"Father and son." Henry IV and V

Our picture of the English kings from Richard II to Richard II (which includes Henrys IV. V and VI and Edward IV) is largely shaped by Shakespeare’s plays. Thus we have the evil Richard III, the saintly but ineffectual Henry VI, the romantic if hopeless Richard II, the warrior-playboy Edward IV and the glorious Henry V. But Henry IV is oddly elusive despite appearing in three of the plays, two of which bear his name. As Bolingbroke he seems to have no inner life as he moves remorselessly to the crown. As king, he is always on guard, facing rebellions from within and without England, and even within his own family. It is not a role that attracts the great actors, and is overshadowed by Prince Hal, Hotspur and that great glorious force of life Falstaff.

But both Henry IV and V may well have been unfairly treated by Shakespeare. (And let’s not get into Richard III.) Henry IV overthrew a tyrant to the general acclaim of his countrymen, and through tenacity, courage, military prowess and mercy, left his son a secure throne, and set England on the path to Constitutional Monarchy. Henry V was both a religious hypocrite and fantatic, not afraid to go to war in the name of God and sacrifice common men to secure his own glory. So argues Ian Mortimer in his two books The fears of Henry IV: the life of Engand’s self-made king, and 1415: Henry V’s year of glory.

Mortimer, as I’ve mentioned before, writes exciting readable histories, and is not afraid to be inconclastic without being gratuitious. His books are well-researched and well-argued. Henry Bolingbroke is a rounded believeable character, far-removed from the politic and guilt-ridden character in the plays. His relastionship with his two wives, his problematical relationship with his eldest son, and his relationship with the lords and powerful of his time are all brought to life in fascinating detail.

The fears of Henry IV is a conventional biography in form, while 1415 takes a very different approach. He studies wills, diaries, letters, account books and other sources to create an almost day-by-day look at this crucial year. Sometimes this can became, I found, a little tedious but on the other hand it serves to bring the era to life in compelling detail. The Henry of this book is colder, more machievellian than Shakespeare’s, while still being a great king and warrior.

Mind you, Shakespeare’s Henry V, on a close reading, is not quite the straightforward hero of popular thought. Through the characters of Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, as well as Fluellen and Williams, we see the king as a powerful man who uses the little people as a tool on his way to glory. The ghost of the rejected Falstaff lurks nearby, and makes us query this man’s actions and rhetoric. Harry is a great king, but a great king is not necessarily a great man.

Having recently played in a production of Henry IV 1, which prompted me to read both these books, I wonder at Shakespeare’s great design of his plays. Shakespeare, I have no doubt, wrote on the fly, without too much revision or planning. But still, having written the plays covering the War of the Roses, he was then prompted to go back and write the story of the lead-up, from the deposition of Richard II. I wonder now if Shakespeare, as a loyal subject of Elizabeth I, didn’t see the deposition of Richard, the annointed monarch, as a great sin, that in almost Greek fashion could only be extirpated by the death of all involved, whether that involvement was their own or their family’s. Only when all the Plantagenants were dead could true peace return to the realm. It’s an attractive theory, attractive in the sense that it can never be disproved. But ‘tis mine, and I will have it.