Editing Edward III (play) (section)

==Sources==
Like most of Shakespeare's history plays, the source is [[Raphael Holinshed]]'s ''Chronicles'', while [[Jean Froissart]]'s ''Chronicles'' is also a major source for this play. Roger Prior<ref>Connotations Volume 3, 1993/94, No. 3: Was ''The Raigne of King Edward III'' a Compliment to Lord Hunsdon?</ref> has argued that the playwright had access to Lord Hunsdon's personal copy of Froissart and quoted some of Hunsdon's annotations. A significant portion of the part usually attributed to Shakespeare, the wooing of the [[Catherine Montacute, Countess of Salisbury|Countess of Salisbury]], is based on the tale "The Countesse of Salesberrie" (no. 46) in the story-collection ''[[The Palace of Pleasure (book)|Palace of Pleasure]]'' by [[William Painter (author)|William Painter]]. Painter's version of the story, derived from [[Froissart]], portrays Edward as a bachelor and the Countess as a widow, and concludes with the couple marrying. Painter's preface indicates that he knew that this was "altogether untrue", since Edward had only one wife, "the sayde vertuous Queene Philip", but reproduces Froissart's version with all its "defaults".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20241/20241-h/files/volume1.html#novel1_46|title=The Palace of Pleasure, Novel 46}}</ref> The author of the play is aware that both were married at the time. Melchiori (p.&nbsp;104) points out the similarity of the playwright's language to that of Painter in spite of the plotting differences.

The play radically compresses the action and historical events, placing the [[Battle of Poitiers]] (1356) immediately after the [[Battle of Crecy]] (1346), and before the capture of Calais. In fact, Poitiers took place ten years after the earlier victory and capture of Calais. The compression necessitates that characters are merged. Thus the French king throughout the play is [[John II of France]]. In fact, Crecy had been fought against his predecessor, [[Philip VI of France]]. Many other characters are freely depicted at events when they could not have been present. [[William Montague, 1st Earl of Salisbury]] and [[John of Montfort|John de Montfort]] were both dead even before Crecy.<ref name="Melchiori, Giorgio 1998, p. 2"/> While Sir John Copland did capture the Scottish King David and bring him to Calais in 1346, shortly after Crecy, complete Anglo-Montfort victory in Brittany, alluded in the same scene, was not achieved until the [[Battle of Auray]] in 1364.

The author or authors of ''The Reign of King Edward III'' also used John Eliot’s 1591 translation of Bertrand de Loque’s ''Discourses of Warre and single Combat'' for inspiration and guidance.<ref>Ambrose Murphy, A Possible New Source for Shakespeare’s The Reign of King Edward III, Notes and Queries, April 19, 2024;, gjae046, https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjae046</ref>