HAL, PRINCE HENRY, HENRY V

UNRAVELLING ENGLAND TROUGH SHAKESPEARE

David Cameira Gomes

4821-F-Engelsk -

Shakespeare and the

Invention of England

Spring 2011

English Studies

University of Copenhagen

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Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.

Into a thousand parts divide one man

And make imaginary puissance.

(King Henry V, Prologue, 23-5)

With this essay I intend to demonstrate how Shakespeare

illustrates the formation of a country throughout his

tetralogy comprised by King Richard II, King Henry IV Part One,

King Henry IV Part Two and King Henry V1. While the plays of

course are set in the already existent England, I want to

draw attention to the symbolism behind the characters

that support my argument. More specifically, I believe

that through the evolution of the character Henry V,

Shakespeare comprises a whole set of imagery alluding to

the history and formation of a country. Due to the

complex nature of Shakespeare’s work, I will not

delimitate my writing solely to the aspect of Henry V’s

appearances throughout the plays. I will also address

other aspects such as the writing, the use of language in

specific cases, the context, other characters surrounding

Henry V, etc. as I see fit and that are as important to

my argument as the motif of Henry V himself. Finally, I

am determined to explain how this idea could have helped

England to further consolidate itself as a nation.

The first thing that should be addressed when

analyzing these four plays is the fact that they are

1 The Arden Shakespeare edition of every play was used.

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known as the second tetralogy. Although they can be read

as a connected sequence of events, the historical

episodes they depict actually precede those depicted in

the earlier first tetralogy. Thus, the sequence in which

the historical plays were composed replaces the order of

history moving forward in time with a recollection for a

lost past. The reasons for this inverted order of

composition are unknown, but Shakespeare gives its reader

several clues throughout the four plays. For example the

Chorus character in King Henry V ends the play reminding the

audience that the subsequent development of events has

already been shown on their stage:

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned king

Of France and England, did this king succeed,

Whose state so many had the managing

That they lost France and made his England bleed,

Which oft our stage hath shown-and, for their

sake,

In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

(Epilogue, 9-15)

This tetralogy in the end invokes a story of loss, but

what is more important to this paper is the fact that

these plays dwell on a historical period of England that

not only draws closer to the foundation of the country,

but is also one that witnessed several changes to its

regency system. King Richard II is a play that is deeply

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rooted in the issues of sovereignty and authority, and

finally it depicts a disturbed political turmoil ending

in the assassination of the king. It is a play that

symbolizes the fall of a feudal world and that plants the

promising seed of the rising of a “modern” and more

united country: Henry V himself as a baby. Indeed, the

figure of Henry V overshadows this whole tetralogy. He is

first mention in this first play after his father is

crowned: ‘Can no man tell of my unthrifty son? / ‘Tis

full three months since I did see him last’ (5.3.1-2).

The play’s opening scene is filled with ceremonial

gestures and a form of speech that reminds the audience

of the medieval times. Wells and Orlin write in

Shakespeare, An Oxford Guide2 that

“the play’s opening line – ‘Old John of Gaunt, time-

honoured Lancaster’ – exploits this nostalgia, reminding

the audience that they are about to enter the world of

Chaucer’s patron, John of Gaunt (1349-99), who was indeed

‘time- honoured’ by the time the play was produced.”

(SOG, 199)

Also, in the end of the first act, there is a scene that

depicts all the formal preliminaries to a medieval trial

by combat, which is addressed with flaunt and

2 Wells and Orlin (2003) Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, Oxford,Oxford University Press.Henceforth, all references to this book shall be markedwith SOG.

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circumstance of the past: a Marshal, two heralds,

trumpets and Bolingbroke and Mowbray as armed combatants.

