The Henry VI trilogy manages to feature York’s four sons—Edward, George, Rutland, and Richard—without bothering to introduce their mother. The plays’ emphasis is not on the individual or the family but on the whole realm’s slide into civil war. When, however, Shakespeare focused on the character of the tyrant himself—the inward bitterness, disorder, and violence that drive him forward, to the ruin of his country—then he needed to explore something amiss in the relation between mother and child.
