ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315018577/389c1d69-bf6d-4f43-8610-58d40a6d0a1a/content/Inline_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> When Halle wrote his chronicle of the long struggle that preceded The Union of the Two Noble and lllustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, he opened it with a section which he entered as “An introduccion into the devision of the two houses of Lancastre and Yorke.” The section began with the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke in the presence of Richard II, which to Halle seemed the inception of the struggle that later devastated England as the Wars of the Roses. Late in Elizabeth's reign, Sir John Hayward wrote a book about The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the IIII. in which he devoted one hundred and thirty-six pages out of a total of one hundred and forty-nine to Richard II. He later justified his extensive treatment of the deposition and murder of Richard II in a supposed life of Henry IV by explaining that he had to write of Richard II in so far as his follies were “either causes or furtherances of the fortunes of the other,” and claimed that he followed Halle in commencing his story where he did. 1 Shakespeare's play of Richard II will be better understood if we remember that he began the action of his play exactly where Halle began his “introduccion,” with the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke before the king. And like Hayward he wrote of Richard II's follies in so far as they were “either causes or furtherances” of the fortunes of Henry IV—but no further.
