Henry IV Part 1 Power Quotes

Westmoreland agrees with King Henry that the valiant young Hotspur, a decorated war hero, seems better suited for kingship than Prince Hal, who is next in line for the throne but spends all of his time carousing with his degenerate friends. Prince Hal's wild ways are a major concern because Henry's own claim to the throne is so tenuous. (Remember, his legitimacy has been questioned by the Percys.) And, even though the audience knows how things play out (history shows that Prince Hal becomes a beloved and competent ruler), the play generates a good amount of anxiety surrounding King Henry's heir.

History Snack: At the time Shakespeare wrote Henry IV Part 1 (around 1597), an aged Queen Elizabeth I was nearing the end of her reign. (She was in her 60s when the play was written and performed.) Elizabeth never married and never produced an heir to the throne, which was pretty stressful for those who worried about who the next monarch would be. It seems that, for Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience, the question of legitimacy and succession raised by the play would have been particularly relevant.

It's also important to note the way Shakespeare pits Hotspur against Hal here and throughout the play. By setting up the "honourable" Hotspur as a foil to wild child Prince Hal, the play invites us to consider what qualities make one fit to govern.

When Hal brags to Poins about getting chummy with a "leash of drawers" (a bunch of waiters) who have sworn allegiance to him before he has even become king, he suggests that slumming with the commoners is a shrewd political move. We get the sense that Hal's time in the taverns is not, as his father suggests, a waste of time, but a kind of education by experience. Hal's capacity to understand and win the loyalty of the men he will eventually rule (and also lead into battle) is an invaluable step in the road to kingship. On the one hand, one could say that Hal seems to genuinely enjoy the sense of camaraderie he shares with the common folk. On the other hand, we can read passages like this as evidence that Hal is merely a cold and calculating figure, the embodiment of Machiavelli's ideal ruler (see previous above). If you wanted to make this argument, we'd encourage you to consider that, immediately after Hal brags to Poins about being on a first name basis with the waiters, he plays a mean practical joke on Francis the drawer.