Henry V: Noble King or Machiavel?

English Monarchs (1272-1702)

                                                          Life            Reign                    House
1. Edward I ("Longshanks")          1239-1307      1272-1307           Plantagenet
2. Edward II                                  1284-1327      1307-1327           Plantagenet
3. Edward III                                 1312-1377      1327-1377           Plantagenet
4. Richard II                                  1367-1400      1377-1399           Plantagenet
5. Henry IV ("Bolingbroke")           1366-1413       1399-1413           Lancaster
6. Henry V                                     1387-1422       1413-1422           Lancaster
7. Henry VI                                    1421-1471       1422-61, 1470-71 Lancaster
8. Edward IV                                  1442-1483      1461-70, 1471-83 York
9. Edward V                                   1470-1483      1483                    York
10. Richard III                                1452-1485      1483-85                York
11. Henry VII                                 1457-1509      1485-1509             Tudor
12. Henry VIII                                1491-1547      1509-1547             Tudor
13. Edward VI                                1537-1553      1547-1553            Tudor
14. Mary I ("Bloody Mary")            1516-1558      1553-1558            Tudor
15. Elizabeth I                                 1533-1603      1558-1603            Tudor
16. James I                                     1566-1625       1603-1625            Stuart
17. Charles I                                   1600-1649       1625-1649            Stuart
18. Oliver Cromwell                        1599-1658       1653-1659       Commonwlth
19. Richard Cromwell                     1626-1712       1658-1659       Commonwlth
20. Charles II                                 1630-1685        1660-1685            Stuart
21. James II                                   1633-1701        1685-1688            Stuart
22. William III (of Orange & Mary) 1650-1702        1689-1702           Stuart

Pictures of the historical Henry V and Agincourt:

Henry V

Henry V

Agincourt

Shakespeare's Tetralogies:

1. 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, Richard III
(War of Roses - Lancaster - red rose, York - white rose, the two houses joined under Henry VII who marries Elizabeth of York)
2. Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V

Important Reference Points:

1. Hundred Years War (1377-1453)- between reigns of Edward III and Henry VI (Joan of Arc burned in Rouen in 1431) - the French finally regain France in 1453.
2. Chaucer - lived during reigns of Edward III and Richard II
3. English Civil War - begins around 1641 - Charles beheaded in 1649.
4. "Glorious Revolution" - 1689

The King in History: The Great Chain of Being and Realpolitik

• Interpretations of Henry's transformation within the play:

1. Divine (Canterbury: 1.1.26-32)
2. "Natural" (Ely: 1.1.61-67)
3. Genealogical (Constable: 2.4.30-40)
4. Material (Hal: 1 Henry IV 1.2.173-95 - compare Henry V 4.1.1-12)

• Interestingly, these are also the categories governing the English justification for war with France, a great epic moment in history:

1. Divine (Harry's concern about divine sanction: 1.2.18-28. Compare to Henry's later exchange with Williams about the king not being responsible for the souls of his men (4.1.128-72). Yet Harry is concerned about his father's deposition of Richard II (4.1.274-287). Canterbury assumes responsibility if the action is not justice: 1.2.97 and uses biblical authority: 1.2.98-100)
2. "Natural" (Westmoreland and Canterbury: 1.2.126-131)
3. Genealogical (Canterbury and Ely:1.2.102-121)
4. Material (Ely and Canterbury: 1.1.70-90)

• How we read the character of Henry V is related to how we interpret Shakespeare's take on English history and kingship. The question of how we read history depends on what causes history - divine providence or political manipulation. How we read kingship depends on the source of authority for kingship - divine authority or theatricality.
  
  
• First three categories relate to the Great Chain of Being (see Canterbury: 1.2.183-213):
  1. Natural hierarchy
  2. Plentitude - everything is involved/contained in the system
  3. Principle of correspondence - other categories in nature relate to the category of humans (society of bees likened to human society, the sun to the king)
  4. Macrocosm-microcosm relations between categories (e.g. body politic/human body)
  5. Harmonious order from disparate parts
  6. "Reality metaphors" - the sun is the king of the planets

Ulysses' speech from Troilus and Cressida:

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture [regularity of position], course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order.
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol [the Sun]
In noble eminence enthron'd and sphered
Amidst the other [other planets]; whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of evil planets
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture? O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility [weakness],
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong--
Between whose endless jar justice resides--
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything include itself in power [become power]
Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. (1.3.85-124)

Chain of Being Picture

Chain of Being Chart

Realpolitik

• Latter category relates to the concept of realpolitik.
• A more pragmatic approach to politics rather than a theoretical system of authority.
• Machiavelli: a ruler need not be virtuous, she or he need only seem virtuous.
• Within the Great Chain ideology, the ruler cannot help but be virtuous because he or she is divinely ordained for the position.
• Kingship entails a certain amount of theatrical manipulation, the playing of roles in order to accomplish political goals (theatricality of power politics).

The ceremony speech (4.1.213-266) shows Henry's underlying conflict between a world governed by The Great Chain and his own material frustrations and accomplishments. "Ceremony" slips between something superficial and something essential. "Ceremony" at once seems separable from the king (who underneath all the ceremony is only a man) and yet the essence of the king himself. Henry refers to "ceremony" suffering, which of course refers to himself. The role and dress of a king cannot be separated from the king even while Henry claims the king is only a man.

Rabbit or Duck?

"'For some of them,' a recent writer remarks, 'the play presents the story of an ideal monarch and glorifies his achievements; for them, the tone approaches that of an epic lauding the military virtues. For others, the protagonist is a Machiavellian militarist who professes Christianity but whose deeds reveal both hypocrisy and ruthlessness; for them, the tone is predominantly one of mordant satire'" (Rabkin, p. 279).

• Professed Christianity:
  • "We are in God's hand…not theirs [the French]" (3.6.155)
  • "For we have now no thought in us but France,/Save those to God, that run before our business" (1.2.302-3)
  • Gives glory of Agincourt to God
    
    
• Yet Henry does seem legitimately concerned about divine sanction (4.1.274-87)
  
  
• Still, we recall the material factors in the cause:
  • bishops plot
  • victory at Agincourt as a sign of divine favor
    
    

Tension between epic history and unknown or forgotten repercussions

• Prologue: epic, nationalistic events ineffectually portrayed
• Tavern scenes: Harry has killed Falstaff by breaking his heart (see also Fluellen's Alexander the Great comparison: 4.7.27-42).
• Bardolph executed: foreshadow in 1 Henry IV (2.5.288-98)
  
  
• Speech before Harfleur: rhetorical ruthlessness, threatens rape of French daughters (3.3.78-120)
• Bardolph executed
• Scene proceeds introduction to Katherine, Harry's future queen
  
  
• "Once more unto the breach" speech (3.1.1-34)
• Boy: "Would I were in an alehouse in London. I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety" (3.2.10-11).
  
  
• St. Crispin's Day speech (4.3.18-67): all "shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,/This day shall gentle his condition"
• Naming of nobles (4.8.96-100) but nameless commoners and their gruesome deaths, Pistol's turn to bawdry and thievery
  
  
• Representation of the heroic deaths of York and Suffolk - 4.6.3-32
• After: Harry orders the ignoble killing of all French prisoners
  
  
• Appeal of being able to boast of this historic day, St. Crispin's Day
• Repealed by Harry, who orders that all glory go to God (4.8.108-110).
  
  

But the most troubling part is after the great victory, we are reminded in the Epilogue that all was eventually for nought - Henry V died young and both the loss of France and civil war in England, the War of the Roses, which "made his England bleed" began under his son Henry VI.