page_title: Henry VI, Part 1
section_title: Death of chivalry
hierarchical_section_title: Henry VI, Part 1 / Analysis and criticism / Themes / Death of chivalry
caption_attribution_description: Joan contemplates the situation in Henry VI, Part 1
context_page_description: Henry VI, Part 1, often referred to as 1 Henry VI, is a history play by William Shakespeare—possibly in collaboration with Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe—believed to have been written in 1591. It is set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England.
  Whereas Henry VI, Part 2 deals with the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles and the inevitability of armed conflict and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict, Henry VI, Part 1 deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, as the English political system is torn apart by personal squabbles and petty jealousy.
  Although the Henry VI trilogy may not have been written in chronological order, the three plays are often grouped together with Richard III to form a tetralogy covering the entire Wars of the Roses saga, from the death of Henry V in 1422 to the rise to power of Henry VII in 1485. It was the success of this sequence of plays that firmly established Shakespeare's reputation as a playwright.
  Some regard Henry VI, Part 1 as the weakest of Shakespeare's plays.
context_section_description: A fundamental theme in the play is the death of chivalry, "the decline of England's empire over France and the accompanying decay of the ideas of feudalism that had sustained the order of the realm." This is specifically manifested in the character of Talbot, the symbol of a dying breed of men honourably and selflessly devoted to the good of England, whose methods and style of leadership represent the last dying remnants of a now outmoded, feudal gallantry. As such, Michael Taylor refers to him as "the representative of a chivalry that was fast decaying," whilst Michael Hattaway sees him as "a figure for the nostalgia that suffuses the play, a dream of simple chivalric virtus like that enacted every year at Elizabeth's Accession Day tilts, a dream of true empire. He is designed to appeal to a popular audience, and his death scene where he calls for troops who do not appear is yet another demonstration of the destructiveness of aristocratic factionalism."
  One of the clearest examples of Talbot's adherence to the codes of chivalry is seen in his response to Fastolf's desertion from the battlefield. As far as Talbot is concerned, Fastolf's actions reveal him as a dishonourable coward who places self-preservation above self-sacrifice, and thus he represents everything wrong with the modern knight. This is in direct contrast to the chivalry that Talbot represents, a chivalry he remembers fondly from days gone by:
  TALBOT
  
  I vowed, base knight, when I did meet thee next,
  
  To tear the garter from thy craven's leg,
  
  Which I have done because unworthily
  
  Thou wast install'd in that high degree. – 
  
  Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest.
  
  This dastard, at the Battle of Patay,
  
  When but in all I was six thousand strong,
  
  And that the French were almost ten to one,
  
  Before we met, or that a stroke was given,
  
  Like to a trusty squire did run away;
  
  In which assault we lost twelve hundred men.
  
  Myself and divers gentlemen beside
  
  Were there surprised and taken prisoners.
  
  Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss,
  
  Or whether that such cowards ought to wear
  
  This ornament of knighthood: yea or no?
  GLOUCESTER
  
  To say the truth, this fact was infamous
  
  And ill beseeming any common man,
  
  Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.
  TALBOT
  
  When first this order was ordained, my lords,
  
  Knights of the garter were of noble birth,
  
  Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,
  
  Such as were grown to credit by the wars;
  
  Not fearing death nor shrinking for distress,
  
  But always resolute in most extremes.
  
  He then that is not furnished in this sort
  
  Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,
  
  Profaning this most honourable order,
  
  And should – if I were worthy to be judge – 
  
  Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain
  
  That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.
  (4.1.14–44)
  Talbot's description of Fastolf's actions stands in direct contrast to the image of an ideal knight, and as such, the ideal and the reality serve to highlight one another, and thus reveal the discrepancy between them.
  Similarly, just as Talbot uses knights to represent an ideal past, by remembering how they used to be chivalric, so too does Gloucester in relation to Henry V, who he also sees as representing a glorious and honourable past:
  England ne're had a king until his time.
  
  Virtue he had, deserving to command;
  
  His brandished sword did bind men with his beams,
  
  His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings,
  
  His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,
  
  More dazzled and drove back his enemies
  
  Than midday sun fierce bent against their faces.
  (1.1.8–14)
  Henry V has this function throughout much of the play; "he is presented not as a man but as a rhetorical construct fashioned out of hyperbole, as a heroic image or heraldic icon." He is seen as a representative of a celebrated past that can never be recaptured: "There is in the play a dominant, nostalgic, celebratory reminiscence of Henry V who lives on in the immortality of preternatural legend."
  The play, however, doesn't simply depict the fall of one order, it also depicts the rise of another; "How the nation 
caption: The Maid of Orléans by Henrietta Ward (1871)
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