King Henry V: Stuff to Chew On

To kick off our series on Shakespeare's King Henry V, we are (as always) starting with an overview of basic facts about the play and an introduction to the major themes and motifs of the play. 

Elyse Sharp (ES): Hi, Kourtney.

Kourtney Smith (KS): Hi, Elyse.

ES: How are you?

KS: I'm doing well. How are you doing?

ES: I'm doing…I'm doing pretty okay today.

KS: Yeah?

ES: Yeah.

KS: That's okay. Not every day is a pretty well or a great, so...

ES: Thank you. I am super excited, though, to be talking about our first history play. It has been a long time coming for us to tackle the history plays, and we started with one of the best known, but also one that's kind of in the middle of all of them.

KS: Correct. Yeah, we were talking about this. One can either release the histories in publication order, like first performed in Shakespeare's time. One could also look at, like, chronologically from, like, English history. But we didn't do that. We didn't do either of those.

ES: We didn't do either of those.

KS: Yeah, you said that we started with Return of the King.

ES: If this was Lord of the Rings, we are starting with Return of the King. The chronology is... I'll get into that later.

KS: But before we talk about Henry, let's go ahead and talk about some exciting things we have going on over at Patreon.

ES: Yes. So, if you are excited that we're doing our first history, and you're not on our Patreon, you should know that everybody on our Patreon got a pretty big clue that we were doing a play that started with the word King about a week before we dropped our Synopsis episode. So, if you want to join us on Patreon and get access to that sort of special bonus content, sometimes sneak previews, behind-the-scenes stuff that's happening here, as well as Shakespeare-related things that are happening, and other bonus content like episodes, come, join us over on Patreon. It's a really fun time over there.

KS: Absolutely. We have a lot of fun Shakespeare-adjacent episodes, bonus episodes. We just reviewed Anyone But You in our November Patreon. Yeah. And we also take a lot of input from our patrons, polls about what mini-episodes they want to see, and suggestions for Shakespeare-adjacent media. So, we have a variety of tiers. Head over to Patreon, check out the Shakespeare-themed tiers, and choose what's appropriate for you and where you're at. We're independent. We are listener-funded. So, if you want to be involved in that and keep us going, head over to our Patreon.

ES: Yeah. Now, this is your first Stuff to Chew On episode. In this episode, we cover some high-level details and information about the play. Things that, if you were to encounter this play in an educational setting, you might read or hear about. Think about this as Henry V, 101.

KS: Exactly.

ES: So, I'm going to start off with some historical details about the play, and then we will go into some literary themes and motifs that are present in the play. And then, at the end, I'm going to wrap things up with some historical details, in case you've ever wondered what was real and what wasn't in the history play of Henry V.

KS: Perfect. Go ahead and lay some of these trivia night facts on us.

ES: Great. So, the full title of this play is The Life of Henry V, and it's believed to have been written near 1599. It is the final part of a tetralogy, so a four-parter, that contains Richard II, Henry IV Part I, and Henry IV Part II, as well as Henry V. Our first official record of the play is that it's mentioned on a flyleaf in the Stationer's Register from August 4, 1600, as Henry V. It's grouped with a few other plays under the heading “To Be Stayed.” Now, who wrote the note and why those plays are grouped together, and the meaning of what “To Be Stayed” is, isn't known, but it's thought that it's possibly an attempt by the Lord Chamberlain's Men to prevent unauthorized printing of the plays listed. Henry V was formally entered into the register by Thomas Pavier on the 14th of August as The History of Henry V with the Battle of Agincourt. It would go on to continue to be reprinted, and the stationer's men would have to continue to try to prevent unauthorized copies from being printed. There are other versions that were considered maimed or deformed.

KS: Like corrupted texts.

ES: Corrupted texts. The play is first published in quarto version in 1600 as The Chronicle History of Henry V with His Battle Fought at Agincourt in France Together with Ancient Pistol.

KS: I love the length, the long-windedness of early modern titles.

