1 Griffiths, Ralph A., The Reign of King Henry VI: the Exercise of Royal Authority, 1422-1461 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), p. 892 Google Scholar.

2 Shakespeare, William, The Second Part of King Henry VI, ed. Andrew S. Cairncross, The Arden edition of the Works of William Shakespeare, 3rd ed., (London: Methuen, 1957)Google Scholar, Act I, Scene iv, Line 137. Although many questions of authorship have been raised with reference to these plays, and in particular to I Henry VI, they will be referred to as the works of William Shakespeare for the purposes of this paper.

3 Great Britain. Public Record Office. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts existing in the Archives and Collections of Milan, 1385-1618 (London: HMSO, 1912) I, 18-19. Raffaelo de Negra to Bianca Maria Visconti, Duchess of Milan, October 24, 1468. The ambassador was not writing from his own observation but reporting the observations of an anonymous English informant.

4 Grafton, Richard, A Chronicle at Large and Meere History of the Affayres of England and Kingesofthe Same, [1569], ed. H. Ellis, 2 vols. (London: 1809), I, 625 Google Scholar. See also Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland in six volumes, Volume 3, England, (original title, The Third Volume of Chronicles …first compiled by Raphael Holinshed and by him continued to the year 1577, now newly … continued to the yeare 1586, (London: 1808), p. 208.

5 Stevenson, Joseph, ed. Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the reign of Henry VI, (London: Longman Green, Longman and Roberts, 1861), II, 640 Google Scholar. For Margaret's point of view see her letters of December 17, 1445 and May 20, 1446, to Charles VII of France. It is clear that Charles was applying pressure and regarded her as his agent. Ibid., I, 164-166 and 183-186.

6 Monro, Cecil, ed., Letters of Queen Margaret of Anjou and Bishop Beckington… ., Camden Society Publications, No. 26 ([London]: 1863), p. 89 Google Scholar. See also the letter from Margaret Paston in Norwich to her husband, John Paston, April 1453. It describes how Margaret sent for the writer's cousin, Margaret Clere, and “made ryght meche of her, and desyrid here to have an husband… .,” although she also adds drily that “But as for that, he is never nerrer than he was befor.” Gairdner, James, ed., The Paston Letters, A. D. 1422-1309, New Complete Library Edition, 6 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1965), II, 285 Google Scholar.

7 Letters of Margaret of Anjou, p. 100, from the Queen to the keeper of Apchild Park, 28 August 1449. See also pp. 98-99.

8 Ibid., p. 107, from the Queen to the duke of Exeter. Also p. 113, from the Queen to the mayor and corporation of Southampton.

9 Ibid., p. 100-101. The gamekeeper was warned to “faill not herof, as ye will eschew our displeasure, at yo[ur] perill, and upon forfaiture of the kepyng of o[ur] said park.“

10 Meyers, A. R., “The Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou, 1452-1453,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 40 (Sept., 1957), 79–113 Google Scholar. Also, by the same author, “The Jewels of Queen Margaret of Anjou,” 42 (Sept., 1959), 113—131. Anne Crawford, “The King's Burden?—the Consequences of Royal Marriage in Fifteenth-century England,“ points out that Margaret's privy purse expenditures, which were unusually heavy compared to those of other queens of the period, were used for political purposes, buying friends, allies and influence. In Patronage and Power: the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England, ed. Ralph A. Griffiths (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: The Humanities Press, 1981), p. 50. See also Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI, pp. 261-262.

11 Bagley, J. J., Margaret of Anjou Queen of England (London: Herbert Jenkins, [1948]), p. 85 Google Scholar.

12 James, M. R., Henry VI: a Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1919), p. 26 Google Scholar. While Blacman, described by Lovatt as the only “extended account of the King's personality from an apparently contemporary hand,” remains central to any interpretation of the King, Lovatt has substantially altered our view of that author and enhances our appreciation of the source. See Lovatt, Roger, “A Collector of Apocryphal Annecdotes: John Blacman revisited,“ in Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval History, ed. Tony Pollard (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), p. 172 Google Scholar. Lovatt places Blacman's interpretation within a strong tradition of late medieval popular piety and points out that he redefines the king's public defects and private virtues. Lovatt, Roger, “John Blacman: Biographer of Henry VI,” The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis, J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, et al. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 431 Google Scholar.

13 Davies, John Silvester, ed., An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., written before theyear 1471…, Camden Society Publication No. 64 ([London]: 1856), p. 79 Google Scholar.

