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| Prose before Hos. |
Look, I'm not saying that his histories are all awful. They are not Shakespeare's stronger point though. On the actual history side, they are usually pretty lacking and inaccurate. At times they verge on propaganda for the Houses of Tudor and Stuart. One might even say fake news.
Ignoring the historical accuracy of the history plays, they're often just not as good as the comedies and the dramas either. I'm ranking these things separately in three lists - but if I were to rank all 37 together, only one of these would crack the Top 10, and that one all the way up at 10 itself.
All of these history plays also deal with English kings, so you might be able to learn more about the actual histories from my rankings of these kings, which was also done in three parts: The Worst (featuring Henry VI at #37, John at #32, and Henry VIII at #29), The Middle (featuring Richard II at #24, Henry IV at #23, Richard III at #18 ), and The Best (featuring Henry V at #1).
Anywho, without further ado...
10. Henry VIII
This is widely considered by most people to be Shakespeare's absolute worst play. And so it goes in my rankings as well. It is 10th place among 10 in the Shakespeare Histories, and in all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, I rank it at 37.The play has an alternative title, All Is True. But it's not. The play takes events that happens over the course of decades and condenses them into a short time, and also rearranges historical events into a different order to make it better for the plot. Henry is depicted pretty sympathetically, Cardinal Wolsey is made into a duplicitous villain, and any mention of Henry being a wife murderer is erased. Who makes a play which features Henry and Anne Boelyn and doesn't even bother to mention that one will have the other murdered? The play even ends in an epilogue that apologizes for the fact that it won't please every one. That's basically the equivalent of having a Uwe Boll movie that ends with an apology for it being a Uwe Boll movie. Oh, and this play is also so bad that the Globe Theater burned to the ground when it was playing. I'm not kidding.
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| Oh hell... is that Satan? |
Shakespeare made three Henry VI plays. None of them are particularly good. I'm ranking the middle one as the lowest of the three (sort of like how Temple of Doom is the worst of the three Indiana Jones films. There are only three Indiana Jones films, by the way. Rumors of a fourth one are terrible, terrible lies). In this part, the story deals with Henry VI's inability to quell the bickering of nobles, thus serving as a prelude to an eventual war. If you read my summary of Henry VI's reign in the link above (technically his two reigns, since he had a habit of getting deposed), you'll know that he was awful. This play is actually the middle part of FIVE of Shakespeare's Histories, which can link together as a tetralogy covering the Wars of the Roses (Henry V, all three Henry VIs, and Richard III). Anyway, the play has a super huge cast (the largest of any Shakespeare play), which makes it nearly impossible to follow who all these tons and tons of characters are. Dozens of useless characters? Inspired by the War of the Roses? This is basically the progenitor of A Song of Ice and Fire. Alas, there are no dragons and titties (that I can recall).
8. King John
This one is all about King John, who has a fairly mediocre reign. What Shakespeare focuses on is mostly the instability of England during John's reign - cause by two sources. The first is the ongoing war/feud with France, but the second cause (and arguably more important moral tale that Shakespeare is pushing with the play) is internal bickering. Shakespeare basically uses this play to say, "hey, war with France could really devastate us, but the true threat is when we fight ourselves." Most of the play is about John fighting off France, and France's attempts to install Arthur (John's nephew) as England's king. It also features Richard I's illegitimate son as an ally to John, and calls him Philip the Bastard. Which is a fantastic name. The play features John's forces capturing the rival Arthur, but being unwilling to kill him. Instead, Arthur jumps out of a window, and the play leaves it dubious as to whether he was suicidal or trying to escape. The actual truth is... unknown. John might have just had him killed. Anyway. He vanished. The play also features John himself dying from being poisoned by a disgruntled monk. In reality he contracted dysentery during the First Barons War, while he was getting supplies from the coast. Which makes for a less dramatic play end, I suppose. Or Shakespeare simply didn't know how to work in a "shitting blood until he dies" scene.
