From Hal to Henry V - The Making of a King.

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Pamela DeSilva

12-9-03

Eng 448 Tues

From Hal to Henry V

The Making of a King

1 Henry IV was probably written and first acted in 1596. Theatre was still a very new concept since it was not born until 1576. For the higher, educated class, the history plays would be of familiar subject. Shakespeare, however, had to be rather careful on how these stories were presented as not to offend the nobles and especially the royalty. Though 1 Henry IV is a sequel to Richard II, it is hard to imagine two more different plays telling parts of the same story. While Richard II is entirely in verse, essentially a true story, and mostly about the aristocracy, 1 Henry IV mixes prose and poetry, turns historical fact into Shakespearean fiction and includes a wide cast of characters that can be found in actual history. Shakespeare uses the real characters as a basis for those he will develop with the real goal being the development of Prince Hal into King Henry V. The story itself is important to tell but by the end of the tetralogy, the comparisons and contrasts of the surrounding characters (even King Henry IV) seem to be tools to tell the story of the maturation and rise of Henry V. Shakespeare needs a wide variety of ages and classes in order to tell his story. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Shakespeare has put all of England in one play.

Though definitely not done intentionally by Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth herself was compared to Richard II. The date of composition for the play was 1593. In 1596 the Pope issued a Bull against Queen Elizabeth, encouraging her subjects to rebel. In 1601 there was a rebellion instigated by Lord Essex. The Earl of Essex had arranged that a play of the deposing of King Richard should be performed just before his rebellion. The Queen did not miss this subtle hint.

Just as the play begins to refer to the king the lines are omitted.

Northumberland ‘To keep him safely til his day of trial. -154-

Bolingbroke Fetch hither Richard, that in common view he may surrender. Shall we proceed without suspicion…

Richard Alack, why am I sent for to a king before I have shook off the regal thoughts wherewith I reigned?… God save the King! Will no man say Amen?…

Bollingbroke Are you contended to resign the crown?

Richard Ay, no. No, ay; for I must nothing be. Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.”

(Richard II, IV.i, 179)

These are just some of the lines that the Queen could relate back to herself. She also feared many of her subjects would make the association as well and begin to think of a dethroning as possible. Therefore the lines 154-318 in Act IV, Scene I, were cut out of two editions of this play published during the Queen’s lifetime.

As usual for Shakespeare’s history plays (and even for tragedies like Macbeth), one can see evidence that he has done his homework. His primary source for 1 Henry IV was Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, but the way he arranged his material suggest he may have also used John Stow’s Annales, Samuel Daniel’s epic poem about the Wars of the Roses, and two anonymous and humorous plays- Woodstock and The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth. In those sources Shakespeare developed the idea that Hal and Hotspur were the same age (actually Hotspur was two years older than Hal’s father). These sources also helped Shakespeare also came up with the situation of Hal spending most of his time hanging out in taverns with half the riffraff of London. This was, of course, a made-up premise by the author to add character to the play. This tavern scene allows the invention of the beloved Falstaff.

Like the other characters, Falstaff is not just an invention out of thin air. Yet of all Shakespeare’s inaccuracies, this character is undoubtedly the largest. The character of Oldcastle appears in The Famous Victories, but he is based on an actual person named John Oldcastle. This association is very thinly veiled by the reference that Hal makes to Falstaff as, “…my old lad of the castle…” (1 Henry IV, I.ii, 280). Shakespeare wants the reader to know who he is basing his character on, but as beloved as Falstaff is supposed to be, this reference does not seem altogether flattering. So much so that William Brooke—Seventh Lord Cobham, Elizabeth I’s Lord Chamberlain, and John Oldcastle’s descendant—forced a change, and Oldcastle has been Falstaff ever since (except in Oxford University’s 1986 Complete Works). The true Old Castle was a lollard knight who led a Protestant rebellion. He was, however, highly in the king’s (Henry V) favor. The king was trying to reason him out of his beliefs. Oldcastle was convicted of heresy by the Catholic courts in 1413, but “execution was stayed at the behest of the king, who endeavored personally to reconvert his friend to orthodoxy” (Peter Saccio, Shakespeare’s English Kings: History, Chronicle, and Drama, 71-72). Oldcastle then escaped from the Tower. The “escape may have been arranged with the connivance of the king” (75). If this was in fact true, Henry V was not thanked for his actions. The determined Sir John then organized a revolt and conspiracy whose goal (in addition to wholesale religious and social changes) was the murder, or at least the capture, of King Henry V and his brothers (Seward 43-44). The revolt was foiled, but Oldcastle escaped, “and though pardons were afterwards offered…he would not come to claim them” (47). Oldcastle was later was captured while fighting in France and roasted alive. The existence of a form of friendship was true, but the situation and activities could not have been farther from it.

