Who, wond’ring at him, did his words allow.
Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow,
And that deep vow which Brutus made before
He doth again repeat, and that they swore.
When they had sworn to this advised doom
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence,
To show her bleeding body thorough Rome,
And so to publish Tarquin’s foul offence;
Which being done with speedy diligence,
The Romans plausibly did give consent
To Tarquin’s everlasting banishment.
EDWARD III
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND OTHERS
FIRST heard of in the Stationers’ Register for I December 1595, The Reign of King Edward the Third was published anonymously in the following year, with the statement that it had been ‘sundry times played about the City of London’. As was usual, there are no act and scene divisions; we divide it only into scenes. It could have been written at any time between the Armada of 1588 and 1595. Like other plays of this period, including Shakespeare’s I Henry VI, Richard II, and King John, it is composed entirely in verse, much of it formal and rhetorical in style. Shakespeare seems at least to have known the play, since a historical error placing King David of Scotland among Edward’s prisoners at Calais (10.40-56, 18.63.1) occurs also in Henry V (1.2.160-2). The play’s omission from the First Folio is good presumptive evidence against Shakespeare’s sole authorship. It was, however, attributed to him in a totally unreliable catalogue of 1656; better worth taking seriously is the attribution to Shakespeare by Edward Capell, expressed in 1760. Since then various scholars have proposed that Shakespeare wrote at least the scenes involving the Countess of Salisbury (Scene 2, Scene 3). When the Oxford edition first appeared, its editors remarked that ‘if we had attempted a thorough reinvestigation of candidates for inclusion in the early dramatic canon, it would have begun with Edward III’ (Textual Companion, p. 137). Since then intensive application of stylometric and other tests of authorship, along with an increased willingness to acknowledge that Shakespeare collaborated with other writers, especially early and late in his career, has strengthened the case for including it among the collected works. We believe, however, that Shakespeare was responsible only for Scene 2 (from the entrance of Edward III) and Scene 3, and for Scene 12 (which includes a Hamlet-like meditation on the inevitability of death), and possibly Scene 13, and that one or more other authors wrote the rest of the play.
The play’s treatment of history, deriving principally from Lord Berners’s translation (1535) of Froissart’s Chronicles, is loose. As with Henry V, the opening episode shows the English king seeking reassurance about his claims to the throne of France. Lorraine’s subsequent demand that Edward swear allegiance to the French king meets with derision. Attention turns to England’s relations with Scotland, where King David, France’s ally, has besieged the castle of Roxburgh, imprisoning the Countess of Salisbury. Edward instructs his son Edward (Ned) the Black Prince to raise troops against France; Edward himself will march against the Scots. At Roxburgh the King rescues and attempts to seduce the Countess, who is also desired by King David and Sir William Douglas. In the principal scenes ascribed to Shakespeare, the enraptured King expresses his passion in attractively lyrical verse recalling that of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. He attempts to persuade the Earl of Warwick, the Countess’s father, to further his suit, but the Countess, virtuous (and married), repudiates his adulterous desires, threatening to kill herself if he persists. Penitent, he reverts to the French conflict. This, presented in episodes of ambitious rhetoric rather than of violent action, reaches its first climax in young Edward’s conquest over the King of Bohemia, for which his father knights him. Edward’s queen, Philippa, who with her followers has overcome the Scots, joins him, and persuades him to show mercy to the burghers of the besieged town of Calais. Young Edward, believed dead, is revealed as the conqueror of the French, and the play ends with a jingoistic English triumph. It has had a few modern productions, including one by the Royal Shakespeare Company in
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
The English
KING EDWARD III
QUEEN PHILIPPA, his wife
Edward, PRINCE OF WALES, their eldest son
The EARL OF SALISBURY
The COUNTESS OF SALISBURY, his wife
The EARL OF WARWICK, the Countess’s father
Sir William de MONTAGUE, Salisbury’s nephew
The EARL OF DERBY
Sir James AUDLEY
Henry, Lord PERCY
John COPLAND, an esquire, later knighted
LODOWICK, King Edward’s secretary
Two SQUIRES
A HERALD to King Edward from the Prince of Wales Four heralds who bear the Prince of Wales’s armour Soldiers
Allied with the English
Robert, COMTE D’ARTOIS and Earl of Richmond
Jean, COMTE DE MONTFORT, later Duc de Bretagne
GOBIN de Grace, a French Prisoner
The French
Jean II de Valois, KING OF FRANCE
Prince Charles, Jean’s eldest son, Duc de Normandie, the DAUPHIN
PRINCE PHILIPPE, Jean’s younger son
The DUC DE LORRAINE
VILLIERS, a prisoner sent as an envoy by the Earl of Salisbury to the Dauphin
The CAPTAIN OF CALAIS
Another FRENCH CAPTAIN
A MARINER
Three HERALDS to the Prince of Wales from the King of France, the Dauphin and Prince Philippe
Six POOR MEN, residents of Calais
Six SUPPLICANTS, wealthy merchants and citizens of Calais
Five other FRENCHMEN
A FRENCIIWOMAN with two children
Soldiers
Allied with the French
The KING OF BOHEMIA
A POLISH CAPTAIN
Polish and Muscovite soldiers
David II, KING OF SCOTLAND
Sir William DOUGLAS
Two Scottish MESSENGERS
The Reign of King Edward the Third
Sc. 1 Enter King Edward, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Warwick,⌉ Edward Prince of Wales, Lord Audley and the Comte d’Artois
KING EDWARD
Robert of Artois, banished though thou be
From France thy native country, yet with us
Thou shalt retain as great a seigniory:
For we create thee Earl of Richmond here.
And now go forwards with our pedigree:
Who next succeeded King Philippe of Beau?
COMTE D’ARTOIS
Three sons of his, which all successively
Did sit upon their father’s regal throne,
Yet died and left no issue of their loins.
KING EDWARD
But was my mother sister unto those?
COMTE D’ARTOIS
She was, my lord, and only Isabel
Was all the daughters that this Philippe had,
Whom afterward your father took to wife.
And from the fragrant garden of her womb
Your gracious self, the flower of Europe’s hope,