What were shakespears histories a tribute to?

Answer 1

Nobody. Shakespeare didn't write his history plays to flatter anyone. It was a popular form of entertainment which drew people into the theatres his plays were playing at, thus making money for Shakespeare and his partners.

Of course Shakespeare couldn't say nasty things about the monarch's grandfather, for example. But that was just being politically correct.

Answer 2

Except when they dealt with recent history and the recent ancestors of the current monarch, they were not written as tributes at all. It is true that in writing plays like Henry VIII and Richard III, Shakespeare made a point of flattering Queen Elizabeth, her father, mother and grandfather, all of whom appear in those plays. But he had to do that or the play would be censored off the stage, like the proposed play about Sir Thomas More, which Shakespeare and his buddies could not make flattering enough to Henry VIII.

But this would not explain King John. That play is not a tribute to anyone. Nor is Richard II, or any of the Henry VI plays.

There were two reasons why Shakespeare wrote history plays. The first is they made darn good stories. So much so that people are still writing movie and television scripts and occasionally plays as well about events in history, especially in English history, and often the same events Shakespeare wrote about. (The Tudors and The White Queen, anyone?)

The second is that England in Shakespeare's day was developing a national pride, an interest in what it means to be English, and therefore in what happened in English history. Shakespeare and his contemporaries (including Peele, Marlowe and Heywood) therefore wrote plays to tell the masses (most of whom could not read and had no access to books) their history. Stories like those of the hero-king Henry V and his victory at Agincourt were intended to stir English pride. Speeches like John of Gaunt's "this earth, this realm, this England" in Richard II were intended for similar effect.