Henry V adopts many disguises throughout Shakespeare’s Henriad, some of which are evidenced by the different names he goes by: Hal, Prince Harry, Harry Le Roi, and finally King Henry V. M.C. Bradbrook writes that “disguise…may need a cloak and false beard, or it may be better translated for the modern age by such terms as ‘alternating personality.’” Henry V uses the element of disguise as defined by M.C. Bradbrook to conceal his Machiavellian political aims throughout the Henriad.
In the Introduction to Henry V, Katharine Eisaman Maus compares Henry to Machiavelli: “Shakespeare’s Henry is certainly no monster of iniquity, but his career poses some of the same questions that Machiavelli had… about the relationship of political success to personal goodness…” (1446). Henry understands that sometimes the “right” decision for a king is not always morally palatable, so he rationalizes the necessity for deception in many forms: through disguise, alter egos, double language, and concealment of knowledge. Henry asserts his Machiavellian philosophy: “for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly” (2 Henry IV 2.3.153-4), or the end justifies the means. However, since “the Hal, Harry, or Henry on display is the one those around him want or need to see,…the would-be observer… is obliged to create whatever kind of protagonist seems most appropriate to the circumstances. The result is a cacophony of critical voices that surrounds the figure of Henry in all his guises” (Ayers). Henry is not a particularly likeable character to me, but his political genius makes him worthy of the critical attention he receives. I agree most with James Bulman, who, in his review of McAlindon’s Study of ‘Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2’, criticizes McAlindon’s “insistence on reading the play through (a specific) lens… which denies (the reader)… ideological complexity” (117). McAlindon’s ultimate purpose, according to Bulman, is to “rescue Hal from those who regard him as a politically self-interested, morally compromising figure; to exonerate him of any imputations of insincerity, dishonesty, double-dealing, or cruelty; to justify his lies as Tudor policy rightly understood; and to fashion him a figure of Truth, an agent of God’s grace, the penitent son…” (116). Though some creditable critics do view Henry in this light, it is critical to allow the alternate viewpoint to be validated as well, especially because there are so many instances of other characters questioning whether Henry’s causes are justifiable or his motives pure. Yet even those critics who do not like him must concede that Henry is a brilliant political mind who should be regarded as a mighty force, a charismatic King who rules his England with absolute power, and whose warranted comparison to Machiavelli is, especially in modern scholarship, not necessarily a thorough condemnation. LaBranche suggests that Shakespeare’s theme in I Henry IV is that “the public man’s public worth is what matters, and that private virtues must have public worth to justify their maintenance.” This theme could stretch through all three plays, if Henry V’s actions and intentions are scrutinized.
Henry has, in part, instinctually learned his Machiavellian policy from “the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father” (Henry IV Part 2 4.2.105-6). In fact, he comes from a nation who has “the name of hardiness and policy” (Henry V 1.2.220). England has a reputation for political discernment, and as king, Henry is the head of this body politic. Falstaff erroneously believes Henry is different from his brother Prince John, who tricks the rebels into dispersing in 2 Henry IV through the use of double language. Henry’s “princely word” (4.1.292) is never more reassuring than Prince John’s, who says he will “maintain (his) word” (293) but relying on the rebels’ semantic misinterpretation of his promises, has them executed as traitors to England once they lay down their arms. Both brothers have inherited the “bypaths and indirect crook’d ways” (4.3.313) of their father, King Henry IV. “Many readers have found little to praise in the policy which Henry discovers to Hal in 3.2 (a counsel of duplicity which extends even to his ‘pilgrimage to Jerusalem’…)” (La Branche). When Henry puts on his father’s crown at his deathbed, he says,”And put the whole world’s strength into one giant arm, it shall not force this lineal honour from me” (4.3.174-5). If he has inherited the crown, he has also inherited his father’s usurpation of the throne, for the rightful King of England is still not coronated. King Henry IV reinforces this impression when, after likening his son to a bee (4.3.79-80), he likens himself to one as well (4.3.202). He expresses his remorse for how he assumed power, but in true Machiavellian fashion, he tells his son that the Kingdom will be much easier for Henry V to rule since he is not the original usurper. He is considering only the political aspect of Henry’s ascension, rather than the morality of it. Henry has not only inherited his father’s blood, he follows the Machiavellian example his father lays before him.
