Edward III Acts 3 – “Sweet flowering peace, the root of happy life, is quite abandoned and expulst the land…”

Edward III Acts 3 – “Sweet flowering peace, the root of happy life, 
is quite abandoned and expulst the land…”

I realize that many people don’t know where King Edward III sits in the history of England and why Shakespeare would write a play (or contribute 40-80% to a play) about him. Edward III himself, like Edward III the play, has faded a bit into obscurity. He was a Plantagenet king and they come before the Lancaster and York kings and their War of the Roses. Coming after Edward II (of course) Edward III is the precursor to Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Edward IV, Henry VI (again), Edward IV (again), Edward V, Richard III and, of course, all this happens before the first Tudor rulers of Henry VII and then Henry VIII. But what was he known for and why would an Elizabethan playwright even write about him?

Edward III, like Elizabeth the First, had great military successes that often turned in his favor due to the weather. Like Elizabeth brought stability and authority after Henry VIII and the musical monarch chair game of Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey (the 9 day Queen) and Mary I, Edward III calmed England after the disastrous reign of his own father Edward II. He also, like Elizabeth did during the hard years of 1593, brought in acts and some successful legislation to curb the effects of the Plague. He also reigned for over 50 years and lived until he was 57. Elizabeth the First lived for 69 years and reigned for 45 years. So perhaps the play is a tribute to Elizabeth and her age, her military successes, her long life and her attempts to beat the plague.

On to Act 3 and the French Camp at Flanders. The French discuss preparations to take on the English. King John of France, has the help of all of Europe. Well, maybe not all of Europe but at least the Polonians (the people of Poland), the Danes, the Bohemians and the Sicilians have turned up to the French party though I guess it was moreso for the food than the fight. A Mariner brings news of the arrival of the English fleet sparking desperate preparations and then leaves the stage to change scenery and prepare costumes for the next scene. King John and his son Philip discuss the semantics of Edward being unable to claim the French throne because John already sits on it. This is decidedly unfunny. The Mariner arrives back and tells the bloody tale of the first French defeat. This is a precursor to the bloody Captain in Macbeth who tells of Macbeth’s successes.

We then switch to the roses of Picardy where French citizens, still to discover the joys of coffee, tobacco and the café, which won’t arrive in France until the 17^th century (long after the British style coffee house was established). They discuss who has the best claim to the throne, throw around a few prophecies and, like most citizens, solve all the problems of the world in conversation.

Meanwhile King Edward commends the French traitor Gobin de Grace, for helping him (the English love a good traitor as long as it is not their own). News of more successes arrives. The king is sad to hear of so many deaths but celebrates his success anyway. King John enters and he and Edward trade insults.

“If gall or wormwood have a pleasant taste,


Then is thy salutation honey sweet…”

King John retaliates in kind, matching verbal blow for blow.

“This Champion field shall be a pool of blood,


And all our prospect as a slaughter house.”

Delivering a Henry V style rallying speech to his men, King John bids the English to do battle. Edward accepts the French challenge and arms his son the prince, who is about to participate in his first actual battle. The prince is properly armed and the men prepare to do battle.

We then move onto Cressi and French are retreating and King John is told that the garrison that arrived from Paris wanted time off after their journey from Paris. He seems a little disappointed, heaven knows why. Meanwhile King Edward hears that his son has been captured but he is a bit old fashioned and thinks that his son should be a man and fight for himself. The ‘new age’ lords are upset, but soon prince Edward arrives back with the body of the King of Bohemia. He describes the battle and the king orders the young Prince Edward and Poitiers to chase after King John while King Edward and Derby try to take Calais begirting “…that haven town with siege.”

Edward III Act 2 – “I might perceive his eye in her eye lost..."

Edward III Act 2 – “I might perceive his eye in her eye lost,
His ear to drink her sweet tongue's utterance… so much moving hath a Poet's pen…”

Perhaps Shakespeare had Southampton looking over his shoulder when he wrote ‘Venus and Adonis’ and Act 2 Scene1 of ‘Edward III’ is a rendition of real events showing that the aristocracy think that the only ingredients needed to write love poetry are a quill pen, ink, some paper and a heavy heart. Like the good diplomat he is, Lodowick (Edward III’s secretary) thinks that love has taken Edward’s eye off the real game, the campaign against the Scots. Edward decides that Lodowick has skills. No, not the skills for the campaign, but the poetic skills to help him do something much more important, to write a love poem.

“This fellow is well read in poetry,


And hath a lusty and persuasive spirit;


I will acquaint him with my passion…”

But, ultimately, Edward thinks that Lodowick “… has done ill…” and takes over the writing of the poem himself. Then, when his love the Countess enters, Edward III pretends that he has been planning drone strikes and secret raids and Desert Storm-style attacks instead of admitting his more destructive pursuits of attacking, destroying and flattening rhythm, rhyme and metaphors. He then reveals to the Countess that he loves her. She seems to accept his advances until she remembers that she is married and that she should find her “… sovereign in my (her) husband’s love”. She also remembers that Edward is also married and then she promptly exits stage right.

Edward then asks Warwick (the Countess’ father) to do the “… devil's office… “ for him so that the Countess will become his mistress. Warwick reluctantly agrees to this “detestable office” but when Warwick tells this to his daughter, she is taken back that the king means to “stain my (her) honest blood… corrupt the author of my (her) blood…” The Countess is so upset with this “shame” that she proclaims, “… let me die… before I will consent to be an actor in his graceless lust.”

