Title page of the First Quarto (1600)
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Surrounding History of Henry V
Surrounding History of Henry V
Where did Shakespeare get the material for one of his most popular history plays? Was the audience fans of a play about a centuries-old ruler? For this section, I research the history of the play, what influences there were from the time period, the marriage (and deaths) and Henry V and Catherine, and the war that serves as a backdrop for the plot.
Portrait of Richard Burbage
History of the Play
History of the Play
Although Henry V is credited as being written and first performed in the year 1599, the earliest performance of the play with an exact date was given "by the King’s Men on 7 January 1605. The title-role was probably first taken by Richard Burbage. The role of Fluellen was probably created for Robert Armin" (Goff). One of Shakespeare's most popular and famous history plays, Henry V is the fourth and final play in a tetralogy (a series with four parts) and was preceded by Richard II (1595), Henry IV, Part 1 (1598), and Henry IV, Part 2 (1600). This particular tetralogy deals with the rise of the English royal House of Lancaster, which ruled over England through Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI.
The play was first "published in 1600 in a corrupt quarto edition; [and] the text [published] in the First Folio of 1623, printed seemingly from an authorial manuscript, is substantially longer and more reliable" (Bevington).
Portrait of Robert Armin
First edition (1577) of Holinshed's Chronicles
The Source and Inspiration
The Source and Inspiration
Like with his other history plays, Shakespeare "drew closely on Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, first printed in 1577 and revised and enlarged in 1587" (Dates and sources). Holinshed's Chronicles "was at once the crowning achievement of Tudor historiography and the most important single source for contemporary playwrights and poets, above all Shakespeare, Spenser, Daniel, and Drayton" (The Making of the Chronicles). Contrary to the name they bear, Holinshed's Chronicles was "produced by men of varying origins and upbringings. Eight men were principally involved in the huge enterprise of writing them, in collaboration with a number of printers and publishers" (The Making of the Chronicles). Also worth mentioning is that the "idea for the Chronicles originated with Reyner Wolfe (d. in or before 1574) [...] Wolfe planned a massive universal history, but died before it came to fruition. His assistant Raphael Holinshed (c. 1525-?1580), [...] took over Wolfe's project" (The Making of the Chronicles).
In addition to Holinshed's Chronicles, "Edward Hall's The Union of the two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York, first printed in 1548, is the other chronicle history from which Shakespeare took his material" (Dates and sources).
Portrait of Raphael Holinshed
17th Century print of Reyner Wolfe
Shakespeare's Play and the Time Period
Shakespeare's Play and the Time Period
Henry V and the Audience
Henry V and the Audience
In choosing the monarch Henry V, William Shakespeare was guaranteed to have success. This is for two main reasons: audience's familiarity with the ruler and similar pieces published during this time.
As part of the tetralogy with Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V would have been well received by audiences, who not only had seen the timeline of the tetralogy as the plays came out, because there were "three other plays about the great military hero already in circulation in late 1580s and early 1590s. The existence of two of these is known only on the strength of brief contemporary references but the text of the third has survived and its anonymous title page announces its subject: 'The Famous Victories of Henry the fifth: Containing the Honourable Battell of Agin-court: As it was plaide by the Queenes Maiesties Players'" (Dates and Sources).
Present Events in the Play
Present Events in the Play
One strong piece of evidence that supports the play's composition being in 1599 comes from one of the Chorus' prologues. The Chorus refers to a campaign by Essex in Ireland that happened in early to mid-1599 without any mention or sense of a tragic ending. As the campaign began in March and ended in June, it strongly suggests "that the play was first performed during that three-month period" (Henry V (play)).
The "Wooden O"
The "Wooden O"
An interesting fact surrounding the performance of Henry V is that, although it is impossible to verify, it is possible that "Henry V was the first play performed at the new Globe Theatre in the spring of 1599—the Globe would have been the 'wooden O' mentioned in the Prologue" (Henry V (play)). But it is more likely that the Queen's Men "were still at The Curtain when the work was first performed, and that Shakespeare himself probably acted the Chorus" (Henry V (play)).
The Curtain Theatre was a playhouse in London and hosted performances from 1577 to 1624, "after which its ultimate fate is obscure as there is no record of it after 1627. The reasons for its closure are not known" (Curtain Theatre).
