Shakespeare sketches over a period of three hundred and fifty years of English History; from 1200 to 1550, and faithfully records its tumult and confusion, ibis grandeur, and its miseries in his ten historical plays. They can be arranged in chronological order, as follows:
(1) Henry VI, Paris I, II and III – The earlier, a large portion of its first part, at least being by other hands. (2) Richard III. (3) Richard II. (4) King John. (5) Henry IV, Parts I and II – one of the very greatest of the works of Shakespeare. (6) Henry V. (7) Henry VIII.