This play is indeed highly ritualized throughout its

whole action, but this specific scene is one that vividly

evokes a medieval England. However, the combat itself

never takes place as the king himself puts a halt to the

ceremony. After a full scene of preparations and building

expectations towards this one event, to much

disappointment of the spectators the king finally appears

to cast away both combatants. Wells and Orlins write

about Richard being depicted as the agent responsible for

the downfall of the idealized medieval England:

Here [the trial by combat scene], as in much of the

play, Richard is depicted as the destroyer of the

idealized medieval England he inherited, and the object

of nostalgic desire is pushed even further back into

the past, into the time of Richard’s glorious

predecessors, who are recalled to mark the extent of

Richard’s shortcomings. (SOG, 200)

Be that as it may, I do not think that Richard is the

sole responsible for his own demise. As the remaining

plays will show, he was victim to his faults as much as

he was in the way of a glorious England ruled by Henry V.

This tetralogy often deals with the idea of a

predetermined destiny that must be fulfilled. That

destiny is indeed accomplished in the end, and John of

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Gaunt also portrays Richard II in this play as another

being that is victim of this immovable force of destiny:

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired

And thus expiring do foretell of him:

His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,

For violent fires soon burn out themselves;

(2.1.31-34)

Still, the blame of Richard is unrelentingly pointed at

by this dying John of Gaunt in the opening scene of Act

Two. This character also draws a perfectly medieval

portrait of how England was perceived in those times.

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

(2.1.42-44)

He calls his envisioned England as ‘Eden’, associating

with the idea of a perfect and unachievable place for the

ones chosen by God. However, Gaunt’s idealized Eden is

not a garden but a ‘fortress built by Nature’ protected

‘against the envy of less happier lands’ by the sea. It

is the portrait of an idealized medieval landscape that

England should be. But as we will see, when England rises

anew from its political turmoil it will be under a quite

different ideology. King Richard II is a rather ritualized

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and nostalgia-inducing play. Not only its landscapes and

rituals but also its rulers are here described as

medieval. Even its characters are repeatedly looking back

to even more distant times when the country was not in

such a bad state. It tells the message that a living

figure can never live up to the ideals represented by

their dead predecessors, and the best example to

illustrate this point lies within a speech from Richard

II himself:

In winter’s tedious nights, sit by the fire

With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales

Of woeful ages long ago betid;

And ere thou bid goodnight, to quit their griefs

Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,

And send the hearers weeping to their beds

(5.1.40-5)

Even the faulty king is allowed to hope for a

transmutation by death into the subject of nostalgic

recollection. King Richard II is a play whose function is not

only to introduce its public to the country’s political

feebleness and decrepitude, but also to set a solid

theatrical background from where the figure of Henry V

can rise and shine in all its historical glory.

Shakespeare draws an England that is threatened not only

by internal affairs but also by their Irish neighbors.

With all its medieval symbolism and old-fashioned

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rituals, the play ultimately represents the fall of an

antiquated world in favor of a new regency and the

promise of a brighter future.

King Henry IV Part One presents the reader with a direct

follow-up from the previous play. Even though many years

have passed, we are immediately put into context by the

King’s speech about the nation:

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils

To be commenced in strands afar remote.

(1.1.1-4)

These four opening lines perfectly and vividly illustrate

not only an England exhausted from fighting within its

own borders, but also a new resolution towards the

regency of the country. Henry IV is decided to unite all

of England under the same banner and to not let England’s

soil “daub her lips with her own children's blood”.

Counter-pointed by the image of a truly worried and

apparently worthier king than Richard II, Scene Two

presents us with Henry IV’s son, Prince Henry, who the

audience immediately understands him as a sharp mouthed

bohemian. This fact first comes as a shock not only

because he is the son of the king, but also because he is

the brilliantly acclaimed future Henry V. Shakespeare

takes hold of the famous modern aphorism “the first

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impression, the best impression”, and completely

undermines it through the character of Hal. He is firstly

shown talking not only about last night’s carousal, but

also discussing a robbery committed by the same group in

which’s company he is at that moment, and planning

another one for the day after. However, after he is left

alone, Hal gives a meaningful soliloquy:

