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Henry VI, Part 1, often referred to as 1 Henry VI, is a history play by William Shakespeare—possibly in collaboration with Thomas Nashe and others—believed to have been written in 1591. It is set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Henry VI, Part 1 deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, as the English political system is torn apart by personal squabbles and petty jealousy. Henry VI, Part 2 deals with the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles and the inevitability of armed conflict and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict. Although the Henry VI trilogy may not have been written in chronological order, the three plays are often grouped together with Richard III to form a tetralogy covering the entire Wars of the Roses saga, from the death of Henry V in 1422 to the rise to power of Henry VII in 1485. It was the success of this sequence of plays that firmly established Shakespeare's reputation as a playwright. Some regard Henry VI, Part 1 as the weakest of Shakespeare's plays. Along with Titus Andronicus, it is generally considered one of the strongest candidates for evidence that Shakespeare collaborated with other dramatists early in his career.

The play begins with the funeral of Henry V, who has died unexpectedly in his prime. As his brothers, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, and his uncle, the Duke of Exeter, lament his passing and express doubt as to whether his son (the as yet uncrowned heir apparent Henry VI) is capable of running the country in such tumultuous times, word arrives of military setbacks in France. A rebellion, led by the Dauphin Charles, is gaining momentum, and several major towns have already been lost. Additionally, Lord Talbot, Constable of France, has been captured. Realising a critical time is at hand, Bedford immediately prepares himself to head to France and take command of the army, Gloucester remains in charge in England, and Exeter sets out to prepare young Henry for his forthcoming coronation. Meanwhile, in Orléans, the English army is laying siege to Charles' forces. Inside the city, the Bastard of Orléans approaches Charles and tells him of a young woman who claims to have seen visions and knows how to defeat the English. Charles summons the woman, Joan la Pucelle (i. e. Joan of Arc). To test her resolve, he challenges her to single combat. Upon her victory, he immediately places her in command of the army. Outside the city, the newly arrived Bedford negotiates the release of Talbot, but immediately, Joan launches an attack. The French forces win, forcing the English back, but Talbot and Bedford engineer a sneak attack on the city, and gain a foothold within the walls, causing the French leaders to flee. Back in England, a petty quarrel between Richard Plantagenet and the Duke of Somerset has expanded to involve the whole court. Richard and Somerset ask their fellow nobles to pledge allegiance to one of them, and as such the lords select either red or white roses to indicate the side they are on. Richard then goes to see his uncle, Edmund Mortimer, imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mortimer tells Richard the history of their family's conflict with the king's family—how they helped Henry Bolingbroke seize power from Richard II, but were then shoved into the background; and how Henry V had Richard's father (Richard of Conisburgh) executed and his family stripped of all its lands and monies. Mortimer also tells Richard that he himself is the rightful heir to the throne, and that when he dies, Richard will be the true heir, not Henry. Amazed at these revelations, Richard determines to attain his birthright, and vows to have his family's dukedom restored. After Mortimer dies, Richard presents his petition to the recently crowned Henry, who agrees to reinstate the Plantagenet's title, making Richard 3rd Duke of York. Henry then leaves for France, accompanied by Gloucester, Exeter, Winchester, Richard and Somerset. In France, within a matter of hours, the French retake and then lose the city of Rouen. After the battle, Bedford dies, and Talbot assumes direct command of the army. The Dauphin is horrified at the loss of Rouen, but Joan tells him not to worry. She then persuades the powerful Duke of Burgundy, who had been fighting for the English, to switch sides, and join the French. Meanwhile, Henry arrives in Paris and upon learning of Burgundy's betrayal, he sends Talbot to speak with him. Henry then pleads for Richard and Somerset to put aside their conflict, and, unaware of the implications of his actions, he chooses a red rose, symbolically aligning himself with Somerset and alienating Richard. Prior to returning to England, in an effort to