Though Queen Margaret was clearly a powerful and influential Queen, Shakespeare dismissed her political accomplishments. In Richard III, the playwright only mentions to her actual involvement in the War of Roses once, referring to when Margaret took a cloth drenched in Rutland's blood and waved it in front of Richard Plantagenet's face: “The curse my noble father laid on thee, / When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper / And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes, / And then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout / Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland – / His curses, then from bitterness of soul / Denounced against thee, are all fall'n upon thee; / And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed” (1.3.15). Shakespeare
…show more content…
Queen Margaret was chosen for King Henry VI because he was inadequate. As Abbot observed, if Henry IV been “a man of vigor and resolution, he might have controlled the angry disputants, and [he might have taken] the government fully into his hands… But Henry was a very timid and feeble-minded man” and “had no idea how to effectively take control of his government” (Abbott). Instead, he was replaced with an intellectual, capable mind– even though that mind belonged to a woman. “Her mental powers were of a very masculine character, and in the boldness of the plans which she formed, and in the mingled shrewdness and energy with which she went on to the execution of them, she evinced less the qualities of a woman than of a man” (Abbott). In this deduction, Abbott expresses how real intellect was a trait prescribed only to men in the Elizabethan era. She had possessed the qualities that usually “belonged” to a man– she was “brilliant in personal charms, wit, spirit, and intellectual superiority” (Abbott). Henry VI had possessed the qualities that usually belonged to women– he twas “of a very sedate and quiet turn of mind; amiable and gentle in disposition; devout, found of retirement, and interested only in such occupations and pleasures as are consistent with a life of tranquility” (Abbott). Apart from her superior wit, Queen Margaret also refused to be the passive wife. She was not afraid to badger the King when she knew he was in the wrong. Margaret called Henry VI out when Gloucester was taking advantage of the King’s passive personality, chastising him about “how humiliating [it was] that a great monarch should be dependent upon one of his subjects for permission to do this or that, when he might have all his affairs under his own absolute control”
Queen Margaret was chosen for King Henry VI because he was inadequate. As Abbot observed, if Henry IV been “a man of vigor and resolution, he might have controlled the angry disputants, and [he might have taken] the government fully into his hands… But Henry was a very timid and feeble-minded man” and “had no idea how to effectively take control of his government” (Abbott). Instead, he was replaced with an intellectual, capable mind– even though that mind belonged to a woman. “Her mental powers were of a very masculine character, and in the boldness of the plans which she formed, and in the mingled shrewdness and energy with which she went on to the execution of them, she evinced less the qualities of a woman than of a man” (Abbott). In this deduction, Abbott expresses how real intellect was a trait prescribed only to men in the Elizabethan era. She had possessed the qualities that usually “belonged” to a man– she was “brilliant in personal charms, wit, spirit, and intellectual superiority” (Abbott). Henry VI had possessed the qualities that usually belonged to women– he twas “of a very sedate and quiet turn of mind; amiable and gentle in disposition; devout, found of retirement, and interested only in such occupations and pleasures as are consistent with a life of tranquility” (Abbott). Apart from her superior wit, Queen Margaret also refused to be the passive wife. She was not afraid to badger the King when she knew he was in the wrong. Margaret called Henry VI out when Gloucester was taking advantage of the King’s passive personality, chastising him about “how humiliating [it was] that a great monarch should be dependent upon one of his subjects for permission to do this or that, when he might have all his affairs under his own absolute control”