14 John W. McKenna has indicated how ill the reality of Henry VI's character and personality accord with the image which is the center of his posthumous cult of sainthood. Describing the real Henry as a mixture of “charming indifference and exasperating incompetency” he points out that some at least of his contemporaries considered him to be dour and puritanical, a poor feudal lord and a bad businessman, and terms him “the greatest single disaster” in saintly royalty since Edward the Confessor. “Piety and Propaganda: the cult of King Henry VI,” in Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour ofRossell Hope Robbins, ed. Beryl Rowland (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1974), p. 79.

15 Wolffe argues that, far from being a nonentity, Henry actually exerted too much control over the affairs of his government, too much that is, given the fact that his activities were divisive and his foreign policy aims (peace with France) unpopular. Thus by 1450 Henry had managed to neutralize the war effort, and produce both “creeping paralysis in the Council and government in home affairs, and a consequent collapse of respect for law and order by the great… . “ Wolffe, B. P., “The Personal Rule of Henry VI,” Fifteenth-Century England, 1399-1509, Studies in Politics and Society, ed. S. B. Chrimes, C. D. Ross and R. A. Griffiths (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1972), pp. 42–43 Google Scholar.

16 Wolffe, “The Personal Rule of Henry VI,” p. 44.

17 Bagley, pp. 23-26.

18 Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI, p. 262.

19 Crawford, “The King's Burden?,” p. 53.

20 It cost more than five thousand pounds to bring the dowerless Margaret to England and she was assigned a revenue of over six thousand pounds for her household— all this at a time when the crown was in desperate financial straits. Storey, R. L., The End of the House of Lancaster (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1966), p. 49 Google Scholar. Moreover, as Crawford shows (see above) Margaret's income was later substantially augmented.

21 Calendar of State Papers, Milan, I, 27, “Copy of News From England by Letters from Bruges, 1460,” reports that the English will probably make the son of the duke of York king by passing over prince Edward. The writer says the English are beginning to say that Edward is not the King's son. The anonymous fifteenth century chronicler similarly reports (c. 1459-1460), that “The quene was defamed and desclaundered, that he that was called Prince, was nat hir sone, but a bastard goten in avoutry… . “ Davies, An English Chronicle, p. 79.

22 Crawford, “The King's Burden?,” p. 53.

23 The Paston Letters, IV, 297. Newsletter of John Stodeley.

24 The Paston Letters, IV, 297.

25 Griffiths, who has examined surviving records of three meetings of Henry VI's council in 1453-1454, concludes that the council was not simply the creature of the duke of York, and its creation not to be interpreted simply as a decisive victory of the Duke over the Queen and court at that point in time. Rather he sees it as the solution of a cautious nobility as yet reluctant to meddle with the royal authority, but also unwilling to accept the Queen as regent. It not only included those supportive of York but also a “strong element” of those who had long served Henry VI. Griffiths, Ralph A., “The King's Council and the First Protectorate of the Duke of York, 1453-1454,” English Historical Review, 99 (1984), 77 Google Scholar.

26 Wolffe, “The Personal Rule of Henry VI,” p. 31, mentions the gentleman of Reading who in 1444 was sentenced to be drawn, hanged and quartered because he was unwise enough to quote from the Bible the apostrophe, “Woe, to thee, O land, when thy king is a child.” Lest this be thought characteristic only of the early part of the period, Ross mentions a John Holton who in 1456 suffered the same penalty “for writing bills touching the person of the king,” Charles Ross, “Rumor, Propaganda and Popular Opinion During the Wars of the Roses,” in Patronage the Crown and the Provinces, a collection of essays ed. by Griffiths, cited above.

27 Wolffe, “The Personal Rule of Henry VI,” p. 32.

28 Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI, p. 217.

29 Allan, Alison, “Yorkist propaganda: Pedigree, prophecy and the ‘British History' in the reign of Edward IV,” in Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Late Medieval England, ed. Charles Ross (Gloucester, England: Alan Sutton, 1979), pp. 171–176 Google Scholar.

30 Gransden, Antonia, “Propaganda in Medieval English Historiography,” The Journal of Medieval History, 1 (1975), 375–377 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Denys Hay points out that the absence of chivalrous history in the tradition of Froissart, is also characteristic of English historiography in the fifteenth century, “History and Historians in France and England During the Fifteenth Century,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 35 (1962) 116. This last may have been unfortunate for Margaret, since her story could have fitted into a pattern of chivalric romance.

31 Crawford, “The King's Burden?” p. 52.

32 Although they were the center of the political process, kings were not expected to be partisan either. Partisanship suggests political participation in a situation where there was relative equality among members of competing groups or factions.

