Shakespeare wrote ten history plays, dramatizing the reigns of English kings from King John in the early 1200s to Henry VIII in the 1500s. Eight of them form two linked sequences that together tell the story of the English crown from the fall of Richard II to the death of Richard III at Bosworth in 1485.
The histories include some of his best-known characters, among them Richard III, Prince Hal, and Falstaff, and some of the most politically charged scenes he wrote. This guide lists every history play in the order it was written and in the order of the reigns it covers, explains the two sequences, and shows where Shakespeare found his history and what he did with it. For the other two groups of plays, see our guides to Shakespeare’s tragedies and Shakespeare’s comedies.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Shakespeare’s history plays for quick reference.
How Many History Plays Did Shakespeare Write?
Ten, if the list follows the First Folio of 1623, which printed ten plays in its histories section. Unlike the Folio’s comedies and tragedies, the histories are arranged in historical order, from King John to Henry VIII, so the section reads as a continuous history of England across more than three centuries.
Some modern editions add an eleventh, Edward III, a play printed anonymously in the 1590s that many scholars now think Shakespeare wrote in part. The Roman plays, such as Julius Caesar, also dramatize real history, and Macbeth and King Lear draw on the same chronicles as the histories, but all of them are counted among the tragedies. In Shakespeare’s usage, a “history” means a play about English kings.
The Complete List, in the Order Written
The dates below are approximate. The three Henry VI plays in particular are hard to date, and many scholars think Part 1 was written after Parts 2 and 3.
Henry VI, Part 2 (about 1591)
Under the gentle, pious Henry VI, rival nobles fight for control of the court, and the Duke of York begins to plot for the crown. The play includes the rebellion of Jack Cade, whose followers dream of a world turned upside down. It was first printed in 1594 under the title The First Part of the Contention.
Henry VI, Part 3 (about 1591)
Civil war breaks out between the houses of York and Lancaster, and the crown passes back and forth between Henry VI and Edward IV. Richard of Gloucester, the future Richard III, steps out of the family feud to announce his own ambitions. It was first printed in 1595 as The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York.
Henry VI, Part 1 (about 1592)
England loses its lands in France to Joan of Arc and the French, while quarrels at home plant the seeds of the Wars of the Roses. Its hero is the English soldier Lord Talbot, whose death on stage, the writer Thomas Nashe reported in 1592, had moved “ten thousand spectators at least” to tears. It is widely thought to have been written with other playwrights, possibly including Nashe himself, and its only early text is the First Folio.
Richard III (about 1593)
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, murders his way to the throne, including his two young nephews in the Tower, and is killed at the Battle of Bosworth by Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII and grandfather of Elizabeth I. Richard’s wit and his confiding speeches to the audience have made him one of Shakespeare’s most famous villains, and the play has long been a favorite on stage.
Richard II (about 1595)
A king who believes his crown is protected by God is deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who becomes Henry IV, and Richard is later murdered in prison. Written entirely in verse, it is often called the most lyrical of the histories, and its deposition scene made it politically sensitive. It opens the second of the two sequences.
King John (about 1596)
King John holds on to a disputed crown against the claim of his young nephew Arthur, the King of France, and the Pope. For many readers the most memorable figure is not the king but the Bastard, Philip Faulconbridge, an illegitimate son of Richard the Lionheart who comments on the politics around him. It stands outside both sequences and is rarely performed today.
Henry IV, Part 1 (about 1596)
Henry IV faces a rebellion led by the fiery young Hotspur, while his son Prince Hal spends his time in the taverns of Eastcheap with Falstaff. Hal proves himself by killing Hotspur at the Battle of Shrewsbury. The play moves between the court, the rebel camp, and the tavern.
Henry IV, Part 2 (about 1597)
A second rebellion is put down, the old king dies, and Hal is crowned Henry V. At his coronation he publicly rejects Falstaff, who had expected high office under his friend. It is a darker play than Part 1, full of illness, age, and death, and its epilogue promises that Falstaff will return.
Henry V (1599)
The young king invades France and wins against heavy odds at Agincourt, then woos the French princess Katherine. A Chorus introduces each act and asks the audience to imagine the battles and kingdoms the stage cannot show. Falstaff does not appear, and his death is reported early in the play. It contains the Saint Crispin’s Day speech before Agincourt, one of the best-known speeches in the histories.
Henry VIII (1613)
The fall of Cardinal Wolsey and of Queen Katherine, Henry’s first wife, ends with the christening of the infant Elizabeth. It was written with John Fletcher and was also known as All Is True. On June 29, 1613, a cannon fired during a performance set fire to the thatched roof of the Globe, and the theater burned to the ground.
The Histories in the Order of the Reigns
Read in historical order, as the First Folio prints them, the plays run as follows: King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3, Richard III, and Henry VIII. The eight plays from Richard II to Richard III cover almost a century without a gap, from the quarrel that begins Richard II’s fall in 1398 to Bosworth in 1485.
The order of writing is almost the reverse. Shakespeare began at the end of the story with the Henry VI plays and Richard III, then went back to write how the trouble started. Reading the plays in historical order gives the long view of cause and effect that the Folio’s arrangement suggests. Reading them in the order written shows Shakespeare growing as a playwright, from the crowded battles of Henry VI to the mixture of court and tavern in Henry IV.
The Two Sequences
The two groups of four plays are often called tetralogies. The first tetralogy, the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III, dramatizes the Wars of the Roses, the civil wars between the houses of Lancaster and York. It ends with the victory of Henry Tudor, founder of the dynasty that still ruled England when the plays were written, so its ending doubles as a tribute to the queen’s family.
