Henry IV, part 2 The play was probably written to capitalize on the popularity of Falstaff. There s very little actual history. Like part 1, it alternates between history/politics and comedy, and it parallels rebellion in the land to rebellion in the family. There are strong parallels between the two parts. In each play, for example, act 2 scene 2 shows Hal and Poins plotting to make a fool of Falstaff, and act 2 scene 4 is set in a tavern in an extended battle aiming to expose Falstaff as a clever liar; both end with a knock on the door. In each play, Hal has a confrontation with his father, is accepted again, and proves himself a true prince. He rejects Falstaff in both plays. (He shuts him up on the battlefield in part 1). Hal does not mingle with the low characters as much in part 2; he meets them only once, including Falstaff. But there are far more low characters. Also, there are many country characters; and it is the only history play where more than half the text is prose. Names show the play s shrunken character. Bardolph describes the rebels as the names of men instead of men. The play moves toward types and humours, to mark the difference between the worlds of parts 1 and 2. Henry and Falstaff are still foils. But the effect of the similarities between Hal and the foils is to emphasize the differences. Hal has developed, but still has a lot to learn. He s finding it hard to change his reputation; everyone presumes the worst of him, even his friend Poins. When he picks up the crown, people think he wants to kill his father. Image has to change as well as behaviour. He has to repudiate Falstaff publicly; not hanging out with him is not enough.
Both Hal and Henry are more introspective than in part 1. Both talk and think about power the same way; yet there is psychodrama between them that relates to their political roles but that neither of them really grasps. This is a big part of the complexity of the play. The play can be read as the progress of order against disorder. Through much of the play, there is fear of a greater reversal of order, the coming of the wastrel king. By the end, Henry represents disorder, going wild into his grave. Hal is order, clean of his father s sins; earlier, it s the other way around. Hal s wildness also gets buried with Henry, whose sober side lives on in the son. Wildness emerges elsewhere too, in the rebels and in the minor characters; and in some of the language. Low-life forces of disorder are given free rein in the Epilogue. Both Elizabeth and her power, and the common people in the theatre, are acknowledged in the Epilogue: order triumphs officially, but the comic actor has the last dance, and the theatre is a place of licence. The play is suffused with a sense of time, age, and mortality. The tone is quite different from that of part 1; the play is tough, gritty, cynical. The Prologue establishes the downbeat note. Hotspur (and Honour) is dead. Realpolitik and false appearances rule. Policy, not chivalry, wins the day. Hal must prove himself not the prince of chivalry, but someone who is fit to rule. There is a choice between the Lord Chief Justice and Falstaff. The play is also a panorama of England, with a wide social range in the characters. Everyone's in decline except Hal. Everyone in the play is sick. The disease, as the Archbishop says, is the lingering curse of anarchy and usurpation. Images of sickness, disease, old age, mortality abound. There is a concern with the passage of time. Everyone feels age and decay. The king is old and sick. Hal is running out of time to make up with the king and defeat the rebels. Part one was playful and full of possibilities.
Lady Percy s speech reminds us of Hotspur s absence and that of the world he represents. We have Ancient (ensign) Pistol instead. The Lord Chief Justice s character shows that honour is not obsolete. There is theme of Justice. At the start of the play, the Lord Chief Justice confronts Falstaff. He needs to control the law. He expects to be fired, later; but Hal does the right thing. Injustice permeates the countryside. Shallow and Silence counterbalance the Lord Chief Justice, as does Falstaff. The king s death allows Hal to find a new father, replacing both Falstaff and Henry: the Lord Chief Justice. There may be a theme associating Falstaff with Catholicism. Shallow says Falstaff began as a page to Thomas Mowbray; Mowbray was closely associated with Catholicism. John Falstaff was originally called John Oldcastle in the plays; Oldcastle was a sort of proto-martyr, and can thus be associated with Catholicism. Monks were fat, further associating fat Falstaff with Catholic martyrs. (This raises the interesting question of Shakespeare s sympathies.) The Catholic liturgy was tied to agriculture and biology; this link in society was not easily broken. Falstaff s journey into England may be a journey into the old religion of Shakespeare s father and maternal grandfather, and Falstaff seems to embody the ancient Catholic rhythms suppressed in the Reformation. Shakespeare s father s name was John. (The rural scenes in this play are the closest Shakespeare came to representing the rural England he grew up in.) As Henry IV got Mowbray exiled, so Hal banishes Falstaff. Shallow and Mowbray utter paeans to England, as self-interested Bullingbrook does not when he is exiled. In Shakespeare s day, people who got banished and proclaimed loyalty to England were Catholics.
Falstaff is also different in this play. He thrives on a false reputation. The focus is on rumour/reputation, rather than honour. He is an echo of Rumour s theme of falsehood. He talks not of honour but of wine. He is an emblem of appetite and decline. The tavern is now a brothel. The grossness of his body is emphasized. He starts the play by being sick of social disease ( pox ). He increasingly becomes a sign of disintegration. The quality of his lying is deteriorating. He is defeated in the tavern scene, when Hal overhears him bad-mouthing him. He disturbs the peace, and there are murders etc. He victimizes gullible Quickly, and abuses his authority, with consequences. There are arrests. Falstaff can t talk his way out of things with humour anymore, not with Westmoreland and Prince John. Reminiscing with Shallow only reminds Falstaff of how old he is. Falstaff may also represent the temptations of the flesh. He is a Vice; so his rejection is the final step in Hal s political and moral redemption. If Falstaff represents Catholicism, Hal becomes a proto-protestant, a puritan, washing off his past, turning away from old England. The Archbishop confirms his reformation at the beginning of Henry V. Hal s reformation has religious overtones. Words like Fall and Pardon come up when he s at court. His life follows providential rhythms; Falstaff s follow those of the body and the seasons.
Henry IV is conscious that his power has no legitimacy; he won it by battle victories achieved by trickery. He fears that the sins of the father will be visited on the reign of the son, and he fears disorder under Henry V, a disorder that Falstaff hopes for. But in both parts of the play, Hal surprises, first on the battlefield, then as king. In place of honour, we have Prince John. At Gaultres, the word shallow is repeated. Shallowness replaces an idealistic world. Pistol is a braggart soldier, but he is not witty. Even the whores don t like him. Doll is belligerent, drunk, and tough. Even she is taken aback by Falstaff s lifestyle. At her arrest, murders are mentioned, and no prince can associate with this type of underworld activity. Hal s language becomes the language of kingship toward the end of the play. Scenes in poetry are followed by longer ones in prose in a low tone, measuring the decline. The prose world swallows up the poetry one. There was a focus on language in S s day; the language was expanding, and writers were trying to make English a literary language, and to purge it of vices. The minor characters are a compendium of linguistic vice. Pistol mangles a series of references from current plays; he is bombastic and rhetorical. His language is explosive and inefficient. He is exuberant, and delights in the sound of big words. He is a wild card in the quest for order. (Elizabethan pistols were likely to go off at any time.) Quickly s malapropisms are a form of disorder. She is associated with criminality and murder (5.4). The King speaks in orderly poetry, a bulwark of order against the bawdy, punning disorder of the clowns. But he can t control them. The theme and language of disease culminates in the King s sickness.