The Famous Victories of Henry V

Last updated
The Famous Victories of Henry V
FamousVictoriesHenry5titlepage.JPG
Title page of 1598 quarto
Written byanonymous
Date premiered1580s (?)
Place premieredLondon
Original languageEnglish
SubjectThe life of Henry V of England
Genre History
SettingEngland, France

The Famous Victories of Henry the fifth: Containing the Honourable Battel of Agin-court: As it was plaide by the Queenes Maiesties Players, is an anonymous Elizabethan play, which is generally thought to be a source for Shakespeare's Henriad ( Henry IV, Part 1 , Henry IV, Part 2 , and Henry V ). It was entered by printer Thomas Creede in the Stationers' Register in 1594, but the earliest known edition is from 1598. [1] A second quarto was published in 1617.

Contents

The play covers the riotous youth of Prince Henry and his transformation into a warrior king, ending with his victory at Agincourt and his wooing of Princess Katherine. The work is of unknown authorship, and various possible authors have been proposed, including a young Shakespeare, though this view is not widely accepted by scholars.

Characters

The English Court, Officials
Friends of Prince Henry
Tradespeople
The French Court, Officials, Military
French Soldiers

Plot summary

Prince Henry and his companions have committed a robbery, stealing £1000 from two Royal Receivers. He meets Jocky Oldcastle and tells him of events. The Receivers, pursuing the robbers, bump into Henry who "forgives" them for losing the money, but also threatens them. They leave. He suggests to the others that they go carousing to spend the money in a tavern.

The Chief Justice hears about Henry's antics at the tavern, which include a drunken street brawl with drawn swords. He orders the arrest of the Prince and others. Local tradesmen comment on the events. One of them recognises a Thief, whom they take into custody. The Thief insists that he is a servant of Prince Henry who will get him released. Meanwhile, King Henry IV laments the shameful lifestyle of his son. He questions the Chief Justice about the arrest of the Prince. The Justice explains his actions and King Henry accepts their validity. He calls for his son to be brought to him.

Prince Henry has been released. Angry at the Chief Justice, he tells Jocky and his companions that when he is king they shall have major positions of state. The Justice is arraigning the Thief when Prince Henry and his gang arrive. The prince insists that the Thief be released. When the Justice refuses, Prince Henry assaults him.

At his meeting with his father, Prince Henry is upbraided. His father tells him of his royal duties. Shamed, the Prince promises to reform his lifestyle. Meanwhile, the tradesmen act out a clownish version of the conflict between the Prince and the Chief Justice.

King Henry IV is dying. The Prince picks up the crown thinking that his father is dead. King Henry revives and upbraids him again. The Prince promises to be a good king. The old king dies. Now king, Henry V reneges on his promises to his old companions and banishes them. Henry discusses his claim to the French throne with the Archbishop. The Dauphin of France sends tennis balls as a present to King Henry as an insult. Henry prepares for war with France.

One of the tradesmen, John Cobler, has been fighting with his wife. His friend Dericke intervenes. A soldier arrives to force the two men to join the royal army. They are reluctantly recruited while the wife laments. The Thief is also pressed into military service.

In France Henry captures the town of Harfleur. The French send a large army against him. Henry defies them, insisting that he will not be ransomed but would rather die than accept defeat. Before the battle, French soldiers (speaking in comically garbled English) discuss how they will divide the spoils. At the Battle of Agincourt the English are victorious. Dericke is involved in clownish battlefield antics with a French soldier. After the battle he and John Cobler scheme to get out of the rest of the war by accompanying the deceased Duke of York's body back to England.

Henry then travels on to Paris where he negotiates with the French court and woos Princess Katherine. The King of France agrees to make Henry his heir and to marry him to Katherine.

Parallels with Shakespeare's plays

The play covers the same ground later traversed in significantly greater detail in the Shakespearean trilogy, covering the wildness of the prince in several episodes, a coronation in which he dismisses the dissolute companions of his youth, and his invasion of France, victory at Agincourt, and eventual marriage to the Princess Katherine. More specifically, C.A. Greer [2] identified fifteen plot elements that occur in both the anonymous play and in the Henry trilogy. These included the robbery at Gad's Hill of the King's receivers, the meeting of the robbers in an Eastcheap Tavern, the reconciliation of the newly crowned King Henry V with the Chief Justice, the new King's rejection of his comic/criminal friends, the gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin, and Pistol's encounter with a French soldier (Dericke's in The Famous Victories).

