Helen Castor: prediction

Transcript context

…I know the historical details are not made up, but his sense of them as people. Well, I think a lot of that does come from the historical sources he was using. I’m ashamed to say I’ve only very recently gone and read Raphael Holinshed’s chronicle, which is one of the main narrative sources that Shakespeare was using. I hadn’t read it before because it’s 16th century, and I’m trying to read the contemporary stuff. Actually, it’s fantastic. He’s such a good writer, and in reading his account of Richard’s reign and Henry’s reign, I could trace, I could see which chronicles, which medieval chronicles he’d been using, and where he’d used the records of Parliament, and so on. Shakespeare isn’t going back to medieval chronicles and the records of medieval parliaments, but he’s using Raphael Holinshed’s chronicle, and Holinshed’s chronicle does use those sources. Then he’s using Edmund Hall’s chronicle, and Hall’s chronicle also draws on those sources. Those are narrative sources that do give a sense of the main protagonists at their center. So, I think the portrait of Richard in the play, Richard II, is astonishingly fine, although, perhaps for obvious reasons, Shakespeare makes him much more articulate and insightful than I can see the real Richard being in the historical record. I think the one who gets the short straw is Henry because in Richard II, he’s Richard’s nemesis. He’s this implacable figure, Bolingbrook, who is there to bring Richard down, and Richard II is really a play about Richard. It’s a one-man band, really, in terms of the parts in the play. Then when we shift to Henry IV, Part 1, suddenly, the active, commanding figure of Bolingbrook has been left behind. For the purposes of Shakespeare’s drama, Henry has become a sort of gray, careworn, much aged man. Now, the carewornness is real, the difficulty is real, but Shakespeare’s played with the generations. He’s made Henry IV the same age as the Earl of Northumberland in order that he can have Prince Hal and Hotspur out front as the young hot-blooded rivals. In actual fact, Hotspur was three years older than Henry IV. I think it’s Henry IV, Bolingbrook, and Henry IV . . . In a sense Shakespeare’s not that interested in him because he goes from being interested in Richard II to being interested in Hal and how he can tell Hal’s story as he goes on to become Henry V. One of the reasons I wanted to write this book, if it doesn’t sound too hubristic — following in Shakespeare’s footsteps is a frightening challenge. I’m not the only person to try it, obviously, but I wanted to put Henry beside Richard because of that parallel that they were, as you say, born in the same year. Henry’s only three months, in fact, younger than Richard. Even though Richard is often talked about as a boy and Henry as a man, Henry’s the younger of the two — to see how their lives played out in parallel. only three months, in fact, younger than Richard. Even though Richard is often talked about as a boy and Henry as a man, Henry’s the younger of the two — to see how their lives played out in parallel. Then, of course, when I was writing the book, I discovered exactly why Shakespeare had done what he’d done because it’s very difficult to keep the momentum and the arc of the story going once Richard has gone, once this melodramatic figure has gone, and Henry’s reign becomes this series of challenges and revolts and difficulties, and his health collapses. It’s very hard to avoid the story becoming a dying fall. That took a lot of work in the attempt to, I hope, let the narrative play itself out.…

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