Henry V is loved and remembered as the common man’s king. Yet “his insistence upon ordinariness becomes a strategy of rule” (Maus 1450). Every instance of Henry-among-his-people is motivated by Machiavellian principles, from befriending all of Eastcheap, to providing a “copy now to men of grosser blood” (Henry V 3.2.24 )by cheerfully boosting morale among his tired troops in France, to insisting to Williams that “the King is but a man” (4.1.99). Ayers believes that Henry teaches his subjects a lesson by example: “…that the city can offer freedom from the inherited responsibilities and obligations of the old worlds of court and countryside, together with fixed identities and social roles that go with them. For them as for him, the anonymity and freedom from the traditional patterns of life it makes possible give to its inhabitants the power to recreate themselves as they wish and to make of themselves what they can, however they can.” His disguises might conceal specific political aims, but the fact that he is so successful in adopting them ironically reveals this truth to anyone who can recognize his cunning.
In 1 and 2 Henry IV, Henry disguises himself as a prodigal. He plays his part so convincingly that both his “friends” at the Eastcheap tavern and the men at Court (including his father) believe he is truly happier drinking with Falstaff than assuming his princely responsibilities. When his father upbraids him for keeping company that does not befit a prince, Henry says to him, “I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, be more myself” (3.2.92-3), revealing that he has been adopting a disguise. Henry exposes one of his reasons for having done so when he says:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him (I Henry IV 1.3.175-181).
He reveals here that his intentions are to “mock the expectations of the world… and to raze out rotten opinion” (2 Henry IV 5.2.125-7) by becoming a great king. Since the kingdom will not expect greatness, his subjects will love him all the more for exceeding their expectations. He also makes use of his time with the commoners in order to learn about their lives: “When I am King of England I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap…I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life” (I Henry IV 2.5.12-17). These are excellent political rationales for Henry’s behavior. Yet Henry does not consider how dramatically he will emotionally affect the “base contagious clouds” and “foul and ugly mists” he uses for his political aims.
Henry’s disregard for the behavior of the Eastcheap commoners is apparent; what is not apparent to most is his complete disregard for their well-being. He adopts a disguise two times, once as a thief and once as a drawer, to expose Falstaff “in his true colours” (2 Henry IV 2.2.148), whom Henry says is a “globe of sinful continents” (2.4.258). He mocks Falstaff continuously, but in seeming good-nature. Like Prince John, Henry relies on a semantic misinterpretation of his words to convince Falstaff that they are friends. It is apparent that Henry has succeeded by Falstaff’s continual assertion that he is Henry’s best friend. When Falstaff calls out to the newly-crowned Henry V, “My king, my Jove… my heart!” (5.5.44), Henry’s callousness is evident by his response: “I know thee not, old man… How ill white hairs becomes a fool and a jester!” (45-6). In fact, in Henry V, Falstaff is said to have died because “the King has killed his heart” (2.1.79). Henry also betrays his friend Bardolph when he commands his guards to execute him when he is caught stealing in France, though he has always known Bardolph to be a thief and still called him “most noble” (2 Henry IV 2.2.60) and “honest” (2.4.300). He says of his decision, “For when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentlest gamester is the soonest winner” (Henry V 3.6.102-3). Like Machiavelli, he values the better political choice rather than his loyalty to his friend.
Almost as if to prove that public virtue is better than private virtue, Henry decides to kill Hotspur himself. Henry says, “I will redeem all this on Percy’s head…Percy is but my factor, good my lord, to engross up glorious deeds on my behalf” (I Henry IV 3.2.132-148). Just before he kills Hotspur, he says to him, “And all the budding honours on thy crest I’ll crop to make a garland for my head” (5.4.71-2). La Branche reveals Henry’s desire for public recognition:
If (Henry) were to assume to garland of Hotspur’s budding honors, he would, in effect, be continuing Hotspur’s articles of knighthood, and it is certain this was not his true purpose. His true purpose was to redeem his lost stature in the eyes of the king, and to rid the realm of its foremost public enemy. As his sword touches Hotspur, the ideal of private honor, of self-nourishing chivalry, has already receded into the past where it is fit company for worms.
