Shakespear on the loss of France and the War of the Roses

King Henry:

Beside, what infamy will there arise,
When foreign princes shall be certified 
That for a toy, a thing of no regard, 
King Henry’s peers and chief nobility
Destroy’d themselves, and lost the realm of France!

1 Henry VI, Act IV, Scene 1.

In the next scene, it is Somerset, whose is the red rose of Lancaster, who gets special blame for England's loss of France.

Though that is the rose the King takes, denouncing factiousness between Lancaster (red) and York (white).

Somerset's delay keeps York from saving Talbot at Bordeaux.

Or so York says.

In the following scene, Somerset blames it all on York.

In the final scenes of the act Talbot and his son, both to die in losing battle, speak in rhymed verse, doubtless a reason Bloom thinks this an early play, strongly under Marlowe's influence.

He thinks the play tied for Shakespeare's worst with Titus Andronicus.

Shaw despises the Joan of this play and himself portrays her quite otherwise.

He does not think much of this play, either, and is not even confident it is Shakespeare's.

Mark Van Doren thinks there are some good things in it.

Peter Saccio is useful and engaging.