Abstract
In Shakespeare’s Henry VI part III, Richard, Duke of York, calls Queen Margaret—Henry VI’s wife known to history as Margaret of Anjou—“the she-wolf of France.” Margaret is furious with her husband for giving the power of the crown to York, and even more with York for taking it, thus nullifying the rights of her son Prince Edward. Margaret—not her weak husband Henry— raises an army to challenge York. Margaret’s army defeats York’s and he is captured. Earlier versions had York die in battle. Here he is brought before the queen who mocks him and crowns him with a paper crown:
Ay, this is he that took King Henry’s chair
And this is he was his adopted heir.
…
Off with the crown, and with the crown his head!
And whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.1
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Notes
William Shakespeare, The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, in The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed. ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 711–47, esp. 717. Act I, scene iv, lines 97–98, 107–108. All following quotations from this work will be cited in-text.
For more on Margaret, also see Patricia-Ann Lee, “Reflections of Power: Margaret of Anjou and the Dark Side of Queenship,” Renaissance Quarterly 39.2 (1986), 183–217;
Helen E. Maurer, Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England Rochester (New York: Boydell Press, 2003);
Sarah Gristwood, Blood Sisters: the Women Behind the War of the Roses (New York: Basic Books, 2013);
Philippe Erlanger, Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971);
J. L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445–1503 (New York: Oxford UP, 2004).
An English Chronicle 1377–1461; A New Edition, ed. William Marx (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2003), xiv, 65. 78. See also Dockray on this chronicle. “The Battle of Wakefield and the War of the Roses.”
John Stubbs, John Stubbs’s Gaping Gulf with Letters and other Relevant Documents, ed. Lloyd E. Berry (Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1968), 45.
Mabillard, Amanda. Henry VI, Part 1. Shakespeare Online. August 20, 2000. (May 25, 2012) http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sources/1henryvisources.html.
Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixth, in The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed.,ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 632–667, esp. 659. Act V, scene iii, line 78–79. All following quotations from this work will be cited in-text.
William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, in The Riverside Shakespeare 2nd ed. ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 668–710, esp. 682. Act II, scene iv, line 22. All following quotations from this work will be cited in-text.
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Richard the Third, in The Riverside Shakespeare 2nd ed., ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 748–804, esp. 759. Act I, scene iii, lines 157, 187, 159. All following quotations from this work will be cited in-text.
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© 2015 Carole Levin and Christine Stewart-Nuñez
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Levin, C. (2015). Queen Margaret in Shakespeare and Chronicles: She-Wolf or Heroic Spirit. In: Levin, C., Stewart-Nuñez, C. (eds) Scholars and Poets Talk about Queens. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137534903_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137534903_12
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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