It is also interesting to note that to King Henry IV, Henry calls him “the noble Percy” (5.5.19) but when no one is around, he tells Hotspur his “ignominy sleep with (him) in (his) grave” (5.4.99). He privately considers Hotspur a pawn for his own political advancement, but he tells everyone, even Percy’s dead corpse, that he was a “great heart” (86). Private virtue has no worth unless it is publicly declared, a Machiavellian principle.
Though Henry manages to conceal his true political aims from most through the use of disguise, not everyone is fooled. Though Falstaff wrongly judges Henry, he reveals that he knows Henry practices deception when it befits him. He says, “Look you, he must seem thus to the world…this that you heard was but a colour” (2 Henry IV 5.5.74-81) when the newly-crowned King Henry rebukes him. Also, though none are entirely convinced they are right, Warwick, Ely, and the Lord High Constable of France guess that Henry is far more shrewd and politically-minded than he seems. Warwick predicts to King Henry IV:
The Prince but studies his companions,
Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,
‘Tis needful that the most immodest word
Be looked upon and learnt, which once attained,
Your highness knows, comes to no further use
But to be known and hated… (2 Henry IV 4.3.68-73).
Likewise, when King Henry V “casts off his followers” so quickly, Ely observes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, “And so the Prince obscured his contemplation under the veil of wildness—which, no doubt, grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, unseen, yet crescive in his faculty” (Henry V 1.2.64-7). The Constable of France echoes this observation as a warning to the Dauphin, who gravely underestimates his opponent:
And you shall find his vanities forespent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus
Covering discretion with a coat of folly
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate (2.4.36-9).
These few men recognize what a truly brilliant and cunning mind Henry possesses. They can see through his disguise if only for a brief unsure moment. Their ability to do this validates Ayer’s assertion that Henry is inadvertently teaching his subjects that it is not only possible but admirable to recreate oneself as something else if it is possible and beneficial to do so.
If Henry adopts Machiavellian methods to become the best king he can be, then it easily follows that he uses these same methods to rule as shrewdly as he can. Henry disguises his political motivations for all of the decisions he makes as king: why he goes to war with France, why he goes out amongst his tired troops both as himself and disguised as Harry Le Roi, and why he decides to take Catherine of France as his queen.
Henry IV usurped Richard II’s throne, and it is by no means clear that Henry V is justified in assuming the title upon his father’s death. Even in the throes of battle with France, Henry V prays that God forget “the fault (his) father made in compassing the crown” (Henry V 4.2. 275-6) so he can be free to assume that victory against the French means God condones both his own usurpation of the English throne and his political motivations for waging war with France to begin with. When Henry comes disguised as a commoner to Williams and tries to justify his position, “his cause being just and his quarrel honourable” (4.1.120-1), Williams responds “That’s more than we know” (122), revealing that though his people are loyal to their king, they are not certain whether this war with France is justifiable or not.
Because Henry IV seized the throne from its rightful owner, all of England was torn between its loyalties. All of the “traitors” hanged in both 1 and 2 Henry IV had valid complaints against the new King. Henry IV’s deathbed advice to his son is that he should go to war with another country to unite England against a common enemy, thereby ending the civil strife inside its own borders. “Be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels, that action hence borne out may waste the memory of the former days” (2 Henry IV 4.3.341-3). If citizens are distracted from their grievances against the king, they may have no choice but to accept him as the legitimate ruler in times of war. This is one true reason Henry decides to go to war with France. Henry also wants glory. He says, “France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe, or break it all to pieces…Either our history shall with full mouth speak freely of our acts, or else our grave… shall have a tongueless mouth…No King of England if not King of France” (Henry V 1.2.225-232). Like his true reason for killing Hotspur, his desire for public recognition is behind his decision to invade France. Yet both of these political reasons are disguised behind the reason he gives: that he is the rightful ruler of France through his great-grandfather’s lineage by an outdated loophole in France’s laws.