Date and authorship

Richard Tarlton, the actor who played Dericke, and one possible author of the play Richard Tarleton.jpg
Richard Tarlton, the actor who played Dericke, and one possible author of the play

In 1891 F. G. Fleay attributed the play to comedian Richard Tarlton, who is known to have played the role of Dericke; [3] in 1910 H. Dugdale Sykes attributed it to Samuel Rowley. [4] In 1928 B. M. Ward suggested the extant version was based on an early court masque written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. [5] Scot McCrea thinks this unlikely, but argues that the author was probably trying to flatter Oxford, as the role of his ancestor Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford is exaggerated in the text. [6] Alice-Lyle Scoufos argued that Welsh scrivener and theatrical producer Henry Evans, who was associated with the Earl, was the most likely author. [7]

In 1944 E. M. W. Tillyard claimed the play for the young Shakespeare, [8] followed by Seymour Pitcher in 1961. Pitcher argued that annotations to Edward Hall's Chronicles were probably written by Shakespeare and that these are very close to passages in the play. [9] This view has not received much support, but because of the play's "manifest verbal flatness", it has been widely argued that the published version of the play is a memorial reconstruction (based on memory rather than a manuscript). [10]

Just as the authorship of Famous Victories is disputed, so too is its chronological placement in the development of the English drama. However, as published in 1598 the play is advertised as one acted by "her Queen's Majesty's Players", referring to Queen Elizabeth's Men, a company which, while surviving into the 1590s was in deep decline by 1590. It is generally agreed that Richard Tarlton, who died in 1588, played the clown role (Dericke) in the play and that William Knell, who died in 1587, played Henry. [11] This is because of a record of a performance in which "Knel, then playing Henry the fift, hit Tarlton a sound boxe indeed, which made the people laugh the more". [12] Scoufus, as mentioned, places it in around 1583; Ward argued for a date circa 1576. It is certain, however, that the play significantly antedates the canonical Shakespearean treatment of the same historical materials in Henry IV, Part 1 , Henry IV, Part 2 , and Henry V by some years.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Falstaff</span> Character in three of Shakespeares plays

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is also featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though primarily a comic figure, Falstaff embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king.

<i>Henry V</i> (play) Play by Shakespeare

Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written near 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was titled The Cronicle History of Henry the fift, and The Life of Henry the Fifth in the First Folio text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry V of England</span> King of England from 1413 to 1422

Henry V, also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against France made England one of the strongest military powers in Europe. Immortalised in Shakespeare's "Henriad" plays, Henry is known and celebrated as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England.

<i>Henry V</i> (1944 film) 1944 British film by Laurence Olivier

Henry V is a 1944 British Technicolor epic film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same title. The on-screen title is The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fifth with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France. It stars Laurence Olivier, who also directed. The play was adapted for the screen by Olivier, Dallas Bower, and Alan Dent. The score is by William Walton.

<i>Henry V</i> (1989 film) 1989 British historical drama film

Henry V is a 1989 British historical drama film adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name about King Henry V of England. The film stars Branagh in the title role with Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Alec McCowen, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane, Brian Blessed, and Christian Bale in supporting roles.

<i>Henry IV, Part 1</i> Play by Shakespeare

Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the battle at Homildon Hill late in 1402, and ending with King Henry's victory in the Battle of Shrewsbury in mid-1403. In parallel to the political conflict between King Henry and a rebellious faction of nobles, the play depicts the escapades of King Henry's son, Prince Hal, and his eventual return to court and favour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Oldcastle</span>

Sir John Oldcastle was an English Lollard leader. From 1409 to 1413, he was summoned to parliament as Baron Cobham, in the right of his wife.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shakespearean history</span> Shakespeares history plays

In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. The histories—along with those of contemporary Renaissance playwrights—help define the genre of history plays. The Shakespearean histories are biographies of English kings of the previous four centuries and include the standalones King John, Edward III and Henry VIII as well as a continuous sequence of eight plays. These last are considered to have been composed in two cycles. The so-called first tetralogy, apparently written in the early 1590s, covers the Wars of the Roses saga and includes Henry VI, Parts I, II & III and Richard III. The second tetralogy, finished in 1599 and including Richard II, Henry IV, Parts I & II and Henry V, is frequently called the Henriad after its protagonist Prince Hal, the future Henry V.

Robert Wilson, was an Elizabethan dramatist who worked primarily in the 1580s and 1590s. He is also believed to have been an actor who specialized in clown roles.

