King Edward III
Main Characters
King Edward III — king of England
Queen Philippa — Edward's wife
Prince Edward — Prince of Wales
Earl of Salisbury
Countess of Salisbury
Earl of Warwick
Sir William Montague
Earl of Derby
Lord Audley
Lord Percy
Sir John Copland
Lodowick — Edward's confidant
Robert of Artois
Earl of Montfort
Gobin de Grey
King John II (the Good) — king of France
Prince Charles (of Normandy) — John's son
Prince Philip — John's son
Duke of Lorrain
Lord Villiers — a French lord
King of Bohemia — aid to John
Polonian captain — aid to John
King David II of Scotland
Earl Douglas
Scottish messenger
Introduction
For over 400 years everyone but a handful of renegade critics have classified King Edward III as an anonymous play. First printed in 1596 by the London bookseller and publisher, Cuthbert Burby, the play's title page told Elizabethan readers that “it hath bin sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London,” but Burby credited no author. The play was likely successful at the time, for Burby published another edition in 1599, again without naming an author. Capell re-edited the play in his Prolusions (1760) and first put forward the claim that Shakespeare wrote the play.
Capell's assertions received some support in the nineteenth century, most significantly from the poet Tennyson, and in the twentieth century by distinguished Shakespearean Kenneth Muir. Still, the play has remained in the “apocrypha” sections of Shakespeare anthologies — that is, material reputed to be written by Shakespeare but unproven to be so.
Three problems hindered the play's acceptance: it was not mentioned in Francis Meres's book Palladis Tamia (1598), a work that listed Shakespeare's early plays; John Heminge and Henry Condell did not include the play in the First Folio of 1623; and the play is considered by some scholars not to display Shakespeare's writing ability.
Over the last few years critics have reassessed the play's merits and are beginning to argue that “hollow and insincere” passages are not reason enough to deny that Shakespeare wrote the drama. The writing in King Edward III measures up to Shakespeare's early work in the King Henry VI trilogy and King John.
In 1998, the Arden Shakespeare series (the leading publisher of William Shakespeare's works), the Cambridge University Press, and American Riverside Press included the play in their collected Shakespeare editions. Various publishers have used computer analysis of the play's text and language to verify its main source of authorship. King Edward III could yet prove a major addition to the Shakespearean canon, and while no one claims Shakespeare is the sole author (John Fletcher may have collaborated when Shakespeare retired in Stratford), he is considered the author of a significant part of the play.
King Edward III tells the story of the first campaigns of the Hundred Years' War and is likely one of Shakespeare's earliest works. Written in verse, the play opens with a scene similar to the first scene of King Henry V. The preparations for King Edward's campaign in France quickly give way to the romance of the king and the Countess of Salisbury.
Why, if Shakespeare wrote King Edward III, did it become a forgotten play and why was it omitted from the First Folio?
This is pure speculation, of course, but it can be considered an early play, possibly even his first. It's possible Shakespeare shelved the play because he was unhappy with it and decided to use parts of it for other plays. As a result it did not become part of the repertoire that Shakespeare revised and revived, and actors Heminges and Condell, who collected the plays for the First Folio, did not know the play was his.
The Play
King Edward opens the play by rejecting his political obligations to the French king and claiming the French Crown. The king instructs Prince Edward to prepare to invade France, while he himself repulses the Scots besieging the Roxborough castle in the north. The prince is eager to do the job right, and his youthful idealism is in contrast to his father's political opportunism.
Distracted by a Woman
Edward's campaign against the Scots is put on hold when he meets the Countess of Salisbury. He knows she is the wife of one of his loyal lords, but he becomes besotted with her nevertheless. Edward never confronts the Scottish king, forsaking war for lustful adultery. He commissions a poem from Lodowick, the court secretary, who seems to deliberately misunderstand the situation. Edward tries wooing her, but the Countess says she realizes he is only testing her honor.
The dramatic tension of King Edward III is built on the contrast between King Edward and his son Prince Edward, the Black Prince. The king is a somewhat passive, less-than-honorable father, while the prince is a genuinely honorable warrior son.
Edward exacted a thoughtless oath of loyalty from the Countess's father, the Earl of Warwick, and now asks him to win over the Countess to his adulterous desires. Warwick is reluctant to break his oath and discusses the matter with his daughter who, to his relief, rejects the king's proposition.
While Edward has been besieging the Countess, the prince has assembled an army to invade France. He then gets a message that the Countess is against war with France, and Edward now sees the invasion of France as a sin worse than adultery. The Countess demands that both her husband Salisbury and Queen Philippa be put to death. Edward says he can't do that because what she wants is “beyond our law,” and the Countess tartly replies, “So is your desire [for me].”
Edward reluctantly agrees, and the Countess pulls out two daggers, gives one to the king, and proposes that they kill their spouses by killing themselves, since they both carry the images of their spouses in their hearts. The Countess now adds that if he doesn't leave her alone, she'll kill herself right now. Edward realizes that while the Countess's suicide would certainly embarrass him politically, the war in France is a much better bet.
Returning to War
In France, Prince Edward becomes his father's steward in the battle. At one point the prince is surrounded and in trouble, but the king refuses to help him. If the prince can “redeem” himself he will “win a world of honour.” If not, the king says, “we have more sons than one, to comfort our declining age.” Happily, the prince enters in triumph. The French king, however, escapes to Poitiers, and King Edward sends the prince to pursue him. The king, meanwhile, decides to wait at Calais.
In Poitiers, Prince Edward is surrounded by the French and is in danger of being killed. King Edward, meanwhile, captures Calais by insisting that the six richest men in the city throw themselves on his mercy. How Edward will treat these merchants is a mystery, but things do not look good.
The old knight Audley tells the prince they are surrounded by four French armies. The prince, characteristically optimistic, replies, not so, we have one army; they have one army: “One to one is fair equality.”
Against great odds, the prince faces death bravely. The Battle of Poitiers ends in defeat for France's John II, whose army is cut to ribbons by Prince Edward of England. Edward, a badly wounded Audley, and their captives set out for King Edward at Calais.
King Edward, meanwhile, tells his men to put all to sword “and make the spoil your own.” The six wealthy men of Calais beg for peace and mercy. Edward decides to take possession of the city in peace but decides to drag the six men around the walls of the city, “and after feel the stroke of quartering steel.”
Edward's queen, Philippa, who has just arrived at Calais, talks him into being merciful. The king agrees, claiming, somewhat ironically, “that we as well can master our affections as conquer others by the dint of sword.”
At this point Copeland enters with King David of Scotland as his captive. Salisbury enters to announce that the prince has (apparently) fallen at Poitiers. But then the prince enters triumphant, with the French king and his son in tow.
Commentary
Ironically, King Edward goes north to relieve the siege of Roxborough, only to passively become the besieger of the Countess of Salisbury and Calais. His son becomes the active warrior who wrests great victories from daunting odds at Crécy and Poitiers. The king acts for political gain; the prince acts for honor and national pride, and without the prince, there would be, in this play, no conquest of France.
Written in verse throughout, the play opens with a scene similar to the first scene of King Henry V. No sooner are the preparations for the invasion put underway than we get King Edward's romantic besieging of the Countess of Salisbury. Finally, when the king conquers his adulterous passion, the military conquest takes place, with the honorable Prince Edward of Wales as its hero.
