Power Politics and the Rule of Law: Shakespeare's First Historical Tetralogy and Law's 'Foundations'

Legal scholars’ interest in Shakespeare has often focusedon conventional legal rules and procedures, such as those ofThe Merchant of Venice or Measure for Measure. Those plays certainlyreveal systemic injustice, but within stable, prosperous societies,which enjoy a generally well-functioning legal order. In contrast,Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy explores the conditionsfor the very possibility of a legal system, in terms not unlikethose described by Hobbes a half-century later. The first tetralogy'sdeeply collapsed, quasi-anarchic society lacks any functioninglegal regime. Its power politics are not, as in many of Shakespeare'sother plays, merely latent, lurking beneath the patina of anotherwise functioning legal order. They pervade all of society.Dissenting from a long critical tradition, this article suggeststhat the figure of Henry VI does not merely represent antiquatedmedievalism or inept rule. Through Henry's constant recourseto legal process, arbitration and anti-militarism, the firsttetralogy goes beyond questions about how to establish a functioninglegal order. It examines the possibility, and meaning, of ajust one.