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| "Suck it, Rutland!" - Act 1, Scene 3 |
The conclusion of the Henry VI trilogy. In this part, the horrible and incompetent Henry VI has to face the horrors of the War of the Roses. In picks up right where the previous play left off, with the House York being victorious in battle and taking the throne away from Henry. The play features four different battle scenes in it (the most of any Shakespeare play), which is a point of contention among scholars, many of who felt that it detracts from the plot and shows Shakespeare at an immature stage in writing (the Henry VI plays were some of his earliest plays), going for action scenes instead of coming up with witty dialogue to tell the stories. The character of Montague is also presents a serious issue in this play, with Shakespeare combining two different historical figures to make him. He's done that with other characters in other plays, but in this play he uses Montague in a confusing manner where he appears to continue to inconsistently represent both different historical figures at different times, thus making his character make no sense. The play concludes with Henry being captured, but in the tower of London, and being stabbed to death by the future Richard III, setting the stage for his own play where he gets to be a villain and main character. That might not be factual either, but Shakespeare likely sourced Sir Thomas More's History of Richard III for that explanation (so at least he didn't just make it up himself). Adios, terrible king and an unnecessary three plays about him!
6. Henry VI, Part 1
Oh man, just as I was happy that this guy died, now I have to go back in time and visit him in his youth? Okay. Part 1 serves as a prequel to the War of the Roses, dealing with England's territorial losses to their continental lands in France, and the French territories and the political machinations that would lead to eventual war between the houses York and Lancaster. Some suspect that this very early Shakespeare play might have been a collaboration with Christopher Marlowe, which would have made this the epic bard Supergroup collaboration equivalent of Velvet Revolver (Guns N Roses + Stone Temple Pilots? Yes please!). The play picks up with the greatest king in English history, Henry V, unexpectedly dying. Which sucks. It then goes on to have Henry VI fuck up everything in wars of France, and also features Joan of Arc! Yeah! That's cool, right? I bet most people didn't even know Joan of Arc was in a Shakespeare play, did they? Of course not. Who is going to read all of these damn dozens of Henry plays? According to the citations on Wikipedia (eh, trust it at your own risk), Part 2 is the best of the Henry VI plays and Part 1 is one of his worst plays altogether. Well, I flip the order of those in my opinion because I cannot keep up with all those damn characters in Part 2. And it just barely edges above part 3. I designed these rankings using an Excel worksheet where I ranked a couple of different factors that I came with. Part 1 and Part 3 wound up in a mathematical tie, so I just used my best judgment to place this one above.
5. Henry IV, Part 2
Henry IV, Part 1 is a great play. It's sequel? Less so. It's often not even considered much of a "sequel" by the traditional sense, wherein the historical narrative of the story is continued. Instead, Henry IV Part 2 is often considered an "extension" of Part 1, and focuses more on the comic relief character Falstaff (previously mentioned in the Shakespeare Comedies, for his appearance in The Merry Wives of Windsor). So really, it's sort of a Hobbs & Shaw spin-off, adding new additional comic relief from Falstaff and others, which only half continues the story of Part 1. Why half? Because the story is basically two different plays - one following the young Prince Hal (eventually to become Henry V) and the other following Falstaff. The two barely interact with one another, only having two scenes with each other. Hal's story is about him becoming mature and rejecting his ways of hanging out with lowlife douches, and preparing himself to take the throne when Henry IV dies (which he does). The two plots finally meet up at the very end of the play, when Hal (now Henry V), rejects Falstaff's ways and is a proper king. Setting up a Henry V sequel, naturally.
