Henry IV, Part I Essays - eNotes.com.
Henry IV Part 1 Summary While his son Price Hal spends time in the taverns, King Henry IV argues with his former ally Hotspur. Angry, Hotspur gathers a rebellion, and Henry and Hal go to battle to stop him. Henry's army wins the battle, while Hal redeems himself from his wild youth and kills Hotspur.
Henry IV, Part One has always been a controversial play, with much of that controversy focussed on the character that embodies contradictoriness, Sir John Falstaff. Because Falstaff--like most of the play's characters--also appears in Henry IV, Part Two, early criticism usually discusses Henry IV as if the two parts are one play.
The main plot of Henry IV, Part 1 is about the rebellion of the Percies, the northern baronial family who had helped Henry depose Richard II and become king. They are joined by the Scottish Earl of Douglas, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, claimant to the throne, and Owen Glendower, a Welsh noble.
The showdown with Hotspur's troops is over by the end of Henry IV Part 1, but Henry's got to wrangle up the stray rebels, who still pose a threat to the king. This is why Henry's final remarks in the play are orders for Prince Hal to head to Wales (to mop the floor with Glendower and Mortimer) and for Henry's other son, Prince John, to head up to York (to lay a fifteenth century-style smack.
Henry IV Part 1 Summary Henry IV, Part One details the struggle of King Henry IV to maintain his control of the English throne which he usurped from Richard II. The play begins with news that one of his commanders, Mortimer, has lost a battle to Glyndwr in Wales.
Essay on Falstaff in Henry IV Part I - The Character of Falstaff in Henry IV Part I In Henry IV Part I, Shakespeare presents a collection of traditional heroes. Hotspur’s laudable valor, King Henry’s militaristic reign, and Hal’s princely transformation echo the socially extolled values of the Elizabethean male.
Source: In an introduction to The History of Henry IV, Part One, by William Shakespeare, edited by Maynard Mack, New American Library, 1965, pp. xxiii-xxxvi. (Mack provides basic information about the play, discussing the dates it was written, performed, and published. In identifying the historical sources Shakespeare used to write Henry IV, Part One, Mack points out some of the historical.