Henry VI Part 3 Act V - "Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee hither!"

Henry VI Part 3 Act V - "Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee hither!"

The end of ‘Henry VI Part 3’ is like ‘Games of Thrones’ or the opening sequence of ‘Gladiator’. Warwick lines up troops and Edward and Richard line up theirs. Warwick is given one last chance to come back to Edward’s side. Warwick sticks to his guns (no wonder people from Warwick are so loyal). Edward discloses that Henry has been imprisoned. Still Warwick sticks to his guns (he has only changed sides once in this twisted plot). Even George proves a traitor and joins Edward and attacks his own brother’s troops. I pity foot-soldiers over the years, first they are supporting one side and then the other. It’s like the late 1940’s all over again – “You mean the Soviets, who were our friends, are now our enemies?”

The imagery and metaphors flow as freely as the killings. Warwick is wounded and laments that, of all his lands, this patch of earth on which he is dying is all he now possesses. Warwick dies just as Margaret arrives with troops from France (French unions seeking better pay conditions for the military on overseas service, and customs’ checks delayed them. Margaret spurs her troops on with more nautical and sailing metaphors but alas metaphors, without the generous hyperboles of Henry V, are not enough. Henry VI watches on and laments, much as Hamlet does in that later play as he sees the approach of Fortinbras’ troops. Deep contemplation, like extended metaphors, apparently doesn’t win battles.

King Edward wins on the battlefield. Margaret, Oxford and Somerset are captured. Margaret and Henry VI’s son, Prince Edward, is captured and he refuses to give up his right to the throne and he is brutally stabbed to death by (King) Edward, Richard, and George. Margaret faints - her first sign of weakness. Richard quietly slips off to the Tower. Margaret recovers but is in anguish over her son’s brutal death and asks to also be killed. They refuse and she is lead away (besides she is contracted to play a cameo in Season 4 – ‘Richard III’).

Where did Richard go? Of course, Richard, unlike his brothers has only just started. He arrives at Henry's prison cell in the Tower. Henry has heard of his son’s death and tries to smother Richard in metaphoric comparisons to Daedalus and his son Icarus and even curses Richard:

“(They) Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.

The owl shrieked at thy birth--an evil sign...

Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,

To signify thou cam'st to bite the world"

Richard cuts Henry VI’s speech short and stabs Henry to death. Richard does not like long metaphoric comparisons or anyone commenting on his premature dental endowments.

Richard thinks over his unusual birth and believes that he was born feet first and with teeth for a reason and continues:

"Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,

Let hell make crooked my mind to answer it.”

With Henry and his son dead, Edward enters the throne room with Lady Gray, George, Richard, Hastings, and his infant son, Prince Edward. He decides to send Margaret back to France and starts his reign of bread and circuses. But we know that Richard feels no ties to honour or family and that soon he will upset King Edward’s party in his own quest for power…