The character of John Falstaff is a boorish, drunk, clever yet tactless scoundrel who makes his living by stealing and spends his quality time drinking and carousing with other drunks and prostitutes. It is preposterous to think of John Falstaff dying for his religious beliefs. He is king of the underbelly of society and as such thinks he belongs in the company of royalty. It is quite a big fish, small pond situation. Even the highest-ranking barfly is still just a barfly and Falstaff has no nobility by birth. It is understood by all that Hal is to be king ...

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“Prince Hal Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch, and where it would not I have used my credit.

Falstaff Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent that thou heir apparent—but I prithee sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou are King? And resolution fubbed as it is with the rusty curb of old Father Antic the law? Do not thou when thou art King hang a thief.

Prince Hal No, thou shalt.

Falstaff Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be brave judge!”

(1 Henry IV, I.ii 281)

This exchange is almost sad but oddly out of character for someone like Falstaff who seems to be so clever. But in this scene, Falstaff lets his emotions get in the way of reality. The love between Falstaff and Hal is made apparent but appears more on the side of Falstaff. Poor old Falstaff actually believes that he will have a place with the future king but will be the man in charge of doing the hangings of others while retaining his own thieving lifestyle. In life, Henry V must have had actual love for Oldcastle to give him so many chances and putting his reputation on the line just to save a friend. The real Oldcastle didn’t seem like much of a friend; he was more of a user but held his religious beliefs much higher than his position in the kingdom. In the play it appears to be opposite. Hal is the user and Falstaff is the loyal, dependable friend. This scenario, though the false one, seems more viable since Oldcastle could have benefited from taking the King’s love and remaining in the royal favor.

The idea of Hal in a tavern with these misfits is also a far stretch because the real Henry V was an entirely different person than he character than his depiction in the play. According to Desmond Seward in Henry V as Warlord, the real Hal was not a frolicsome young Prince but actually a religiously bigoted, politically adept young man who, in plain historical fact, led troops to Whales while he was still in his teens. Henry also ran the country when his father’s illness incapacitated him mentally as well as physically (34 & 27-28). Not only is the play quite different from the reality of the history we know today but the beliefs of reality are different from our present beliefs. In Shakespeare’s day Henry V was considered one of the greatest of English Kings. He transformed the naughty Prince Hal into the gallant, wise and patriotic King Henry V. Some historians nowadays believe that all those adventures in France were a mistake. As present day observers, we can see that the true destiny of England lay on the sea and across the Pacific Ocean. Those famous victories brought little more than poverty and distress to the people of England with very little advantage except the glory battles like Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt (J.C. Stobart, Shakespeare’s Monarchs 85-87). There is no doubt that Shakespeare is drawing a picture of Henry V as his contemporaries would have seen him: a hero king.

But, of course, Shakespeare’s version is more interesting dramatically to most readers. In this style the audience gets the two young rivals fighting, eventually, for the throne of England. Instead of Hal taking care of a sick father and an elderly Hotspur who is no threat really to Henry V rise to power. One also gets a clear picture of all of England, switching from palace to tavern and back again to suggest scandalous similarities between kings and highway robbers. Though the situations are false the reader also gets a view of the relationship between Henry IV and his son. The two were, in fact, rivals and often at odds with one another. In the play Hal did feel uneasy about the way his father had gained the crown and perhaps even loved Richard II more than his own father. This may have been Shakespeare reason for planting the fat substitute parent for Hal to hind in the tavern with. This shows the emotional distance that the Henrys experienced in real life. Henry V is ready for power and even in the play grabs the crown from his father before Henry IV is even really dead. As much humanity as Shakespeare attempts to bring to Hal, he is still a power-driven king just like all the others. Still, even the play suggest as could have possible in life that Hal would have rather been someone else’s son but was no “man of the people” as his invented tavern life is suggesting.