I know you all, and will awhile uphold

The unyoked humour of your idleness:

[…]

So, when this loose behavior I throw off

And pay the debt I never promised,

By how much better than my word I am,

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;

And like bright metal on a sullen ground,

My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

(1.2.190-191, 203-210)

Within the action, this “you” of course refers to the

characters that were in the prince’s company – Poins and

Falstaff. However, the same “you” is referring to the

playgoers themselves, the idle crowd who has come to the

playhouse to be entertained. This moment is a rather

important one in the construction of Hal’s character. It

is in this soliloquy that he willfully admits that he is

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taking joy in such a lowlife company’s affairs. Despite

the royalty status of the prince and his apparent

speaking and rhetoric skills, there is a connection being

made between the future king and its people that goes

beyond the stage. By witnessing a credible evolution of

such an heroic and intelligent future king that spends

the better part of his youth among those characters that

in every aspect symbolize the English people, the

playgoers were allowed and encouraged to take pride in

themselves, for they were the ones who helped to shape

such a magnanimous king. In the same speech, Prince Henry

also takes the chance to make a promise about his bright

future, excusing himself by stating that his erroneous

behavior will make his ascension brighter. Falstaff is

the character responsible for this improbable connection.

He is a character that cannot be separated from Prince

Henry and indeed the title-page of the 1598 edition of

King Henry IV Part One contains two advertising announcements:

‘With the battle at Shrewsbury, between King and Lord

Henry Percy, surnamed Henry Hotspur of the Nort’; and

‘With the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaff’. There

is a fundamental analogous dichotomy between the

characters of Hotspur and Falstaff. Both of them aid the

prince in the purpose of his glorious ascendancy to

power, and both of them play a part that is as important

as it is antagonistic in this quest. Shakespeare, An Oxford

Guide contains the most accurate description of Hotspur’s

character:

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“Hotspur is a character who lives – and dies –

entirely by the aristocratic code of chivalric honour.

King Henry praises him as ‘the theme of honour’s tongue’

(1.1.80); the Scottish rebel Douglas calls him ‘the

king of honour’ (4.1.10). Hotspur here imagines

honour as a near-mythic treasure obtained by feats of

super-human force and even violence. His self-

representation harks back to the culture of feudalism,

in which nobility was equated with militaristic

strength.” (SOG, 486)

Hotspur is in fact the remaining link to King Richard II and

its representation of a medieval England and his ultimate

demise is imbued with symbolism. His obsession with the

ancient code of chivalric honour is constantly parodied

by both Hal and Falstaff. If Hotspur lives by the code of

honour, Falstaff, at the decisive battle at Shrewsbury,

discards it as a meaningless and outdated symbol:

What is

honour? a word. What is in that word honour?

what

is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath

it?

he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.

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Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then.

Yea,

to the dead. But will it not live with the

living?

no. Why? detraction will not suffer it.

Therefore

I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon:

and so

ends my catechism.

(5.1.133-144)

Falstaff cleverly disguises his cowardice under a mantle

of rhetoric that concludes that honor is merely a product

of the medieval which serves no purpose in current days.

Falstaff instead lives by a completely different moral

code. He mocks honour but wholeheartedly subscribes to

the code of fellowship. Hal, on the contrary, does not

look up to either the honour of Hotspur nor the

fellowship of Falstaff. Hal is in this sense an

impermeable character. While it is true that he does

admire and commend Hotspur for his glory, he soon kills

him and discards it as an old-fashioned thing that no

longer belongs in this future reign. The relation between

prince Henry and Hotspur is key to the dramatic

development of the play. Hotspur is first mentioned by

Henry IV in the first scene, where we see the king highly

commending Hotspur for his heroism and feats on

Holmedon’s plains, and even before Prince Henry appears

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in the play we have his father wishing that Hotspur was

his son instead of Henry:

A son who is the theme of honour's tongue;

Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;

Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride:

Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,

See riot and dishonour stain the brow

Of my young Harry.

