What happens in Henry VI, Part 1

The play opens at a funeral. The great warrior-king Henry V is dead, and his nobles gather in Westminster Abbey to mourn him. Even as they grieve, messengers arrive with disaster: France is in revolt, the Dauphin Charles has been crowned, and English-held towns are falling. The new king, Henry VI, is only a child, and the men around him are already at each other’s throats. The Duke of Gloucester, the king’s uncle and protector, clashes with the proud Bishop of Winchester. Alone at the end of the scene, Winchester plots to seize the boy king and the power that comes with him.

In France, the Dauphin’s fortunes turn when a peasant girl named Joan la Pucelle arrives, claiming visions from heaven. She defeats Charles in single combat to prove herself, and he makes her his champion. Joan lifts the English siege of Orleans, and the French celebrate her as a saint. The English commander Talbot, brave and tireless, fights her hand to hand and loses, sure he has been beaten by witchcraft. He retakes Orleans in a night assault but cannot stop the tide. The Duke of Burgundy, once England’s ally, switches to the French side after Joan flatters and shames him into it.

At home, England’s nobles split into two parties. In the Temple garden, Richard Plantagenet quarrels with the Duke of Somerset, and each plucks a rose to mark his side — a white rose for Plantagenet, a red rose for Somerset. The lords choose roses too, and the seeds of a civil war are planted in a single afternoon. Soon after, the dying Mortimer tells young Plantagenet a family secret: Plantagenet has a real claim to the throne, and his father died trying to press it. Plantagenet swears to restore his house, and the king later names him Duke of York to settle the grievance.

The feud poisons everything. In Parliament, Gloucester and Winchester nearly spark another street battle until the young king begs them, in tears, to make peace. They shake hands, but neither means it. Across the Channel, the war goes badly because the rivalry has reached the battlefield. Talbot is besieged at Bordeaux, but Somerset and York each blame the other and withhold the reinforcements he needs. Talbot’s young son John joins him there, and the father begs the boy to flee. John refuses, choosing honor over safety. They fight side by side, and both are killed. Talbot dies cradling his son, undone not by the French but by the quarrel at home.

With Talbot gone, the English finally capture Joan. She begs the shepherd who claims to be her father to leave, insisting she is nobly born. Facing the stake, she pleads that she is pregnant, naming first the Dauphin, then other lords, as the father. York and Warwick see through the lies and send her to burn. Around the same time, peace talks begin, and Charles agrees to hold France as a vassal under Henry’s crown.

The play ends with a fateful match. The Earl of Suffolk captures a French princess, Margaret of Anjou, and falls for her at once. He cannot marry her himself, so he talks the young king into wanting her instead, even though Henry is already promised to another woman. Gloucester warns that breaking that betrothal will damage the king’s honor, but Henry, inflamed by Suffolk’s descriptions, insists. Suffolk sails to fetch Margaret. Alone, he reveals his true aim: through this queen, he means to rule the king, and through the king, all of England.