33 ThePaston Letters, III, 75.

34 The Paston Letters, III, 75.

35 Charles A. J. Armstrong notes that since sensitive information was usually supplied by the trusted bearer “this cautious habit has in general deprived historians of inestimable material, but nowhere more than in relation to the exchange of news.” To this one might add that it has also deprived them of invaluable expressions of personal opinion. “Some Examples of the Distribution and Speed of News in England at the Time of the Wars of the Roses,” in Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, R. W. Hunt, W. A. Pantin, R. W. Southern, eds. (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1948), p. 435.

36 Calendar of State Papers, Milan, I, 54-55, Prospero de Camulio, Milanese Ambassador to the French Court, to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, March 9, 1461, from Ghent. Ibid., I, 58. Prospero de Camulio to Cicho Symoneti, Secretary to the Duke of Milan, March 15, 1461, from Brussels.

37 The Commentaries of Pius II, Books II and III, trans. Florence Alden Gragg, with historical notes by Leona C. Gabel, Smith College Studies in History, Vol. 25 (Northampton, Massachusetts: Published by the Department of History of Smith College, 1939-1940) Book III, p. 268. The Pope wrote about the events of his time, usually within a few months of their occurrence. See Constance Head, “Pope Pius II and the Wars of the Roses,” Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 8 (1970), 140.

38 Commentaries of Pius II, III, p. 268. On the question of dating these passages see Constance Head, “Pope Pius II and the Wars of the Roses,” 167.

39 Commentaries of Pius II, Book III, p. 269.

40 The Commentaries of Pius II, Books VI and IX, trans. Florence Alden Gragg, with historical notes by Leona C. Gabel, Smith College Studies in History, Vol. 35 (Northampton, Massachusetts: Published by the Department of History of Smith College, 1951), Book IX, p. 576.

41 Commentaries of Pius II, Book IX, p. 578.

42 Commentaries of Pius II, Book IX, p. 580.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Warkworth, John, A Chronicle of the First Thirteen Years of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth, ed. James O. Halliwell, Camden Society Publication No. 10 ([London]: 1839), p. 18 Google Scholar. Gransden remarks that since the chronicler was writing under a Yorkist king, his “Lancastrian bias” cannot be ascribed to government propaganda. Gransden, Antonia, Historical Writing in England, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982), II, 259 Google Scholar.

46 Davies, An English Chronicle, p. 79.

47 The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, ed. James Gairdner, Camden Society Publication, New Series, No. 17 ([London]: 1876). Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles with Historical Memoranda by John Stowe the antiquary …, ed. James Gairdner, Camden Society Publication, New Series, No. 28 ([London]: 1880). The works are “A Short English Chronicle” and “Brief Note of Occurrences …“(MS Lambeth 448).

48 Hardyng, John, Chronicle, from the Earliest Period of English History (to 1461), together with the Continuation by Richard Grafton to 34 Henry VIII, ed. Henry Ellis (London: 1812), p. 457 Google Scholar.

49 Hardyng, p. 458.

50 Hardyng, p. 458.

51 Fabyan, Robert, The New Chronicles of England and France, ed. Henry Ellis (London: 1811)Google Scholar.

52 Gransden, Historical Writing in England, II, 247. Fabyan's approach to his material is also worthy of note. Levy describes him as “literary-minded”, not only collecting but comparing different accounts. Yet he also points out that while Fabyan approached a “system of criticism” he nevertheless showed little “sense of improbability.” Levy, F. J., Tudor Historical Thought (San Marino: California: The Huntington Library, 1967), pp. 19–21 Google Scholar.

53 Fabyan, p. 652.

54 Fabyan, p. 631. He mentions the question of the prince's legitimacy but without specifying adultery. The slander, as he tells it, was that the prince “was not the naturall sone of Kyng Henrye, but changydin the cradell.” Ibid., p. 628.

55 The larger plan was based the seven joys of the Virgin, with each joy represented in a book, as Gransden indicates. However, this did not affect the historical schema of the period under discussion here. Gransden, , Historical Writing in England, II, 246 Google Scholar.

56 Fabyan, p. 618. Drawing upon unspecified sources, he points out that the marriage was unprofitable in a number of ways. First was the loss of Maine and Anjou. Next were the charges for bringing Margaret to England, for which Suffolk “axyd in playne parlyment, a fyftene and an halfe” bringing down on himself that hatred of the people which led to his death. Finally, it was clear God was not pleased, since from the day of the marriage fortune deserted Henry, leaving all to be ruled by the queen. “All whiche mysery fyll, for brekying of the promyse made by the kyng unto the erle of Armenakkys dough ter… .“

57 Levy, , Tudor Historical Thought, pp. 55 Google Scholar and 173. Levy maintains that the history was directly related to the requirements of Henry VII's foreign policy in seeking recognition for his dynasty, and that the work was intended primarily for foreign consumption. This, in Levy's view, also helps to explain the relative brevity of Polydore's work and the fact that (being too brief in its coverage for English taste) no complete translation was published.

