What happens in Henry VI, Part 2

Suffolk returns from France with the king’s new bride, Margaret of Anjou, and the terms of the marriage are read aloud. They are humiliating: England has handed back the provinces of Anjou and Maine and received no dowry in return. Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the king’s honest uncle and protector, is appalled. The court splits into factions. Suffolk, Queen Margaret, and the Cardinal want Gloucester gone, while York quietly watches, biding his time. In his garden York reveals his secret to Salisbury and Warwick: he descends from an elder line of Edward III and is the rightful king. He tells them to wait and let the court tear itself apart.

Gloucester’s downfall begins through his wife. The ambitious Duchess Eleanor dreams of a crown and dabbles in witchcraft, summoning a spirit to foretell the future. The whole thing is a trap funded by Suffolk and the Cardinal. York and Buckingham burst in, arrest the conspirators, and ruin Eleanor. She is sentenced to public penance and exile, walking the streets in a white sheet while her husband watches in silent grief. Stripped of his protector’s staff, Gloucester is left without power or shield.

The conspirators move in for the kill. At Parliament in Bury, Margaret and the nobles accuse Gloucester of treason and arrest him over the king’s helpless protests. Suffolk hires murderers, and Gloucester is found dead in his bed. Warwick examines the body, sees the marks of strangling, and declares it murder. The commons rise in fury and demand Suffolk’s death; the king banishes him for three days instead. Suffolk and Margaret part in anguish. Soon after, the guilty Cardinal dies raving in his bed, tormented by visions of the man he helped destroy.

Suffolk’s banishment ends badly. Pirates capture his ship at sea, and their leader, Walter Whitmore, beheads him on the deck — fulfilling an old prophecy that Suffolk would die by water. Meanwhile a far larger storm gathers below the nobility. A clothworker named Jack Cade, secretly backed by York, leads a mob of commoners in revolt. Cade claims royal blood and promises a world turned upside down: free food, no money, everyone equal. He also orders the death of anyone who can read or write. His rebels kill the Stafford brothers, storm London Bridge, and behead the loyal Lord Say. For a few wild days, Cade rules the city as “Lord Mortimer.”

The rebellion collapses as fast as it rose. Buckingham and Lord Clifford face the mob and offer a royal pardon in the name of Henry V. The commoners, swayed by the famous name and the promise of mercy, abandon Cade and accept forgiveness. Cade curses them and flees alone. Starving after five days in hiding, he breaks into a Kentish garden looking for food. The owner, Alexander Iden, discovers him, fights him fairly, and kills him, then carries the head to the king.

The real threat now arrives. York lands from Ireland with an army, claiming he only wants the hated Somerset removed and imprisoned. But once Somerset appears free, York drops the pretense. He denounces Henry as unfit to rule and declares himself the rightful king, with his sons Edward and Richard at his side. Salisbury and Warwick defect to him, swearing his claim is just, and the king’s authority simply dissolves.

The two sides meet at the Battle of Saint Alban’s, the first clash of the Wars of the Roses. York kills old Clifford in single combat, and young Clifford, finding his father’s corpse, swears to abandon all mercy. Richard kills Somerset beneath an alehouse sign, fulfilling a prophecy. York’s forces win the day, and King Henry and Queen Margaret flee toward London. The Yorkists march after them, the crown now within reach.