What did Shakespeare mean when he wrote “let’s kill all the lawyers?”
Olivia Rutigliano
By Olivia Rutigliano
January 25, 2023, 12:56pm
Hello there. Perhaps you clicked on this link because you have heard people cite Shakespeare on the necessity of killing all the lawyers and wonder if it’s a myth. Or maybe you suspect it’s one of those misquoted aphorisms, the kind that gets written on a stand-up chalkboard outside a beer hall, like the oft-attributed-to-Ben-Franklin maxim, “beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Or maybe you’re here because you know a lawyer.
Well, first of all, the quote is real! It goes, “The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It’s said by a character called Dick the Butcher in Act IV, Scene II of William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, which was (we think) written between 1596 and 1599.
Approximately four hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, this pithy phrase has become one of his most famous witticisms, appropriated often to disparage the legal profession, or at least acknowledge the ubiquitous caricature of the crooked, overpriced, counselor.
But the context in which Dick utters this phrase is key to understanding its true meaning. And there still are several possible readings.
This is where the quote lies, in dialogue:
JACK CADE: Valiant I am.
SMITH [aside]: A must needs; for beggary is valiant.
JACK CADE: I am able to endure much.
DICK [aside]: No question of that; for I have seen him whipp’d three market-days together.
JACK CADE: I fear neither sword nor fire.
SMITH [aside]: He need not fear the sword; for his coat is of proof.
DICK [aside]: But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being burnt i’ th’ hand for stealing of sheep.
JACK CADE: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoop’d pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king,– as king I will be,–
ALL. God save your majesty!
JACK CADE: I thank you, good people:– there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
DICK: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Dick is a villainous character—he is a large, threatening murderer, and he is also the right-hand-man of Jack Cade, who is leading a rebellion against King Henry. Cade and Dick are aggressively anti-intellectual; they kill anyone who can read and burn all the books and documents they encounter. They know that they’ll be able to take over an ignorant population with greater ease than one where everyone understands their rights.
One reading of this strange quote suggests, therefore, that society could not exist in a state of fairness and peace without the protectiveness of both the law and its staunch guardians. Dick is suggesting that, in order for their coup to prevail, they must eradicate society of the very defenders of justice who could both stop the revolt he intends to help spur and then remove the power he hopes to grab for Cade.
In other words, this suggests that Shakespeare represented lawyers as the most fundamental defense against the grossest manifestations of power-hungry antics wrought by the scum of humanity.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens shared this reading of the line, even analyzing it in a 1985 decision: “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”
https://lithub.com/what-did-shakespeare-mean-when-he-wrote-lets-kill-all-the-lawyers/