ES: Yes. So this is printed by Thomas Creed for Thomas Millington and John Busby, and then that quarto was republished in 1602 by Creed for Thomas Pavier, and in 1619 as part of William Jaggard's false folio, which was printed by Pavier. Pavier had intended to issue them in one volume collection as a folio, right? But on the 3rd of May 1619, the Lord Chamberlain's men sent a letter to the Stationer's Company, which prevented any further publication of plays belonging to the King's Men, formerly known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men, without their consent. So this play is one of the plays that also leads us to eventually getting the first folio, the amount of publishers who are trying to publish unauthorized copies of this play.

KS: That makes this then a highly popular play.

ES: Yes. The 1623 First Folio, this text appears under the title The Life of Henry V. This is one of the plays, despite all of the, despite this like quarto...

KS: Quarto question?

ES: Quarto question, quarto confusion, is that this is probably the easiest play to date. So there's a reference in the Act V chorus monologue that pretty much undisputedly tells us when this play was likely first performed and first written. So the chorus says,

But now behold
In the quick forge and working house of thought
How London doth pour out her citizens.
The Mayor and all his brethren in best sort
Like to the senators of th’ antique Rome
With plebeians swarming at their heels,
Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in.
As by a lower but as loving likelihood
Were now the general of our gracious empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword
How many would the peaceful city quit
To welcome him! Much more, and much more cause
Did they this Harry.

So the general of our gracious empress that the chorus refers to is pretty much agreed to be, historians agree—

KS: Elizabeth?

ES: The empress is Elizabeth. And the general is Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, who we've mentioned before.

KS: We have.

ES: So this is likely referring to the 1599 Irish expedition of the Earl of Essex. Which means that this play was most likely written sometime between the 27th of March, 1599, which is when Essex left for Ireland. And the 24th of September, 1599, which is when he returned in disgrace from Ireland from that unsuccessful campaign. So because the chorus talks about it in the future tense, it is something that would have been known in popular imagination was happening and hadn't any news of the result yet.

KS: Yeah. Yeah. And that would be about between first recorded performance or I guess from likelywritten to first recorded performance is about five, six years.

ES: Five, six years. So the first actual. So we believe that it was actually performed sometime before the Earl of Essex returned. However, we don't have any records of that first performance. The first actually recorded performance is, as you mentioned a few years later, January 7th, 1605 at court, performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men for King James.

KS: So the general, is he regarded in high favor in that?

ES: Yes.

KS: Okay.

ES: So this is.

KS: So if it's in between.

ES: So it's before the Essex Rebellion. We still think Essex—

KS: Is a good guy.

ES: Is a good guy. Yes.

KS: In the eyes of Elizabeth's court.

ES: Yes. He has just been given in the timeline of the Earl of Essex. He has just been given basically a promotion and he has been sent to Ireland on this expedition and he is kind of like this kind of big hero, which is why there's, my sources also talk about, there's like one other general this could be, but that guy was not nearly as popular or well-known as Essex. So that's why historians are like, this is very, very likely Essex. And there's a couple of other like references in this play to like the cut of the general's beard. That it's like Essex had a very distinct beard styling that he was known for. So, I mean, it's literally like, let's compare the coming home parades and reception that Henry got. What that chorus is saying is, imagine how London would respond to Essex coming home from, successful from Ireland.

KS: Right.

ES: Like how patriotic and how, you know, excited you'd be to see him and how you would celebrate.

KS: Mm-hmm.

ES: Times that by so many more for Henry. And that's.

KS: Right.

ES: So like that's.

KS: That's what the chorus is saying.

ES: What the chorus is telling the audience to do. To imagine Henry's coming home from the Battle of Agincourt.

KS: Oh. Well. That is a very fun. That's a very fun factoid.

ES: And then just really quickly, as I mentioned earlier, this is part of a tetralogy. And this play is part of a group of plays known as the Henriad. And I want to acknowledge that the group of plays that are called the Henriad can get confusing. There is a tetralogy that contains Richard II, Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two, and Henry V. That can also on its own, those four plays, can be called the Henriad. The Henriad as a term can also refer to those four plays, plus an additional four plays: the War of the Roses plays, which are Henry VI Part One, Henry VI Part Two, Henry VI Part Three, and Richard III. When divided into two, the Henry VIs and Richard III are known as the First Henriad or the, or the War of the Roses plays. And these plays that were written later about events that happened earlier chronologically are known as the Second Henriad. And those are again, the, the Prince Hal/Henry V plays.