Centering the play around Prince Hal’s reformation makes him even more of a hero. The roles of Hotspur as a young virulent knight and Falstaff as a washed-up drunk with very skewed views of honor, put Henry in the perfect position of an example of balance between obsession and shamelessness. It is Falstaff who expresses the common man’s view of war when he points out that honor and death come together. He is also the one who can lie and laugh his way out of any difficulty even if he is the only one laughing. He is the character that enjoys life so much that the reader has to shake his head and forgive Falstaff of his shortcomings in the same way Prince Hal apparently does. Hotspur, however, is the heavy. He is the end of the spectrum that symbolizes obsession with glory and heroism at any cost. He is all that is negative about war and greed. He even steals, if you will, the love and respect of Hal’s father making the audience like him even less.

With these two extreme characters Shakespeare creates an environment in which Hal can a loveable “hero king”. Even though the views of the real king have changed over the centuries, Hal turned Henry IV can be accepted as courageous and heroic; the way he was seen in Shakespeare’s time. Falstaff is the counterweight to the heaviness of Hotspur. The invention of this fun-loving character allows Shakespeare to make the point that the middle ground of honor-somewhere between the obsessed Hotspur and the contemptuous Sir John-is the place for a wise young prince. Falstaff and Hotspur are actually the two halves of Hal. In the play, Hal spends his spare time living the life of the drunken thieves, expressing his desire for freedom and anonymity. To Hal the idea of being just one of the people has some attraction to and in both parts of Henry IV one can sense some fear and anxiety about taking over the throne. This could be Hal’s motivation for spending so much time in the tavern among those who are no threat to him. Not only are they not a threat they are actually subordinate to him. Choosing to portray the Prince in this way can be quite endearing. Once the prince has overcome is fears and wild tendencies, he emerges and a hero just for leaving this life behind and taking over the throne as he was going to do all along. This style makes Hal an underdog in the eye of the reader since he has so much to battle internally.

The other half of Hal’s personality is the over-masculine Hotspur. Hotspur is the envy of Hal and the most courageous of the soldiers. He has the love and admiration of Henry IV, which has the most damaging affect on Hal. Shakespeare is famous for (among many other things) naming his characters according to their symbolism. The name “Hotspur” suggests a strong-tempered, bigger than life, fighter. Hotspur is also considered a rash youth, a dashing and romantic young man, who had no regard for consequences. He is placed directly next to Hal to show the benefits of a steady head. Hal calmer nature is shown in the play when it is compared to the extreme lackadaisical Falstaff and the hot-headed Hotspur. Prince Hal at his maddest was always able to stop and think. By basically making up these two characters the author can show King Henry V in a much more positive light without having to simply state his greatness.

In using these fictitious characters, Shakespeare can show a little more of England than just the stories of Henry IV and V. We do get a sense of his political beliefs as well. The story upon which Shakespeare had to work was the historical fact that Henry V had been a wild youth fond of low associated, but on coming to the throne had reformed and had made a fine king (J.C. Stobart, Shakespeare’s Monarchs). It is important to point out that Shakespeare was not a preacher or a teacher of any kind but a poet and later theatre lover. Unlike a preacher, Shakespeare did not separate the people into two classes-the bad and the good. As one can see in these four plays, he saw the good in the bad and the bad in the good. The many characters in these plays represent real people of the time even if not directly and the reader is to decide on his/her own if a particular character is good or bad. Falstaff is taken as a beloved character, but it can be debated that he is just a sad, drunken, loser. Hotspur can be seen as a hero or a glory-hungry wardog. Accordingly, the low associates and wild companions of Henry’s young days were not treated by Shakespeare with venom and hatred, but with humor and sympathy. He made Falstaff into a glorious figure of comedy, and brought them all to life-Bardolph, Poins, Nym, Page, and the Hostess. Shakespeare did not treat the people in the mass. This group, the lower class, (which would be the majority in London) was written with sympathy and understanding. It is difficult in the histories to label any character the “good guy” or “the bad guy” without proper room for debate.