(1.1.80-85)

There is a terrible irony in the fact that Henry IV looks

at his son as potential object of riot and dishonor, when

the very man he was wishing that it was his son will have

soon united with Scotland, Wales and some English lords

and riot against the King, thus discarding of all the

honour he had so painfully achieved. Furthermore, to

aggravate the king’s erroneous judgment of these two

characters, it is indeed his own unpromising son that

will personally kill Hotspur and in the future give a new

meaning to the word “honour”. The motif of Hotspur

between Prince Henry and his father rises yet again in

the first scene of the third act, when Henry IV first

confronts his son about his erratic behavior. When the

prince passionately defends himself with the fact that

not every story that is heard is true, but that he is

indeed to blame for his mislead conduct, the king finally

goes on with his speech stating every worry that is

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afflicting him. Again this speech is heavily burdened

with the irony of destiny, and the scene develops a

rather complex game in the heart of the spectator who at

one hand understands the preoccupation of Henry IV as

father and a king, but on the other knows that that

scolded prince will soon enough turn into the most

acclaimed king of England. As the king’s worries are

thoroughly described, the reader understands that every

single doubt that Henry IV rightfully expresses is going

to be proven completely wrong, and the fact that the king

goes to great lengths to fully describe his worries, the

better the reader understands the full extent of the

prince’s future conquests:

The hope and expectation of thy time

Is ruin'd, and the soul of every man

Prophetically doth forethink thy fall.

[…]

not an eye

But is a-weary of thy common sight,

Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more;

Which now doth that I would not have it do,

Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

[…]

Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear,

Base inclination and the start of spleen

To fight against me under Percy's pay

(3.3.36-38, 87-91, 124-126)

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Since the audience previously knew that the great Henry V

would on the contrary to these accusations become the

great redeemer of England; that he would spend more time

outside of his country and his city winning battles; and

that finally Hotspur would end up dead in the battle of

Shrewsbury; this speech serves a double purpose of re-

prophesizing future events and sparking a fiery, albeit

respectful, response from the Prince. In his passionate

answer, Prince Henry promises not only to “redeem all

this on Percy’s head”, but that some day he will proudly

announce that he is his father’s son. The prince’s speech

pinpoints a key factor in his evolution towards the myth

of Henry V.

When I will wear a garment all of blood

And stain my favours in a bloody mask,

Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with

it.

[…]…for the time will come

That I shall make this northern youth exchange

His glorious deeds for my indignities.

(3.3.135-141, 144-146)

These lines comprise the most significant promise that

the Prince has set upon himself to deliver. He forecasts

his heroic deeds that will undeniably wash away not only

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the shame from his past conduct, but also the final

remnants of a feudal England. With the elimination of the

threat of Hotspur and the Scottish rebellion, the Prince

is thereby planting the foundations of a new

configuration of power and taking the first step towards

the Shakespearean England. Since Hotspur and Falstaff are

both ostentatious representatives of old feudal glory,

killing Hotspur represents the prince’s first step. The

final one, as we shall see in King Henry IV Part Two is

resigning to Falstaff.

Despite having said earlier that Prince Henry is

impervious to the conduct of both Hotspur and Falstaff,

his relationship with these characters serves a higher

purpose of developing his faculties as a future monarch.

