That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.'
Ben Jonson's Prologue to Every Man in his Humour singles out the York and Lancaster plays (i.e. 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI and Richard III) among 'the ill customs of the age,' which purchase the delight of audiences by unjustifiable dramatic methods. He rebukes the authors who
'with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tiring-house bring wounds to scars.'
Jonson's contemporary and rival, the artist-architect Inigo Jones (1578–1652) has left a vigorous sketch of Jack Cade in costume, which may point to some otherwise unrecorded revival or adaptation of 2 Henry VI in the reign of James I or Charles I.[1]
A revision of 2 Henry VI, by the Restoration dramatist, John Crowne, was produced at the Duke of York's Theatre about 1681, and published in the same year with the title: Henry the Sixth; or, The Murder of the Duke of Glocester. This work begins with the quarrel of Gloucester and Cardinal Beaufort over King Henry's marriage, and, after presenting the death of both Humphrey and Beaufort, closes with the announcement of Suffolk's death and the success of Cade's revolt. The cast of characters is reduced to eleven, all save the Sheriff of London persons of the highest rank. Duke Humphrey was acted by Betterton and the Duchess Eleanor by Mrs. Betterton. Though in general Crowne follows the course of events in Shakespeare's play, as far as the middle of the fourth act, he retains little of Shakespeare's wording[2] and quite alters
- ↑ This drawing is reproduced in the Shakespeare Society volume, Sketches from Inigo Jones, etc., 1848.
- ↑ Crowne's Epistle to Sir Charles Sedley says: 'I call'd it
