These perceptions of Henry make the audiences response to the French that much more intense and venomous as we proceed through the play.
In Act one, scene two, after Henry decides that the throne is rightfully his he calls for the French ambassadors. The next deed to take place is a direct mock of Henry by the Dauphin in which the ambassadors enter and give Henry a box. Inside the box contains an insulting message of tennis balls. This is an allusion to Henry’s supposed preference to idling his time away in trivial pursuits.
This is a very important situation as it would have really riled up the audience as the mock against the king would have felt like a mock on their country and patriotism played a large part in most people’s lives.
Henry deals with the situation very calmly. He thanks the Dauphin for the gift and using the language of tennis, he announces that he is going to take the throne of France e.g. “Tell him he made a match with such a wrangler, That all the courts of France will be disturbed”. He explains through the clever use of lexis relating to the game of tennis that despite appearances to the contrary, in his wild youth he was in fact making good use of his time. He also warns the Dauphin that he will act like a King when he makes his claim on France. He will rise up with such glory that France will be dazzled. The Dauphin’s joke with the tennis balls will rebound on him, stating that there will be much death and destruction in France because of it. This speech is very powerful and after this ridicule the audience would have felt that war was justifiable and that France should pay. There is much use of rhetorical devices such as the repetition of the words I, my, me which are clear evidence of his anger building up inside. He also uses religious references to God, claiming that now God is defiantly on his side “We will in France, by Gods grace, play a set”. Emotive language plays a considerable part in guiding the audience’s response, for example “To whom I do appeal, and in whose name, Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on, To venge me as I may, and put forth my rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause.” This type of language is very expressive of how he feels and will have an effect on the audience indirectly. Onomatopoeia is used as well “Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands; Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down”, this is the sound of a ball, a tennis ball and is a clever use of language which turns the insult around and although this speech is very serious, the audience would have been very amused by this clever use of the rhetorical device.
The scene shows the chronic habit of the French, which continues right up to the battle of Agincourt, of underestimating the English King. Henry reveals himself to be calm and resolute which would cause the audience to see the situation from Henrys point of view and feel as he feels, angry and ready for war.
The next scene which incites the audience’s response to the French, is the scene in which the conspirators are caught and sentenced by Henry, Act two, scene two. Henry very cunningly sets up the circumstances that will allow him to come down hard on the traitors. He tells Exeter to pardon a drunken man who had insulted him the day before. Scrope protests, saying that Henry is being too merciful. He calls for the man to be punished, lest leniency encourage more wrong-doers. Cambridge and Grey join in the call for punishment. But Henry replies that if they punish severely for small crimes, how will they be able to appropriately punish much larger ones? He sticks to his decision to pardon the man. He then hands them their commissions. They think that they are going to be empowered to act on the king’s behalf in his absence, but their faces grow pale when they read the contents of the papers. Cambridge immediately confesses his guilt and begs for mercy, and Grey and Scrope follow his lead. It is the way in which Henry speaks of his utter most disgust of their actions and the total lack of comprehension that anybody could betray their country in the way these men have done for so little a thing as money. This would have made the audience sick to their stomach and the fact that the French were just as despicable and conniving to have even have contemplated such an idea. War in those days was seen as a fair war of solving a dispute and this cowardly approach would have sent the audience at the time wild.
However this scene would have also made Henry confident as it would have shown the desperation of the French and makes the audience a little excited as Henrys confidence rubs off on them.
The way in which Shakespeare portrays the arrogance of the Dauphin creates an atmosphere of annoyance by the audience. He claims the English King is shallow, young and capricious. He proceeds to rubbish any attributes the English have. The French King is far more cautious however and remembers just how powerful the English can be “The patterns by God and by French fathers had twenty years been made. This is a stem of that victorious stock; and let us fear the native mightiness and fate of him.” It seems as though everybody realises that the English are going to win apart from him and his continuous ridicules provoke an annoyance by the audience toward him and the French.
It is then at war in which throughout statements and judgements are made of the French e.g. Henry states in act three scene six that one healthy Englishman is worth three French soldiers “Who when In health, I tell thee, Herald, I thought upon one pair of English legs did march three Frenchmen”.
In Act three scene seven, the night before the battle of Agincourt in the French camp the Constable mocks the Dauphin’s claims of valour behind his back. This makes the audience feel that even the French are not together, that they are all mocking each other and that no body has any real sense of morale or patriotism. The French all seem extremely confident, a little too confident however there is one person, Rambures who is slightly ominous about the battle. His worries are dismissed easily by the Constable and Orleans showing the audience the division of the French and compared to the English their terrible skills at listening to one another.
There is little new portrayal of the over-confidence of the French in Act four, scene two. However it is these scenes in which the French nobles are brimming with dramatic irony, which is when the audience is aware of facts and situations that the characters on stage are unaware of. All audiences know, from Shakespeare’s time to our own, what the result of the battle will be.
In conclusion it is the language and situations mentioned above that Shakespeare uses to guide a response to the French by playing on such feelings as patriotism.
Modern readers often find the patriotism and war fervour expressed in the first few lines excessive, but an audience in Shakespeare’s time would not have been troubled by it. In contrast to the power attributed to the English, the French, are throughout the play presented as weak and feeble by Shakespeare’s use of rhetorical devices such as onomatopoeia, religious references, use of lexis and emotive language to name but a few. In retrospect it is very clear that Shakespeare manipulates the audience into believing what he desires them to, something that must be admired as he does this with such a precision of skill.
