Noises Off: Participatory Justice in 2 Henry VI

Abstract

I want to begin with a murder inquiry. Actually, I want to begin by noticing how odd that term sounds in relation to the Renaissance: “a murder inquiry.” But something similar happens in act 3 of the play now known as part 2 of Henry VI (1590–92). The stage directions and speeches vary considerably between the Quarto (Q) and Folio (F), but it is clear that this murder sequence is conceived similarly in both versions. The central scene is act 3, scene 2. In F, this scene opens with the stage direction: Enter two or three, running over the stage pom the murder of Duke Humphrey. 1 In Q, a fuller stage direction tells us that we see first two men smothering Humphrey in his bed, and then the Duke of Suffolk coming toward them. 2 We learn from the next exchange between the murderers and the Duke of Suffolk that Duke Humphrey is to appear to have died peacefully in his bed: “Have you laid fair the bed?” asks Suffolk (3.2.11) in F, and in Q he asks them to smooth down the bedclothes. 3 The king and peers enter: this is the appointed time of Humphrey’s trial for trumped-up charges of treason, on which we saw him arrested and taken into custody in the previous scene. The king is just expressing the unlikely hope that proceedings against Humphrey will be in accordance with “true evidence, of good esteem” when the announcement is made: Humphrey has been found “Dead in his bed.” Confusion ensues: the king faints; his queen, Margaret, remonstrates with him for seeming to cast suspicion on her. Then the earls of Warwick and Salisbury enter, reporting a rumor that the commons are ready to commit violence, believing their beloved duke to have been murdered. The king instructs Warwick to “view” Humphrey’s body. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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