''The Famous Victories of Henry the fifth: Containing the Honourable Battel of Agin-court: As it was plaide by the Queenes Maiesties Players'', is an anonymous Elizabethan play, which is generally thought to be a source for Shakespeare's ''

Henriad In Shakespearean scholarship, Henriad refers to a group of William Shakespeare's history plays. It is sometimes used to refer to a group of four plays (a tetralogy), but some sources and scholars use the term to refer to eight plays. In the 1 ...

'' (''

Henry IV, Part 1 ''Henry IV, Part 1'' (often written as ''1 Henry IV'') is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the battle at ...

'', '' Henry IV, Part 2'', and ''

Henry V Henry V may refer to: People * Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026) * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125) * Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161) * Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227) * Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...

''). It was entered by printer

Thomas Creede Thomas Creede (fl. 1593 – 1617) was a printer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, rated as "one of the best of his time." Based in London, he conducted his business under the sign of the Catherine Wheel in Thames Street from 1593 to 1600 ...

in the

Stationers' Register The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including print ...

in 1594, but the earliest known edition is from 1598.Campbell, Oscar James (ed), "Famous Victories" ''A Shakespeare Encyclopaedia'', Taylor and Francis, 1966, p.221. A second quarto was published in 1617. The play covers the riotous youth of Prince Henry and his transformation into a warrior king, ending with his victory at Agincourt and his wooing of Princess Katherine. The work is of unknown authorship, and various possible authors have been proposed, including a young Shakespeare, though this view is not widely accepted by scholars.

Characters

;The English Court, Officials *Prince Henry, later King Henry V *King Henry IV *Duke of York *Earl of Oxford *Earl of Exeter *Archbishop of Canterbury *Secretary to King Henry V *Lord Mayor of London *Lord Chief Justice *Clerk of the Office *Jailor *Two Receivers *Sheriff of London ;Friends of Prince Henry *Ned *Tom *Jockey (Sir John Old-castle) *Thief (Cuthbert Cutter) ;Tradespeople *Dericke, a tailor *John Cobler *Wife of John Cobler *Robbin Pewterer *Lawrence Costermonger *A Vintner's Boy *An English Soldier ;The French Court, Officials, Military *Charles, King of France *Katharine, Princess of France *Dolphin, French Prince (Dauphin) *Archbishop of Burges *Duke of Burgondie *Lord High Constable of France *Herald ;French Soldiers *Frenchman *1 Soldier *2 Soldier *3 Soldier *Jack Drummer *French Captain

Plot summary

Prince Henry and his companions have committed a robbery, stealing £1000 from two Royal Receivers. He meets Jocky Oldcastle and tells him of events. The Receivers, pursuing the robbers, bump into Henry who "forgives" them for losing the money, but also threatens them. They leave. He suggests to the others that they go carousing to spend the money in a tavern. The Chief Justice hears about Henry's antics at the tavern, which include a drunken street brawl with drawn swords. He orders the arrest of the Prince and others. Local tradesmen comment on the events. One of them recognises a Thief, whom they take into custody. The Thief insists that he is a servant of Prince Henry who will get him released. Meanwhile, King Henry IV laments the shameful lifestyle of his son. He questions the Chief Justice about the arrest of the Prince. The Justice explains his actions and King Henry accepts their validity. He calls for his son to be brought to him. Prince Henry has been released. Angry at the Chief Justice, he tells Jocky and his companions that when he is king they shall have major positions of state. The Justice is arraigning the Thief when Prince Henry and his gang arrive. The prince insists that the Thief be released. When the Justice refuses, Prince Henry assaults him. At his meeting with his father, Prince Henry is upbraided. His father tells him of his royal duties. Shamed, the Prince promises to reform his lifestyle. Meanwhile, the tradesmen act out a clownish version of the conflict between the Prince and the Chief Justice. King Henry IV is dying. The Prince picks up the crown thinking that his father is dead. King Henry revives and upbraids him again. The Prince promises to be a good king. The old king dies. Now king, Henry V reneges on his promises to his old companions and banishes them. Henry discusses his claim to the French throne with the Archbishop. The Dauphin of France sends tennis balls as a present to King Henry as an insult. Henry prepares for war with France. One of the tradesmen, John Cobler, has been fighting with his wife. His friend Dericke intervenes. A soldier arrives to force the two men to join the royal army. They are reluctantly recruited while the wife laments. The Thief is also pressed into military service. In France Henry captures the town of Harfleur. The French send a large army against him. Henry defies them, insisting that he will not be ransomed but would rather die than accept defeat. Before the battle, French soldiers (speaking in comically garbled English) discuss how they will divide the spoils. At the Battle of Agincourt the English are victorious. Dericke is involved in clownish battlefield antics with a French soldier. After the battle he and John Cobler scheme to get out of the rest of the war by accompanying the deceased Duke of York's body back to England. Henry then travels on to Paris where he negotiates with the French court and woos Princess Katherine. The King of France agrees to make Henry his heir and to marry him to Katherine.

