Shakespeare's Kings (66 page)

All the occurrences, whatever chanced,

Till Harry's back return again to France

and
move
dire
ctly
on
to
the
reconciliation
of
the
two
former
enemies
and Henry's
marriage
to
the
Princess
Katherine,
by
which
that
reconciliation was
sealed.
There
is
in
fact
a
short
preli
minary
scene,
in
which
Fluellen settles
his
score
with
Pistol;
but
this
serves
only
to
point
up
the
pomp and
ceremony
which
opens
the
final
scene
of
the
play.
The
first
part of
this
is
dominated
by
the
great
speech
in
praise
of
peace
by
the
Duke of
Burgundy
-
Philip
the
Good,
now
twenty-four,
whose
father
John had
been
assassinated
in
the
previous
year.
It
is
pure
Shakespearean invention
-
and
none
the
worse
for
that.

The
scene
continues
with
the
second
long
conversation,
in
a
mixture

1. Holinshed adds: . . neither would he suffer any ditties to be made and soong by minstrels of his glorious victorie, for that he would wholie haue the praise and thanks altogither giuen to God'.

of
English
and
French,
between
the
King
and
his
bride-to-be.
Less embarrassing
than
its
predecessor,
it
nevertheless
shows
a
distressing lack
of
consideration
on
Henry's
part
for
the
Princess's
extremely
Hmited English,
to
say
nothing
of
several
more
double-entendres
¹
which
do
not sound
wholly
appropriate
in
this
context.
(True,
they
are
mild
enough in
comparison
with
the
King's
exchanges
with
Burgundy
that
follow;
²
one
can
only
hope
that
the
pair
have
moved
beyond
the
hearing
of poor
Katherine,
who
remains
onstage
throughout.)
The
two
Kings
-Charles
VI
still
apparently
in
perfect
possession
of
his
faculties
-
then confirm
that
there
are
now
no
longer
any
outstanding
matters
between them.
There
is
even
agreement
on
the
official
formula
by
which
the English
King
is
in
future
to
be
addressed
by
the
French
court,
a
formula which
leaves
no
one
-
including
the
audience
—
in
any
doubt
of
Henry's most
important
single
achievement:
recognition
by
the
French
as Charles's
heir,
heritier de France.
Pious
hopes
and
good
wishes
are expressed
on
both
sides
and
the
Chorus
speaks
a
short
epilogue,
pointing the
audience
both
forward
to
Henry's
son
and
successor
and
back
to the
Henry
IV
plays
'which
oft
our
stage
has
shown'
-
they
having
been already
written
several
years
before.

Much
critical
ink
has
been
spilt
over
the
question
of
what
sort
of play
its
author
intended
King Henry V
to
be.
Is
it
the
nearest
thing
he ever
wrote
to
a
patriotic
pageant,
an
epic
celebration
of
English
glory, or
is
it
a
diatribe
against
war
and
the
abuse
of
power?
The
answer, surely,
is
that
it
is
both.
Shakespeare
would
have
seen
no
contradiction between
the
two.
One
approach
or
the
other
alone
would
have
made it
two-dimensional;
by
combining
them,
he
gave
his
play
fullness
and depth.
Essentially,
it
is
about
conflict,
but
not
only
the
obvious
conflict between
the
English
and
the
French.
There
is
also
the
age-old
moral conflict
about
the
justification
for
aggressive
war,
to
say
nothing
of Henry's
own
inner
struggle
in
which
his
energy
and
ambition
are
set against
the
vicarious
guilt
he
feels
for
the
murder
of
Richard
and

the fault

My father made in compassing the crown.

Seen from the historical point of view
Henry V
is, like its three predecessors, surprisingly accurate as far as it goes - seldom straying far from the available sources, and then nearly always for perfectly justifiable dramatic reasons. Its principal sins are those of omission, and there again the Chorus is swift to apologize:

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,

Turning th'accompli
shment of many years Into an hour-glass.

In his closing lines, however, he has one more task: to admit, for the first time in the play, that all Henry's achievements are to be set at nothing. Under his son England will be made to bleed as never before - and France will be lost.

exeter
.

But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees

This jarring discord of nobility,

This shouldering of each other in the Court,

This factious bandying of their favourites,

But sees it doth presage some ill event.

'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;

But more when envy breeds unkind division:

There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.

king henry vi part i

England
had
never
had
so
young
a
King.
Henry
VI
had
been
born
at Windsor
on
6
December
1421;
when
he
was
proclaimed
on
1
September of
the
following
year
-
the
day
after
his
father's
death,
the
concept
of a
seamless
succession
being
still
unknown
-
he
was
not
quite
nine months
old.
The
dying
wishes
of
Henry
V
had
been
to
entrust
the regency
to
Philip
of
Burgundy
if
he
were
to
claim
it
-
which,
fortunately,
he
did
not
-
and
otherwise
to
his
own
brother
John,
Duke
of Bedford;
and
it
was
Bedford
who,
in
one
of
his
first
ceremonial
duties as
Regent,
attended
the
funeral
of
Charles
VI
in
Saint-Denis,
a
naked sword
being
carried
before
him
as
a
symbol
of
his
royal
authority.
Now thirty-three
and
strikingly
handsome,
he
possessed
none
of
Henry's meteoric
brilliance,
nor
the
wide
culture
of
his
younger
brother
Humphrey;
but
he
was
more
reliable
than
either—intelligent,
prudent,
blameless in
his
private
life
and
in
battle
a
fearless
fighter.