secure peace between Somerset and Richard, Henry places Richard in command of the infantry and Somerset in command of the cavalry. Meanwhile, Talbot approaches Bordeaux, but the French army swings around and traps him. Talbot sends word for reinforcements, but the conflict between Richard and Somerset leads them to second guess one another, and neither of them send any, both blaming the other for the mix up. The English army is subsequently destroyed, and both Talbot and his son are killed. After the battle, Joan's visions desert her, and she is captured by Richard and burned at the stake. At the same time, urged on by Pope Eugenius IV and the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, Henry sues for peace. The French listen to the English terms, under which Charles is to be a viceroy to Henry and reluctantly agree, but only with the intention of breaking their oath at a later date and expelling the English from France. Meanwhile, the Earl of Suffolk has captured a young French princess, Margaret of Anjou, whom he intends to marry to Henry in order that he can dominate the king through her. Travelling back to England, he attempts to persuade Henry to marry Margaret. Gloucester advises Henry against the marriage, as Margaret's family is not rich and the marriage would not be advantageous to his position as king. But Henry is taken in by Suffolk's description of Margaret's beauty, and he agrees to the proposal. Suffolk then heads back to France to bring Margaret to England as Gloucester worryingly ponders what the future may hold.

The most important evidence for dating 1 Henry VI is the Diary of Philip Henslowe, which records a performance of a play by Lord Strange's Men called Harey Vj (i. e. Henry VI) on 3 March 1592 at the Rose Theatre in Southwark. Henslowe refers to the play as "ne" (which most critics take to mean "new", although it could be an abbreviation for the Newington Butts theatre, which Henslow may have owned) and mentions that it had fifteen performances and earned £3.16s.8d, meaning it was extremely successful. Harey Vj is usually accepted as being 1 Henry VI for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is unlikely to have been either 2 Henry VI or 3 Henry VI, as they were published in 1594 and 1595, respectively, with the titles under which they would have originally been performed, so as to ensure higher sales. As neither of them appear under the title Harey Vj, the play seen by Henslowe is unlikely to be either of them. Additionally, as Gary Taylor points out, Henslowe tended to identify sequels, but not first parts, to which he referred by the general title. As such, "Harey Vj could not be a Part Two or Part Three but could easily be a Part One." The only other option is that Harey Vj is a now lost play. That Harey Vj is not a lost play, however, seems to be confirmed by a reference in Thomas Nashe's Piers Penniless his Supplication to the Devil (entered into the Stationers' Register on 8 August 1592), which supports the theory that Harey Vj is 1 Henry VI. Nashe praises a play that features Lord Talbot: "How would it have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French), to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators (at least), who in the tragedian that represents his person imagine they behold him fresh bleeding." It is thought that Nashe is here referring to Harey Vj, i. e. 1 Henry VI, as there is no other candidate for a play featuring Talbot from this time period (although again, there is the slight possibility that both Henslowe and Nashe are referring to a now lost play). If Nashe's comment is accepted as evidence that the play seen by Henslowe was 1 Henry VI, to have been on stage as a new play in March 1592, it must have been written in 1591. There is a separate question concerning the date of composition, however. Due to the publication in March 1594 of a quarto version of 2 Henry VI (under the title The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade: and the Duke of Yorke's first claim unto the crowne) and an octavo version of 3 Henry VI in 1595 (under the title The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses, Lancaster and Yorke), neither of which refer to 1 Henry VI, some critics have argued that 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI were written prior to 1 Henry VI. This theory was first suggested by E. K. Chambers in 1923 and revised by John Dover Wilson in 1952. The theory is that The Contention and True Tragedy were originally conceived as a two part play, and due to their success, a prequel was created. Obviously, the title of The Contention, where it is referred to as The First Part is a large part of this theory, but various critics have offered further pieces of evidence to suggest 1 Henry VI was not the first play