The Henry VI plays were a major determiner regarding the direction of the rest of Shakespeare's career. It seems that scholars are not uniformly in agreement over these being the earliest of the plays, but they were, at the very least, among the first five. They were almost certainly written before Marlowe's English history play, Edward II (completed in 1594) and a big influence on its writing, the opposite from what popular opinion and culture (Shakespeare in Love, for example) tell us about which writer was learning and which was leading the way. And many scholars are now giving their support to what is known as the "early start" theory, according to which Shakespeare began his writing career in 1586, the same year as Marlowe's.

The writing of three Henry VI plays, it seems obvious, also taught Shakespeare a lot, because from the experience he found a way of working that would allow his greatest and most unique strengths to be incorporated into the process, i.e. his ability to find psychological realism in virtually any character in any situation. And from them, a character emerged who was to be the first of his many larger-than-life protagonists. I'll be writing about him tomorrow.