Shakespeare's Kings (63 page)

1.
'Here did we see, by perticular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois, and had her upper part of her body in my hands. And I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen, and that this was my birthday, 36 year old, that I did first kiss a Queen.' (Samuel Pepys, Diary, 23 February 1669).

of tann'd leather' at last removed from public view; and in
1878
they were laid beneath the altar slab in Henry's chantry chapel, where they remain today.

chorus
.

Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen, Our bending author hath pursued the story, In little room confining mighty-men, Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.

king henry v

At
the
end
of King Henry IV Part II,
Henry
V
is
already
King
of
England. The
play
that
bears
his
name
conseque
ntly
begins
with
the
second
year of
his
reign,
and
continues
until
the
peace
with
France
is
sealed
in
1420 and
Henry
marries
the
Princess
Katherine
at
Troyes.
We
are
told nothing
of
his
second
and
third
campaigns
in
France,
for
the
excellent reason
that
after
Agincourt
even
the
second
would
have
been
an anticlimax,
while
the
third
proved
to
be
little
more
than
a
prelude
to his
not
particularly
glorious
death.
King Henry V
is
primarily
a
celebration -
of
patriotism,
of
military
glory
and,
in
its
last
act,
of
true
love
as
a
means of
reconciliation
-
and
Shakespeare
selected
his
material
accordingly.

Perhaps
in
order
to
point
up
the
difference
between
the
play
and
its historical
predecessors,
he
also
gave
it
a
Chorus
-
rather
on
the
lines
of Greek
tragedy
-
who
speaks
dire
ctly
to
the
audience.
This
Chorus provides
not
only
a
prologue
and
epilogue,
together
with
separate introductions
to
each
act
after
the
first,
but
also
two
extremely
significant clues
as
to
dating.
One
of
these
is
given
in
the
opening
lines:

But pardon, gentl
es all,

The flat unraised spirits that hath dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object. Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France?

Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?

There had been no apologies of this kind before the representation of the battle of Shrewsbury; and it has been plausibly suggested that these lines refer to the opening by Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, of their new playhouse, the Globe, on the Bankside in Southwark in
1599.
This would certainly have been an event important enough to have deserved special mention if possible, and the presence of the Chorus would have provided a perfect opportunity.

The second clue lends strength to the first. In the introduction to Act V, we are given - for the only time in all the plays - a direct reference to current events:

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 the 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 the sword,

How many would the peaceful city quit To welcome him!

It is nowadays almost universally agreed that the General referred to here is Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. On
27
March
1599,
as Lieutenant and Governor-General of Ireland, Essex had left London to put down the rebellion by the Earl of Tyrone, and had been given a rousing send-off by the people. He was to return prematurely in September, having concluded an unjustifiable truce and in something very like disgrace; this would mean - if the basic supposition is correct - that
King Henry
V
had its first performance some time between March and September
1599,
in which case the play would have been written immediately after
Henry IV
Part II,
which as we know was first performed in the previous year.

After the Prologue we have the conversation between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely about a proposed bill, first mooted under Henry IV, for the appropriation of Church lands by the Crown. The details of this bill are taken almost word for word from Holinshed; essentially, however, they are no more than a peg from which to hang a discussion - for the benefit of those of the audience who have not seen
Henry IV Part II -
of the King himself, and his extraordinary change of character since his accession. This first scene is thus in a sense an additional prologue; it is only with the entrance of the King in the second that the play really begins. At Henry's invitation, the Archbishop then launches into a long and almost ridiculously intricate justification of the English
title
to the throne of France — omitting, oddly enough, any reference to Edward II's Queen Isabella, sister of the French King Charles IV
, on whom the whole case rested -
and ending with an exhortation to the King, echoed by the Bishop of Ely and the assembled nobles, to claim his own. Henry needs no further encouragement:

Now are we well resolved; and by God's help

And yours, the noble sinews of our power,

France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe

Or break it all to pieces.

The arrival of the French embassy with the barrel of tennis balls only strengthens this resolve; Henry's answer to the ambassadors falls somewhere between a threat and a curse. When the curtain falls on the first act we are already on our way to the climax of Agincourt.

Is the incident of the tennis balls history or legend? It is reported both by Holinshed and Hall, and appears also in a contemporary ballad as well as in several other sli
ghtly
later works. But Walsingham's chronicle — which would surely have included it if it had really occurred

- makes no reference to it, and nor does any contemporary French historian. It certainly seems highly improbable. So gratuitous an insult must surely have led to a complete breach of diplomatic relations between the two countries, whereas we know that the negotiations continued. The story most likely had its origins in the Chronicle of one John Strecche, dating from only a few years after Henry's death in
1422,
according to which in his boyhood the Armagnac ambassadors offered to send him 'little balls to play with, and soft cushions to rest on, until what time he should grow to man's strength'; Henry is said
to
have
replied
angrily
that
in
a
few
months
he
would
play
such
a
game in
the
streets
of
France
that
it
would
cease
to
be
a
joke.

The
second
act
of
the
play
introduces
the
sub-plot,
with
the
reappearance
of
the
King's
old
Eastcheap
companions:
Bardolph,
Pistol,
his
wife the
former
Mistress
Quickly,
her
jilted
suitor
Nym
-
who
does
not
figure in
Henry
IV
but
has
been
imported
from
The Merry Wives of Windsor —
and,
offstage,
Falstaff
himself,
with
the
reports
of
his
sickness
and
death. But
since
this
book
is
concerned
primarily
with
the
historical
accuracy
of the
plays,
the
fictitious
characters
need
not
detain
us;
we
can
pass
on
to Scene
ii
and
the
Southampton
plot.
Once
again,
Shakespeare's
authority is
Holinshed;
he
has
not
hesitated,
however,
to
add
a
few
touches
of
his own.
The
plot,
when
we
first
hear
of
it,
has
already
been
discovered, though
the
conspirators
are
not
yet
aware
of
the
fact.
The
King
plays them
along,
encouraging
them
to
flatter
him
and
to
emphasize
their
own loyalty;
he
even
goes
so
far
as
to
suggest
releasing