Meanwhile, at least some people are discussing the war. Derby and Lord Audley are discussing strategy and allegiances when the melancholic Edward III arrives. Soon after, Prince Edward arrives and talks of the forces he has assembled to support the king in attacking the French. His son’s resemblance to his mother, makes King Edward, logically, think on war but then the Countess enters again and accepts his love but suggests:

“… Your Queen and Salisbury, my wedded husband,


Who living have that title in our love,


That we cannot bestow but by their death.”

Edward III, not one for subtlety or forethought, resolutely proclaims:

“… thy husband and the Queen shall die.”

The Countess, being a prototype for Lady Macbeth and being from the North of England, believes in separation of duties and unionism and she (a little too eagerly) produces two Wilshire sharp knives and suggests:

“Take thou the one, and with it kill thy Queen…

And with this other I'll dispatch my love…”

She then bizarrely threatens to take her own life if Edward does not desist in making advances towards her.

“
Either swear to leave thy most unholy suit


And never hence forth to solicit me;


Or else, by heaven, this sharp pointed knife


Shall stain thy earth with that which thou would stain,


My poor chaste blood…”

Edward agrees and turns his mind towards his other promiscuous lustful love - unsolicited war on two fronts.

Edward III Act 1 – “… I come to bring thee peace, However thereby I have purchased war.”

Edward III Act 1 – “… I come to bring thee peace, However thereby I have purchased war.”

Some people claim that Shakespeare did not write The Raign of Kind Edvvard the Third (commonly called Edward III). This play, more than any other attributed to Shakespeare, raises the battle flags of ownership and forces one to defend oneself with the crossbows of critical awareness. I believe that Edward III is mostly Shakespeare’s due to the marriage of a computer and its unassuming mercurial wife – instinct.

I read Edward III some days in the book I paid for, the printed version of the Complete Works of Shakespeare (if it is published there, surely it is Shakespeare’s) and some nights on my computer screen looking at a free digital version. This makes me think about how we attribute work (and value through paying for it) works to an author such as Shakespeare. It also raises for me questions of ownership.

Having taught many A Level, IB and VCE students, we often check ownership through computer programs and websites like Turnitin.com or through interviewing students. In 2009, Brian Vickers ran most of Shakespeare’s plays through a plagiarism and computer matching program (similar on one level to some used by computer dating firms). He found that Edward III has a 40% chance of being Shakespeare’s. If this was a piece of work from one of my students, I would then want to scrutinize this further and look at other work by the student and interview the student. Since little William Shakespeare has not responded to my emails or texts and has not made a time to come and see me due to his own death, I have to use my instinct.

I could probably go on to explain how my instinct is working when I read a piece of writing. I let the text wash over me (terribly unsophisticated, I know) and probably take in the diction, syntax (in a Chomsky-like fashion), cadence (more musical than literary), rhythms, speed, pace of action, narrative progression and narrative structure (as influenced by Aristotle, Todorov, Propp Levi-Strauss and Joseph Campbell). Hang on, I think my explanation of letting the text wash over me is clearer and more succinct. I have read all of the plays and poetry attributed to Shakespeare and I have acted in 5 Shakespeare plays and directed some 7 different Shakespeare plays so I know a little, but I am not an expert. My instinct tells me that Edward III is not all Shakespeare’s, but that a substantial amount, especially the scenes with Edward and the Countess of Salisbury is little William Shakespeare’s. If he was student, I would probably predictably ask him to cite his sources and rewrite large passages before re-submitting.

Edward III was first published in 1596 but was printed anonymously and was not included in the First Folio version of Shakespeare’s Complete Works. It is now commonly listed in his works including my own printed paid for copy. So did Shakespeare write Edward III. Maybe we should look at why it would not have been included in the First Folio. The play takes so many gibs and swipes at the Scots, that the Shakespeare who embraced and got patronage from James I of England (formerly James VI of Scotland) would probably not want an openly anti-Scottish play heralding his name as a racist.

Another reason could be that Shakespeare pulled a ‘bit of a swifty’ in 1596 and anonymously made some money out of the printing of the play when he wasn’t the sole author of its contents. The printing of plays like Titus Andronicus  and Richard III had probably earned Shakespeare some money over the lean plague-ridden year of 1593. The ‘rights’ for the performance of a play were normally straightforward and since Henslow had probably paid Shakespeare to write the plays, Henslow (having commissioned the plays and owning the theatre) got the majority of the profits from the performances. Actors and playwrights often would anonymously get their scripts copied and printed to make money after a play had been performed. Parts of Edward III seem more like Thomas Kyd and some other parts don’t seem like Kyd or Shakespeare’s. Someone had something to hide as they made money on the 1596 printing of the play and perhaps it was Shakespeare. Now on to the play.

The Raign of Kind Edvvard the Third – Act 1

Right and succession are on the agenda as King Edward III (King of England) and Robert Artois speak. Philip IV of France has died and due to French Sallic Law, the French cannot put a woman on the throne. Isabelle, King Edward III’s own mother (although being the rightful last heir) cannot take up the French throne, so Edward argues that he is owed that throne to add to his collection. King John wants to put a dampener on this as do the Scots who have crossed Hadrian’s Wall and are invading England. Edward takes charge and decides (without the help of NATO, drones or a Tardis) to fight the French and the Scots at the same time.

Meanwhile, in Roxborough, the Countess of Salisbury has been captured by the Scots and she overhears a conversation between King David and Douglas about who should take her jewels and who should ravish her. A messenger arrives to announce that English army has arrived and the Countess reappears and mocks the Scots. Whether due to her biting tongue or the imminent arrival in the wings of actors dressed as English soldiers wielding pikes and sords, the Scots flee. King Edward then arrives and he and the Countess flirt. While her husband is away in the wars so the Countess will play. She entices Edward to stay for a little bit longer.