A few notes on "The Revenge of Queen Margaret"

(Plus Act Two, Scenes 1 and 2)

I’ve had some compelling responses to the first peek at “The Revenge of Queen Margaret,” my Shakespeare adaptation, and I’ve learned some new things, so I thought I’d post a few notes on process and background, for those interested.

I’ll also post another two scenes below—jumping all the way into Act Two—as an example of some of the things I’m talking about here. If you know the plays it’s drawn from, you’ll have a sense of the violence my “restoration” has done to the original plot(s), and the huge raft of sequences and characters I’ve cut, to the point where the whole original Henry VI sequence really lies on the ground, bleeding out, while this play rises from the corpse as its own thing.

That’s just how it had to be.

As I noted in the first post, all of the (spoken) language appears in the four originals, somewhere, though by no means always where it appears in this play, and not always uttered by the same characters. There’s also some director-style cleanup and signposting—no multiple names, no shared names, little identifiers dropped in—and a lot of placing characters in scenes where they don’t appear in the originals, etc., etc. There’s one composite character (not in the scenes below). The stage directions are mine, and they’re only there to help a reader. A director would take what I think or hope is going on and throw the directions out at will.

When I first had this idea, I was pleased to think that I was the only person who ever did. Ha (he laughed hollowly). I’ve now read other versions, and heard and read in some detail about still others. There’s a very interesting critical essay on the subject by Charlene V. Smith, which I found out about only because I posted the first scene and the author kindly commented. It’s published in a very expensive reference work, The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespeare’s Queens; I found the book via an online lending service.

My goal at the outset of the project was very simple: avenge Margaret’s being cut out of productions by Olivier, McKellen, and so many others. My weapons included “no riffing, no explanations, no apologies, no effort at relatability or logic, no language not from the four plays, nothing—nothing—that’s not about Margaret, with Margaret pushed to the front everywhere possible.” From those basic principles, things … developed … and got less simple, though I think the action has gotten more and more straightfoward.

Since this is a jump-ahead from the first scene I posted, you won’t know what’s gone on in between (though I think it should be pretty obvious that Suffolk’s dead!). I’m posting more for flavor than for plot, though there definitely is one. I also think York’s genealogy speech in Scene 2 is one of the funniest things in Shakespeare.

FYI Ned is Margaret’s son, heir to the throne, renamed here (it’s what Margaret calls him in the originals) to avoid confusion with Edward of York. In this play, we’ve seen Ned before, as a baby. The stuff Margaret says in quotes is from her final exchange with Suffolk.

I continue to advise not reading this on mobile.

Anyway, I’m not going to post any more of these scenes here. If I publish the whole thing, it’ll be somewhere else.

ACT TWO

SCENE 1

The court, a few years later. The severed head of Suffolk on a table, Margaret observing it, with Ned, now a small boy, and the Ladies. Henry on the throne, the Other Lords giving him news.

MARGARET
(aside)
“This way for me”…

FIRST OTHER LORD
(to Henry)
Please it your Grace to be advertised—!

SECOND OTHER LORD
—The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland—!

FIRST OTHER LORD
—And with a puissant and a mighty power
Of gallowglasses and stout kerns,
Is marching hitherward in proud array!

MARGARET
(aside)
Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind
And makes it fearful and degenerate.

HENRY
How now, madam?
Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?

MARGARET
“Let me hear from thee,
For wheresoe’er thou art, in this world's globe,
I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.”

THE OTHER LORDS
Linger not, my lord!

MARGARET
“This way fall I, to death” . . . “This way for me”

HENRY
Come, Margaret. God, our hope, will succor us.

MARGARET
My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceased.

THE OTHER LORDS
Away! Take horse!

MARGARET
Think therefore on revenge, and cease to weep.
And while I live, I'll ne'er fly from a man. …
(to Henry)
We will not fly, but to our enemies' throats!

(Exeunt Margaret and Ned, followed by Henry and the Other Lords. Exeunt the Ladies, in haste, the other way.)

SCENE 2

The countryside. York addressing his Officers.

YORK
From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right,
And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head.
Ring, bells, aloud! Burn, bonfires, clear and bright
To entertain great England's lawful king!
Now give me leave to satisfy myself
In craving your opinion of my title,
Which is infallible, to England's crown.

FIRST OFFICER
My lord, I long to hear it at full.

YORK
Then thus:
Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons:
The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;
The second, William of Hatfield; and the third,
Lionel, Duke of Clarence; next to whom
Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;
The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;
The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;
William of Windsor was the seventh and last.
Edward the Black Prince died before his father
And left behind him Richard, his only son,
Who, after Edward the Third's death, reigned as king
Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,
The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,
Crowned by the name of Henry the Fourth,
Seized on the realm, deposed the rightful king,
Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came,
And him to Pomfret, where, as all you know,
Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.

SECOND OFFICER
The Duke hath told the truth.
Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.

THIRD OFFICER
But William of Hatfield died without an heir.

YORK
The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line
I claim the crown, had issue, Philippa, a daughter,
Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.
Edmund had issue, Roger, Earl of March.
Roger had issue: Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.
His eldest sister, Anne,
My mother, being heir unto the crown,
Married Richard, Earl of Cambridge, who was son
To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son.
By her I claim the kingdom. She was heir
To Roger, Earl of March, who was the son
Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippa,
Sole daughter unto Lionel, Duke of Clarence.
So, if the issue of the elder son
Succeed before the younger, I am king.

FIRST OFFICER
What plain proceedings is more plain than this?

OFFICERS
Long live our sovereign, England's king!

(Enter Margaret, followed by Henry and the Other Lords.)

MARGARET
For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,
But boldly stand and front him to his face.

YORK
(to Henry, ignoring Margaret)
Thou art not king,
That head of thine doth not become a crown.
Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,
And not to grace an awful princely scepter.
Here is a hand to hold a scepter up
And with the same to act controlling laws!
Give place. By heaven, thou shalt rule no more
O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.

MARGARET
Obey, audacious traitor. Kneel for grace!

YORK
(to Henry)
Wouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these
If they can brook I bow a knee to man.
(calling)
Call in my sons to be my bail!

(Enter York's grown sons, in age order: Edward, George, and Richard, the last bent over and walking with a limp.)

MARGARET
The bastard boys of York shall be the surety
For their traitor father?

YORK
See where they come, Edward, George, and Richard.
I'll warrant they'll make it good.

EDWARD
Ay, noble father.

GEORGE
If our words will serve.

RICHARD
And if words will not, then our weapons shall.

MARGARET
Why, what a brood of traitors have we here.

YORK
(calling, off)
Call hither to the stake my brave bear!
That, with the very shaking of his chains,
He may astonish these fell-lurking curs!

(Enter Warwick.)

HENRY
Why, Warwick? Hath thy knee forgot to bow?
Where is faith? Oh, where is loyalty?

WARWICK
My lord, I have considered with myself
The title of this most renowned duke.
And in my conscience do repute his Grace
The rightful heir to England's royal seat.

YORK
Now, by my father's badge,
The rampant bear chained to the ragged staff,
This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet.

MARGARET
And from thy burgonet we'll rend thy bear,
And tread it under foot with all contempt,
Despite the bearherd that protects the bear!
Give signal to the fight!

(Exeunt all.)