written in the trilogy. R. B. McKerrow, for example, argues that "if 2 Henry VI was originally written to continue the first part, it seems utterly incomprehensible that it should contain no allusion to the prowess of Talbot." McKerrow also comments on the lack of reference to the symbolic use of roses in 2 Henry VI, whereas in 1 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, they are mentioned numerous times. McKerrow concludes that this suggests 1 Henry VI was written closer to 3 Henry VI, and as we know 3 Henry VI was definitely a sequel, it means that 1 Henry VI must have been written last, i. e., Shakespeare only conceived of the use of the roses while writing 3 Henry VI and then incorporated the idea into his prequel. Eliot Slater comes to the same conclusion in his statistical examination of the vocabulary of all three Henry VI plays, where he argues that 1 Henry VI was written either immediately before or immediately after 3 Henry VI, hence it must have been written last. Likewise, Gary Taylor, in his analysis of the authorship of 1 Henry VI, argues that the many discrepancies between 1 Henry VI and 2 Henry VI (such as the lack of reference to Talbot) coupled with similarities in the vocabulary, phraseology, and tropes of 1 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, suggest 1 Henry VI was probably written last. One argument against this theory is that 1 Henry VI is the weakest of the trilogy, and therefore, logic would suggest it was written first. This argument suggests that Shakespeare could only have created such a weak play if it was his first attempt to turn his chronicle sources into drama. In essence, he was unsure of his way, and as such, 1 Henry VI was a trial run of sorts, making way for the more accomplished 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI. Emrys Jones is one notable critic who supports this view. The standard rebuke to this theory, and the one used by Dover Wilson in 1952, is that 1 Henry VI is significantly weaker than the other two plays not because it was written first but because it was co authored and may have been Shakespeare's first attempt to collaborate with other writers. As such, all of the play's problems can be attributed to its co authors rather than Shakespeare himself, who may have had a relatively limited hand in its composition. In this sense, the fact that 1 Henry VI is the weakest of the trilogy has nothing to do with when it may have been written, but instead concerns only how it was written. As this implies, there is no critical consensus on this issue. Samuel Johnson, writing in his 1765 edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, pre empted the debate and argued that the plays were written in sequence: "It is apparent that [2 Henry VI] begins where the former ends, and continues the series of transactions, of which it presupposes the first part already written. This is a sufficient proof that the second and third parts were not written without dependence on the first." Numerous more recent scholars continue to uphold Johnson's argument. E. M. W. Tillyard, for example, writing in 1944, believes the plays were written in order, as does Andrew S. Cairncross in his editions of all three plays for the 2nd series of the Arden Shakespeare (1957, 1962 and 1964). E. A. J. Honigmann also agrees, in his "early start" theory of 1982 (which argues that Shakespeare's first play was Titus Andronicus, which Honigmann posits was written in 1586). Likewise, Michael Hattaway, in both his 1990 New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of 1 Henry VI and his 1991 edition of 2 Henry VI, argues that the evidence suggests 1 Henry VI was written first. In his 2001 introduction to Henry VI: Critical Essays, Thomas A. Pendleton makes a similar argument, as does Roger Warren in his 2003 edition of 2 Henry VI for the Oxford Shakespeare. On the other hand, Edward Burns, in his 2000 Arden Shakespeare 3rd series edition of 1 Henry VI, and Ronald Knowles, in his 1999 Arden Shakespeare 3rd series edition of 2 Henry VI, make the case that 2 Henry VI probably preceded 1 Henry VI. Similarly, Randall Martin, in his 2001 Oxford Shakespeare edition of 3 Henry VI, argues that 1 Henry VI was almost certainly written last. In his 2003 Oxford edition of 1 Henry VI, Michael Taylor agrees with Martin. Additionally, it is worth noting that in the Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Works of 1986 and the 2nd edition of 2005, and in the Norton Shakespeare of 1997 and again in 2008, both 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI precede 1 Henry VI. Ultimately, the question of the order of composition remains unanswered, and the only thing that critics can agree on is that all three plays (in whatever order) were written by early 1592 at the latest.

