henry, now un-crowned, is wandering through a plain in Scotland. He ponders how life would have been so much better if he had never been king. "O God! methinks it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point." Two hunters run across the exiled Henry. Upon questioning, the hunters realize that this is the deposed king, and together they take Henry into custody, where he is thrown into the Tower of London. Edward IV is coronated in London.
Ten years pass by...
Warwick leaves for France to get the Lady Bona (sister to Louis XI of France) for Edward's queen to reunite England and France.
Back in Westminster, a lady, Elizabeth Gray approaches King Edward regarding lands that were seized from her slain husband that she wishes returned to her. Edward tells Elizabeth that he will consider her suit but she wants resolution now. He offers return of her lands if she marries him and becomes his Queen (But wait, isn't Warwick in France right now negotiating marriage to someone else??). He proposes and she accepts.
Warwick arrives in Paris at the court of King Louis XI. Margaret appears seeking help for herself and Prince Edward to take the English throne back. Warwick then enters seeking the King's sister Lady Bona for Edward's queen, unaware that King Edward has already married Elizabeth Woodville. Louis is convinced from King Edward's success that he is rightful ruler of England and he will give his sister in marriage. Suddenly a messenger enters bearing letters for the King, Warwick, and Margaret.
The letters state that King Edward has already married Elizabeth. Louis is enraged, thinking that Edward and Warwick have set them up as fools. But an embarrassed Warwick saves face by going to King Louis, renouncing King Edward and pledging his service now to Margaret and Henry, plotting to put Henry back on the throne. King Louis agrees to provide an army to aid Margaret's quest and put Henry back on the throne. He sends an angry message back to King Edward: "Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong, And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long." To ensure his loyalty, he will also pledge his own daughter Anne Neville in marriage to Margaret and Henry's son Prince Edward.
Edward is discussing his marriage with his brothers. Clarence (George) confronts Edward. He feels this will anger France and Warwick and cause them to be Edward's enemies, and that Elizabeth's relatives would be better suited for him. Edward is defiant and insists that his brothers honor and obey him and Elizabeth. They leave. The messenger delivers Louis and Warwick's responses from the previous act. Edward simply scoffs at the messages, especially that Margaret is "ready to put armor on." Edward vows that if they want war, it's war they will get. Clarence resolves to leave Edward over that choice and join up with Warwick. Edward and Lady Anne Neville are married. At the wedding, Clarence attends and meets up with Warwick. A messenger comes in, delivering Henry's discarded crown. They then head for the Tower of London to return it to the imprisoned former king. A grateful king has an emotional reunion with his son Prince Edward. He thanks God & Warwick for his liberty. Henry gives control of his government over to Warwick, who chooses Clarence for Lord Protector, so that Henry can enjoy the rest of his life in private and England not suffer under his ill-fated rule. King Henry asks Margaret to be brought back from France. Exeter presents young Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond to the king. He is the last remaining Lancastrian descendant of John of Gaunt. He's also the son of King Henry's half-brother Edmund Tudor, and the future King Henry VII. King Henry prophecies that Richmond will be England's hope of the future.
The remaining lords resolve to meet Edward at Tewksbury. They agree that for his own safety, Richmond should be taken away to Brittany.
King Edward goes to Warwick's camp. He demands that Warwick and Clarence return to them. Warwick remains defiant. Clarence enters and is convinced to re-join Edward and turn away from Warwick. King Edward welcomes him back into the fold. The two sides battle again (Battle of Tewkesbury). Exeter and Clarence meet in single combat, and Exeter is killed. Nearby, Warwick is stabbed to death by Richard. Margaret despondently wanders the field nearby and is captured. The Yorkist forces are victorious. Margaret and Prince Edward are brought in front of the King and still defiantly insists that he is rightful king and "King" Edward a traitor. He is stabbed by Richard and his throat cut. Margaret is horrified and demands that she be killed too, before fainting. Richard excuses himself to run a "serious matter" at the Tower of London.
Richard heads off for the Tower of London to "make a bloody supper." Richard delivers a long monologue. He admits that he has no desire at this point except for the crown itself. He prays that Edward have no legitimate children to get in the way of his path to the throne. He realizes that he will probably never be king, so he resolves to find and woo women. But Richard knows that can't happen. He talks about his deformity and knows that he can never find love so he may as well try to become king himself.
"Then, since this earth affords no joy to me, I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown, And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell... And yet I know not how to get the crown, For many lives stand between me and home." He is talking about how so many are ahead of him in the line of succession, he'll have to be patient, pretend to be loyal to Edward and buy his time, faking it if he has to. It is here that we are beginning to plant the seeds for the events in the next play, "Richard III." Richard knows there is no pleasure in peacetime for him, so from this point on he will do whatever it takes to get the crown for himself. No matter who he has to pretend to like, no matter who's in his way that he has to kill. ("And from that torment I will free myself, Or hew my way out with a bloody axe. Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile, And cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart, And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, And frame my face to all occasions. Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.")
In his cell at the Tower of London, Henry is approached by Richard. Henry assumes Richard is there to kill him, but Richard nonchalantly asks if Henry really thinks that Richard is an executioner. Henry, in a too-little-too-late show of defiance, chides Richard for his deeds including the murder of Henry's son. He teases Richard about his difficulty birth, boyhood and the fact that he had teeth at birth "to signify thou camest to bite the world." Suddenly Richard can take it no longer, becomes enraged, and brutally stabs Henry to death. Afterward Richard admits that some of what Henry said was true. Richard becomes angry and determines then and there that if being ugly and deformed is his fate, then his only goal from this point on is becoming King himself. Here Shakespeare is setting the stage for his treachery and evil plots still to come in the next play, "Richard III.": "Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so, Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it. I have no brother, I am like no brother; And this word 'love,' which graybeards call divine, Be resident ... not in me: I am myself alone."
The re-crowned King Edward IV returns to London in triumph to announce that the Yorkists have achieved total victory (or so he thinks) and that now England can live in peace now that their enemies have been defeated and killed. Now there is no longer any doubt that he is England's true king. King Edward's brothers come forward and kiss his baby son (yes it's ANOTHER Prince Edward). He tells him that this is for him, so that he may gain the crown in peace. He orders Clarence and Gloucester (Richard) to honor his wife and kiss his son. Having done that, King Edward declares that the time for rejoicing has come, "for here I hope begins our lasting joy." The camera fades out with Richard holding the baby boy, but the menacing expression on his face foreshadows the events still to come...
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