The "Henry VI" trilogy (Parts 1, 2 and 3) number among Shakespeare's very earliest plays. They tell the true (mostly) story of a boy who become king aged 2, after the death of his warrior-hero father, Henry V, on the battlefields of France, midway through the 15th century.

Henry was a gentle, scholarly man who had trouble reigning his kingdom effectively when the power vacuum created by his extreme youth soon seethed with strong, ambitious nobles. Among these figure: Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, whom Henry V had named Protector, and his ambitious wife, Elinor; the Duke of Suffolk, responsible for Henry's choice of Queen - the French Margaret of Anjou, never greatly beloved of the English; Warwick, Clifford, Cardinal Beaufort, enemy to Gloucester; and especially lethally for Henry: Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York and his 3 sons.

Eventually civil war - the War of the Roses - breaks out between the powerful northern family of York, wielding the white rose, and Henry's House of Lancaster, identified by the red rose. Even democracy almost (true!) wields its unruly head when a rowdy demagogue, Jack Cade, stirs up dissent amongst the overtaxed, underfed English common people.

"Henry VI, Part 3" ends with the ascendency of York's sons Edward and then Richard, who soon into Shakespeare's final York-Lancaster play, "Richard III" becomes the next to find out how dangerous is that electric chair that so many have pursued: the throne.