The text of the play was not published until the 1623 First Folio, under the title The first part of Henry the Sixt. When it came to be called Part 1 is unclear, although most critics tend to assume it was the invention of the First Folio editors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, as there are no references to the play under the title Part 1, or any derivative thereof, prior to 1623.

Some critics argue that the Henry VI trilogy were the first plays based on recent English history, and, as such, they deserve an elevated position in the canon and a more central role in Shakespearean criticism. According to F. P. Wilson, for example, "There is no certain evidence that any dramatist before the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 dared to put upon the public stage a play based upon English history [ ] so far as we know, Shakespeare was the first." However, not all critics agree with Wilson here. For example, Michael Taylor argues that there were at least thirty nine history plays prior to 1592, including the two part Christopher Marlowe play Tamburlaine (1587), Thomas Lodge's The Wounds of Civil War (1588), the anonymous The Troublesome Reign of King John (1588), Edmund Ironside (1590 – also anonymous), Robert Green's Selimus (1591) and another anonymous play, The True Tragedy of Richard III (1591). Paola Pugliatti however argues that the case may be somewhere between Wilson and Taylor's argument: "Shakespeare may not have been the first to bring English history before the audience of a public playhouse, but he was certainly the first to treat it in the manner of a mature historian rather than in the manner of a worshipper of historical, political and religious myth." Another issue often discussed amongst critics is the quality of the play. Along with 3 Henry VI, 1 Henry VI has traditionally been seen as one of Shakespeare's weakest works, with critics often citing the amount of violence as indicative of Shakespeare's artistic immaturity and inability to handle his chronicle sources, especially when compared to the more nuanced and far less violent second historical tetralogy (Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V). For example, critics such as E. M. W. Tillyard, Irving Ribner and A. P. Rossiter have all claimed that the play violates neoclassical precepts of drama, which dictate that violence and battle should never be shown mimetically on stage, but should always be reported diegetically in dialogue. This view was based on traditional notions of the distinction between high and low art, a distinction based partly upon Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry (1579). Based on the work of Horace, Sidney criticised Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's Gorboduc (1561) for showing too many battles and being too violent when it would have been more artistic to verbally represent such scenes. The belief was that any play that showed violence was crude, appealing only to the ignorant masses, and was therefore low art. On the other hand, any play that elevated itself above such direct representation of violence and instead relied on the writer's ability to verbalise and his skill for diegesis, was considered artistically superior and, therefore, high art. Writing in 1605, Ben Jonson commented in The Masque of Blackness that showing battles on stage was only "for the vulgar, who are better delighted with that which pleaseth the eye, than contenteth the ear." Based upon these theories, 1 Henry VI, with its numerous on stage skirmishes and multiple scenes of violence and murder, was considered a coarse play with little to recommend it to the intelligentsia. On the other hand, however, writers like Thomas Heywood and Thomas Nashe praised battle scenes in general as often being intrinsic to the play and not simply vulgar distractions for the illiterate. In Piers Penniless (1592), Nashe praised the didactic element of drama that depicted battle and martial action, arguing that such plays were a good way of teaching both history and military tactics to the masses; in such plays "our forefather's valiant acts (that have lain long buried in rusty brass and worm eaten books) are revived." Nashe also argued that plays that depict glorious national causes from the past rekindle a patriotic fervour that has been lost in "the puerility of an insipid present," and that such plays "provide a rare exercise of virtue in reproof to these degenerate effeminate days of ours." Similarly, in An Apology for Actors (1612), Heywood writes, "So bewitching a thing is lively and well spirited action, that it hath power to new mould the hearts of the spectators, and fashion them to the shape of any noble and notable attempt." More recently, Michael Goldman has argued that battle scenes are vital to the overall movement and purpose of the play; "the sweep of athletic bodies across the stage is used not only to provide an exciting spectacle but to focus and clarify, to render dramatic, the entire unwieldy chronicle." Questions of originality and quality, however, are not the only critical disagreement 1 Henry VI has provoked. Numerous other issues divide critics, not the least of which concerns the authorship of the play.