KS: Gotcha. So the first and second just flips what you would assume with chronology.

ES: It is the chronology based on when they were written, not

KS: The time in which they happened in history. Yeah.

ES: Yes. To again, use our Lord of the Rings reference. It's like writing The Silmarillion and The Hobbit after you write—

KS: The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

ES: The Lord of the Rings.

KS: Perfect.

ES: This play also has some possibly myths surrounding its historical performances. There is a tradition that is impossible to verify that maintains that Henry V was the first play performed at the new Globe Theater in the spring of 1599. It is possible, but we don't know how long the reconstruction of The Globe took. Many historians believe that this play was actually first performed at The Curtain while the new Globe Theater was under construction. And the wooden O that is in the prologue that often people point to thinking that it is referencing The Globe would apply to any theater of the period.

KS: The guide that the architects and the builders used for the current Globe Theater was not even based on the blueprint of The Globe. So—

ES: Yeah.

KS: Yeah.

ES: So yeah, the wooden O could apply to many theaters and definitely applies to the one we have standing today. So that is some of the history of the play, as well as some more details about history. So next we're going to dive into the literary themes and motifs that are often talked about when we discuss this play through a literary lens.

KS: Yes.

ES: So Kourtney, you want to kick us off?

KS: Absolutely. So starting off with themes, the first theme of this play is the ruthlessness of a good king and in presenting the figure of its heroic yet ruthless protagonist, Henry V's predominant concern is the nature of leadership and its relationship to morality. The play proposes that the qualities that define a good ruler are not necessarily the same qualities that define a good person.

Henry is an extraordinarily good leader. He is intelligent, focused and inspiring to his men. He uses any and all resources at his disposal to ensure that he achieves his goals. And Shakespeare presents Henry's charismatic ability to connect with his subjects and motivate them to embrace and achieve his goals as the fundamental criterion of good leadership, making Harry seem the epitome of a good leader. By inspiring his men to win the battle of Agincourt, despite overwhelming odds, Henry achieves heroic status. But, and there's the rub, in becoming a great king, Henry is forced to act in a way that, were he a common man, might seem immoral and even unforgivable. To strengthen the stability of his throne, Henry betrays friends, such as Falstaff, and he puts other friends to death to uphold the law. So that would be the three noble men who are conspiring with France against England. Shakespeare's portrayal of the king shows that power complicates the traditional distinctions between heroism and villainy, so that to call Henry one or the other constitutes an oversimplification of the issue.

As Henry himself comments, the massive responsibilities laid on the shoulders of a king render him distinct from all other people, and the standards that can be brought to bear in judging a king must take that distinction into account. And we will talk further in our Henry V series about that title character and his reputation, how he's portrayed and where he, where he does or doesn't land on this, you know, spectrum of goodness and morality, especially within his kingship. So stay tuned.

ES: Another theme is the challenge of redeeming the past. So not only has Henry V inherited the throne from his father, King Henry IV, he also inherited the sins his father committed, both in pursuit of the throne and throughout his reign. Now that Henry has officially taken up the burden of kingship, he seeks to redress the wrongs of his family's past, thereby redeeming the Lancaster name and restoring its lost honor. Chief among the sins of the father was Henry IV's involvement in the murder of his predecessor, Richard II. Henry IV is also culpable for having failed to unify Britain, instead allowing it to devolve into seemingly endless civil war. Just as Henry seeks to redress the sins of his family's past, he also endeavors to seed new memories that will later cause people to think back fondly on his reign. The key example here is Henry's famous St. Crispin Day speech, where he projects a future where he and his fellow band of brothers will forever be able to look back on this day and take pride in their involvement. Just as he hopes to erase the hateful memories of regicide and the civil war from the past, Henry hopes to institute heroic memories of the victory soon to come.