The second tetralogy, Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV, and Henry V, is often called the Henriad because it follows Prince Hal from wayward son to victorious king. It shows the origin of the civil wars: when Bolingbroke takes the crown from Richard, he breaks the line of succession, and the question of who has the right to rule passes down to his son and grandson. The epilogue of Henry V reminds the audience that the story ends badly, since the son of the victor of Agincourt, Henry VI, would lose France and bring on the wars the audience had already seen.
Where Shakespeare Found His History
Shakespeare’s main source for the histories was Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, in its second edition of 1587. For the Wars of the Roses he also used Edward Hall’s history of the struggle between Lancaster and York, and he drew on earlier plays, such as the anonymous The Famous Victories of Henry V, which gave him the outline of Prince Hal’s wild youth.
He treated his sources freely. He compressed years into scenes, changed characters’ ages, and invented scenes that the chronicles do not contain, among them the quarrel in the Temple Garden in Henry VI, Part 1 where rival nobles pick red and white roses. His greatest invention is Falstaff, who is largely his own creation. The histories are plays, not history lessons, and they shaped how later generations imagined these kings, above all Richard III.
What the Histories Have in Common
The histories keep returning to the same question: who has the right to rule, and what happens when that right is taken by force. The histories are full of rebellions, depositions, and battles, and they show the cost of political conflict to the people caught in it, from the father who discovers he has killed his son in Henry VI, Part 3 to the common soldiers who question their king the night before Agincourt in Henry V.
They also mix social worlds more than the tragedies do. Kings and nobles share the plays with rebels, tavern keepers, recruits, and clowns, and the scenes among ordinary people often comment on the scenes at court. Unlike the tragedies, the histories rarely end with a sense of completion. A new king takes the crown, and the audience usually knows, from the next play or from history itself, that his troubles are about to begin.
Which History to Read First
Henry IV, Part 1 is the best introduction to the histories. It needs little background, it has three strong characters in Hal, Hotspur, and Falstaff, and its tavern scenes are among the funniest in Shakespeare. Richard III is the most gripping for many readers, though it helps to know who is who in the York family. Henry V is perhaps the most famous.
Readers who enjoy those can go back to Richard II and read the second tetralogy in order, a rewarding way to experience the histories. The Henry VI plays are best saved for last, or seen on stage, where their battles and shifting alliances are easier to follow than on the page.
A Closer Reading: “I Am Richard II”
It is easy to read the histories as costume drama, but in Shakespeare’s lifetime at least one of them was treated as something closer to live ammunition. The center of Richard II is a scene in which a king hands over his crown. Richard calls for it and holds it out to Bolingbroke: “Here, cousin, seize the crown.” For a moment both men hold it, and Richard turns the image into a lament:
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another.
This scene is missing from all three editions of the play printed in Elizabeth I’s lifetime, in 1597 and 1598. It first appeared in print in 1608, five years after her death. The usual explanation is censorship: an aging queen with no named heir did not want her subjects reading a scene in which a monarch was persuaded to give up the throne.
The fear had a basis. On February 7, 1601, supporters of the Earl of Essex, who was planning a rising against the queen’s government, paid Shakespeare’s company to stage what the actor Augustine Phillips later called “the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard the Second” at the Globe. The actors objected that the play was old and would draw few people, and they agreed only when promised forty shillings more than their usual fee. The rising failed the next day, and Essex was executed. Most scholars think the play was Shakespeare’s, though the testimony does not name its author.
Six months later, according to an account of a conversation with the keeper of the records, William Lambarde, the queen herself made the connection. Turning to the reign of Richard II in a catalogue of documents, she is reported to have said, “I am Richard II, know you not that?” Scholars have questioned how exactly the account was transmitted, but it shows what the play could mean to its first audience. A history of a deposition two centuries earlier was not a safe subject. It showed that a crown could pass from one head to another, and the fact that the scene could be performed but not printed suggests how much depended on who was watching.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Shakespeare’s history plays, answered briefly.
How Many History Plays Did Shakespeare Write?
Ten, all printed as histories in the First Folio of 1623. Some modern editions add Edward III, which Shakespeare is thought to have written in part.
What Is a Shakespearean History Play?
A play based on the reign of an English king, drawn mainly from the chronicle histories of Shakespeare’s day. The histories deal with the right to rule, rebellion, and war, and they mix scenes at court with scenes among ordinary people.
What Is the Henriad?
The name often given to the second tetralogy: Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. The four plays follow Prince Hal from the deposition of Richard II to his victory at Agincourt as Henry V.
What Was Shakespeare’s First History Play?
Probably Henry VI, Part 2, written around 1591, though the order of the three Henry VI plays is uncertain. They were on stage by 1592.
Are Macbeth and King Lear History Plays?
No. Both draw on Holinshed’s Chronicles, like the histories, and the first quarto of King Lear called it a “True Chronicle Historie,” but the First Folio printed both among the tragedies. The histories are limited to English kings from John to Henry VIII.
Who Was Falstaff?
A fat, witty, cowardly knight who is Prince Hal’s companion in the two parts of Henry IV and the hero of The Merry Wives of Windsor. He was first called Sir John Oldcastle, after a real knight executed as a heretic in 1417 and honored by Protestants as a martyr, and the name was changed, probably after objections from Oldcastle’s descendants. The epilogue of Henry IV, Part 2 insists that “Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.”
Explore All of Shakespeare’s Plays
The other groups of plays, and every play in one place.