SOURCE: Liebler, Naomi C., and Lisa Scancella Shea. “Shakespeare's Queen Margaret: Unruly or Unruled?” In Henry VI: Critical Essays, edited by Thomas A. Pendleton, pp. 79-96. New York: Routledge, 2001.

In the following essay, Liebler and Shea trace the role of Margaret in the Henry VI plays and Richard III as it develops in accordance with four successive Jungian archetypes—Virgin, Wife, Mother, and Crone.

As one of only two Shakespearean characters who survive through four plays,¹ Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI's queen, is much underrated by critics who have written about the figures of the First Tetralogy. They variously describe her as “an archvillainess … epitomiz[ing] the worst qualities of her own sex” (Lee 216), “monstrous” (Howard and Rackin 96), and “conniving” (Bevington 57). Indeed, as Nina Levine has recently pointed out, York's characterization of her as “a tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide” has “come to dominate discussions of...