Although he evidently rejects aristocratic honour in

order to accompany Falstaff and his group, he still

praises Hotspur as the “braver gentleman” (5.1.89), the

unequaled agent of honour, and in that he nurtures his

admiration for Hotspur. The Prince also speaks Falstaff’s

language of fellowship – “Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a

leash of drawers, and can call them all by their christen

names” (2.5.5-7) – but since we know that he plans to

abdicate of those companions, it can be understood that

this declaration of brotherhood is more of a discourse

that he has learned to speak in timely situations than an

identity in which he believes. Like every good

politician, the Prince is here showing in his early age

the wit and guile that are necessary to thrive in the

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world of politics. In Shakespeare, An Oxford Guide, we can read

about the Prince’s linguistic gift:

“Indeed, Hal displays considerable proficiency in his

future subjects’ languages. Later, as King Henry V, he

will speak French to woo Katherine and win the throne of

France. In Henry IV Part One, he intimates how his fluency in

‘low’ English (‘I am so good a proficient in one

quarter of an hour that I can drink with any tinker in

his own language during my life’ (2.5.15-17)) will be

crucial to his future exercise of power: ‘when I am

King of England I shall command all the good lads in

Eastcheap’ (2.5.12-13). Hal stoops linguistically, then,

to conquer.” (SOG, 487)

Thus, the wildness and misconduct that can be witnessed

in the Prince’s character serves different purposes in

different levels. The mixing of the tragedy and comedy

styles bring a new liveliness to the play, making the

play more appealing to the common audience of

Shakespeare’s time. More importantly, it can be clearly

seen how the Prince is absorbing valuable “lessons” from

his association with the likes of Falstaff and Hotspur.

From Falstaff and his companions, we could roughly say

that the Prince is learning about his future people of

England: what are their costumes, their entertainment,

their beliefs. From this improbable partnership we have a

future King who allegorically is in a process of breeding

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and being bred by his own future people. This connection

is strongly reinforced by the Prince’s constant

interaction with Falstaff, a character who, like Don

Quixote, exists outside the play. With King Henry IV Part One,

Shakespeare introduces the most notorious King of England

as a boy who takes pleasure in the mundane aspects of the

commoner’s life, and this was something the public could

strongly relate to. As with the killing of Hotspur, the

Prince takes a reassuring step towards the creation of a

reign under a new ideology:

Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou srunk!

…This earth that bears thee dead

Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

(5.4.87, 91-92)

Prince Henry understands how the code of honour by which

Hotspur lived loses all its significance in the England

that is rising.

This draws me closer to the topic of the foundation

of a new idea of England. The subtle changes that are

occurring within the country are all passing directly or

indirectly through the Prince’s hands, and the slaying of

Hotspur marks a pivotal point in the fight against

internal and external rebellions. The King’s victory over

Shrewsbury marks so important an event that in the

beginning of King Henry IV Part Two we have a personified

character named Rumour whose mission, as his name clearly

indicates, is to undermine the spreading news of victory,

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turning it instead to a resounding loss where Hotspur

kills the Prince and Douglas the king. This character is

not only erroneously introducing the state of the affairs

of the country, he is also defining England as a physical

territory as he illustrates his passage from “the orient

to the drooping west” to the route “through the peasant

towns / Between that royal field of Shrewsbury / And this

worm-eaten hold of raggèd stone.” (Introduction, 33-35)

Rumour then introduces us to the final threat to England

as he says that “smooth comforts false, worse than true /

wrongs.” (Introduction, 41-42) Indeed in the next scene

we have Hotspur’s father, Northumberland being incited by

the proud Lord Bardolph about those wrong rumors. When

Northumberland finally learns the truth, we can see that

he is possessed by an euphoric will fueled by those

broken hopes and intends to depart immediately to war.

Having been well, that would have made me sick,

Being sick, have in some measure made me well;

[…] Now bind my brows with iron; and approach

The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare

bring

To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!

(1.1.138-139, 150-152)

In this wild extempore we can clearly recognize

Hotspur’s impetus from King Henry IV Part One as he could not

contain his eagerness towards going to war. This

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symbolizes the threat of yet another civil war that

wasn’t eradicated with the battle of Shrewsbury.

On the next scene Falstaff makes remarkable

observations that concerns the state of the country and

predict the outcome of the upcoming rebellion:

…Virtue is of so little regard in these

costermonger times that true valour is turned

bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and

hath

his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all

the

other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice

of

this age shapes them, are not worth a

gooseberry.

