Study Guide for Henry V

Quotations are taken from Andrew Gurr's New Cambridge Shakespeare edition (1992; rpt. Cambridge UP, 1999).  Gurr's modernization of the name Fluellen to Llewellyn, scene divisions for act 3, and reassignment of speeches from the Dauphin to Bourbon (Bretagne) in 3.8 are controversial departures from usual editorial practice.  Locations of scenes have been adopted from J. H. Walter's Arden Shakespeare edition (1954; rpt. Routledge, 1990).

King Henry V was written during 1599 and performed that year either at the Curtain Theatre or the newly-completed Globe Theatre by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company in which Shakespeare was a shareholder and for which he served also as actor and supplier of scripts.  Immediately popular, a somewhat-corrupted text of the play found its first audience of readers the following year.  The title page of the 1600 quarto (by today's standards something of a "pocket-sized" book, with eight pages of printed text per sheet of paper) suggests the connections of the play with another genre:  "The Cronicle History of Henry the fifth, With his battell fought at Agin Court in France.  Together with Ancient Pistol.  As it hath been sundry times played by the Right honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his servants."  With the banning of satirical comedy by the Lord Mayor earlier, Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights had turned—naturally, perhaps, considering England's preoccupation with various foreign wars and internal strifes during the previous two decades—to the matter of national history for their dramatic subjects.

Considered by many scholars Shakespeare's best history play, Henry V is the culmination of the group of dramatic histories sometimes called the "Henriad," a tetralogy comprised of Richard II; Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II; and Henry V.  In H5, all themes that Shakespeare had dealt with in the previous plays find their fullest and best expression.  Here we see the "wild prince" of the Henry IV plays becoming one of England's greatest heroes right before our eyes and ears.  The oscillating comparisons of fathers and sons that had received such emphasis in the earlier plays takes a slightly different turn in H5, however.  Now, the young King Henry is seen counterpoised against the reckless, bold, and arrogant French Dauphin, who resembles something of a combination of Prince Hal and Hotspur in the H4 plays.  Note how H5 begins with the Bishops of Canterbury and Ely remarking on the new king's seemingly sudden and astonishing conversion from the prodigality of Prince Hal to the princely magnificence of King Henry V.  Much critical debate has been concerned with whether or not Hal's conversion was the end result of a self-conscious, slowly-developing, and calculated posture that may be glimpsed in the H4 plays; this view of his character tends to support modern debate over his professedly altruistic motives for going to war in H5.  (Keep in mind, however, that Henry's so-called conversion from prodigality seems to have strong historical warrant.)

The play is notable for brilliant stretches of poetry wherein Shakespeare displays his rhetorical virtuosity.  Study carefully the following speeches: (1) the apostrophe to "thou idol ceremony" (4.1.206-57); (2) the apostrophe to the "God of battles" (4.1.263-79); and (3) the famous "St. Crispin's Day" speech (4.3.18-67).  Know the allusions and other rhetorical figures and how they combine to give force and meaning to these speeches.

Both the Olivier (1948) and Branagh (1988) films of the play are superb in their own ways.  Note that they are completely opposite in terms of tone and emphasis.  Olivier's production is light, bright, jewel-toned, almost like a medieval stained-glass window or manuscript illumination.  The scope is sweeping and nationalistic in its fervor; it has been labeled a "propaganda piece" more than once.  Branagh's version, however, stresses the conspiratorial quality that also lies within the same text; indeed, he has stated that his intention was to present a view of the play as a "political thriller."  Hence, its tone is dark and somber until after the battle of Agincourt.

Prologue

As he will before each act of the play, the Chorus delivers here a speech that exhorts members of the audience to use their imaginations in order to transform the "wooden O" of the Globe Theater into a vast space containing the realms of both England and France.  He asks us actively to imagine the size of battles that will be represented only in miniature onstage, and more.  Gurr's extensive remarks on Shakespeare's use of this "extradramatic" (that is, "outside the main action") character are generally good, though his claim that the Chorus-figure "coerces" audience participation in creating the play might better be termed "conditions."  Gurr also understates Shakespeare's very modern theatrical use of the figure. 

