INTRODUCTION

"The History of Henry the Fourth; with the battell at Shrewsburie, betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the North, with the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaffe," was first published in quarto in Feb. 1598. The Second Part was not published until 1600, but an interesting piece of evidence makes it certain that the entire play was written before the publication of the First Part. The character represented by Falstaff was originally named Sir John Oldcastle, but the descendants of the Lollard knight exercised influence that caused Shakespeare to change the name. Some traces of the change, however, remain, as in the reference in 1 Hen. IV, 1. 2. 42. And in the Second Part, besides the explicit reference in the Epilogue, the contraction "Old" was left instead of “Fal" at 1. 2. 134. These facts show that when the Second Part was written the name was still Oldcastle, so that the complete play cannot be of later date than about the end of 1597.

2 K. H. IV.

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Having pacified the defenders of Oldcastle, Shakespeare offended the admirers of Sir John Fastolf, a distinguished soldier in the campaigns in France during the first half of the fifteenth century. Fastolf had already appeared as a character in the First Part of Henry VI, and Shakespeare repeated an old and baseless charge of cowardice that had been brought against him for his conduct at Patay (1 Henry VI, 4. 1. 23). It is likely enough that the name of Falstaff was suggested by the recollection of this warrior of Paston Letters fame, but the Oldcastle origin precludes any farther connection.

The historical portion of Henry IV and Henry V Shakespeare derived from Holinshed's Chronicles in their revised form of 1587, but in some important points he appears to have followed not Holinshed but Samuel Daniel whose historical poem, The History of the Civil Wars, was itself based on the Chronicles. To Daniel's poem Shakespeare probably owed the idea of representing Hotspur as the youthful rival of Prince Hal, Percy in reality being older than the Prince's father. And besides this point of similarity in their deviation from the Chronicles-a point of the highest moment in

the development of Shakespeare's plot-there is in Daniel the notion that forms the guiding and coordinating principle running through the four plays, Richard II, Henry IV (1 and 2), and Henry V. In his borrowings from Holinshed Shakespeare displays his wonted boldness in the handling of history. He alters the order of events and arranges unhistorical groupings wherever a dramatic effect is to be gained. We wonder, however, not at his errors of detail, but at the extent to which he succeeded in uniting dramatic force and genuine historical fidelity. In one other important matter affecting the purely historical side of the play Shakespeare made an original contribution. He created Lady Percy and Lady Mortimer, and thus made the scene in which Hotspur is represented in his most attractive aspect.

There was yet one other source of the play -the early chronicle play called The Famous Victories of Henry V, written about 1586, and associated with the name of the actor, Richard Tarlton. This exceedingly crude drama, written mostly in prose, was highly popular up to Shakespeare's time, and as a literary origin it is entitled to respectful memory. For it