Portrait of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex who was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599
1599 print showing what may be the Curtain Theatre, although this could be a depiction of the Theatre
The marriage of Catherine of Valois and Henry V
Henry V effigy head
Catherine de Valois burial place
The Marriage of Henry V and Catherine of Valois
The Marriage of Henry V and Catherine of Valois
On the 2nd of June, 1420, King Henry V married Princess Catherine of Valois of France at Troyes. This marriage turned the youngest and neglected daughter of King Charles VI into the Queen of England, yet it was Catherine's later marriage (after Henry's death) to Owen Tudor that truly changed England. The young princess who was overlooked her entire childhood is responsible for the history of England, for she was not only the mother of King Henry VI, but the grandmother of Henry VII through her second marriage (one of her sons, Edmund, Earl of Richmond was the future king's father) - giving England the Tudors.
Catherine was crowned Queen at Westminster Abbey on "February 24th 1421 having been carried to her coronation through streets draped in cloth of gold" (Starbuck). The marriage and coronation of the couple made them "the celebrity couple of their day with chroniclers praising their beauty and the few contemporary portraits of them showing them in the most fashionable clothes around" (Starbuck). And the praise for the couple only rose has they sent "the whole country into a state of celebration by announcing a royal pregnancy. Queen Catherine gave birth to a prince called Henry on December 6th 1421. The promise of Troyes had been fulfilled in a baby born to rule England and France" (Starbuck).
But Catherine's luck soon ran out as a little over two years later, Henry, on French campaigns, died of dysentery on August 31, 1422 at the age of 36, leaving the baby Henry King of England and France. Accroding to Westminster Abbey, Henry was "brought to the Abbey on 7th November 1422 for burial. [...] The inscription around the ledge of the tomb platform can be translated: Henry V, hammer of the Gauls, lies here. Henry was put in the urn 1422. Virtue conquers all. The fair Catherine finally joined her husband 1437. Flee idleness" (Henry V and Catherine de Valois).
Catherine de Valois funeral effigy
Henry V helm, shield and saddle
The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) - England and France
The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) - England and France
According to the World History Encyclopedia, the Hundred Years War was "an intermittent conflict between England and France lasting 116 years. It began principally because King Edward III (r. 1327-1377) and Philip VI (r. 1328-1350) escalated a dispute over feudal rights in Gascony to a battle for the French Crown. The French eventually won and gained control of all of France except Calais" (Cartwright). The war is broken up into three phases:
The Edwardian War (1337-1360) after Edward III of England
The Caroline War (1369-1389) after Charles V of France
The Lancastrian War (1415-1453) after the royal house of England, the Lancasters (Cartwright)
For the purpose of this section, I shall be focusing on the Lancastrian War, which is where our characters originate from. There was a period of peace when Richard II married Isabella of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI of France and older sister of Catherine of Valois, in 1396. But the war began once again with King Henry V's renewed vie for the French throne and the Battle of Agincourt (1415) which gave Henry the nomination for the French throne, and these events are the ones that are highlighted and shown on stage in William Shakespeare's Henry V (Cartwright).
The Battle of Agincourt (1415)
Richard and Isabella on their wedding day in 1396. She was six – he was twenty-nine.
Agincourt battlefield today
The Battle of Agincourt (1415)
King Henry V by Unknown artist (late 16th or early 17th century)
Works Cited
Works Cited
Bevington, David. “Henry V.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 25 Oct. 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/Henry-V-by-Shakespeare.
Cartwright, Mark. “Hundred Years' War.” World History Encyclopedia, World History Encyclopedia, 17 Mar. 2020, www.worldhistory.org/Hundred_Years'_War/.
“Curtain Theatre.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Feb. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtain_Theatre.
“Dates and Sources.” Royal Shakespeare Company, www.rsc.org.uk/henry-v/about-the-play/dates-and-sources.
Goff, Moira. “Henry V.” Shakespeare in Quarto, The British Library, 17 Sept. 2004, www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/henry5.html.
“Henry V (Play).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Nov. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_(play).
“Henry V and Catherine De Valois.” Westminster Abbey, www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/royals/henry-v-and-catherine-de-valois.
“The Making of the Chronicles.” The Making of the Chronicles | Holinshed Project, The Holinshed Project, 2013, www.cems.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/chronicles.shtml.
Starbuck, Lydia. “The Royal Bride Who Changed England Forever.” Royal Central, 2 June 2020, royalcentral.co.uk/features/the-royal-bride-who-changed-england-forever-143814/.
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