Act 1

Scene 1.  London.  An antechamber in the king's palace.

The Bishops of Canterbury and Ely, two very powerful spiritual and secular leaders, confer regarding the miraculous transformation of the "wild prince" into a model leader:

The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seemed to die too. Yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipped th'offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made,
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady currance, scouring faults,
Nor never Hyrda-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.  (25-37)

At the end of Henry IV, Part 2, King Henry on his deathbed advised his son, Prince Hal, to initiate a foreign war soon after taking the throne.  The plan is straight out of Machiavelli's The Prince (1532), and seems designed to (1) unify the country in a cause of national interest; and (2) deflect concern over the new king's place on the throne.  As Machiavelli points out, the cause must be a good one and, most important, the king must win in order to claim the hearts and loyalties of his subjects.

To that end, Henry V asks for religious and legal sanctions to wage war against France in order to reclaim French territories conquered by his great-great-grandfather, King Edward III.  Gradually, those dukedoms had been reclaimed by the French due to a number of reasons, including England's preoccupation at home with ongoing civil disruption.  Canterbury and Ely strike a bargain with Henry: in return for their religious and economic sanctioning of the war they ask that Henry abandon his plans to seize huge parcels of land (and the income they generate) belonging to the Church.  He agrees, in a form of quid pro quo.

Scene 2.  The same.  The Presence Chamber.

Canterbury and Ely are summoned before Henry to present to his cabinet officers their learned justification for going to war with France.  The clergymen have discovered that the French have claimed "Salic law"—whereby no woman shall succeed to the throne—in order to bar English claims to the dukedoms and justify the existence of their royal line.  The problem with Salic law in this application, Canterbury and Ely argue, is that it is German, not French!  Therefore, they contend, Henry is perfectly justified in his planned undertaking.  (Note: Historically, Salic law was a collection of local Frankish laws and customs, and had nothing to do with questions of succession.  As always, Shakespeare modifies history to suit his dramatic purposes.  That is, historical "accuracy" really isn't the point.)  The long disquisition on Salic law sometimes is played as humorous in its tediousness and almost fanatical detail (as in Olivier's film); it is much like a tiresome legal disputation, and even when the conspiratorial tone of the scene is stressed (as in Branagh's production), the Salic law speech should produce some (perhaps nervous) laughter.

The next order of business is to receive the French ambassador's message from the Dauphin.  Courtly etiquette always is followed in the play, even before scenes of battle.  The ambassador delivers from the Dauphin a haughty and insulting message to Henry's demand that the French dukedoms be returned to English control:

In answer of which claim the prince our master
Says that you savour too much of your youth,
And bids you be advised: there's nought in France
That can be with a nimble galliard won;
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure, and in lieu of this,
Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. (249-57)

These are fighting words.  Note the sneering warning from the Dauphin that cautions the English king to "be advised"; the word here means not "informed," but rather consider, take heed.  The comment is a threat, in other words.  Through the messenger, the Dauphin mocks Henry for his youthful past, not understanding his radical, almost miraculous transformation into the majesty of true kingship.  The "tun of treasure," Henry's uncle, the Duke of Exeter, discovers, contains tennis balls.  Taken with the above lines, this insulting gift of "toys" to a king shows the pervasiveness of the impression of Prince Hal as the wild, untutored, riotous youth.

The king responds with controlled anger, quibbling on different meanings of the word balls (including the suggestion of testicles), in a speech that gradually rises in its menacing and threatening power:

We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.

. 	.	.	.	.	.	.

When we have match'd our rackets to these balls
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.  (259-63)

Further, Henry takes umbrage at the Dauphin's slurring references to his supposedly misspent youth; note that Henry strongly hints that he was well aware of his role-playing during that time:

. . . And we understand him well,
How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.

. 	.	.	.	.	.	.

