Henry V Act Five and Epilogue- “This star of England: Fortune made his sword…”

Henry V Act Five  and Epilogue- “This star of England: Fortune made his sword…”

The Chorus re-enters and tells about the journey home for King Henry V and the triumphant welcome he gets on his return to London. King Henry V is shown to be truly humble and he dispenses with the usual tradition of a victory parade.

Meanwhile, Fluellen and Gower are still at the French base of the English forces. Fluellen still wears a leek in his hat because:

“Pistol... come to me and prings me pread and salt yesterday,

look you, and bid me eat my leek: it was in place

where I could not breed no contention with him; but

I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see

him once again, and then I will tell him a little

piece of my desires.”

Soon after that, Pistol enters and Fluellen beats him until Pistol concedes and agrees to eat Fluellen’s leek himself. When Fluellen leaves, Pistol proclaims that he will get Fluellen back but Gower states that Pistol should not have mocked Fluellen in the first place. After Gower leaves, we hear that Pistol’s wife has died of syphilis and that Pistol has no home and will turn back to a life of crime when he returns to England. “

“To England will I steal, and there I'll steal:

And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,

And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.”

As Pistol prepares to go back to England, King Henry V arrives back in France. He comes to Charles VI of France and his queen, Isabel’s palace to negotiate his demands which start with his marriage to Charles VI daughter princess Catherine. While the French royalty and the English noblemen go off to negotiate the peace settlement, King Henry V and Princess Catherine are left alone (well almost alone with the exception of Catherine’s maid Alice who acts as the occasional translator). After the high verse of the Agincourt battle scenes, Henry appears awkward in attempting to court Catherine and this awkwardness along with the language barriers makes the scene touching but comic. The scene ends in limbo when Catherine finally points out that although she would agree, the decision is finally up to her father.

When the others return, it seems like all conditions have been agreed upon and King Henry finally asks King Charles VI:

“I pray you then, in love and dear alliance,

Let that one article rank with the rest;

And thereupon give me your daughter.”

The French king agrees and the scene ends with exaltation and the start of preparations for the royal wedding.

This play ends with an Epilogue, which is forthright but not as somber as the Epilogue audiences encountered a few years before with Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. It is essentially a post-script which tells of the success of the marriage and the birth of King Henry V and Queen Catherine’s son Henry, who later becomes King Henry VI of England. The final words are a humble stage apology id offered, which undoubtedly was answered in the thunder of the applause of the two thousand strong audience in the Globe:

“Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,

Our bending author hath pursued the story,

In little room confining mighty men,

Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.

Small time, but in that small most greatly lived

This star of England: Fortune made his sword;

By which the world's best garden be achieved,

And of it left his son imperial lord.

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King

Of France and England, did this king succeed;

Whose state so many had the managing,

That they lost France and made his England bleed:

Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,

In your fair minds let this acceptance take.”

Shakespeare returns next in 'Julius Caesar'...