ABSTRACT
THE ONLY TEXT of this play is that in FI, 1623. Both authorship and date are uncertain, but the play was probably extant early in 1592, for Nashe, in Pierce Penilesse (entered in S.R. on 8 August) alludes to IV.7:
'How would it have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that after he had lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should triumphe againe on the Stage, and have his bones newe embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least, (at severall times) who in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding.' 1
Henslowe's Diary notes many performances at the Rose Theatre of a new piece called 'harey the vi' beginning 'the 3 of Marche 1591' (1592). Was it I Henry VI or one of the other parts? The question is complicated by the fact that Robert Greene's famous allusion to Shakespeare, written shortly before his death on 3 September, 1592, refers to 3 Henry VI, 1.4.137 ('0 tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!'). Warning his fellow-dramatists against the perfidy of actors Greene declares:
The theatres were closed in 1592 from 23 June. If I Henry VI was new in March, and the three parts were written consecutively, Part 3 could not have been composed, played, and
well enough known by 23 June for Greene's misquotation to have any point for his readers. As P. Alexander has argued, Henslowe's reference may well be to another play about Henry VI, for 'there is no evidence that Shakespeare wrote anything for Lord Strange's men (who played at the Rose) before he joined them in 1594': and 'there is some evidence that ... I Henry VI was in the repertory of Pembroke's men in 1593'.1 Failing more positive identification Henslowe's note must be disregarded, but Nashe's reference seems to be to a play which had fairly recently pleased the town, either as a new work or in revival. Sir E. K. Chambers has suggested that I Henry VI 'was put together in 1592, to exploit an earlier theme which had been successful' in Henry VI Pis 2 and 3. 2 J. D. Wilson has developed a theory that 'whereas I Henry VI was written by a person or persons who knew all about 2 Henry VI, and I think 3 Henry VI, also, those two plays display complete ignorance of the drama which ostensibly precedes them'. 3 Talbot, for example, is never mentioned in Part 2, even in Gloucester's list of those who bled in France (2H6 1. 1. 76-85), though he mentions Somerset, who is blamed in Part I for Talbot's death. The evidence is not convincing, for there are many links between the two parts, but there are indications that Part I may have been originally written some time before Part 2, which turned off in a new direction, and that the earlier play may have been revised in 159 I or 1592.