But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
Be like a king and show my sail of greatness
When I do rouse me in my throne of France,
For that I have laid by my majesty
And plodded like a man for working days.
But I will rise there with so full a glory
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.  (266-80)

The king's righteous anger rises along with the power of his diction and tone until he virtually assaults the Dauphin through a sneering mockery of the French prince's clever "mock" of the tennis balls.  Henry is almost frightening in his conviction, and the French ambassador leaves his audience with the king both worried and unsettled.  He must return to France with the news that, no mistaking, King Henry is no longer the riotous Prince Hal, and will be "coming on" to claim his throne of France.  This exhilarating and powerful court scene, tempered with hints of conspiracy, intrigue, and menace, is nothing short of great theater and, as often in Shakespeare, the next act will shift downward to a view of everyday life and people.  As in the previous three plays of the Henriad, Shakespeare well understands that the emotion reached at the height of scene 2 cannot be sustained without loss of effectiveness.

Act 2

Chorus

The French have learned of Henry's preparations for war, and have devised a conspiracy involving Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey to have the king assassinated.  Note how the Chorus pointedly calls Henry V "the mirror of all Christian kings" (6), how he likens the treasonous conspirators against the king and England to "A nest of hollow bosoms" (21).  Again, the Chorus urges us to exercise our imaginations in the theater.

Scene 1.  London.  A street.

Falstaff's companions Corporal Nym and Lieutenant Bardolph enter and engage in banter, wherein Bardolph tells of the marriage of Mistress Quickly to Pistol—whereby she has jilted poor Nym.  (In 2H4 she brought an "action," or suit, against Falstaff for his monetary obligations to her, and revealed that he had promised to marry her.)  The men nearly fall to fighting when the Boy enters to reveal that Sir John is dying.  The Hostess says that "The king has killed his heart" (70), alluding to King Henry's banishment of Falstaff at the end of 2H4.  Quickly hurries to see Falstaff and returns with the news that he is dying indeed.

Scene 2.  Southampton.  A council–chamber.

Before sailing for France, Exeter, Bedford (formerly Prince John), and Westmorland discuss the treasonous plot of Cambridge, Grey, and Scroop against the king's life.  Immediately the conspirators enter with Henry and a discussion of proper punishment ensues in which Henry demonstrates his kingly mercy and evenness.  En route, a drunken man had made some remarks against the king and the young lords advocate severe punishment for that act; instead, King Henry takes into account the man's condition and orders that he be "enlarged," or freed.  Foolishly thinking that they will be promoted by the king for their sham loyalty, the conspirators find themselves charged with treason, for "selling" their king and country to the French.  Henry calls them "These English monsters" (82), in the Latin sense of "unnatural creatures, abortions, of the kind displayed to the Elizabethan public" as curiosities (Gurr).  Note how the king compares their treason to the first disobedience of all, the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a theme that resonates throughout the entire Henriad:  "I will weep for thee; ⁄ For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like ⁄ Another fall of man" (137-39).  Note the power, beauty, measure, and kingly authority of Henry's last speech in this scene.

Scene 3.  London.  Before a tavern.

Preparing to leave for the war, Pistol cautions his new wife to be faithful to him.  Mistress Quickly describes the death of Falstaff in memorable detail, a famous description.  Pistol, who is little more than a professional thief, reveals that these low characters will join the king's army simply for the opportunity of stealing: "Yoke-fellows in arms, let us to France, like horseleeches, my boys, to suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!"  (42-44).

Scene 4.  France.  The French king's palace.

The king (historically Charles VI) is attended by his son, the Dauphin, the Constable (chief military officer), the Dukes of Berri, Bourbon, and others.  King Charles in this scene shows wisdom and maturity in his careful (i.e., "full of care") worry over the invasion by the English; he knows well that Henry V is a descendant of the great Edward III, and of the same stock as the bloody victor of the Battle of Crécy (Cressy), Edward the Black Prince.  The hotheaded Dauphin, not unlike Hotspur in 1H4, is amused, since he believes that England's king is still the boy who was Prince Hal.  He advises preparations that will meet the challenge.  Note the demeaning tone here, all the more ironic since we know the transformation of Hal into Henry V:

. . . I say 'tis meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France.
And let us do it with no show of fear,
No, with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris dance.
For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne,
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not. (21-29)

