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