HISTORY PLAYS
History Plays: plays that are based on historical facts; and they are a fictionalization of these events.
Shakespeare rewrote somehistory plays according to his political ideas; his ideology. An example of this is the History Play Richard III.
Shakespeare thought that Richard III was a badking; as a result, presents the king physically limited.
Not only Shakespeare, many other playwrights wrote History Plays. Between 1588 and 1600 werewritten many History Plays in England. English people wanted to know about their past, and the History Plays created a national identity.
1588: Victory ofEngland in Trafalgar Battle; they beat the Spanish Armada. Because of that, England got the supremacy and became the leading country in the world.
THE WAROF ROSES.
Shakespeare wrote two different series of History Plays. In these plays, he made an interpretation of the historical events happened in a periodknown as The War of Roses.
The war of Roses was the fight between the house of York and the house of Lancaster.
• Henry V: he was considered a goodking. Responsible of the Battle of Agincourt (1415), this one was an epic victory of English army.
• Henry VI: he was considered a bad king. With him as aking, French possessions were lost.
• Both of them were Lancaster (Red Rose).
• Edward IV: House of York (White Rose).
• Henry VII: Tudor. The end of the warof the Roses. The beginning of a prosper period of English history. He brought stability to the country.
• Tudor = York + Lancaster. White and red Rose.
