“The gaudy, blabbing and remorseful day Is crept into the bosom of the sea.” —Henry VI   Eminent Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen provide a fresh new edition of the three-part classic history that revolves around the epic, dynastic Wars of the Roses.   THIS VOLUME ALSO INCLUDES MORE THAN A HUNDRED PAGES OF EXCLUSIVE FEATURES:   • an original Introduction to Henry VI • incisive scene-by-scene synopses and analyses with vital facts about the work • commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers • photographs of key RSC productions • an overview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career and chronology of his plays   Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions from the Royal Shakespeare Company set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century. “A remarkable edition, one that makes Shakespeare’s extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever.”—James Shapiro, professor, Columbia University, bestselling author of A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599   “A feast of literary and historical information.”— The Wall Street Journal William Shakespeare  (1564–1616) was a poet, playwright, and actor who is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers in the history of the English language. Often referred to as the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare's vast body of work includes comedic, tragic, and historical plays; poems; and 154 sonnets. His dramatic works have been translated into every major language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Jonathan Bate is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance literature at the University of Warwick. Widely known as a critic, award-winning biographer, and broadcaster, Bate is the author of several books on Shakespeare. He is also the principal editor of the Modern Library’s and Royal Shakespeare Company’s highly acclaimed  William Shakespeare: Complete Works. Eric Rasmussen , a professor of English at the University of Nevada, is one of today's leading textual experts on Shakespeare. Part One Introduction Throughout much of the fifteenth century, England had suffered the ravages of civil war. From the long struggles between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, the so-called Wars of the Roses, the country had emerged in 1485 shaken but united at last under the strong rule of the Tudors. To Elizabethans, this period of civil war was still a recent event that had tested and almost destroyed England’s nationhood. They were, moreover, still troubled by political and dynastic uncertainties of their own. Queen Elizabeth, granddaughter of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, was unmarried and aging, and her successor unchosen. Her Catholic enemies at home and abroad plotted a return to the ancient faith renounced by Henry VIII in his reformation of the church. Spain had attempted an invasion of England with the great Armada in 1588, perhaps two years before Shakespeare began writing his Henry VI plays. It was in such an era of crisis and patriotic excitement that the Henry VI plays first appeared. Indeed, they helped to establish the vogue of the English history play, which was to flourish throughout the 1590s. England’s civil wars could be studied and analyzed now, from a perspective of over one hundred years later, and perhaps could provide a key to the present time. At hand was a new edition of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, 1587, along with the earlier chronicle writings of Robert Fabyan, John Stow, and Richard Grafton, as well as Edward Hall’s Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Families of Lancaster and York, John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments of Martyrs, and A Mirror for Magistrates. How had these wars begun? Elizabethans searched for an answer, not in economic or social terms, but in religious and moral ones. According to a traditional and government-sponsored explanation, reflected to a large extent (though with many contradictions) in the chronicles of Edward Hall, and familiar to Shakespeare whether he agreed with it or not, the Wars of the Roses were a manifestation of God’s wrath, a divine punishment inflicted on the English people for their wayward behavior. The people and their rulers had brought civil war on themselves by self-serving ambition, arrogance, and disloyalty. King Henry VI’s grandfather, Henry IV, had come to the throne in 1399 by deposing and then executing his own cousin, Richard II (a momentous event, to be portrayed by Shakespeare in a later history play). Henry VI was himself an infant when he succeeded to the throne in 1422, owing to the untimely death of his father, Henry V. Too young at first to rule and never blessed with his father’s ability to act decisively, Henry VI was utterly unable to halt the struggle for power that developed among members of his large and discordant family. Ultimately, his very title to the throne was cha