The chorus is a literary and dramatic construct that Shakespeare touched upon in his earlier plays, particularly Romeo and Juliet. However in that play the chorus was just used to reinforce the point of the play before and after it happened. In Henry V the chorus has a much bigger role. The chorus speech at the beginning of Act 2 highlights several contradictions about Henry. It begins with the inference that ‘all the youth of England are on fire’, however this is in direct contrast to a decision made by Henry and his advisors in the previous act to lave some men behind in case Scotland decided to invade. This puts some doubt into an observant audience mind about whether they totally trust the chorus. The chorus goes on to say on line 6 that Henry is the ‘mirror of all Christian Kings’, in other words, he is the perfect model of a good and righteous leader. Again an observant audience would not think that this was entirely correct, Henry only declared war because two vicars told him to do so in order to avoid taxes. This is not exactly a very Christian act and the war could hardly be called ‘just’. This is an example of how Shakespeare makes the chorus seem very biased in his views and this reflects badly upon the things the chorus idea that Henry is so great which the chorus has been trying to promote. Also from lines 22 to the end of the play the chorus tells us about several traitors who have been bought off with French gold to try and kill Henry before he departs for France. This raises the issue that if Henry is so perfect why have three of his closest advisors turned traitor on him? The final line of the Chorus’ speech says ‘Unto Southampton do we shift our scene,’ however Act 2 actually begins with a scene in the Boar’s Head Tavern in London so more doubt is placed in the mind about how truthful the chorus actually is. Many of the phrases in this chorus speech seem very patriotic and complimentary to Henry on one level, as the phrases I have focused on above show. However, if a thoughtful audience compares the information from this with that presented elsewhere in the play then many of the phrases put Henry in not so good a light.
Act 4 Scene 1 is a very interesting scene; it starts with the King discussing the impending Battle with the Lords of England. Henry then borrows a cloak from one his advisors and goes about the camp in disguise so he can learn the mood of his soldiers on the eve of a battle that many expect will see all the English die at the hands of the French. The chorus refers to this in his Act 4 speech, he says ‘Proud of their numbers and secure in soul the confident and over-lusty French do the low-rated English play at dice.’ These few lines in the chorus speech say that the French are rolling dice on how long the English will last, Shakespeare also refers to the French as ‘over lusty’ and this means that the French are almost too eager to go into battle and so these lines also serve to give the impression that the French are over-confident which would please a patriotic English audience. Later in the same chorus speech the chorus says when referring to the English army ‘the royal captain of this ruined band, walking from watch to watch, form tent to tent? Let him cry ‘Praise and Glory on his head! For forth he goes and visits all his host, bids them good morrow with a modest smile, and calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.’ This section of the chorus speech is making reference to the King going about the camp in disguise and gives the impression that in doing this he is calming his soldiers and uniting them as it says in line 34 ‘And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.’
The first soldier he talks to is Pistol, an old friend from his Prince Hal days. The two speak in French to each other at one point but the other replies in English, this may be seen as Shakespeare trying to get across the point that the King does not communicate well with his subjects. The End result of the conversation is that Henry angers Pistol, so in trying to learn the mood of his troops the King has just succeeded in annoying one of them at least. This is in stark contrast to the lines in the chorus speech which I made reference to earlier. The king has not comforted his troops at all but annoyed one of them and does not call all his troops countrymen as the speech suggests but actually when it comes one of his men disliking another because of his nationality he does not attempt to solve the problem but takes sides based on his own particular nationality. This does not make the King look like a very good leader, the night before an important battle he is deepening divisions among his own troops or at least making no attempt to mend these rifts.
Next the King comes across three soldiers Court, Bates and Williams. These three have not previously been mentioned in the play and Shakespeare probably uses them for the first time here so that the audience knows that they are neutral in their views to the King so any view they have on him will only be dictated by his actions in this play. As it turns out Bates and Williams look on the King very dubiously, in line 107 and 108 bates says ‘He may show what outward courage he will, but I believe, as cold as night as ‘tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck.’ This means that Bates thinks all the courage Henry has shown is just a show and he would rather be back in the Thames up to his neck, as freezing cold as that would be rather than be where he is in France, about to battle the French. This is not a very complimentary view of Henry at all and Shakespeare may be trying to show that all Henry’s bravado and words hav not actually convinced his own men that he is genuine in wanting to fight. Henry then gets into an argument with Williams who says that it will be the King’s fault if they all die in the impending battle, understandably Henry disagrees but then doesn’t back down when Williams starts spoiling for a fight. He and William even exchange gloves and on line 185 and 186 Henry tells Williams to give him a glove so that if thy both live they will recognize each other and fight. If Henry was ‘the mirror of all Christian Kings’ as suggested in the Act 2 chorus speech then would he really be going around the night before a battle and getting into fights with his men? This scene can be taken several ways in its criticisms of Henry, at the least it gives the idea that Kings are not perfect and still annoy people an get into fights. At most it is a criticism of Henry himself and shows that his actions before the battle are far from those of a good leader.
The scenes and chorus speech I have chosen to analyse show that Shakespeare wrote Henry V to be a patriotic rendition of Henry V’s campaign against the French on one level but on another it is actually criticising Henry for starting a war and for his subsequent actions. The time in which the play was written Elizabeth was on the English throne. The subject matter of Henry V was potentially volatile for several reasons. Firstly there was no clear successor to the throne after Elizabeth died and in some parts of Henry V reference is made to the fact that Henry IV killed the rightful King in battle and took the throne and so there are others who have as strong a claim to the throne as Henry. This could have upset many nobles in Shakespeare’s time as the talk of such things in a popular play could be seen as trying to encourage anti-monarchy feeling or trying to encourage anyone with a good claim on the throne to make a grab for power once Elizabeth had died. The play also deals with the morality of war and while on the surface it paints a very patriotic and glorious conclusion about Henry’s French campaign the subtext for many scenes is dubious about how moral the war actually was. Apart from the obvious fact that the play made Henry seem as if he was going to war because two bishops wanted to avoid paying taxes the play also attacks the morality of war and Shakespeare may have been trying to signal that any war for whatever reason cannot be just as it causes immense suffering on both sides. This would clash with the accepted view of the conflict with Spain and the Spanish Armada, this was generally accepted to be a holy war (Protestant England against Catholic Spain) and it could not be faulted. Because the play raises these issues much of the criticism of Henry and his war is not openly written about but rather covered by the patriotic chorus. However Shakespeare actually uses the chorus speeches to encourage the audience not to trust the chorus and some of the chorus’ words plainly contradict actions in the play. This creates a play that anybody reading or watching is encouraged to think about and see the many different meaning s of the text and think about whether war is actually so great, probably exactly what Shakespeare intended.