Exeter enters as ambassador from King Henry and delivers a powerful speech in which he outlines the king's terms: nothing short of the French crown.  If it is not rendered freely, and with no inner malice, Henry will come upon the French "In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove" (101).  To the smug Dauphin the king sends "Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt" (117), and much more.  Read this speech carefully in terms of its bold, assertive language.  Note that Exeter explains that Henry V is no longer the giddy Prince Hal:

And, be assured, you'll find a difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
Between the promise of his greener days
And these he masters now. Now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain; that you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.  (135-40)

Act 3

Chorus

Asking the audience to imagine the swift passage of time and movement from English to French shores, the Chorus reveals that King Charles's offer of the hand of his daughter, Katherine, in marriage, along with "Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms" (31), is not enough for Henry V, who indeed is "coming on."  A reprise of the "offer" of Katherine—not as a form of appeasement to Henry, as here, but as a condition of French surrender—will occur at play's end.  This action is typical of Shakespeare's knotting and tying off of the plot's threads.

Scene 1.  France.  Before Harfleur.

This famous scene depicting the siege of Harfleur opens with a rhetorical salvo, Henry's oft-quoted "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, ⁄ Or close the wall up with our English dead!" speech (1-2).  With fine dramatic compression this important battle scene exemplifies is miniature the entire English campaign.  For Henry, who claims right to the throne of France, the French citizens who defend themselves must be considered traitors against the English crown, a notion straight out of Machiavelli.  Note the important speech beginning at line 25 ("And you, good yeomen . . .) and how it foreshadows Henry's great "St. Crispin's Day" speech in act 4.

Scene 2.  The same.

Typical of Shakespeare, a quick change of focus to the common man, here the grouping of Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol, who, consistent with their characterizations thus far, show cowardice and their primary motive for joining the army:  to steal and plunder.  Note the Boy's prose soliloquy, in which he, like Hal earlier in 1H4, truly knows the character of these men.  Here is a version of the Prodigal Son motif in small:  "I must leave them and seek some better service.  Their villainy [i.e., "baseness," "commonness"] goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up" (43- 45).

Scene 3.  The same.

The Welsh captain, Llewellyn, the English captains Gower and Jamy, and the Scots captain MacMorris gather and discuss their various loyalties to the king.  By grouping together representatives of Britain's peoples Shakespeare nationalizes the scope of King Henry's intent.  That is, now his war against France is not simply a personal vendetta or way to aggrandize and establish himself as England's king (à la Machiavelli).  Note how Shakespeare attempts to reproduce the sense of Welsh dialect in Llewellyn's expressions and pronunciations of words;  they are written in a way to suggest how they should sound on stage.  Also, notice Llewellyn's continuous references to great military leaders and campaigns of history;  typical of the Welsh, Llewellyn is fiercely loyal to his king, himself of Welsh descent.

Scene 4.  The same.

We return to the siege of Harfleur in progress, with Henry making his last offer of mercy to the governor of the town.  This first speech is powerful, and the unrelenting pounding of monosyllabic words literally forces the actor's face into a warlike grimace in their delivery (compare Branagh).  Embodying the accomplished virtues of a Christian king, Henry V has warned his soldiers upon pain of death against looting, raping, pillaging, and other atrocities as they undertake war in France.  He cautions the Governor to yield the city before surrender is no longer an option:  "Therefore, you men of Harfleur, ⁄ Take pity of your town and of your people ⁄ Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command" (27-29).  Leaving Exeter to take charge of the town's surrender, Henry orders him to "Use mercy to them all" (54), again displaying qualities of the good prince in Machiavellian terms.

Scene 5.  Rouen.  A room in the palace.

We come now to the famous "language lesson," with Princess Katherine and her Lady-in-Waiting, Alice.  The French language here, even if one doesn't know French, is fairly easy to follow, as Alice instructs the princess, using gestures, on English equivalents for various body parts.  It ends, of course, with off-color punning on another Anglo-Saxon word.  Aside from the humor, the lesson shows a young Katherine preparing to learn the conqueror's language at the same time that her future husband, King Henry, is physically conquering the "body" of France.  A commonplace in the Renaissance was to figure a nation metaphorically in terms of the human body.  (Gurr's introduction addresses this feature of the play well.)

