By the play’s end Henry V, against monumental odds, defeats the French at Agincourt, marries the French King’s daughter Katherine, and is crowned King of England and France combined.įrom Agincourt by Juliet Barker, October 2005 In the process he demonstrates his growing understanding of statecraft as he dispatches both aristocratic traitors and common soldier thieves from his old tavern days. Following his father’s advice to launch a foreign war to quell civil unrest at home, the young king decisively invades France. In Henry V we see the new king as a man who feels he has been called upon to cement the control of the Plantagenet line on the English throne and to unite the kingdoms of France and England. By the end of the play Prince Hal distances himself from his old drinking companions, especially the father-substitute he found there, Sir John Falstaff, and is crowned Henry V. Threatened constantly by insurrection, much of it led by his erstwhile allies the Percys Henry IV is also greatly distressed by the behavior of Prince Hal, his son and heir, and we track his journey from youthful abandon in the taverns of Eastcheap to valor in his father’s cause during the Battle of Shrewsbury. The two parts of Henry IV Ishow us the fractious nature of the new king’s reign.
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