“Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485”, by John Julius Norwich

432 pages, Scribner, ISBN-13: 978-0743200318

There can be no doubt about it: William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was one of the – if not THE – greatest playwrights and authors of the English language (as for all you Oxfordians, spare me: Edward de Vere was just a 16^th Century nobleman and nothing more. Quit it). As an historian, however, he was shit; as the late John Julius Norwich makes clear in Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485, the Bard gets so many, many, MANY facts and dates and details wrong in his history plays that, would they ever to be graded by a proper historian, he no doubt would be sent back several grades for remedial education. Or, perhaps, we should lay the blame at the feet of Raphael Holinshed, the author of Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland and Shakespeare’s go-to source for so many of his British history plays and, thus, for all of those historical inaccuracies. Ah, well: read the plays for their poetry, their verve and their action, and take their accuracy with a grain of salt – or, I should say, several tablespoons worth of salt. Norwich has long been one of my favorite popular historians and have always found his histories among the best-written and informative works in the field. With Shakespeare’s Kings he endeavored to compare several of Shakespeare’s “History Plays” with the historical record of the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses, those plays being:

• The Raigne of King Edward the Third 
• The Life and Death of King Richard the Second
• The First part of King Henry the Fourth 
• The Second part of King Henry the Fourth 
• History of Henry V 
• The first Part of Henry the Sixth 
• The second Part of Henry the Sixth 
• The third Part of Henry the Sixth 
• The Tragedy of King Richard III

The most interesting inclusion here is that of Edward III, a play that may or may not have been written in whole or in part by Shakespeare. While Norwich clearly knows both his history and his Shakespeare, this process does not lend itself to a much greater understanding of either Shakespeare or the period than one could obtain elsewhere. The biggest problem with the book is one of focus: is the comparison to be made with Shakespeare’s contemporary sources, or is it to be made with findings of modern scholarship on the period? Norwich never seems to make up his mind, and the result is an often maddeningly uneven book. Ultimately, Norwich seems to conclude that Shakespeare was rather loyal to the broad outlines of history, but that the Bard took many historical liberties as well which should come as a surprise to nobody, seeing as authors before and since continue to do the same damn thing. And so, rather than historical figures, Shakespeare’s Kings become archetypes, filled with virtues and flaws: Edward III is a womanizer; Richard II is an ignoramus; Henry IV a guilt-ridden usurper; Henry V an ideal heroic-king; Henry VI a pious fool; and Richard III is the black-hearted villain. Thus, Norwich’s conclusions about the period of history under examination are also rather modest, at best, while Shakespeare’s Kings shall live on for as long as English is spoken.