Scene 6.  The same.

In another room of the palace, King Charles, the Dauphin, Constable, and important noblemen angrily debate the incursions of Henry and the need to put a stop to them immediately.  Now they disparage the courage, breeding, and ability of the English, and take Henry's victories as a national affront.  Have the French lost their "mettle," their innate national courage (with a play, as usual, on metal = weapons), they wonder?  The Dauphin furiously echoes this sentiment:

Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out, and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth
To new-store France with bastard warriors.  (28-31)

Scene 7.  The English camp in Picardy.

A shift back to the English, in the contrapuntal fashion typical of Shakespeare.  Again, the English and Welsh captains discuss the purposes and justifications of war when Pistol enters and asks Llewellyn to intercede on behalf of Bardolph, who will be hanged for stealing a small crucifix ("pax") from a church.  (Morally, there is nothing lower than robbing from a church.)  Llewellyn cannot support such a defense, of course, and it flies directly against the king's strict orders for honorable soldierly conduct:  "We would have all such offenders so cut off, and we give express charge that in our marches through the country there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, noe of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language.  For when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner" (91-96).

Montjoy, the French herald, enters with his king's demand for England's surrender before the final confrontation takes place.  His language is haughty, arrogant, and prideful, and Henry responds in fully righteous and kingly anger himself, telling Montjoy to return with the knowledge that Henry will never surrender—nor will he be ransomed.  In brief, he will fight with his men to the death.

Scene 8.  The French camp, near Agincourt.

Again a shift, back to the French army, with the Constable, Dauphin, and nobles discussing their military superiority.  They cannot wait for the battle against the English; in fact, they regret that the English make up such an unworthy, pitiful force.  Like a French Hotspur, the Dauphin is full of himself; even his proud courser is eager for battle and fame.  Note the beautiful, pride-filled language with which he discusses his charger, who treats the Dauphin as though he were the rider's mistress; lots of interesting and clever punning in this exchange.  (Note that Gurr assigns these speeches to Bourbon instead of the Dauphin.)  One point of this scene is to present the courage, defiance, and eagerness of the Dauphin in order to elevate him in our minds as a worthy adversary for King Henry.  The technique is much the same as used in the portrayal of Hotspur in 1H4.

Act 4

Chorus

Note the Senecan diction and tone that the Chorus uses to establish an atmosphere of fear, apprehension, of the inscrutable workings of God, Providence, and the powers of the universe.  The first thirty lines or so are literally chilling.  Even the night itself has an ominous aspect, straight out of Seneca:

The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice,
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp
So tediously away. (18-22)

A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to everyone,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
"A little touch of Harry in the night." (43-47)

Scene 1.  The English camp at Agincourt.

King Henry dons the cloak of the wise old counselor, Sir Thomas Erpingham, in order to tour his camp and learn of his men's thoughts while in disguise.  They will hardly reveal their true feelings were they to know his royal identity, of course, and the cloaking of the king's body with the symbolic wisdom of Erpingham's garment seems by transference to give him those qualities as well.

First, Henry engages in a discussion with Pistol, who in his heart loves the king.  Pistol, like his comrades, is unlettered and ignorant; still his loyalty and love shine through in language that is all the more touching because of its rusticity: "The king's a bawcock and a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame, of parents good, of fist most valiant.  I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heartstring I love the lovely bully" (44-46).  Llewellyn and Gower enter, followed by an assortment of men of various levels of character: Bates, Court, and Williams.  Bates is a chronic whiner and complainer.  The force of their discussion, overheard by the king in disguise, is whether or not the king is responsible for his soldiers' souls if the men die in battle for him.  The exchange becomes heated, and "Harry le roi" (as Henry presented himself to Pistol) clearly argues that the king is not responsible for the sins of his men committed prior to battle.  Note this long prose speech (not poetry here, because the king is disguised as a common man) and its reasoning, ending with the blunt statement that "Every subject's duty is the king's, but every subject's soul is his own" (159-60).  Thus, Harry le roi advises, the men should make peace with God before going into battle.