Contrasting characters born of reality and simply fiction altogether are not the only tools in developing Henry V’s character. In the introduction of 1 Henry IV of The Four Histories, it is pointed out that, “Hal’s relationship to Falstaff and Hotspur, and his preparation for kingship, lead to the play’s being set in a variety of contrasting spheres. We seem to inhabit at least three worlds. There is a world of the King, his court, and his camp at Shrewsbury. There is Hotspur’s world—a difference in atmosphere as much as a place—and thirdly there is Falstaff’s world—Gad’s Hill, Eastcheap, the road to Sutton Coldfield—and even his part in the battlefield. ‘Place’ as such is of little significance; what is telling is the atmosphere and tone of each of the worlds” (247). The reader requires these different arenas to get to know the characters that are being presented. The most important of those besides Henry V himself are those of Falstaff and Hotspur. The reader must become acquainted with each character in their own world then experience them separately as they interact with Hal. In this way the reader gets to know the struggle and developing personality as Shakespeare had intended. The exchanges in the tavern give some humility to Hal. Even though he is to be king he still allows insults and jibes from his present friends.

Falstaff (to Poins) “Hear Ye, Yedward, if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for going.

Poins You will, chops?

Prince Hal Who I? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.

Falstaff There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good faith in thee, nor can thou camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not to stand for ten shillings.

Prince Hal Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.

Falstaff Why, that’s well said.”

(1 Henry IV, I.ii 285)

Such exchanges as this are only allowed in the world of the tavern. Hal not only allows this sort of insult but encourages it with quips of his own. Hal could be enjoying these mental battles since Falstaff is the only man he knows with the intelligence and simultaneous freedom to speak to him in this manner. This scene shows the friendship and camaraderie that exists between Hal and Falstaff to use as a contrast for the later dismissal of the latter. The reader is enjoying Hal’s temporary freedom along with him and it is that much more heart-breaking when Falstaff is left behind.

Proper attention must be paid to Scene III of Henry V. With the time spent on the development if the friendship of Henry V and Falstaff, the must be a purpose for Shakespeare to enter Falstaff death imbedded in Act II of this play. WE also revisit some of the old gang from the pub to dramatize the mourning of Falstaff.

Enter Pistol, Hostess, Nym, Bardolph and Boy

Hostess “Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

Pistol No; for my manly heart doth yearn. Bardolph, be blithe: Nym rouse thy vaunting veins:

Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,

And we must yearn therefore.

Bardolph Would I were I with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell!

Hostess Nay, sure, he’s not in hell: he’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever a man went to Arthur’s bosom”

(Henry V,II.iii 767-768).

Here the reader is allowed to mourn Falstaff and feel the loss. It is even more saddening because the king is not involved in this scene and Falstaff must die alone. We still get the same humor when there is a discussion as to whether or not Sir John will be received in heaven or hell and his attention to women.

Nym “They say he cried out of sack.

Hostess Ay, that ‘a did.

Bardolph And of women...

Boy Yes, that ‘a did, and said they were the devils incarnate.

Hostess ‘A could never abide carnation, ‘twas a color he never liked.

Boy ‘A said once, the devil would have him about women”

(Henry V, II.iii 769)

In the Kenneth Brannaugh version of Henry V, the death of Falstaff is place at the opening of the film like a quick flashback. This almost disregards the presence of Sir John and ignores the importance to the king’s assumed role in the demise of John’s health. His death is announced in Scene III to remind the reader of King Henry V’s past life and what he coldly left behind. As mentioned before, our author does not outline good and bad so the reader must take from this scene what he/she will. Falstaff was placed her so as not to be forgotten and the hope is that no matter how old, bad, poor, or wicked the reader thought him to be that he could be forgiven on his deathbed. Shakespeare still wants the reader to keep Sir John in mind while witnessing Henry V as a king regarding his new actions.

Shakespeare’s tetralogy of Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V is more than just a history of some of the former Kings of England. These stories when studies together in succession are a collection of characters and situation whether they be fact or fiction to be compared and contrasted to Hal turned Henry V. It is through the study of all these characters that we get to know how Shakespeare intended the public to view Henry V. Though he is not present in Richard II, the foundations of what will shape his personality are laid. The methods of his father are acted out so the reader may observe Hal’s reaction to them. Next, his reputation as a young rapscallion is dramatized in 1 Henry IV. His reactions to the lower orders are observed and we get to see how and why Hal enjoys this deviant life for a while. In 2 Henry IV Hal has matured and his leaving his former antics behind. By the time Henry V begins there is an all out rejection of the former life Hal lived and King Henry V is ready to be the hero king known to Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Only through Henry V’s environment and interactions could the reader truly learn about the man Shakespeare had envisioned.