(1.2.167-172)

Falstaff is unknowingly here describing the first treads

that England is taking as country with a new regency. He

is saying in his own words what has been already been

proven by actions in King Henry IV Part One – that England

shall no longer rule and be ruled by the code of honor,

and virtue of speech is worth nothing by itself. This

rant of Falstaff is also a premonition about his own

future, where Henry V denies their friendship. Like

Hotspur, Falstaff is also a character that theatrically

belongs to another era. The other remark that is light-

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heartedly made by Falstaff comes as an ironic premonition

on the outcome of the war. He wishes for the two opposing

“armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take

but two shirts with me, and I mean not to sweat

extraordinarily.” (1.2.209-211) There is a remarkable

irony in the fact that Falstaff should have said in the

same Scene that England no longer recognizes “virtue” and

that he hopes they should not fight in a sunny day, when

the war is indeed fought not with actions but with words.

In the scene where Prince Henry and Poins are having

a conversation, a deep resolve can be noted in the

Prince’s speech. While admitting that he has indeed

developed a taste for his Eastcheap lifestyle and that he

is worried about himself becoming too much like the

commoners, he confesses to Poins that his heart is

weeping for his sick father. I think that this scene can

be seen as a final connecting point between the Prince

Henry and the English population. On one hand, the Prince

is admitting that in a way he is one of them, his

pleasure resides within the heart of the people, but on

the other hand, he is possessed by a godly sense of

righteousness and knows that he must abandon that way of

life.

By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the

devil's

book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and

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persistency: let the end try the man. But I

tell

thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father

is so

sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art

hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of

sorrow.

(2.2.43-48)

Alluding to the medicinal methods of that time, when

doctors often bled their patients for the “foul” blood to

come out, the Prince’s heart is also bleeding inwardly.

Should he chose to externalize his feelings, he would be

thought of as the “most princely hypocrite” because of

his permanent association with the likes of Falstaff that

has always deeply upset the Prince’s father. The Prince‘s

last scene of diversion alongside this company is one

coated with humoristic carousal, but it bears great

symbolic significance because it is the last time that

the Prince engages in such behavior. As a prelude to this

scene, the Prince says to Poins:

From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was

Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low

transformation! that shall be mine; for in

every

thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.

(2.3.166-169)

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The fact that the Prince and Poins were to be disguised

as waiters with “leathern jerkins and aprons” makes him

evoke a story about a God descending down from heaven.

The Prince here is evoking his future role as King

because, as it will explain with more detail in the next

paragraph, the King was considered to be the

representative of God on earth. After the Prince and

Poins eavesdrop Falstaff’s thoughts on their

personalities, a hilarious trade of insults ensues, but

when Peto comes in with the news of Henry IV, the Prince

deeply regrets that waste of time and promptly announces

his goodbye: “Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good

night.” (2.4.63) This is the final line that Henry

addresses at Falstaff before he is crowned. It seems like

a normal farewell, but the fact that Shakespeare chose to

show us the Prince asking for those two royal objects,

the cloak and the sword, before saying goodnight also

suggests an omen of the dark times that are awaiting

Falstaff. Although, if the sword is one of the symbols of

Henry V’s sovereignty in King Henry V, in King Henry IV Part Two

Prince Henry’s communication and persuasion skills are

his best attributes. Indeed, I feel that the most

pronounced sign that shows the changes occurring within

the way that England exists as a country lies within the

non-existing battle at Yorkshire. When the rebel leaders

meet up with Prince John to discuss the terms of the

rebel’s grievances, Prince John of Lancaster lectures the

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Archbishop on how he is abusing of his religious

authority by using his power to join rebelling forces

against the King, when the King himself is the direct

representative of God. Lancaster is here referring to the

political theory renowned as the doctrine of divine right

of kings. Rebelling against the King constituted not only

a crime but also a sacrilegious act. In the Elizabethan

period, rebellion was considered as a great sin against

God, and Shakespeare is here making a connection between

the play and his present time. The meeting ends with the

capture of the Archbishop and the other rebel leaders

without any blood being shed, and this symbolizes the

resurgence of a new England, one justly ruled by the will

of God: “God, and not we, hath safely fought today.”