KS: And I also want to include, this was not like written in, in this research, but he does try to redeem himself from the past of being Prince Hal from the previous

ES: Two plays.

KS: The previous two plays. And his ability to rule is called into question at times in this play because of his time with the Eastcheap Company and the like frivolity and the lack of responsibility he showed before he became the king. So he's also working to redeem himself from that past as well.

Okay, so now the next theme is the diversity of Britain. The play opens with the chorus reminding the audience that the few actors who will appear on stage represent thousands of their countrymen. And indeed the characters who appear in Henry V encompass the range of social classes and nationalities united under the British crown during Henry's reign. The play explores the breadth of humanity and the fluid functional way in which the characters react to cultural differences, which melt or rupture depending on the situation. The catalog of characters from different nationalities, both emphasizes the diversity of medieval Britain and intensifies the audience's sense of Henry's tremendous responsibility to his nation. For a play that explores the nature of absolute political power, there's something remarkably democratic in this portrayal of rich and poor, English and Welsh, Scottish and Irish as their roles intertwine in the war effort, and as the king attempts to give them direction and momentum. And we will likely talk later in the series about this as well.

ES: Yes

KS: The different nationalities, the representations of different nationalities, especially given the colonialism of the time that Shakespeare was writing in, even though these characters are representing characters from hundreds of years prior. Yeah.

ES: Yeah. And now let's move into some motifs. So we have a motif of male interactions. There are almost no women in Henry V. Katherine is the only female character to be given a substantial amount of lines in more than one scene or presented in the domestic sphere. And most of her lines are in French.

With this absence of women and the plays’ focus on the all-male activity of medieval warfare, the play presents many types of male relationships. The relationships between various groups of men, for example, Fluellen and Gower; Bardolph, Pistol and Nym; and the French Lords mirror and echo one another in various ways. The cowardice of the Eastcheap group is echoed in the cowardice of the French Lords, for instance, perhaps more important, these male friendships all draw attention to another aspect of Henry's character, his isolation from other people. Unlike most of the play’s other male characters, Henry seems to have no close friends. Another characteristic that makes the life of the king fundamentally different from the life of a common citizen.

KS: Yeah. One thing I think is interesting is the absence of substantial women characters. Whatdoes that tell us about women with their absence or their lack of visibility?

ES: Yeah, I think it's very interesting that we can get into it more, but one of the few women that we do have, Queen Isabella is given the line of when it's at the end of the play, but when people go off into another room to further discuss a peace treaty, she goes, I'm going to go in there too because sometimes men get a little bit too wound up about trivial matters. And maybe a woman's voice can intervene. But yeah, it is this very male play.

KS: Yes. Very male. Okay.

So the next motif is mockery. Henry V is a play that features characters from many different national and social backgrounds and the various linguistic, cultural and class differences frequently lead to mockery. In most cases, mockery serves to exasperate tensions between different groups of people. We see this in action in the many scenes among the French nobles, when they make fun of the English for their dreary weather, rusted armor and haggard horses. The French mocked the English as a way of establishing their own superiority. Yet their mockery also contributes to their overconfidence, which in turn leads to their defeat at the battle of Agincourt.

In this way, mockery can easily turn against the mocker, as predicted by King Henry, after he receives the chest of tennis balls, the Dauphin sent to mock him. Whereas mockery amplifies tensions throughout the play's first four acts, the final act, and especially the wooing scene between Henry and Katherine, features many examples of gentle mockery that serves to calm tensions and work towards peace.

ES: And our final motif is animal references. So there are references to animals abounding throughout Henry V. Characters frequently rely on animal images as metaphors for describing people from other social classes or national groups. For instance, the Bishop of Ely refers to the English as an eagle whose nest the weasel Scot will attempt to pillage while their armies are in France. Thus, “playing the mouse in absence of the cat”. Elsewhere, characters speak at length about crows, honeybees, horses, lions, tigers, and bears, and so on.

KS: Oh my!

