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Besides this purely technical rôle of the mansion, the structure also used to have a highly symbolical value, to
which early-modern audiences were sensitive: since the King’s throne traditionally used to be situated above
the main level of the stage, it is, Lukeš argues, possible that it was placed on the top of the Tower, meaning the
mansion. The ending of the Henry VI trilogy would therefore show the coronation of Edward IV immediately
above the place where King Henry VI was murdered in the previous scene (3 Henry VI V.6 and V.7). 15 Although
Lukeš admits that this possibility is only hypothetical, he maintains that this scenographic practice would have
been in accordance with the fundamentals of Elizabethan staging. 16
If The First Part of the Contention really makes systematic use of a mansion, as Lukeš argues, the realisation of
Scene 10 of the play would be as follows: 1) the curtains are closed and the playing space is homogenous; 2) the
curtains are drawn apart, the function of the mansion is activated and the stage is horizontally divided into
Duke Humphrey’s bedroom and an undefined adjoining room (possibly a common room or a hallway); 3) the
murder takes place in the bedroom, followed by a conversation between the murderers and Suffolk; 4) the
curtains are closed again, the bedroom is deactivated, the murderers exit and Suffolk remains on the again
undivided platform, waiting for the arrival of the King and others.
A significant aspect of this form of staging is the direct visual connection of the Duke of Gloucester’s murder
and the death of Cardinal Beaufort in the following scene, which is clearly presented as a punishment for
(among other sins) Humphrey’s assassination. The Cardinal’s agony would have been shown in the same
‘bedroom’ with the same bed – the stage direction reads: ‘Enter King and Salsbury, and then the Curtaines be
drawne, and the Cardinall is discouered in his bed, rauing and staring as if he were madde’ (The First part of the
Contention, sig. F1 v [original italics]). This strengthens the link between two events of the plot: the cause and
the consequence, or, in other words, the crime and the punishment. We can therefore observe a form of
dramatic irony similar to the kind mentioned by Lukeš when he talks about changing places above and below,
realised by means of similar scenographic devices.
Probably in the mid- or late-1590s, however, the use of mansions on the stage was abandoned and, with their
disappearance, plays used horizontal and vertical divisions of the playing space less often. According to Richard
Hosley’s statistics, all of Shakespeare’s plays that require the upper plane more than once were written by 1595
(perhaps with the exception of King John, which might have been composed slightly later) and, interestingly
enough, all that require it more than twice are somehow historically connected with Pembroke’s or Strange’s
Men 17 While staging on the upper playing space was still possible (simply making use of either one of the
galleries or the balcony over the main platform), the inner playing space posed a problem which had to be
solved by more radical retouches if the theatrical text was to be produced under new staging conditions. 18 This
explains why, in the conjuring scene of the Folio version of 2 Henry VI, Duchess Eleanor enters the stage later
and directly above, since climbing on the gallery would require too much playing time. It is also the reason why
the iconic representation of Duke Humphrey’s bedroom in III.2, present on the stage simultaneously with
another room of the same house, was in F1 replaced by an indexical representation of the chamber by a bed
which, when the fictional place changed, had to be put forth and back. 19
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