136
T
here is little honor in the
deposition of a king. The
crown that Henry IV wears
is one he took from the weak King
Richard II, with the help of a group
of independent warlords led by the
Earl of Northumberland. Now he
wants to unite England as a nation
marching “all one way” (1.1.15).
Unfortunately, this means replacing
those same warlords’ feudal powers
with a centralized form of rule,
and they are not pleased. Their
threatened rebellion challenges
Henry in the north and the west.
Henry doubly needs the support
of these barons—not only to defend
the borders but, importantly, to
maintain his right to rule. He
cannot claim to have inherited the
throne. His right depends on might,
and therefore on their support.
Henry’s dilemma as king is how
legitimately he can quell their
rebellion when his legitimacy
is derived from rebellion itself.Politics and chivalry
Shakespeare reinvents Henry here
as a Renaissance prince rather than
the medieval monarch that he was.
His attempt to forge a nation-state
under the crown, which was in fact
a later Tudor project, is the strategyHENRY IV PART 1
of a politician. Such shrewd tactics
cut clean across the chivalric code
of honor with its escutcheons
(shields bearing coats of arms) and
heraldic etiquette on which the
court of his predecessor, Richard II,
was built.
Among the rebels, Richard is
remembered as the perfect king.
They conveniently forget his self-
interested neglect of England, and
now heap blame on his usurper for
destroying the ideal. This illusion
of chivalry fires the imagination of
young Hotspur to pursue honor
wherever it lies: “To pluck bright
honour from the pale-faced moon...
And pluck up drownèd honour by
the locks" (1.3.200, 203). But the fact
that it is unreachable shows how
vulnerable it is.Old men and the young
The play presents the conflict
between this imagined past and
Henry’s coldly realistic present
through a series of real and
surrogate father-son relationships.
Northumberland and Worcester,
those powerful warlords who want
to reinstate the past, are happy to
recruit their valiant young kinsman
Hotspur to the cause. They see a
political naivety in his idealism that
they can use. But they keep him
well away from policy decisionsIN CONTEXT
THEMES
Deception, usurpation,
honor, disorderSETTING
Court of Henry IV, and the
Boar’s Head Tavern; rebel
camps in England and
Wales; ShrewsburySOURCES
1587 Holinshed’s Chronicles of
England, Scotland, and Ireland.1594 The Famous Victories
of Henry V, an anonymous
play probably known to
Shakespeare.1595 Samuel Daniel’s poem
“The First Four Books of the
Civil War Between the Two
Houses of York and Lancaster."LEGACY
1597–1613 The play is a big
success—five quarto editions
of the text are published.1600 References to parts 1 and
2 as “The Hotspur” and “Sir
John Falstaff” attest to the
popularity of these characters.1642–60 Falstaff is kept on
stage during the Puritan
period in a drollery entitled
“The Bouncing Knight."
1951 Richard Burton plays a
heroic Hal in a Stratford-upon-
Avon production.1966 Orson Welles directs and
stars in Chimes at Midnight,
an artistic film adaptation.1982 Trevor Nunn’s RSC set
presents Henry’s England as a
precarious wooden scaffolding.I’ll so offend to make
offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men
think least I will.
Prince Hal
Act 1, Scene 2So shaken as we are, so
wan with care
King Henry
Act 1, Scene 1