Once at war with France, though, Henry is merciless. When he uncovers the plot by Scrope, Grey, and Cambridge to hand him over to their enemies, he cruelly tricks them the same way Prince John does in 2 Henry IV. Neither brother had any intention of granting a pardon. Maus describes Henry’s mercilessness with the traitors:
In 2.2, with a typical flourish, he pretends to hand (them) their military commissions, after feigning to inquire about mercy for traitors. Actually, he gives them letters showing that he knows of their plot. This is splendid theater, but it is also quite chilling: Henry plays with his guilty victims as a cat plays with a mouse. His joke signifies not true contest, but absolute control (1451).
Ironically, Henry says to Scrope before sending him to his execution, “And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot to mark the full-fraught man, and best endowed, with some suspicion” (2.2.135-7). The reader might apply these lines to Henry himself, a man seeming to be virtuous, honorable, and kind, but whose true intentions are at best Machiavellian and at worst self-serving and cruel. The speech Henry gives to the Governor of Harfleur indicates that he is a cruel king, though I believe his intention here is to intimidate the French town into surrender, which they do. He essentially threatens that he will completely destroy everything in the town and allow his soldiers to rape and pillage and kill at their own will (3.3.78-120). Whether he truly means what he says or not, a king who shows no mercy to his enemies and inspires fear is more Machiavellian than moral.
Machiavellian principles should be adopted by great kings because it helps them rule their kingdoms wisely, if not always morally. Not all of Henry’s actions are morally questionable, though they can be traced back to some selfish gain. The chorus in 4.0 praises Henry for the “cheerful semblance and sweet majesty” (4.0.40) with which he appears among his troops. “Every wretch, pining and pale before, beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks…thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all behold… a little touch of Harry in the night” (41-7). Though he comes to them as himself, he disguises the tiredness and fear he feels in order to boost the low morale of his troops. His charisma and motivational abilities are uncontested: without these characteristics, weary England may have lost the war. We only see the heavy thoughts of the true Henry when he is disguised as Harry Le Roi. Henry comes to Williams to find out what a common man thinks about the war. This is characteristic of him, as it recalls his questioning Poins about what commoners think of him, to whom he says, “Never a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine” (2 Henry IV 2.2.44-5). Since Williams is unaware that Harry Le Roi is the King of England, both can be candid with each other because the imbalance of power is not present. Rochelle Smith says:
Williams scoffs at the idea that a common soldier’s personal disappointment
in his king carries weight, thereby dismissing the notion that the king-commoner relation is based on mutual trust and respect. Williams’ response rejects the ideal of an intimate, personal king-commoner relationship. His sarcasm reveals the hollowness of Henry’s romantic vision of kingship while his anger exposes Henry’s disguise as an aristocratic pastoral fantasy. Kings can disguise as commoners to experience the simple life, but, as Williams points out, once the battle takes a turn for the worse, the game ends, the king is ransomed, and his word of honor is worthless to the men who lie dead on the field. (323)
His response angers Henry, who vents his frustration by way of a cruel joke on Williams later, but eventually, Williams is given a glove full of money for his pains. In a sense, Williams has outlined for Henry exactly why commoners do not see Henry’s Machiavellian style of rule as justifiable. He did “disguise as (a) commoner to experience the simple life” once before, and his “word of honor” has truly become worthless to the men who lie dead, namely Falstaff and Bardolph, and all the traitors for whom Henry’s word has not been honorable. Williams places the blame on Henry, saying “… take it for your own fault, and not mine, for had you been as I took you for, I made no offence. Therefore, I beseech your highness pardon me” (Henry V 4.8.49-51). If Falstaff were alive, he could not have said it better.
