Henry also shows his cold and severe side when he threatens Harfleur: “Your fathers taken by the silver beards, and the most reverend heads dashed to the walls.” This shows Henry’s ruthlessness because it is a malicious thing to do, but Henry is doing it in the best interest of his country as by making Harfleur surrender, he is limiting the loss of men from his army. He uses religion in his speech to make it sound worse and harsher. When he says “Reverend” it makes it sound religious any therefore making the whole speech sound harsh.
When he forces weary soldiers into battle he is being cold and severe because he is not giving them time to rest from the long journey there: “We should not seek a battle the way we are!” This shows that the troops are not in very good form and should not be placed in the middle of a battle field. King Henry is doing this because he is not letting the French troops rest either and trying to bring the fight to France, not the other way round.
Another time Henry could have been seen as cold and severe was when he executes Grey, Scroop and Cambridge. Henry says to the traitors, “The mercy that was quick in us but late”. Also he says, “By your own counsel is suppressed and killed”. Henry tricks Grey, Scroop and Cambridge into condemning themselves to death by showing no mercy to an old drunken man. They say he should be killed for insulting the king, Henry then gives all of them their death warrants. He denounces all of them for their treason especially Lord Scroop. Scroop used to be a very close friend to Henry; Henry says that he is a “savage inhuman creature”. All of this could be seen as Henry being cold and severe because it is a ruthless thing to do. He condemns his old best friend to death. Other people would see this as inspiring because even though one of the traitors was his old best friend, he didn’t show any mercy to them. They were going to betray him so he executed them for it. The way he does this also shows wit and cunning, these are admirable qualities in a King at the time.
Henry is clearly inspirational because he is a great king and a brilliant leader. He leads his troops to victory against all odds at Agincourt. He makes a great speech which encourages his troops and gets them fighting mad ready for battle. In his speech at Harfleur he cries, “let us swear that you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not”. He is saying that they are of noble blood but here and now they have to prove it to him. He is using abstract concepts; these are very powerful because they spur on the army to prove that he is wrong. Henry says “Dishonour not your mothers” This is a powerful quote because it is testing the army, telling them to prove that they are worth being there. At Agincourt He talks to his troops as though they are brothers, “We band of brothers”. This shows that he is raising the troop’s social status and therefore boosting their morale. At Harfleur he says “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' This is a very inspiring way to finish his speech because he is calling himself Harry; therefore he is lowering his status so that he is equal to his soldiers. Here Shakespeare used a tri-colon this emphasises the point and make the speech more persuasive. Also, he is saying: ‘do it for God, do it for me, do it for the country but most of all do it for yourselves’. Henry would inspire the troops with this speech because they are fighting for England and are thus very proud of being English. This speech would have had a great effect on the crowd, at the time the Spanish Armada was invading and everyone was very proud to be English. The speech would have made the crowd very inspired and would have fired them up. In his speech Henry says “Stiffen the sinews” he uses alliteration here and it makes the reader spit out the words. The quote makes the whole speech seem more intense and violent. When Henry says “When the blast of war blows in our ears” This quote onomatopoeia shows that war is a terrible place. In this case at Harfleur he is very inspiring. I think that the use of poetic techniques he uses in his speech really inspired me. He must have inspired his troops because he wins the siege and makes Harfleur yield.
Another time where Henry is clearly inspiring is when he goes into camp with his troops before the battle of Agincourt. He does this when he is disguised because he wants honest answers from his troops. He talks to them as though they were equals. He finds out what the troops are thinking and what they think of Henry as a king. One of the soldiers said to him, “I would rather be up to my neck in the Thames, than fighting in this battle”. All of the soldiers in Henry’s army thought that they were going to lose the battle so Henry makes a deal with one of the soldiers. He does this by trading gloves: he says that when the war is over, the owner of the glove he had given to Williams (the soldier) would come and give him the other one. I think that this is very clever and inspiring because he has lowered his own status and treated the other soldiers with respect. Also the deal with the glove is very inspiring because it gives the soldier drive to get through the battle and find out who the owner of the glove is. However the real effect of this is on the audience. The play would have been shown at the time of the Spanish Armada this means that everyone the theatre would have been proud to be English.
Another time when Henry is inspiring is after the battle of Agincourt when the French are defeated and the treaties are being decided. Henry now has charge of the country and needed to leave someone he could trust in France to look after the country. He could have left anyone that he trusted there, but he knew that the French would just rebel so he did an extremely wise and noble thing; he let the French king stay on the throne and look after the country for him. This way England could be in power but the French people would still be happy.
Henry must have been inspiring to some people because at the battle of Agincourt the Duke of York is prepared to lead the army into battle even though they are outnumbered by at least five to one. He is very inspiring because everyone doubted him as a king before he went to war with France because of his wild younger days, but throughout the play he matured. He proved everyone wrong and showed that he could overcome the odds not only in battle, but as a king as well.
Henry receives the insulting gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin he deals with it very well. We hear the words, “tennis balls my liege”. The significance of tennis balls is that the Dauphin is saying that Henry is still a child and should still be playing silly games instead of dealing with thing like war. Henry replies and says, “This mock of his hath turned his balls to gun-stones”. This implies that Henry is going to go to war. The messenger that came with the tennis balls was treated with respect even though Henry was insulted by what he brought. This shows Henry’s maturity. The English people did not think that Henry would be a very good King when he first came to the throne because they had heard about his wild behaviour when he was young. After the war they must have thought he was brilliant. He referred to them all as his brothers and even gave them their own celebration for surviving the war.
Henry is a very religious man, he knows a lot about scriptures and other areas of learning. He seeks the approval of the Church before he goes to war. Henry is loyal, inspiring, generous and brave; he is a good speaker and in his oratory he uses lots of rhetorical questions to persuade; such as these are all qualities of a great king. King Henry has a lot of charm; this is how, after the war is over, he gets engaged to Princess Katherine to secure his reign in France. Henry is an extremely clever man; the whole reason why he got to the place where he is King in France is because he figured out that he had roots in the French line of blood through the Salique law. Shakespeare made this whole play to boost the patriotism in England. When the audience see the French, Welsh and Scottish making fools of themselves they would laugh a lot. Also when they see Henry giving these big speeches at the start of the battles they would show their patriotism and cheer because they knew that Henry would make his troops ready for battle and ready to win. In the scene where Bardolph and Nym are hanged Henry is firm in imposing discipline into his troops, he is showing them that they will not be able to get off with wrongdoings.
In conclusion I think that Henry is a very inspiring leader because he takes time to see how his troops are feeling. He makes inspiring speeches that make his troops want to fight in battle for him. Henry is mostly inspiring because of the transformation that he makes throughout the play: at the beginning of the play he is a young childish boy. As the play progresses he matures more and more. You can see this by the way he executes the traitors before the war because they were plotting against him, and when he executes Bardolph and Nym for robbing a French church. This shows that he is moving on from his younger wild days when he was friends with all of these people, he has rejected them and that shows that he has matured. Also, I think the main point where he showed that he has matured was when he let the French King stay on the throne and keep watch over France, this was a very clever strategy. I think that Henry is a very inspirational man and other people should learn from the things he has done, we should learn to treat others with respect as he did to his troops. We should not think that we are better than other people just because we have better material possessions or have had a privileged education and upbringing, we should treat everyone with the same amount of respect.
