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etweene the two Famous Houses, Lanc<strong>as</strong>ter and Yorke. With the Tragicall ends of the good Duke Humfrey,<br />
Richard Duke of Yorke, and King Henrie the sixt. In <strong>this</strong> third edition, which for the first time bore Shakespeare’s<br />
name <strong>as</strong> the author, the text also had its own separate title The first part of the Contention of the two Famous<br />
Houses of Yorke and Lanc<strong>as</strong>ter, with the death of the good Duke Humfrey. Finally, in 1623, the play w<strong>as</strong> printed in<br />
the so-called First Folio of Shakespeare <strong>as</strong> The second Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Good Duke<br />
Hvmfrey.<br />
Of all the plot details mentioned in the sometimes more, sometimes less descriptive titles, only one survived the<br />
play’s almost thirty-year-long publication history: the death of Humphrey of Lanc<strong>as</strong>ter, the first Duke of<br />
Gloucester. Since the story of Humphrey’s downfall and its consequences transcends the space of just one play,<br />
marking a turning point of the entire historical tetralogy, it is only logical that <strong>this</strong> episode is especially<br />
foregrounded on the work’s title-pages <strong>as</strong> the principal attraction. How the event itself w<strong>as</strong> staged, and whether<br />
the play’s original audiences were given an opportunity to witness it at all (like in the c<strong>as</strong>es of Othello and<br />
others), however, remains uncertain.<br />
The Quarto 5 gives us a broad image of what the death scene w<strong>as</strong> perhaps originally supposed to look like by<br />
means of a short stage direction at the beginning of Scene 10: ‘Then the Curtaines being drawne, Duke<br />
Humphrey is discouered in his bed, and two men lying on his brest and smothering him in his bed. And then<br />
enter the Duke of Suffolke to them.’ The situation then continues in a short dialogue between the Duke of<br />
Suffolk and the murderers:<br />
Suffolk. How now sirs, what haue you dispatch him?<br />
One. I my lord, hees dead I warrant you.<br />
Suffolke. Then see the cloathes laid smooth about him still,<br />
That when the King comes, he may perceiue<br />
No other, but that he dide of his owne accord.<br />
2. All things is handsome now my Lord.<br />
Suffolke. Then draw the Curtaines againe and get you gone,<br />
And you shall haue your firme reward anon.<br />
Exet murtherers. 6<br />
The parallel scene in F1 (traditionally numbered <strong>as</strong> III.2) gives a somewhat different account of the same<br />
event. The Duke’s death takes place off stage and the audience only learns about the crime from the<br />
subsequent dialogue:<br />
Enter two or three running ouer the Stage, from the Murther of Duke Humfrey.<br />
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