67
judge on their lives: “Thy beauty
makes them guilty of their death”
(3.157). The Countess is mortified,
exclaiming: “O, perjured beauty!
More corrupted judge!” (3.160).
She tells him that there is a
higher court, above the king—
“the great star chamber o’er our
heads” (3.161)—that will judge
such a crime.
After this disturbing but
memorable interlude, the countess
is all but forgotten, and the play
settles into a far more conventional
to-and-fro of battles. However,
the countess’s absent husband,
Salisbury, becomes a key focus
for the sense of justice that runs
through the play, along with
his French counterpart, Villiers.
Against the run of events, they
both insist on behaving honorably.
Unsentimental leader
It is surprising just how negative a
portrait this is of one of England’s
most dynamic monarchs, a king
whose military victories turned
England into a major power. The
reason may have been due to
contemporary Tudor politics.
Edward III was a Plantagenet king,
whose line ultimately came to an
end with the first of the Tudors, a
dynasty still keen to bolster its
legitimacy in Shakespeare’s day.
Besides the unsavory incident
with the countess, Edward is seen
as a tough, uncaring father. When
Prince Edward, known to history
as the Black Prince, is beleaguered
in battle, Edward refuses help,
saying, “Then will he win a world
of honour too / If he by valour can
redeem him thence. / If not, what
remedy? We have more sons / Than
one to comfort our declining age”
(8.21–24).
Late in the play, news comes
through that the young prince has
apparently perished and his mother
weeps in distress, but Edward’s
brand of comfort is to promise
pitiless revenge. Moreover, when
the citizens of Calais send him six
leaders of the town as a gesture
of submission, only the queen’s
intervention dissuades him from
slaughtering them. There is a
foretaste here of Shakespeare’s
other warrior-king Henry V, who
threatens Calais with even more
savage brutality. Although there are
heroes in this play—Salisbury,THE FREELANCE WRITER
Here flew a head
dissevered from the trunk;
There mangled arms and legs
were tossed aloft.
French mariner
Scene 4Villiers, and Prince Edward—it does
not shy away from showing war as
a very brutish business. A French
mariner reports the sea battle of
Sluys in gruesome terms: “Purple
the sea whose channel filled as
fast / With streaming gore that
from the maimèd fell” (4.161–162).
Edward in Edward III is a
far from attractive character,
and yet the play ends, happily
for him, with the young prince
excited and eager for fresh
challenges and Edward in calm
control after a series of stunning
military victories. With the
French and Scottish kings his
captives, and also the dauphin, he
muses contentedly on their strange
new unity: “God willing, then for
England we’ll be shipped, / Where
in a happy hour I trust we shall /
Arrive: three kings, two princes,
and a queen” (18.242–244). ■The Battle of Sluys is depicted in
a French manuscript of 1400. The play
omits the French king Philippe VI,
who was defeated at Sluys. Instead,
Philippe’s son John loses the battle.