4. Richard II
I will admit that this is not one that I have actually read, and who has? Richard II is a pretty mediocre and forgettable king. So I had to do a bit of research into the play's plot and opinions about it in order to try to fairly judge it. The conclusion? People's opinions about this play are ALL OVER THE PLACE. There are those who think that this is one of Shakespeare's finest plays (I even found someone who said it was his second best play, after only Hamlet). Nobody really puts the play at the very bottom, but a lot believe it's only in the lower-middle of if bard's catalogue. Because of that, I place it here in the middle. It's not terrible, it's not great. The plot? As I alluded to in my actual ranking of Richard II as a king, much Shakespeare's play is simply Tudor propaganda and artistic license, which portrays Richard as an awful king and villain. It takes place in the last two years of his life, where the king is wasting England's money, stealing the lands of his enemies (especially John of Gaunt), unfairly placing taxes, and punishing noblemen for the crimes of their ancestors. John of Gaunt dies, and his son Bolingbroke gets revenge, not only by getting his dad's land back, but also by defeating Richard II to make himself the new King, Henry IV. Thus begins a series of eight plays (all on this list, and sometimes called The Henriad) that largely serve as sequels to one another, going all the way through Richard III. Only John and Henry VIII fall outside of this continuum.
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| I have used this picture before, and I will use it again. |
Henry V is the best Monarch of English history (for reasons I explained in the link at the top). Yet the play named after him is only the third best of Shakespeare's histories. And while this is the only play actually named after Henry V himself, it's the third one to feature him as a character - as he was young Hal in both Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. In this play, the now mature king deals with the events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415, for those counting at home), the most epic and famous battle during the Hundred Years' War against France. This play is an AR-17 assault weapon of quotable quotes from beginning to end, featuring the iconic "Once more unto the breach", the entire Saint Crispin's Day speech (most famous for "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"), and some other gems including "O! for a muse of fire", "The fewer men, the greater share of honour", "so vile a sin" and "the game's afoot"). You thought Arthur Conan Doyle invented that later one for Sherlock? Nope! It was Shakespeare. The point is, I can't include all the famous quotes from this play because there are so many.
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| Does this look like a guy who would kill two kids? Maybe. |
Is this the most historically accurate play? No. But it is super iconic. Richard III is basically only famous today because of this play making him into the OG supervillain that must have been the progenitor for cackling, mad villains for the rest of the history of entertainment. Maybe you don't know the history of the War of the Roses that well, and if you do know a little... it might just be from this play. The Lancasters have pretty much been defeated and the Yorks rule, led by Edward IV. The hunchbacked Richard, Duke of Gloucester plots against his brother Edward (and his kids) to usurp the throne from him, rather successfully. Richard becomes the maniacal king, and is only later defeated when a descendant of both York and Lancaster blood (Henry Tudor) defeats Richard III on the battlefield. This is Shakespeare's second longest play, and it's often abridged when performed. As with Henry V above, this one also provides numerous famous quotes, including "Now is the winter of our discontent" and "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" This is a good and entertaining play, folks. Though it won't win any sensitivity awards in 2019 for its "people with physical disabilities are evil and so god made them that way as punishment" morals.
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| Yeshh Moneypenny, I am Hotshhpur. |
The historical events in the Henry IV, Part 1 play are not the most iconic or memorable in the history of England. Hotspur's battle at Homildon in Northumberland? The Battle of Shrewsbury the very next year. These don't exactly seem like their begging for being adapted into stories that people are interested in watching. And yet I'm ranking this as the best Shakespeare history because it's, well, a good play. Yet King Henry's political and historical problems often take a back seat in this story to his personal problems, such as the unruly behavior of his kegger-loving frat bro son, Hal. Hal is under the influence of the dickish Falstaff, who I've explained enough over this last two rankings. In addition to that coming-of-age story for Hal, the tale also features Henry's rivarly with Henry Percy (Hotspur), the hand-chosen heir to Richard II, whom Henry IV usurped (but only because Richard II was totes evil). There are no quotes in this one that rival the super quotable ones of Richard III or Henry IV, but overall it strikes a great balance of writing that includes witty comedy, history, and tragedy... or at least tragedy for Hotspur, who dies at Shrewsbury. That doesn't count as a spoiler, by the way. It happened over 616 years ago and the play is literally named "Henry IV." Did you think Hotspur was going to win?
Next up... Shakespeare's Tragedies!
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