58 Polydore Vergil, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil: A. D. 1485-1537, ed. with a trans, by Denys Hay, Camden Society Publication No. 73, 3rd ser. (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1950), Introduction, ix-xliii. See also Hay, Denys, Polydore Vergil: Renaissance Historian and Man of Letters, (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1952)Google Scholar Chapt. 4, “Sources and Method of the Anglica Historica,” pp. 79-128.

59 That there are two cycles written at different times, Henry VI—Richard III, dating from 1590 and the earlier Richard II—Henry V, matters less for purposes of this discussion than the general conception of which they are both clearly a part.

60 Vergil, Polydore, Three Books of Polydore Vergil's English History comprising the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III, ed. Sir Henry Ellis, Camden Society Publications No. 29 (London: 1844) p. 70 Google Scholar.

61 Three Books of Polydore Vergil, p. 70.

62 Three Books of Polydore Vergil, p. 70. In emphasizing the masculinity of the Queen's character and behavior, Polydore is in marked contrast to his contemporary, Fabyan and points the way for later Tudor writers.

63 Three Books of Polydore Vergil, p. 70. Fabyan had merely noted how dissention had grown between Henry and some of his lords “most specyally atwene the quenys couceyll and ye duke of Yorke and his blode. For all contrary the kynges promyse, by meanys of the quene, which than bare ye cure and charge of the land, the duke of Somerset was set at large … “ and restored to his old favor and power. The New Chronicles, p. 628.

64 Three Books of Polydore Vergil, pp. 93-94.

65 Rather than pressing English history back to its mythical beginnings, Hall concentrated on the relatively brief period of the Wars of the Roses and the emergence of the Tudors who were clearly the heroes of his story. This schema, together with his enthusiastic partisanship for the Tudor cause, further heightened and simplified the coloration of his portraits. See Levy, Tudor Historical Thought, pp. 173-174. It would have been as easy to make Margaret a tragic heroine as a villainess. However, Hall's emphasis in dealing with her was always upon the impropriety of her behavior as a woman.

66 Three Books of Polydore Vergil, p. 102.

67 Ibid., p, 109.

68 Ibid., p. 154.

69 Hay, Polydore Vergil, pp. 131-132.

70 In first introducing Margaret, he refers to her “noble Acts” and speaks of her later as being wise and prudent. Three Books of Polydore Vergil, pp. 68, 71.

71 Cairncross emphasizes Shakespeare's “easy familiarity” with the whole of Hall's chronicle and says it was upon Hall, more than any other source that he based his interpretation of the dynasty, The Second Part of King Henry VI, Introduction, xli. Bullough agrees that the main source for this play, like Part III, seems to have been either Hall or Grafton. Bullough, Geoffrey, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), III, 90 Google Scholar. Certainly in both Parts II and III, the stamp of Hall's interpretation is firmly fixed upon the material pertaining to Margaret.

72 Three Books of Polydore Vergil, p. 68.

73 Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle … (Original title, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies ofLancastre and Yorks …, 1548), ed. Henry Ellis (London: 1809), p. 205. Grafton's Chronicle, 1, p. 625.

74 Hall, p. 220 and 232. Grafton, I, p. 641 and 653. Holinshed, III, 224 and 238.

75 Hay, Polydore Vergil, p. 134, indicates something of the difficulty Hall encountered in translating Polydore Vergil's prose and the way he had to “build up his meaning with a sonorous agglomeration of synonyms”. It might be argued that this process itself led to an intensification and simplification of meaning. But I would suggest that the process was a conscious one since many other descriptive words could have been attached to Margaret, pitiful, sorrowful, and noble to name only ones which were actually—but infrequently—employed.

76 Grafton, I, 657; Hall, p. 236.

77 Grafton, I, 670; Hall, p. 249.

78 Grafton, I, 628; Hall, p. 208.

79 Hall, p. 208, omitted in Grafton.

80 Grafton, I, 655; Hall, p. 234.

81 Grafton, I, 629; Hall, p. 208.

82 Grafton, I, 661; Hall, p. 241; Holinshed, p. 252.

83 Not all Shakespeare's sources took this view. Holinshed's chronicle is one notable exception.

84 “A Political Retrospect,” in Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, Composed During the Period from the Accession of Edward III to that of Richard III, Thomas Wright, ed. (London: 1861, reprinted by Kraus Reprints, 1965) II, 268-269.

