There wasn’t a picking-of-the-roses scene it was just a symbol of their houses.
In Henry VI Part One, Shakespeare used actual roses as symbols for each house and for each side of the argument, but in reality, it had nothing to do with the actual flowers. The red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster, and the white rose was the badge of the House of York.
It starts, as the name implies, with two roses: one red and one white. So here is the in-a-nutshell version of the War of the Roses, as it applies to all three parts of Henry VI. We might need a little more context, though. So the history was relevant and accessible to them. The whole Tudor clan, including Queen Elizabeth, came to power because of that war. Even though the War of the Roses took place a few centuries before Shakespeare’s day, Elizabethans were still under the effects of the War of the Roses. Shakespeare’s audiences certainly understood the plays. If you don’t know the history, Henry VI can be challenging. They’re full of historical references and allusions that are far removed from our time. By Kathryn NevesĪs exciting and full of intrigue as the Henry plays are, they can be hard to follow.
Lance Rasmussen (left) as Earl of Somerset and Michael Elich as Richard Plantagenet in Henry VI Part One, 2018.
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