page_title: Henry VI, Part 2
section_title: Language
hierarchical_section_title: Henry VI, Part 2 / Analysis and criticism / Language
caption_attribution_description: English: Cardinal Beaufort's Bedchamber by Joshua Reynolds
context_page_description: Henry VI, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas Henry VI, Part 1 deals primarily with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict, 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, the death of his trusted adviser Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the rise of the Duke of York and the inevitability of armed conflict. As such, the play culminates with the opening battle of the War, the First Battle of St Albans.
  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.
context_section_description: Language, throughout the play, helps to establish the theme as well as the tone of each particular episode. For example, the opening speech of the play is an ornate, formal declaration by Suffolk:
  As by your high imperial majesty
  
  I had in charge at my depart for France,
  
  As Procurator to your excellence,
  
  To marry Princess Margaret for your grace,
  
  So in the famous ancient city Tours,
  
  In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,
  
  The Dukes of Orléans, Calabre, Bretagne, and Alençon,
  
  Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,
  
  I have performed my task and was espoused,
  
  And humbly now upon my bended knee,
  
  In sight of England and her lordly peers,
  
  Deliver up my title in the Queen
  
  To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
  
  Of that great shadow I did represent:
  
  The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,
  
  The fairest queen that ever king received.
   (1.1.1–16)
  The substance of Suffolk's speech is "As I was instructed to marry Margaret on your behalf, I did so, and now I deliver her to you." However, the formality of the scene and the importance of the event require him to deliver this message in heightened language, with the formal significance of Henry's marriage to Margaret mirrored in the formal language used by Suffolk to announce that marriage.
  Language conveys the importance of religion throughout the play. Henry's language often echoes the Bible. For example, hearing of the Cade rebellion, he comments "Ο graceless men, they know not what they do" (4.4.37), echoing the Gospel of Luke: "Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do" (23:34). Earlier in the play, he refers to heaven as "the treasury of everlasting joy" (2.1.18), recalling the Gospel of Matthew's "lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven" (6:20), and then a few lines later he muses "blessèd are the peacemakers on earth" (2.1.34), echoing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. On both of these occasions however, Cardinal Winchester, ostensibly a pious man, distorts Henry's genuine piety. After Henry's assessment of heaven, Winchester says to Gloucester, "Thy heaven is on earth, thine eyes and thoughts/Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart" (2.1.19–20). Then, after Henry praises peacemakers, Winchester hypocritically says, "Let me be blessèd for the peace I make,/Against this proud Protector with my sword" (2.1.35–36). The Cardinal mocks religion shortly before the murder of Gloucester. Speaking of the forthcoming murder, Suffolk says, "And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,/Say but the word and I will be his priest" (3.1.271–272), to which Winchester responds "But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,/Ere you can take due orders for a priest" (3.1.273–274), disdaining priesthood and trivialising murder. After Gloucester is dead, Winchester continues to blaspheme himself, proclaiming the death of Gloucester to be "God's secret judgement" (3.2.31), a callous and knowing distortion.
  Shakespeare uses language to distinguish between different types of characters. The courtly scenes tend to be spoken in blank verse, whereas the commons tend to speak in prose, with fewer metaphors and less decorative language (Shakespeare uses this contrast in several plays, such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, where prose marks the servants out from their masters). When power begins to go to Jack Cade's head, he begins to slip into a more courtly way of speaking. This is most noticeable in his adoption of the 'royal we', using phrases such as "our jurisdiction regal" (4.7.24), and "we charge and command" (4.7.116).
  The longest speech in the play is Margaret's lament to Henry after they have found Gloucester's dead body. This lengthy speech is full of classical allusions, elaborate metaphors and verbosity as Margaret moves through a litany of topics in an effort to make her point:
  Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
  
  What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
  
  I am no loathsome leper, look on me.
  
  What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
  
  Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.
  
  Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?
  
  Wh
caption: Cardinal Beaufort's Bedchamber by Joshua Reynolds (1788)
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