The first of the act's three great speeches is Henry's apostrophe to "ceremony," the outward, essentially superficial trappings of state and kingship.  The king, he claims in conventional terms, is also a human being, but one who never can live the simple life of a common man, for his cares are great (perhaps Shakespeare's greatest working of the "Heavy lies the head that wears a crown" theme seen earlier in Richard II and the H4 plays).  Note the beautiful visual imagery, the rolling blank verse expressive of deep emotion.

Erpingham intrudes to ask the king to return to his nobles, who have been seeking him.  Now Henry prays, probably kneeling, in another apostrophe: "O God of battles!" (263).  As with the apostrophe to ceremony, Henry appeals in moving terms here that his men be spared any fault incurred by his father, King Henry IV, in his involvement in the deposition and murder of Richard II.  Ironically, when in disguise earlier Henry had told his soldiers that the state of their souls is their own responsibility, not the king's; here he asks God not to punish his men for faults beyond their control, but instead to visit his wrath upon the king.

Scene 2.  The French camp.

The French are anxious for the battle, and have been preparing for hours prior to daylight.  Bold, nervous banter about the imminent defeat of the ragtag, laughably small English army continues.

Scene 3.  The English camp.

A swift return to the English.  The king enters to his noblemen and Westmorland laments that the army could use reinforcements from men now safely at home in England.  The king uses this sentiment to launch into his brilliant "St. Crispin's Day" speech.  Shakespeare uses the literal date of the battle of Agincourt, and its falling on the saints day of Crispian (25 October), to develop a rousing and impassioned plea for unity and brotherhood in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.  Note carefully how his rhetoric develops:

1. He counters Westmorland's wish by saying that the number of men who will do battle is either great enough to win, God willing, or to perish;
2. Further, in winning, they will spread honor and fame among fewer men, thereby making it a more valuable commodity.  Indeed, Henry says that "if it be a sin to covet honour, ⁄ I am the most offending soul alive" (28-29), with irony turning a vice (greed) into a virtue;
3. Moreover, the king in his mercy will compel no man to fight; in fact, he will send that man home safely, with money for his passage: "We would not die in that man's company ⁄ That fears his fellowship to die with us" (38-39).  In other words, their fellowship cannot be sullied by cowardice;
4. Next, he makes the connection between the idea of English unity and brotherhood in a noble enterprise with the martyrdom of the ancient Roman twin brothers, Crispinus and Crispianus (anglicized to Crispin and Crispian) who, in dying for their Christian faith, became the patron saints of shoemakers.  The occupation of shoemaking is an essential and common trade plied for all people, and thus reinforces notions of brotherhood.  That is, shoemakers are representatives of the common man—and that is what Henry's army is composed of.  Note also how the speech literally "twins" the twins, placing their names side by side in the same line (57);
5. From here to its conclusion, the king asks his men to participate in the creation of a national legend; when they return home victorious they will become heroes forever and be proud to show their battle scars: "This story shall the good man teach his son" (56);
6. Henry ups the ante even further in the most famous lines of the speech (note the repetition of first-person pronouns juxtaposed with third-person pronouns, together suggesting unity):

   We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
   For he today that sheds his blood with me
   Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile
   This day shall gentle his condition. (60-63; emphasis added)

The sentiments here form the crux of Henry's meaning.  (Vile = base, common, of low birth; gentle is used here as a verb, meaning to improve, raise, elevate to a higher status.)  Thus, in metaphorical terms Henry is persuading his men to believe that they can join him on the level of true nobility and become his brothers.  They came to France common, ordinary men, but in victory will return to England as national heroes for all time; their brotherhood achieved in this effort will form a special, noble, and exclusive fraternity based on personal sacrifice, bravery, and patriotism.  Delivered by a skilled actor, the speech never fails to resonate emotionally with the audience.  Study Gurr's useful introductory remarks on Shakespeare's staging of the notion of brotherhood throughout the play.

Again, Montjoy the French herald enters asking the English to surrender.  He is rebuffed by an angry King Henry, who tells him that the will of his men is to fight to the death; even the dead will cause destruction by spreading pestilence from their rotting corpses.  In an aside, Henry concludes with the ominous comment, "I fear thou wilt once more come again for a ransom" (128), implying that the next time Montjoy comes it will be to collect the bodies of the French dead.

