This page includes family trees for 8 of Shakespeare's history plays. Click the
buttons below to view them as printable PDF documents.
Primogeniture
To follow the histories, it is important to understand primogeniture.
Primogeniture is a system that grants the right of inheritance entirely to the firstborn son, rather than equally among all of the children. The practice has a long history, but it rose in medieval Europe so that family lands and wealth, and the feudal power that went along with them, would remain consolidated.
Primogeniture also applies to titles, including the English crown. This is how succession is decided in this period. It is not merely a legal distinction; the king rules by divine right, so the system has to be very clear about who is chosen.
If the oldest child is a daughter, she cannot inherit. But what if she has a son? What are his rights to inheritance? Who gets to interpret what primogeniture decides? And what if the stakes include a crown? Such a situation arose in 15th-century England, and ultimately led to a bloody civil war. It was such an ordeal, that Shakespeare himself was moved to write a play about it.
And then he wrote seven more.
Primogeniture is a system that grants the right of inheritance entirely to the firstborn son, rather than equally among all of the children. The practice has a long history, but it rose in medieval Europe so that family lands and wealth, and the feudal power that went along with them, would remain consolidated.
Primogeniture also applies to titles, including the English crown. This is how succession is decided in this period. It is not merely a legal distinction; the king rules by divine right, so the system has to be very clear about who is chosen.
If the oldest child is a daughter, she cannot inherit. But what if she has a son? What are his rights to inheritance? Who gets to interpret what primogeniture decides? And what if the stakes include a crown? Such a situation arose in 15th-century England, and ultimately led to a bloody civil war. It was such an ordeal, that Shakespeare himself was moved to write a play about it.
And then he wrote seven more.