Finally, Henry disguises his political intention to unite England and France through marriage by pretending to woo Princess Catherine because he is in love with her. Maus points out, “He pretends that Catherine is free to reject him, even though the marriage is already arranged as part of the peace treaty” (1452). Though he disguises his reasons for the marriage to Catherine, his language gives him away to the reader. “…it is the self-consciously and transparently disingenuous nature of Henry’s words that receives the greatest emphasis. He is clearly not that which he claims to be, a man of ‘plain and uncoined constancy,’ but rather that which he denies being, a fellow ‘of infinite tongue’: this is how he has both defined himself and been defined by others from the very beginning of the Henriad” (Ayers). Furthermore, Henry has never seemed to be bashful or bumbling around women; In 1 Henry IV, he offhandedly remarks to Falstaff, “Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails: by the hundreds” (2.5.330-2). Can this be the same person who asks Catherine, “Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms such as will enter at a lady’s ear and plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?” (Henry V 5.2.99-101). It is hard to tell which Henry is most like his true self, or even if either truly are.
Queen Isabel and King Charles are as aware that this marriage is political as Henry himself is. The language of all three in 5.2 is deceivingly romantic with undertones of political understanding. Isabel gushes about “this good day” and “this gracious meeting,” (13) but she immediately undermines the truthfulness of those words by passive-aggressively commenting upon Henry’s “eyes which hitherto have borne in them ,against the French that met them in their bent, the fatal balls of murdering basilisks” (15-17). She recognizes Henry is dangerous because of his great cunning and powerful position, and France must meet his demands or experience the mercilessness with which his other enemies have been vanquished. Foremost on his list is Catherine, his “capital demand “(96). King Charles uses phrases like, “Take her, fair son,” “this dear conjunction,” and “Christian-like accord in their sweet bosoms,” but in between are the political phrases that Henry understands: “the contending kingdoms of France and England,” “may cease their hatred,” and “never war advance his bleeding sword” (320-6). Henry’s wooing is beautiful, but his true political intent is evident in some of his language, like “take a soldier, take a king” (160), “I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it, I will have it all mine” (166-7), and “and you may thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way” (292-4). Though he may or may not be in love with Catherine, it is evident that his political aims are still very present, and he would have married her with accompanying tender emotion or without it. Perhaps Catherine is wiser than she knows when she says to Henry, “the tongues of men are full of deceits” (117-18).
Henry V may be a man whose tongue is full of “deceits”; he may be a man who is morally at fault for adopting so many varied disguises and carelessly hurting some of his loyal followers who love him; he may even be a self-preserving merciless killer. Whether he is all of these or not, one thing is certain: he is a great and mighty king whose Machiavellian style of ruling England brings much-needed harmony and peace to an ailing nation.
Works Cited for Shakespeare Paper
Ayers, P.K. “‘Fellows of infinite tongue’: Henry V and the king’s English.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 34.2 (1994): 253+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
Branche, Anthony La. “’If Thou Wert Sensible of Courtesy’: Private and Public Virtue in Henry IV, Part One.” Shakespeare Quarterly 17.4 (Autumn 1966):371-382. Rpt in ShakespeareanCriticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 119. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 Sept. 2010.
Bradbrook, M. C. “Shakespeare and the Use of Disguise in Elizabethan Drama.” Aspects of Dramatic Form in the English and the Irish Renaissance: The Collected Papers of Muriel Bradbrook. Vol. 3. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1983. 32-39. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 92. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Nov. 2010.
Bulman, James. C. “Shakespeare’s Tudor History: A Study of ‘Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2.’” Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol.58 (2007): 114-117 (Review). Web. 15 November 2010.
Maus, Katharine Eisaman. Introduction to Henry V. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York:W.W. Norton &Company, 1997. 1451. Print.
Shakespeare, William. I Henry IV. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1997.1157-1222. Print.
Shakespeare, William. 2 Henry IV. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1997.1304-76. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Henry V. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1997.1452-1521. Print.
Smith, Rochelle. “King-Commoner Encounters in the Popular Ballad, Elizabethan Drama, and Shakespeare.” SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900. Vol. 50 (2010): 301-36. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
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