ES: Oh my. But no animal is more omnipresent in Henry V than dogs. References to which typically appear in insults. These and many other references demonstrate various ways in which people dehumanize others by associating them with the behaviors of supposedly base animals.

KS: And one last motif that wasn't in our stuff to chew on research, but I think about a lot is the motif of like God and God's role within this play. God within like England's history and Henry V's claim to France and his work as a King. So that wasn't in our research, but it's one that I think about.

ES: Yeah. One final note or notes before we end this episode, since this is our first history and some of the histories are more historical fiction than history. We did just want to give a little bit of an overview of some of the things that are considered to be historical fact in this play. So this play details the battle of Agincourt as part of Henry V's first campaign in France. This was a real military campaign that was part of the Hundred Years’ War. That war was started by Henry's great grandfather, Edward III, and was renewed by Henry V through this campaign in 1415.

There had been a period of peace prior to Henry taking on this campaign. There is a second campaign that Henry V undertook, the historical Henry V, which is not depicted in this play, but takes place between acts four and five. So when the chorus is speaking, some of the things they refer to are things that are happening, that happen because of the second campaign, but skip all that. And act five depicts the signing of the treaty of Troyes in 1420.

Henry's army landed in Northern France and began the siege of Harfleur on the 13th of August, 1415. And Harfleur surrendered on the 22nd of September. And unlike in the play, where the army marches on the following night, the historical English army did not leave Harfleur until the 8th of October.

The battle of Agincourt took place on the 25th of October, 1415, which is known as St. Crispin's Day. It is well-documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, three from eyewitnesses. The general location of the battle is not disputed, and the site remains relatively unaltered after 600 years. However, a lack of archaeological evidence has led to a debate as to the exact location of the battlefield. And we'll put a link in our sources down the bottom of our show notes for a recent article that shows how the actual battle may have taken place just a little bit further away from where it's historically believed to have taken place. So nearby, still the general area, but maybe a few feet to the west.

And then this, it seems very dramatic. A lot of the crux of this battle in this play is how small the English army is versus how big and overconfident the French army is. And that is something that is generally agreed upon to be true. Modern estimates put the English army at about between 6,000 to 8,100 men. Going up against a French army of 14,000 to 15,000 men or up to 25,000, if also counting armed servants.

Additionally, the casualties, that also seems something that like would be a dramatist choice to have the English win and barely have a scratch. I think Henry says like, oh, we lost barely 25.

KS: 25. Yeah.

ES: Yeah. Modern estimates suggest that up to 600 English were likely killed with 112 being identified. However, that does pale in comparison to the 6,000 killed, most of whom were French nobility on the French side, along with an additional 700 to 2,200 captured. So those are some quick facts about the Battle of Agincourt as it actually happened.

KS: Yeah. And this is going to be a very exciting series for us because these history plays, while sometimes fan fiction, sometimes propaganda, they require a lot of like learning English history. And as you can tell, Elyse and I are both American. And so I'm really excited to dive deeper into this play and find a stronger understanding of this play that like is well quoted, is very popular. And to play where some of the nuance, the historical understanding that the early modern audiences would understand and English people, British people would understand, can get lost on myself as an American. And so I'm really excited to like crack this open and peel back the layers and just have a stronger, better understanding of Henry V.

ES: Yeah. And especially this one is at least, again, speaking from our American point of view, this is a play that of the histories is more likely to be produced, but histories are not produced that often. And I'm really excited to also, like you said, take a look, place this in its historical context, and then also look at what can this play tell us today when we're looking back at a dramatization of historical events that happened over 600 years ago.

KS: All right. So let's time travel together, friends.

ES: Sounds great. Thank you for listening.

Quote of the Episode

ES: From Troilus and Cressida, Act 5, Scene 5. Said by Nestor:

Go, bare Protoclus' body to Achilles,
And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.

Location of the battle of Agincourt

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

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Works referenced:

Shakespeare, William. King Henry V. Edited by T. W. Craik, Arden Shakespeare, 1995.

SparkNotes Editors. “King Henry V” SparkNotes.com, SparkNotes LLC, 2005, https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/henryv/