SOURCE: "Getting Loose in the Henry VI Plays," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter, 1984, pp. 392-406.

In this essay, Candido examines the relationship between a series of episodes in 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI, maintaining that these episodes trace the progressive disintegration of social and political disorder which results in the gradual replacement of Talbot's heroic values by Margaret's and Suffolk's affected notion of idealism, York's barbarism, Henry's dismal end, and the ominous prospects for the reign of Edward IV

I wonder how the king escap'd our hands.

(3 Henry VI, I.i.1)

Ah, whither shall I fly to scape their hands?

(3 Henry VI, I.iii.1)

I wonder how our princely father scap'd
 Or whether he be scap'd away or no . . .

(3 Henry VI, II.i.1-2)¹>

That Shakespeare should open three early scenes in 3 Henry VI in such strikingly similar fashion suggests—however belaboredly—the apprentice playwright's conscious efforts toward a...