A number of Shakespeare's early plays have been examined for signs of co authorship (The Taming of the Shrew, The Contention [i. e., 2 Henry VI], and True Tragedy [i. e., 3 Henry VI], for example), but, along with Titus Andronicus, 1 Henry VI stands as the most likely to have been a collaboration between Shakespeare and at least one other dramatist whose identity remains unknown. Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene, George Peele, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd are common proposals. The belief that Shakespeare may have written very little of 1 Henry VI first came from Edmond Malone in his 1790 edition of Shakespeare's plays, which included A Dissertation on the Three Parts of King Henry VI, in which he argued that the large number of classical allusions in the play was more characteristic of Nashe, Peele, or Greene than of early Shakespeare. Malone also argued that the language itself indicated someone other than Shakespeare. This view was dominant until 1929, when Peter Alexander challenged it. Since then, scholars have remained divided on the issue. In 1944, E. M. W. Tillyard argued that Shakespeare most likely wrote the entire play; in 1952, John Dover Wilson claimed Shakespeare wrote little of it. In perhaps the most exhaustive analysis of the debate, the 1995 article, "Shakespeare and Others: The Authorship of Henry the Sixth, Part One", Gary Taylor suggests that approximately 18.7% of the play (3,846 out of 20,515 words) was written by Shakespeare. Taylor argues that Nashe almost certainly wrote all of Act 1, but he attributes to Shakespeare 2.4, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4., 4.5, 4.6, and 4.7 through line 32. Taylor also suggests that the Temple Garden scene (2.4), in which the rival factions identify themselves through the selection of red and white roses, may have been a later addition. Scenes 4.5 to 4.7 include a series of rhyming couplets between Talbot and his son (4.5.15–4.7.50), which, while unusual to modern ears, apparently had "an electric effect upon early audiences." Traditionally, these lines have often been pinpointed as one of the most obviously non Shakespearean sections of the play. Roger Warren, for instance, argues that these scenes are written in a language "so banal they must be non Shakespearean." Other than Taylor, however, several other critics also disagree with Warren's assessment of the quality of the language, arguing that the passages are more complex and accomplished than has hitherto been allowed for. Michael Taylor, for example, argues that "the rhyming dialogue between the Talbots – often stichomythic – shapes a kind of noble flyting match, a competition as to who can out oblige the other." Similarly, Alexander Leggatt argues that the passages are a perfect blend of form and content: "The relentless click click of the rhymes reinforces the point that for John Talbot, all arguments are arguments for death; as every other line ending is countered by a rhyme, so every argument Talbot gives John to flee becomes an argument for staying." Taylor and Leggatt are here arguing that the passages are more accomplished than most critics tend to give them credit for, thus offering a counter argument to the theory that they are so poorly written, they could not possibly be by Shakespeare. In this sense, his failure to use couplets elsewhere in a tragic passage The problem with this theory however, as Michael Hattaway has pointed out, is that there is no reason as to why Nashe could not simply be paraphrasing a play he had no involvement in—a common practice in Elizabethan literature. Shakespeare and Marlowe, for example, often paraphrased each other's plays. Nasheeb Sheehan offers more evidence, again suggestive of Nashe, when Alençon compares the English to "Samsons and Goliases" (I. ii.33). The word 'Golias', Sheehan argues, is unusual insofar as all bibles in Shakespeare's day spelt the name 'Goliath'; it was only in much older editions of the Bible that it was spelt 'Golias'. Sheehan concludes that the use of the arcane spelling is more indicative of Nashe, who was prone to using older spellings of certain words, than Shakespeare, who was less likely to do so. However, evidence of Shakespeare's authorship has also been found within the play. For example, Samuel Johnson argued that the play was more competently written than King John, Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V, and, therefore, not