(4.2.121) To further consolidate this message, in the

Scene right after the “negotiations” take place, we can

see Falstaff in his last pretense of grandeur being

ignored by Prince John of Lancaster. Falstaff’s

misattributed reputation as a valiant warrior aided him

in the capture of Colevile. However, as always, he is

boasting about his feat saying that a ballad should be

commissioned, that Prince John and the others feats next

to him are nothing, and the degree to which his flaunting

is ignored is representative of how Falstaff does not fit

in the England that has risen with the kingdom of Henry

IV.

When the King is finally lying in his deathbed and

once again asks about the missing Prince, three important

25

revelations can be understood. Firstly, when the king is

advising Thomas of Clarence on how to best deal with the

future King’s temperament, he fails to grasp how Prince

Henry will cease to be himself and completely embrace the

role that he is destined to partake. When almost in the

same breath the king learns that Prince Henry is again in

the company of Poins, he once more starts to predict

terrible things about his country. Warwick, the future

Henry V’s trusty councilor interjects in the Prince’s

favor:

My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite:

The prince but studies his companions

Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the

language,

'Tis needful that the most immodest word

Be look'd upon and learnt; which once attain'd,

Your highness knows, comes to no further use

But to be known and hated. So, like gross

terms,

The prince will in the perfectness of time

Cast off his followers, and their memory

Shall as a pattern or a measure live

By which his grace must mete the lives of

other,

Turning past evils to advantages.

(4.4.67-78)

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In this speech Warwick summarizes everything that Prince

Henry has been saying throughout Part 1 and 2 from these

plays. With this section we also understand that the

words on the pages are inextricably part of the life of

the play itself, and as such they need to be approached

with the level of commitment which Warwick attributes to

the unpredictable Prince Henry when, identifying language

with a way of life, he assures the King that the Prince

was only studying his companions. Secondly, right after

Warwick’s intervention, Westmoreland enters with news

from the “war”:

The manner how this action hath been borne

Here at more leisure may your Highness read,

With every course in his particular.

(4.4.88-90)

The fact that the King can read about the details of the

outcome of the war and, consequently, the country, is yet

another sign of England’s establishment as a revitalized

country. The substantiation of facts with the written

English also played its part in the fight against the

rebels. The last and most important revelation comes with

the Prince’s symbolic self-coronation whilst he was

thinking that his father was already dead because of the

unmoving feather under his nose. This scene embodies many

essential ideals. For once, it is the final soliloquy

that we can hear from this character. The soliloquy

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within Prince Henry represents the gap between power and

legitimacy, and we could ask the question if these

soliloquies are a sign of weakness, but as Prince Henry

solemnly puts his crown on his head, he evokes God’s

strength to aid him in his future tasks and a deep

resolve can be testified in his speech. He expresses his

grief briefly but tenderly for his dead father, and

promises to guard the honor of the crown. A profound

resoluteness can already be felt within this character.

We can see here that the Prince is in his last

preparation for taking on the role of a true King as he

is pouring out his personal feelings:

My lord, I found the Prince in the next room,

…What tyranny, which never quaff’d but blood,

Would, by beholding him, have wash’d his knife

With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.