Scenes 4-7.  Different parts of field of battle.

These brief scenes illustrate the actions of minor characters whom we've come to know during the course of the play.  The battle virtually decided, the king learns that the French continue to fight and orders his men to kill their prisoners to help bring it to a close.  In one of the most touching moments in the play, Llewellyn and Gower discover that the boys who have been employed to carry the army's luggage (including the Boy of Mistress Quickly's tavern, who earlier disassociated himself from Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym) have been slaughtered by the French.  The slaying of unarmed boys is a cowardly action, expressly forbidden by the generally-accepted rules of combat, and it rouses King Henry's righteous indignation: "I was not angry since I came to France ⁄ Until this instant" (4.7.45-46).  He responds in kind: "Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have, ⁄ And not a man of them that we shall take ⁄ Shall taste our mercy" (53-55).  This retaliatory vengefulness on the part of "the mirror of all Christian kings" may seem inconsistent with Shakespeare's depiction of Henry as the ideal ruler, and for some the action tarnishes his portrait.  Montjoy comes again, as Henry had predicted, to claim the bodies of the French dead.  Llewellyn emotionally praises the king, using overly-familiar terms to Henry that somehow endear him to both the king and audience of the play.

Scene 8.  Before King Henry's pavilion.

Here King Henry is presented with the catalog of French and English dead, and it is here that he learns of the miraculous victory that his men have achieved.  He is astonished, but never without words.  The victory was unimaginably decisive for the English: "Here was a royal fellowship of death" (93).  Significantly, King Henry takes no personal credit for the victory, but rather praises God, ordering "And be it death proclaimèd through our host ⁄ To boast of this, or take that praise from God, ⁄ Which is His only" (106-08). 

Act 5

After the very long act 4, the play concludes quickly and on mixed terms.

Chorus

The Chorus reminds us of King Henry's humility, his greatness as a prince, continued even as the men return to London:

Where that his lords desire him to have borne
His bruisèd helmet and his bended sword
Before him through the city. He forbids it,
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride,
Giving full trophy, signal and ostent
Quite from himself, to God.  (17-22)

Scene 1.  The English camp at Agincourt.

Llewellyn upbraids Pistol for his cowardice and probable motive of stealing from corpses.  Gower speaks to Pistol in tough language after Llewellyn's exit, and Pistol laments that he has been one of Fortune's victims (as he had said earlier about Bardolph!).  He has learned that his wife, Mistress Quickly, "is dead i'th'Spital of a malady of France" (72); that is, while he has been away she has died in the hospital of the "French disease," or syphilis (an appropriate ending for her?).  Cursing to the last, completely unrepentant and unregenerated, Pistol vows to continue his ways at home: "To England will I steal, and there I'll steal" (75-76), acquiring "patches" for "these cudgelled scars, ⁄ And swear I got them in the Gallia wars" (77-78).  These are hardly the badges of bravery, honor, and brotherhood that Henry's soldiers will wear!

Scene 2.  Troyes in Champagne.  An apartment in the French king's palace.

The play wraps up in a busy scene that dramatizes in compressed fashion the courtship of King Henry and Princess Katherine.  Their exchanges are touching and wonderful, and he promises her his country as well as his heart.  Henry knows that he will have Katherine (indeed, that has been arrange), but in true gentlemanly fashion gives her the prerogative of choice.  A good marriage will heal the wounds of a terrible political situation, and Machiavelli would approve King Henry's wisdom in making this match.

Scene 3: Final Chorus.

The action of the play over, the Chorus enters a last time to remind the audience of the historical aftermath of the events just dramatized, which is less happy than the play's conclusion.  King Henry's very young son will assume the throne as Henry VI following the untimely death of his father, and England once again will be plunged into political factionalism and war with France.  In Henry VI, Parts I-III and Richard III, Shakespeare details the aftermath of this series of historical plays, which conclude with the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485) and the establishing of the Tudor dynasty.