In the
First Folio, the plays of
William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories:
comedies, histories, and
tragedies. The histories help define the genre of
history plays, along with other contemporary renaissance playwrights. The histories might be more accurately called the "
English history plays" and include the outliers
King John and
Henry VIII as well as a continuous sequence of eight plays covering the
Wars of the Roses. These last are
considered to have been composed in two cycles. The so-called first tetralogy, apparently written in the early 1590s, deals with the later part of the struggle and includes
Henry VI, parts one,
two &
three and
Richard III. The second tetralogy, finished in 1599 and including
Richard II,
Henry IV, Part 1,
Henry IV, Part 2 and
Henry V, is frequently called the
Henriad after its protagonist
Prince Hal, the future
Henry V.