Parallels with Shakespeare's plays

The play covers the same ground later traversed in significantly greater detail in the Shakespearean trilogy, covering the wildness of the prince in several episodes, a coronation in which he dismisses the dissolute companions of his youth, and his invasion of France, victory at Agincourt, and eventual marriage to the Princess Katherine. More specifically, C.A. Greer identified fifteen plot elements that occur in both the anonymous play and in the Henry trilogy. These included the robbery at Gad's Hill of the King's receivers, the meeting of the robbers in an Eastcheap Tavern, the reconciliation of the newly crowned King Henry V with the Chief Justice, the new King's rejection of his comic/criminal friends, the gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin, and Pistol's encounter with a French soldier (Dericke's in ''The Famous Victories'').

Date and authorship

In 1891 F. G. Fleay attributed the play to comedian

Richard Tarlton Richard Tarlton (died September 1588), was an English actor of the Elizabethan era. He was the most famous clown of his era, known for his extempore comic doggerel verse, which came to be known as "Tarltons". He helped to turn Elizabethan theatre ...

, who is known to have played the role of Dericke; in 1910 H. Dugdale Sykes attributed it to

Samuel Rowley Samuel Rowley was a 17th-century English dramatist and actor. Rowley first appears in the historical record as an associate of Philip Henslowe in the late 1590s. Initially he appears to have been an actor, perhaps a sharer, in the Admiral's Men ...

. In 1928 B. M. Ward suggested the extant version was based on an early court

masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque ...

written by

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (; 12 April 155024 June 1604) was an English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era. Oxford was heir to the second oldest earldom in the kingdom, a court favourite for a time, a sought-after patron of ...

. Scot McCrea thinks this unlikely, but argues that the author was probably trying to flatter Oxford, as the role of his ancestor

Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford KG (15 August 1385 – 15 February 1417) was the son and heir of Aubrey de Vere, 10th Earl of Oxford. He took part in the trial of Richard, Earl of Cambridge, and Lord Scrope for their part in the Southampto ...

is exaggerated in the text. Alice-Lyle Scoufos argued that Welsh scrivener and theatrical producer Henry Evans, who was associated with the Earl, was the most likely author. In 1944

E. M. W. Tillyard Eustace Mandeville Wetenhall Tillyard (19 May 1889 – 24 May 1962) was an English classical scholar, classical and literary scholar who was List of Masters of Jesus College, Cambridge, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge from 1945 to 1959. Bio ...

claimed the play for the young Shakespeare, followed by Seymour Pitcher in 1961. Pitcher argued that annotations to

Edward Hall Edward Hall ( – ) was an English lawyer and historian, best known for his ''The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke''—commonly known as ''Hall's Chronicle''—first published in 1548. He was also sever ...

's ''Chronicles'' were probably written by Shakespeare and that these are very close to passages in the play. This view has not received much support, but because of the play's "manifest verbal flatness", it has been widely argued that the published version of the play is a

memorial reconstruction Memorial reconstruction is the hypothesis that the scripts of some 17th century plays were written down from memory by actors who had played parts in them, and that those transcriptions were published.British LibrarRetrieved: 10 December 2007. Th ...

(based on memory rather than a manuscript). Just as the authorship of ''Famous Victories'' is disputed, so too is its chronological placement in the development of the English drama. However, as published in 1598 the play is advertised as one acted by "her Queen's Majesty's Players", referring to

Queen Elizabeth's Men Queen Elizabeth's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre. Formed in 1583 at the express command of Queen Elizabeth, it was the dominant acting company for the rest of the 1580s, as the Admiral's Men and the ...

, a company which, while surviving into the 1590s was in deep decline by 1590. It is generally agreed that Richard Tarlton, who died in 1588, played the clown role (Dericke) in the play and that William Knell, who died in 1587, played Henry. This is because of a record of a performance in which "Knel, then playing Henry the fift, hit Tarlton a sound boxe indeed, which made the people laugh the more".Edwin Nungezer, ''A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England before 1642'', Yale University Press, 1929, p.228. Scoufus, as mentioned, places it in around 1583; Ward argued for a date circa 1576. It is certain, however, that the play significantly antedates the canonical Shakespearean treatment of the same historical materials in ''

'', '' Henry IV, Part 2'', and ''Henry V'' by some years.

References

External links

Full text
at Elizabethan Authors. {{DEFAULTSORT:Famous Victories Of Henry V 1580s plays 1590s plays Cultural depictions of Henry V of England Plays about English royalty