What category of Shakespearean plays included subjects like the King of England (from 1483-1485)?
Shakespearean history In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. The histories—along with those of contemporary Renaissance playwrights—help define the genre of history plays. 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.
The Mandrake The Mandrake (Italian: La Mandragola ] ) is a satirical play by Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. Although the five-act comedy was published in 1524 and first performed in the carnival season of 1526, Machiavelli likely wrote "The Mandrake" in 1518 as a distraction from his bitterness at having been excluded from the diplomatic and political life of Florence following the 1512 reversion to Medici rule. Both contemporary and modern scholars read the play as an overt critique of the House of Medici; however, Machiavelli set the action in 1504 during the period of the Florentine Republic in order to express his frustrations without fear of censure from patrons already ill-disposed towards him and his writing.