Shakespeare's Henriad: Background information when reading Henry Henry

Shakespeare's Henriad

This article relates to Henry Henry

Allen Bratton's Henry Henry is a retelling of Shakespeare's "Henriad," a term used in Shakespearean scholarship to refer to the four plays chronicling the rise of Henry V, or Prince Hal, to the throne.

These four plays begin, chronologically, with Richard II, based on the life of King Richard II, who ruled from 1377 to 1399. Richard, a feckless, egotistical leader, is deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, who then becomes King Henry IV (Hal's father, Henry, Duke of Lancaster in Bratton's novel).

Hal, the basis for Bratton's protagonist, isn't introduced on stage until the following play: Henry IV Part 1. When we meet the heir to the throne in Shakespeare's play, he's anything but noble: he spends his days in taverns, getting drunk with his friend Ned Poins and verbally sparring with John Falstaff, a disorderly, drunken knight who provides the play's comic relief. Hal is forced to return to the royal court and make amends with his father, however, when the throne is threatened by a rebel group forming in Northumberland, led by "Hotspur," or Harry Percy. The opposing factions duel at the Battle of Shrewsbury, where Hal kills Harry Percy in single combat, quelling the rebellion.

Henry IV Part 2 continues to chronicle Henry IV's reign and Hal's impending ascension to the throne. Despite the fact that Hal had stepped up to lead his army into battle in the previous play, his father suspects that he is still unsuited to the crown, having returned to his old ways, spending his days with his lowborn tavern friends, particularly John Falstaff. In the play's climactic scene, a moving confrontation between Hal and Henry IV as the latter lies on his deathbed, Hal finally accepts the responsibilities into which he was born and convinces his father he is ready to rule. When Hal is crowned king, John Falstaff comes to court, expecting to be rewarded with riches by his old friend, but Hal instead denies all association with him and banishes him from court, signaling the start of a new chapter of his life.

Henry V, set in 1415, introduces the audience to a mature, reformed Hal, who has settled into his role as king. In response to an affront by the Dauphin, Hal leads an expedition into France to claim the land that he believes is his by right. After a series of battles and rousing speeches (including the famous "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," and "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"), Hal seizes victory and marries Katharine, Princess of France, uniting the nations.

Written over the course of the 1590s and inspired largely by Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, Shakespeare's Henriad details a new era of leadership for the British crown, from the weak-willed Richard II to the charismatic and noble Henry V. But what makes this saga so compelling, and what unites the four plays together, is how Hal develops as a character, from a rebellious youth to a worthy leader, constantly torn between his public and private selves. This complexity and all of the possibilities contained therein is the foundation of Allen Bratton's Henry Henry, which transposes Hal's ascension to leadership from the fifteenth century to 2014 London.

Title page of the 1608 edition of Shakespeare's Henry V, courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library

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This article relates to Henry Henry. It first ran in the June 5, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.