85 Yates’ analysis of the Astraea image shows the complex and politically sophisticated underpinning for these personifications of Elizabeth's queenly power. Astraea combined the idea of the just virgin of the golden age with both imperial and religious imagery and was expressed in painting and engraving as well as literature. Yates, Frances A., Astraea: the Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), p. 39 Google Scholar. Deborah, Diana, Cynthia and Belphoebe are among the per sonifications examined by Elkin Calhoun Wilson in England's Eliza (New York: Octagon Books, 1966). Elizabeth herself showed concern for her image in a number of practical ways, from the pageantry of her public appearances, to the thought she devoted to revising and presenting her parliamentary speeches. Allison Heisch had pointed out the care with which the Queen matched her utterances (and their images) to a particular audience. “Queen Elizabeth I: Parliamentary Rhetoric and the Exercise of Power.” Signs, I (Autumn, 1975), 31—57.

86 Strong, Roy, Tudor and Jacobean Portraits (London HMSO, 1969), Plates 199 and 215Google Scholar. Strong gives a clear, rich and appropriately complex sense of the way in which the official pictographic image of the Queen became, at last, a mythic figure, towering above the realm of England, an image of almost cosmic power (here he was speaking specifically of the Ditchley portrait, but with reference to his general themes). Portraits of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 3. The production of portraits was (theoretically) controlled through official patterns, and unapproved representations were destroyed. Of course, formal and official propaganda played only a part in creating the Elizabethan image. Subjects both high and low responded on their own, repeating and elaborating images, and creating new verbal and pictographic representations.

87 See for example, Stone, Lawrence, The Family Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (New York: Harper and Row, 1977)Google Scholar and Schochet, Gordon J., Patriarchalism in Political Thought: The Authoritarian Family and Political Speculation and Attitudes Especially in Seventeenth-Century England (New York: Basic Books, 1975)Google Scholar, Chapter 3, “Patriarchalism in Tudor Political Thought,” to name but two significant titles out of an immense literature on the subject.

88 Loades has described some of the bitter invective levelled against Mary Tudor and indicates that by 1558 catholic propagandists had virtually given up and did not attempt to harness patriotic enthusiasm to the Queen and her cause. Open criticism continued to be suppressed. Loades, D. M., The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government, and Religion in England, 1553-1558 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979), pp. 393 and 440-441Google Scholar.

89 [Knox, John], The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women ([Geneva]: M. D. LVIII, reprinted New York: Da Capo Press, 1972), p. 9 Google Scholar.

90 [Aylmer, John], An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subiectes (Strassborowethe: [l559], reprinted New York: Da Capo Press, 1972)Google Scholar, sig. H3^v.

91 Aylmer, sig. N4^v and oI.

92 Paul Johnson has recounted how, in the period following the Babington Plot, Elizabeth was driven step by reluctant step toward Mary's execution, and suggests “she came close to a breakdown and, at times, to a total loss of judgment.” Elizabeth I (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974), p. 289. The story of Elizabeth's propaganda dealings with Mary Queen of Scots is dealt with in Images of a Queen: Mary Stuart in Sixteenth-Century Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964). She was equally politic in references to her sister, Mary Tudor.

93 An example is a passage cited in n. 77, above. In the accounts of Hall and Grafton, the Duke of York expects that Margaret (who is described as “a manly woman, usyng to rule and not to be ruled“), will resist his designation as Henry's heir. Holinshed includes the rest of the passage but omits the reference to the Queen's manly character. Hall, p. 249, Grafton, I, 670, Holinshed, p. 268.

94 Margaret first appeared in Henry VI, Part I but at the very end of the play and almost as an after-thought. Indeed, according to one school of thought she was tacked on to form a connection with Parts II and III, since the various parts probably were not composed at the same time.

95 William Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI, Act I, Scene iii, Line 146.

96 Shakespeare, William, The Third Part of King Henry VI, ed. Andrew S. Cairncross, The Arden edition of the Works of William Shakespeare, 2nd. ed. (London: Methuen, 1964)Google Scholar, Act i, Scene i, Lines 254-261.

97 ₃H6, I, iv, 91.

98 ₃H5, I, iv, 111—115 and 141-142.

99 ₃H6, 2, ii, 175.

100 ₃H6, 2, ii, 160.