The two _Contentions_ are thought to have been chiefly the work of Marlowe, with Greene to help him. Others are suggested as assistants, such as Lodge, Peele, and Shakespeare. In the revival of the two _Contentions_, Shakespeare's work amounted to a close revision, though the older material remained in larger part, both in text and plot. In this revision, Marlowe is thought to have aided, and Greene's bitter attack on Shakespeare may have been caused by the fact that Shakespeare had so supplanted him as collaborator with Marlowe, then the greatest dramatist of England. It hardly seems likely that this attack would have been made if Shakespeare had had any share in the first versions, _The Contentions_. +Date+.--_The First Part of Henry VI_ is thought to have been the play at the Rose Theatre on March 3, 1591-1692, by Lord Strange's company, since a reference by Nash about this time refers to Talbot as a stage figure. The _Second and Third Parts_ have no evidence other than that of style, but are usually assigned to the period 1590-1592. +Richard the Third+ is best treated at this point, although in the date of composition _King John_ may intervene between it and _III Henry VI_. It is the tale of a tyrant, who, by murdering everybody who stands in his way, including his two nephews, his brother, and his friend, wins the crown of England, only to be swept by {136} irresistible popular wrath into ruin and death on Bosworth Field. This tyrant is scarcely human, but rather the impersonation of a great passion of ambition. In this respect, as well as in lack of humor, lack of development of character, and in other ways less easy to grasp, Shakespeare is here distinctly imitative of Marlowe's method in plays like _Tamburlaine_. +Date+.--_Richard the Third_ was very popular among Elizabethans, for quartos appeared in 1597, 1598 (then first ascribed to Shakespeare), 1602, 1605, 1612, 1629, 1622, and 1634. The First Folio version is quite different in detail from the Quarto, and is thought to have been a good copy of an acting version. The date of writing can hardly be later than 1598. +Source+.--An anonymous play called _The True Tragedie of Richard III_ had appeared before Shakespeare's; just when is uncertain. A still earlier play, a tragedy in Latin called _Richardus Tertius_, also told the story. Shakespeare's chief source was, however, Holinshed's _Chronicles_, which learned the tradition of Richard's wickedness from a life of that king written in Henry VII's time, and ascribed to Sir Thomas More. In the _Chronicles_ was but a bare outline of the character which the dramatist so powerfully developed.