<i>Sir John Oldcastle</i> 17th-century play sometimes attributed to William Shakespeare

Sir John Oldcastle is an Elizabethan play about John Oldcastle, a controversial 14th-/15th-century rebel and Lollard who was seen by some of Shakespeare's contemporaries as a proto-Protestant martyr.

<i>Henry IV, Part 2</i> Play by Shakespeare

Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Pistol</span> Character in several plays by Shakespeare

Ancient Pistol is a swaggering soldier who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. Though full of grandiose boasts about his prowess, he is essentially a coward. The character is introduced in Henry IV, Part 2 and reappears in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V.

Events from the 1410s in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prince Hal</span> Fictional character

Prince Hal is the standard term used in literary criticism to refer to Shakespeare's portrayal of the young Henry V of England as a prince before his accession to the throne, taken from the diminutive form of his name used in the plays almost exclusively by Falstaff. Henry is called "Prince Hal" in critical commentary on his character in Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, though also sometimes in Henry V when discussed in the context of the wider Henriad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fluellen</span> Character in Shakespeares play Henry V

Fluellen is a fictional character in the play Henry V by William Shakespeare. Fluellen is a Welsh Captain, a leader of a contingent of troops in the small army of King Henry V of England while on campaign in France during the Hundred Years' War. He is a comic figure, whose characterisation draws on stereotypes of the Welsh at that time, but he is also portrayed as a loyal, brave and dedicated soldier.

Henry Evans was the Welsh scrivener and theatrical producer primarily responsible for organising and co-ordinating the activities of the Children of the Chapel and the Children of Paul's at Blackfriars Theatre for a short period in 1583–84. He later led a consortium of investors who leased the theatre during a much longer second phase, after the property was revived by Richard Burbage and Cuthbert Burbage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bardolph (Shakespeare character)</span> Character in several plays by Shakespeare

Bardolph is a fictional character who appears in four plays by William Shakespeare. He is a thief who forms part of the entourage of Sir John Falstaff. His grossly inflamed nose and constantly flushed, carbuncle-covered face is a repeated subject for Falstaff's and Prince Hal's comic insults and word-play. Though his role in each play is minor, he often adds comic relief, and helps illustrate the personality change in Henry from Prince to King.

<i>The King</i> (2019 film) 2019 film directed by David Michôd

The King is a 2019 epic war film directed by David Michôd, based on several plays from William Shakespeare's Henriad. The screenplay was written by Michôd and Joel Edgerton, who both produced the film with Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Liz Watts. The King includes an ensemble cast led by Timothée Chalamet as the Prince of Wales and later King Henry V of England, alongside Edgerton, Sean Harris, Tom Glynn-Carney, Lily-Rose Depp, Thomasin McKenzie, Robert Pattinson, and Ben Mendelsohn.

References

  1. Campbell, Oscar James (ed), "Famous Victories" A Shakespeare Encyclopaedia, Taylor and Francis, 1966, p.221.
  2. Greer, Clayton A. "Shakespeare's Use of The Famous Victories of Henry V," Notes & Queries. n. s. 1 (June, 1954): 238-41.
  3. Fleay, F. G. A. Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama. London, 1891, p. 67.
  4. Sykes, H. Dugdale. "The Authorship of The Taming of a Shrew, The Famous Victories of Henry V, and the Additions to Marlowe's Faustus." Shakespeare Association Paper, 28 February 1919. London, 1919, pp. 34-37.
  5. Ward, B. M. "The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth: Its Place in Elizabethan Dramatic Literature." Review of English Studies IV (July, 1928): 270-94, pp. 287, 294.
  6. McCrea, Scott, The Case For Shakespeare: The End Of The Authorship Question, Greenwood, 2005, p.157-8.
  7. Scoufos, Alice-Lyle, Shakespeare's Typological Satire: A Study of the Falstaff-Oldcastle Problem, Ohio University Press, 1981, pp.176, 180.
  8. Tillyard, E. M. W Shakespeare's History Plays. New York, 1944, p. 174.
  9. Pitcher, Seymour M. The Case for Shakespeare's Authorship of "The Famous Victories". New York, 1961, p. 6.
  10. Peter Corbin, Douglas Sedge, The Oldcastle Controversy: Sir John Oldcastle, Part I and The Famous Victories of Henry V, Manchester University Press ND, 1991, p.34.
  11. Katherine Duncan-Jones, Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from his Life, Cengage, 2001. pp.29-30.
  12. Edwin Nungezer, A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England before 1642, Yale University Press, 1929, p.228.