Although it should be mentioned that union was resisted and not implemented until The Acts of Union 17067. From what I've read the the notion of division was almost always regarded as highly negative idea:
'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the rain, there begins confusion. [Henry VI, Part I]
To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;
For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us. So is the unfirm King
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness. [Henry IV, Part II]
'The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption' so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition
And the division of our amity. [Henry IV, Part II]
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together, [Shakespeare, Phoenix and the Turtle]
O, if you raise this house against this house,
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth. [Richard II]
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,
The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:
All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided in their dire division,
O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together! [Richard II]
Our state thinks not
so: they are in a most warlike preparation, and
hope to come upon them in the heat of their division. [Coriolanus]
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. [King Lear, and many more refs]
The best book on that, I think, is James Shapiro's 1606: The Year of Lear. James the VI of Scotland was now James I of Engliand (the first and only regent known as the first while still reigning -- in order to indicate presumably that his line would stretch even to the edge of doom, as Macbeth put is), and he is uniting kingdoms into a unified whole -- the opposite of Lear's disastrous division. James's two young sons were the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall! The latter would twenty years later become Charles I (as we now call him), since the former died young (he would have been James II). Cornwall is named Cornwall in the closest source to Lear -- The Chronicle History of King Leir, an older play but published in 1605. Albany is named Morgan. Here's a link:
"[W]hen it comes to consistency, Shakespeare is interested in the moment more than in what we might remember an hour (or even five minutes) later . . ."
Oh, yes. I have repeatedly had to point this out in teaching "Hamlet"--that Horatio is either Danish or foreign-born according to the requirements of the particular scene, just as there are going to be some "dozen or sixteen lines" inserted into "The Killing of Gonzago" when Hamlet describes his plan, but no discernible interpolation when the play is performed. Overall textual consistency was absolutely not something audiences expected or playwrights provided.
Although it should be mentioned that union was resisted and not implemented until The Acts of Union 17067. From what I've read the the notion of division was almost always regarded as highly negative idea:
'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the rain, there begins confusion. [Henry VI, Part I]
To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;
For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us. So is the unfirm King
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness. [Henry IV, Part II]
'The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption' so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition
And the division of our amity. [Henry IV, Part II]
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together, [Shakespeare, Phoenix and the Turtle]
O, if you raise this house against this house,
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth. [Richard II]
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,
The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:
All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided in their dire division,
O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together! [Richard II]
Our state thinks not
so: they are in a most warlike preparation, and
hope to come upon them in the heat of their division. [Coriolanus]
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. [King Lear, and many more refs]
1706-7
What's the historicist angle on the division of kingdoms?
The best book on that, I think, is James Shapiro's 1606: The Year of Lear. James the VI of Scotland was now James I of Engliand (the first and only regent known as the first while still reigning -- in order to indicate presumably that his line would stretch even to the edge of doom, as Macbeth put is), and he is uniting kingdoms into a unified whole -- the opposite of Lear's disastrous division. James's two young sons were the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall! The latter would twenty years later become Charles I (as we now call him), since the former died young (he would have been James II). Cornwall is named Cornwall in the closest source to Lear -- The Chronicle History of King Leir, an older play but published in 1605. Albany is named Morgan. Here's a link:
https://ia600201.us.archive.org/3/items/chroniclehistory00leesuoft/chroniclehistory00leesuoft.pdf
But as a note, I am doing very little historicist analysis.
"[W]hen it comes to consistency, Shakespeare is interested in the moment more than in what we might remember an hour (or even five minutes) later . . ."
Oh, yes. I have repeatedly had to point this out in teaching "Hamlet"--that Horatio is either Danish or foreign-born according to the requirements of the particular scene, just as there are going to be some "dozen or sixteen lines" inserted into "The Killing of Gonzago" when Hamlet describes his plan, but no discernible interpolation when the play is performed. Overall textual consistency was absolutely not something audiences expected or playwrights provided.