A Garter and Peasant Robes: The Construction of Martial Masculinity in Henry VI Part I

The character of Talbot in Henry VI Part I is often understood by critics to be a 'man out of time', an honourable knight who dies valiantly, exemplifying, to quote Phyllis Rackin, 'the virtues of an older world'. In this reading of the play (and of the first tetralogy as a whole), the older, medieval world progressively becomes home to horrific warfare and Machiavellian political manoeuvring, leaving no space for honourable knights like Talbot. I intend to argue that the knightly masculinity which Talbot embodies is not so much an attempt to recapture a lost masculine ideal, but a complex inspection of the temporalities of knightly masculinity and how they were formed in late-sixteenth century England. Chivalry and knighthood were not ancient concepts, foreign to early modern audiences, but socio-historical realities of their world and ones which the play actively interrogates.

I will focus on Talbot's relation to the Order of the Garter, a brotherhood of knights which was always haunted by its origin myth of Edward III picking up (and in some versions wearing) the garter of the Countess of Salisbury. In 1 Henry VI, Talbot rips off the garter of John Fastolfe, signifying Fastolfe's removal from the order for dishonourable conduct. This action repeats and reverses the Order's medieval origin myth, in an attempt to both connect Talbot to an honourable medieval institution and to overwrite the non-normative masculinity which the story presents. I argue that this scene draws into question the 'innateness' of masculinity and demonstrates the ways in which chivalric forms of masculinity were both constructed and deconstructed.