Henry VI Part 1

“Fight till the last gasp.” King Henry VI, Part 1 is the first in a sequence of four history plays written by renowned English playwright and national poet, William Shakespeare, between 1589 and 1592. The four plays are collectively called The First Tetralogy. The other three plays in the sequence are King Henry VI, Part 2; King Henry VI, Part 3; and King Richard III. All four plays focus on the Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York. King Henry VI, Part 1 covers the early years of King Henry’s reign. It includes the famous scene in which Richard Plantagenet (later Duke of York), chooses a white rose and John Beaufort, Earl (and later Duke) of Somerset, picks a red rose, respectively, as the emblem of the houses of York and Lancaster. The scenes in the play flit between the power struggles at the English court and the war in France in detail. Towards the end of King Henry VI, Part I, the Earl of Suffolk, who persuades King Henry to marry Margaret of Anjou, plans to use the matrimonial union to grab power for himself.