Chapter Synopsis of Henry V - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

The King is drawn into an argument, however, about the likelihood of his person being ransomed should they lose, with the result that gloves are exchanged so they may know each other to fight should the outcome of the battle allow it.

Shakespeare mixes his effects interestingly at this stage of the drama. The confrontation with Williams mimics the comedy of the Eastcheap tavern-based burlesquerie, but at the same time presents a more natural evocation of the nervous tensions on the eve of battle and the sort of misconceptions likely if a King mixes with his subjects at such a time. Our expectations are kept in the air, and the character of the King gains valuable depth through his musings in his emotional soliloquy that follows the exchange of gloves: "O ceremony, show me but thy worth! / What is thy soul, O adoration?" Reminded of his duties by Erpingham, the King pauses to lament his father’s treatment of his predecessor Richard II, casting momentarily Henry’s pursuit of the throne of France against his implicit awareness of the weakness of his own claim to the throne of England.

In the following scene, the French castigate the power of the motley English troops and the jingoistic, or anti-foreign, tone is re-established. It leaves only the King inspiringly to rubbish his nobles’ wish for more troops on the English side, bagging the greater glory for each one of them should they win, and the final envoy of Montjoy seeking surrender, and battle is joined, signified by the stage term ‘excursions’.

The swordplay and stage fury subsides into a vaguely comical confrontation between Pistol and a French soldier he has subdued, with the boy translating. This allows the battle to avoid a one dimensional or too hasty conclusion, with the subjugation of one French soldier leading neatly into the panicked consternation of the French nobles as the battle goes terribly wrong. It falls to Bourbon to mount one last valiant action before he too is captured. In the meanwhile, however, the fleeing French troops have attacked the English train, slaughtering the boys protecting the baggage (one of these poignantly being the boy so recently translating for Pistol). Henry gives the order for every French prisoner to be killed, whether in retaliation or necessity of battle is unclear: "I was not angry since I came to France/ Until this instant", the King remarks. The battle scene draws to a close, and a moving description of the deaths of the Earl of Suffolk and the Duke of York, along with a list of the miraculously few English dead book-end the remaining details of the act: the resolving of the quarrel between the disguised King and Williams the common soldier. The King invents a fiction to explain his possession of the glove and sends the comically passionate Fluellen off with a false reason to take a punch from Williams. The two come together and are separated without undue bloodshed and the act ends with a reconciliation that accords happily with the successful outcome of the battle. The King’s remark from before the battle, "We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs" finds its resolution in his own reply to the French envoy’s "The day is yours": "Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!"

Act V

The battle of Agincourt was not in fact the end of Henry’s wars in France, but Shakespeare with his customary selective presentation of history glosses over the subsequent campaign and employs the Chorus to refer to the large expanse of time between the battle and the peace negotiations. Once again we are invited "In the quick forge and working-house of thought" to picture the King’s joyful reception in England. Interestingly, a precise clue is also given to the date and political scene of the Elizabethan period in a comparison to the acclaimed Essex, the Queen’s favourite, might expect on his return from Ireland later in 1599:

"Were now the General of our gracious Empress,

As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,

Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,

How many would the peaceful city quit