(4.5.82, 85-87)

When the King wakes up and thinks that the Prince is

wishing for the “hasty death” of his father, again he

accuses the Prince of a future murderer, one who shall

turn the kingdom into a “wilderness”. The answer that

comes in aid of his father’s worries is quite an

extraordinary sign of love, intelligence and respect. I

feel that Prince Henry finally understands the burden of

carrying a crown and the concept of what being a good

King is. He understands that an ideal King has no space

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for the involvement of personal feelings and he

recognizes his father’s weakness in that. Still, as his

father is lying in his deathbed, the Prince allows

himself one last manifestation of personal feelings, but

this resolve comes of duped by his willingness to also

please his father’s final worries. When the Prince says

that he was only trying on the crown to see if it would

infect and corrupt him, because should that be true, he

would ask God to forever keep it out of his head, he is

not really telling the truth. As we saw earlier, the

Prince’s grievance and trying on the crown had nothing to

do with a “righteous testing” of himself. Instead, when

the Prince willingly soothes his father with these kind

but untrue remarks, he is already playing the role of a

King who has to make personal sacrifices for a cause

greater than himself.

At the end of Henry IV Part Two, the Prince is finally

ready to play the role of King. Crowned as King Henry V,

he immediately banishes Jack Falstaff. ‘I know thee not

old man’, he says to Falstaff at the beginning of the

banishment speech (5.5.45). In this sense, this play has

a tragic ending, and the rejection of Falstaff comes of

as the betrayal of the audience. Falstaff was the

character responsible for the connection between the King

and his people, he represented the humor and the spirit

of the English people, he was the one who attracted

sentimental attachment to the play. The royal king who

appears in Henry V never acknowledges the existence of the

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disreputable characters who were his constant companions

in both parts of Henry IV. His former companions still

speak of him, but he never mentions their names. When we

finally get to King Henry V, all the longingly remembered

and eagerly anticipated glory evaporates in ambiguity, as

Chorus words are repeatedly contradicted by the events

enacted on the stage and challenged by the irreverent

voices of vulgar theatrical clowns. Even the King himself

is never fully present, but this is because of his total

commitment to his role. It is notable but understandable

that we never hear a soliloquy from the King, since it

represents the manifestation of a self. Therefore, the

realization of the myth is never fully fulfilled, or at

least is somewhat empty in itself, and that is why Chorus

is needed. Chorus serves the purpose of introducing the

playgoers to a new micro-cosmos within the theatre, a

micro-cosmos that represented England. With his

description of the events taking place that are not shown

in stage, he is inducing us to a new sense of geography

and ultimately a new sense of a nation. The image of a

nation contained within a stage becomes explicit within

this peculiar character. It is stirring to hear Chorus

asking for the forgiveness of the playgoers – that

scaffold was unworthy of bringing forth such magnanimous

events. What he suggests instead is that the playgoer

should turn into a listener and imagine the heroic feats

that are about to be described. Through Chorus,

Shakespeare passes on a penetrating message that the

30

perfect England of Henry V cannot be expressed by a mere

play. It is up to the playgoer to imagine the grandiosity

behind each scene. I feel inclined to say that

Shakespeare thought that the perfect England could only

exist inside the head of each participant – as opposed to

spectator – subsequently passing on the responsibility of

perpetuating the greatness of that great new England

throughout the generations to come.

31

Bibliography

Shakespeare, William

King Henry IV Part One, Ed. D. S. Kastan, London, The

Arden Shakespeare.

King Henry IV Part Two, Ed. A. R. Humphreys, London, The

Arden Shakespeare.

King Henry V, Ed. T. W. Craik, London, The Arden

Shakespeare.

King Richard II, Ed. Charles R. Forker, London, The

Arden Shakespeare.

Wells and Orlin (2003) Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, Oxford,

Oxford University Press.

32

Pensum List

Shakespeare, William

King Henry IV Part One, Ed. D. S. Kastan, London, The

Arden Shakespeare.

King Henry IV Part Two, Ed. A. R. Humphreys, London, The

Arden Shakespeare.

King Henry V, Ed. T. W. Craik, London, The Arden

Shakespeare.

King Richard II, Ed. Charles R. Forker, London, The

Arden Shakespeare.

Wells and Orlin (2003) Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, Oxford,

Oxford University Press.

33