Edward III Act 5 – “… peaceful quietness brings most delight, when most of all abuses are controlled.”

Edward III Act 5 – “… peaceful quietness brings most delight, when most of all abuses are controlled.”

“… peaceful quietness brings most delight,


When most of all abuses are controlled.”

For a Shakespearean history, Edward III is little soppy and under baked at the end, which makes me think that The Bard Rating of 51% is about right for this play. Enough votes for a ruler to govern but not enough for a ruler to rule. It certainly ends all’s well that ends well, as you like it with the females tamed and the play shrewless with two (or more) gentlemen of France captured. But it lacks the shock factor and tortures of a Titus Andonicus or the political machinations and motivated characterization of a Richard III or even the rousing and cleverly staged battle scenes of the Henry VI plays.

Queen Phillipa and King Edward start Act 5 by having domestic at Calais. King Edward wins this argument but then gets upset and states that he will invade the town of Calais. Kings often invade towns when they feel thwarted by their queens. A group of seemingly normal-looking French citizens dressed in rags plead clemency. King Edward, who has probably read many Medieval crime fiction poems, realizes that these men are noblemen in disguise, so he decides to spare the town but put these men to death. Queen Phillipa cuts in and asks for these men to be spared and suggests that they serve King Edward when he takes over France as their king. Queen Phillipa wins this argument and Edward III agrees to release the men. Very un-Shakespearean. Richard III would have never done this.

Copland (remember that he is the guy who drove the Scots back to their side of Hadrian’s wall, captured the Scottish King Davis but would not hand him up to Queen Phillipa) arrives with his captive King David and he hands him over to Edward. Phillipa wants revenge but King Edward asks Copland why he wouldn’t hand King David up to the Queen and Copland sucks up to Edward and states that an important prisoner like King David should be given to a revered regent like King Edward in person.

“His name I reverence, but his person more;


His name shall keep me in allegiance still,


But to his person I will bend my knee.”

Edward, being flattered for the first time that day, likes this answer so much, that he knight’s Copland.

Salisbury, after all his delays and travel problems. enters and gives the king the coronet he received from Mountford (or some reason he didn’t trust either the French or English postal services). After a very long description of his capture, it is revealed that the Prince Edward faces insurmountable odds and is presumed to have died. Phillipa is a bit upset with the men. Suddenly, a herald announces the prince's miraculous survival and Prince Edward approaches with King John and his sons as prisoners. The prince, not to be outdone by Salisbury’s present of a coronet, upstages Salisbury and King Edward and presents his father with King John and Edward as prisoners. King John just wants to get back to some French party and demands to know what his ransom will be. Edward knows all this and states what the ransom will be but states that John must accompany him back to England first. Prince Edward upstages King Edward again, and makes a rousing patriotic speech.

“And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear…

I wish were now redoubled twenty fold,


So that hereafter ages, when they read


The painful traffic of my tender youth…”

King Edward decides to stay a few more days in Calais to celebrate Prince Edward reaching manhood, and to consume French wine and food and maybe even play dress-ups with the half dozen cross dressing local nobles he met earlier in the scene.

Shakespeare, or at least more than 51% of him, returns in The Rape of Lucrece.