Reformation of the Duchy of Lancaster in Shakespeare’s Henriad

Abstract

This essay surveys the Duchy of Lancaster in Shakespeare’s Henriad. The Duchy territories, as a “constitutional anomaly” and the English kings’ private possession inherited through their “body natural,” enjoyed politico-juridical immunity. In Shakespeare’s history translation, like the English monarchs’ split selves—at once the English Crown and the Duke of Lancaster—Shakespeare breaks the political import of the Duchy territories into two. In the process, the grim aspects of the Lancastrians such as usurpation, treachery, and lawlessness are assigned to others in the provincial margins, whereas the proud national history of the Lancastrians is translated into the timeless figura of all subsequent English monarchs including the Tudors.