King Henry VI

Plays

Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3

Summary

Henry VI is the pious, gentle, and profoundly ineffectual king whose inability to command authority or resolve conflict allows the feuding nobility to tear England apart. More suited to a monastery than a throne, he watches helplessly as the Wars of the Roses erupt around him, at times voluntarily surrendering the crown, and is finally murdered in the Tower of London.

Notable Quotations

"I always thought / It was both impious and unnatural / That such immanity and bloody strife / Should reign among professors of one faith." *(1 Henry VI, 5.1)*

"Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne, / And could command no more content than I? / No sooner was I crept out of my cradle / But I was made a king, at nine months old." *(2 Henry VI, 4.9)*

"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, / Thereby to see the minutes how they run." *(3 Henry VI, 2.5)*

"So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf; / So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, / And next his throat unto the butcher's knife." *(3 Henry VI, 5.6)*

Cross-references