The two Contentions are thought to have been chiefly the work of Marlowe, with Greene to help him. Others are suggested as assistants, such as Lodge, Peele, and Shakespeare. In the revival of the two Contentions, Shakespeare's work amounted to a close revision, though the older material remained in larger part, both in text and plot. In this revision, Marlowe is thought to have aided, and Greene's bitter attack on Shakespeare may have been caused by the fact that Shakespeare had so supplanted him as collaborator with Marlowe, then the greatest dramatist of England. It hardly seems likely that this attack would have been made if Shakespeare had had any share in the first versions, The Contentions.
Date.—The First Part of Henry VI is thought to have been the play at the Rose Theatre on March 3, 1591-1692, by Lord Strange's company, since a reference by Nash about this time refers to Talbot as a stage figure. The Second and Third Parts have no evidence other than that of style, but are usually assigned to the period 1590-1592.
Richard the Third is best treated at this point, although in the date of composition King John may intervene between it and III Henry VI. It is the tale of a tyrant, who, by murdering everybody who stands in his way, including his two nephews, his brother, and his friend, wins the crown of England, only to be swept by irresistible popular wrath into ruin and death on Bosworth Field. This tyrant is scarcely human, but rather the impersonation of a great passion of ambition. In this respect, as well as in lack of humor, lack of development of character, and in other ways less easy to grasp, Shakespeare is here distinctly imitative of Marlowe's method in plays like Tamburlaine.
Date.—Richard the Third was very popular among Elizabethans, for quartos appeared in 1597, 1598 (then first ascribed to Shakespeare), 1602, 1605, 1612, 1629, 1622, and 1634. The First Folio version is quite different in detail from the Quarto, and is thought to have been a good copy of an acting version. The date of writing can hardly be later than 1598.
Source.—An anonymous play called The True Tragedie of Richard III had appeared before Shakespeare's; just when is uncertain. A still earlier play, a tragedy in Latin called Richardus Tertius, also told the story. Shakespeare's chief source was, however, Holinshed's Chronicles, which learned the tradition of Richard's wickedness from a life of that king written in Henry VII's time, and ascribed to Sir Thomas More. In the Chronicles was but a bare outline of the character which the dramatist so powerfully developed.
King John, so far as its central theme may be said to exist, portrays the ineffectual struggles of a crafty and unscrupulous coward to stick to England's slippery throne. At first King John is successful. Bribed with the rich dowry of Blanch, niece of England, as a bride for his son the Dauphin, King Philip of France ceases his war upon England in behalf of Prince Arthur, John's nephew and rival. When the Church turns against John for his refusal to obey the Pope, and France and Austria continue the war, John is victorious, and captures Prince Arthur. At this point begins his downfall. His cruel treatment of the young prince, while not actually ending in the murder he had planned, drives the boy to attempted escape and to death. The nobles rise and welcome the Dauphin, whose invasion of England proves fruitless, it is true, but the victory is not won by John, and the king dies ignobly at Swinstead Abbey.
Two characters rise above the rest in this drama of unworthy schemes,—Constance, the passionately devoted mother of Prince Arthur, who fights for her son with almost tigress-like ferocity, and Faulconbridge, the loyal lieutenant of King John, cynical and fond of bragging, but brave and patriotic, and gifted with a saving grace of rough humor, much needed in the sordid atmosphere he breathes. One single scene contains a note of pathos otherwise foreign to the play,—that in which John's emissary Hubert begins his cruel task of blinding poor Prince Arthur, but yields to pity and forbears.
Date.—The Troublesome Raigne was published in 1591, and probably written about that time. Shakespeare's play did not appear in print until the First Folio, 1623. Meres mentions it, however, in 1598, and internal evidence of meter and style, as well as of dramatic structure, puts the play between Richard III and Richard II, or at any rate close to them. The three plays have been arranged in every order by critics of authority. Perhaps 1592-1593 is a safe date.
Source.—The only source was the two parts of The Troublesome Raigne of John, King of England, a play which appeared anonymously in quarto in 1591. Shakespeare compressed the two parts into one, gaining obvious advantages thereby, but losing also some incidents without which the later play is unmotivated. The hatred felt by Faulconbridge for Austria was due in the earlier version to the legendary belief that Richard Coeur-de-Lion, his father, met death at Austria's hands. No reference to this is made by Shakespeare, but the hatred remains as a motive. In the opening scene between the Bastard and his mother, Shakespeare's condensation has injured the story somewhat. But most of his changes are improvements. He cut out the pandering to religious prejudice which in the earlier play made John a Protestant hero to suit Elizabethan opinion. He improved the exits and entrances, divided the scenes in more effective ways, and built up the element of comic relief in Faulconbridge's red-blooded humor.
The numerous alterations from historical fact, such as the youth of Arthur, the widowhood of Constance, the character of Faulconbridge, are all from the earlier version, as is the suppression of the baron's wars and Magna Charta. Shakespeare added practically nothing to the action in his source.