Henry IV, Part II

"The Second Part of King Henry IV" continues to chronicle Prince Hal's journey toward kingship. The play opens where Part One ended.

The Earl of Northumberland receives devastating results of Part One: his son has died in battle, and his friends have either been killed or captured. Northumberland lends his support to the second rebellion, led by the combined forces of Archbishop of York, Mortimer and Glendower.

Falstaff has gained importance since the Battle of Shrewsbury thanks to his false claim to Hotspur's death. A page boy carries his sword now and runs errands for him. When the Lord Chief Justice confronts Falstaff about a criminal charge related to the highway robbery, Falstaff cheerily insults him. The Chief Justice points out Falstaff pretends to be young (thereby shirking responsibility) when he is clearly old, thus highlighting that Falstaff is nearing death, and no matter how hard he clings to life, he too will vanish from the living one day. The theme of human mortality is also well-contemplated in a conversation between Justice Shallow and Justice Silence in a later scene.

King Henry IV fears his son Prince Hal's apparent attachment to London lowlife and worries whether his son will ever be ready to be king. Another rebellion against the king is launched, but this time, the royal forces are led by Hal's younger brother, Prince John of Lancaster whose treachery far exceeds any of the rebel characters. After the rebels send a list of complaints that Prince John deems reasonable to address and "grants" them the freedom to go home, he gives an order to arrest the rebel leaders Hastings, Mowbray and the Archbishop as traitors. Once the arrest has taken place, he gives a new order: the rebels are to be executed. Prince John seems to operate un der a code of honor that assumes the authority of God is always behind the royal family (related to "divine right of kings"). The logic would have pleased Queen Elizabeth and some of the Elizabethans in the audience. Yet, if we read the arguments in the scene closely, Shakespeare appears ambivalent. In Act four scene one, Falstaff goes into a very long, complex speech about wine that expands into a discussion of abstract truths applicable to Prince John's behavior. Prince John may refuse to drink wine, but he also appears to possess no sense of humor and may be utterly lacking in human compassion.

In Act four scene four, Hal spends time by his father's bedside. He shows a new maturity while he contemplates the weighty responsibility that the crown demands. The king seems to be dead, so Hal takes the crown into another room for further musings. A misunderstanding ensues when King Henry wakes up to discover the crown gone. Alone with Hal, the king angrily admonishes Hal's hell-raising ways, and paints a vividly devastating picture of an England once Hal is king. Hal kneels before his father, in tears, and swears he was full of grief when he thought his father dead and sees the crown as an enemy to fight with, not as a treasure. The king is moved. In his dying breath, he tells Hal he hopes he will find more peace as king tha n he did. He also gives Hal some advice. In order to avoid civil strife at home, he should make war overseas (In "Henry V", Hal invades France)

In Act five, Hal appears in the robes of the king. He is now King Henry V. In a surprising move, Hal thanks the Chief Justice for punishing him in his wild youth, and asks the Justice to be a father figure and teach him how to keep order honorably (V. ii).

The ultimate rejection of Falstaff occurs in the last scene before the epilogue. Falstaff comes to Hal thinking he will be greatly rewarded: "My king, my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!" (V. v. 40). Instead, Hal publicly denounces him: "I know thee not, old man" (41). He concludes that Falstaff and his lowlife friends are going to be provided for so that they will not need to resort to a life of crime but they will also never to come near the king again.

Shakespeare originally called his famous comic character Falstaff "Oldcastle". The historical Sir John Oldcastle was a distinguished figure and the slur on a revered name caused protests. Powerful descendents of Oldcastle were still alive at the20time of the "Henry IV" plays. In 1599, several dramatists from the rival Admiral's Men produces "The First Part of the True and Honourable History of the Life of Sir John Old-castle, the Good Lord Cobham" with a dismissal of Shakespeare's version of history in the prologue. Shakespeare, most likely in response to the descendents of Oldcastle, specifically adds in the epilogue of Part Two: "Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions. For Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man."

In 1960, a TV miniseries titled "An Age of Kings" which takes on Part Two, aired in the UK. The BBC filmed a version of the play in 1979 as part of the "BBC Television Shakespeare". "The War of the Roses" is a direct filming from the stage production of Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington's seven-play sequence based on Shakespeare's history plays. "Henry IV Part 2" is one of them.