attributing it to Shakespeare based on quality made little sense. A similar point is made by Lawrence V. Ryan, who suggests that the play fits so well into Shakespeare's overall style, with an intricate integration of form and content, that it was most likely written by him alone. Another aspect of the debate is the actual likelihood of Shakespeare collaborating at all. Some critics, such as Hattaway and Cairncross, argue that it is unlikely that a young, up and coming dramatist trying to make a name for himself would have collaborated with other authors so early in his career. On the other hand, Michael Taylor suggests "it is not difficult to construct an imaginary scenario that has a harassed author calling on friends and colleagues to help him construct an unexpectedly commissioned piece in a hurry." Another argument that challenges the co authorship idea is that the basic theory of co authorship was originally hypothesized in the 18th and 19th centuries due to a distaste for the treatment of Joan. Critics were uncomfortable attributing such a harsh depiction to Shakespeare, so they embraced the co authorship theory to "clear his name", suggesting that he could not have been responsible for the merciless characterization. Harvard University English literature professor Herschel Baker noted in his introduction to Henry VI for The Riverside Shakespeare (1974; p. 587) how appalled William Warburton was by the depiction of Joan, and that Edmond Malone sought in "Dissertation on the Three Parts of Henry VI" (1787) to prove Shakespeare had no hand its authorship. As with the question of the order in which the trilogy was written, twentieth century editors and scholars remain staunchly divided on the question of authorship. Edward Burns, for example, in his 2000 edition of the play for the Arden Shakespeare 3rd series, suggests that it is highly unlikely that Shakespeare wrote alone, and, throughout his introduction and commentary, he refers to the writer not as Shakespeare but as 'the dramatists'. He also suggests that the play should be more properly called Harry VI, by Shakespeare, Nashe and others. Burns' predecessor however, Andrew S. Cairncross, editor of the play for the Arden Shakespeare 2nd series in 1962, ascribes the entire play to Shakespeare, as does Lawrence V. Ryan in his 1967 Signet Classic Shakespeare edition, and Michael Hattaway in his New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of 1990. In his 1952 edition of the play, Dover Wilson, on the other hand, argued that the play was almost entirely written by others, and that Shakespeare actually had little to do with its composition. Speaking during a 1952 radio presentation of The Contention and True Tragedy, which he produced, Dover Wilson argued that he had not included 1 Henry VI because it is a "patchwork in which Shakespeare collaborated with inferior dramatists." On the other hand, Michael Taylor believes that Shakespeare almost certainly wrote the entire play, as does J. J. M. Tobin, who, in his essay in Henry VI: Critical Essays (2001), argues the similarities to Nashe do not reveal the hand of Nashe at work in the composition of the play, but instead reveal Shakespeare imitating Nashe. More recently, in 2005, Paul J. Vincent has re examined the question in light of recent research into the Elizabethan theatre, concluding that 1 Henry VI is Shakespeare's partial revision of a play by Nashe (Act 1) and an unknown playwright (Acts 2–5) and that it was the original, non Shakespearean, play that was first performed on 3 March 1592. Shakespeare's work in the play, which was most likely composed in 1594, can be found in Act 2 (scene 4) and Act 4 (scenes 2–5 and the first 32 lines of scene 7). In 2007, Vincent's authorship findings, especially with regard to Nashe's authorship of Act 1, were supported overall by Brian Vickers, who agrees with the theory of co authorship and differs only slightly over the extent of Shakespeare's contribution to the play. In 2016, Oxford University Press announced that it would credit Christopher Marlowe as co author alongside Shakespeare for all three Henry VI plays in its New Oxford Shakespeare series. In the New Oxford Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI was specifically credited as being written by "Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and Anonymous, adapted by William Shakespeare". In opposition, Darren Freebury Jones has argued in favor of Thomas Kyd as Nashe's co author.