For the real story of Henry’s deposing of Richard II and the nasty consequences of the regime change, read Terry Jones’ Who Murdered Chaucer?. And for my detection of subliminal Chaucer in this play and in Richard II, watch this.
Traditional dating of this play is about 1596, for what that’s worth. It was published anonymously in 1598 and then with the hyphenated Shake-speare name in 1599 (Ogburn and Ogburn 1028). The main reasons for thinking that Shakespeare wrote the source play also — the anonymous play titled The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth — in the 1570s and revised it into the two Henry IV plays and Henry V in the 1580s, are given by Ramón Jiménez, “The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth: Key to the Authorship Question?” The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter 37.2 (Summer 2001): 7-10; and “‘Rebellion broachèd on his sword’: New Evidence of an Early Date for Henry V.” The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter 37.3 (Fall 2001): 8-11, 21. The elder Ogburns earlier had made the same basic assertions (Ogburn and Ogburn 710).
“If in Richard the Second he [Shakespeare] seems deliberately to have been limiting his stylistic range, in Henry the Fourth, Part One and its successors he revels in his command of a wide range of styles in both verse and prose and of the opportunities it affords him for suggesting idiosyncrasy of character through language” (Wells 141).
Although the play opens in mid-1402, about two years after the end of Richard II (Asimov 315), Shakespeare generally makes a “mishmash” of history in the Henry IV plays possibly because he was creating an allegory of the Scottish uprising, a near civil war Queen Elizabeth faced in 1569 (Anderson 44). The Northern Rebellion’s Archbishop of York should be read as the 1569 Bishop of Ross according to this view (Anderson 44). Although the historical role of the 11th Earl of Oxford had been amplified in Famous Victories to “advisor and principal lieutenant,” he is reduced in these revised plays (Ogburn and Ogburn 29), either because the secret service annuity to Oxford from 1586 onwards demanded greater anonymity or simply because he matured beyond hero-worship.
Falstaff has been among the most celebrated of literary characters because his vitality almost gives him a life of his own. Others find him reprehensible. It probably depends on how one takes subversiveness. Originally this character was named after Protestant martyr Sir John Oldcastle — again from the source play, The Famous Victories, though a pun buried even in Henry IV, Part 1 survives (I.ii.41-42) — but Oldcastle’s descendant Lord Cobham may have objected to the portrayal as a reprobate. So the name was changed; and note, Fal/staff — Shake/speare (e.g., Bloom 273). Fun-loving Falstaff always speaks in prose and is a “free artist of himself” (Bloom 271): a “Glutton, drunkard, coward, liar, lecher, boaster, cheat, thief, rogue, ruffian, villain,” or “the very incarnation of charm, one of the liberators of the human spirit, the greatest comic figure in the history of literature” (Goddard, I 175), “Imagination conquering matter, spirit subduing flesh” (Goddard, I 178). Bloom insists that the role must have surprised Shakespeare and ran away from the original smaller intention, and the poet in the sonnets is a Falstaff figure suffering in relation to a Hal-like noble young man in the “Fair Youth.” Falstaff represents how badly you can behave if you’re a gentleman and get away with it, so he embodies a class system joke. He teaches us not to moralize, and he doesn’t beat up on himself. “The Greeks incarnated in their god Dionysus the paradox of wine, its combined power to inspire and degrade” (Goddard, I 180).
Falstaff knows he will benefit in the future from his association with Hal. But he always says it is he who is misled by the youth. Falstaff provides part of the father role that is impossible between Hal and Henry IV. He takes admirable delight in a deconstruction of “honor.” But it is difficult to admire him when he stabs Hotspur’s corpse in the leg and claims he killed the warrior. At the end of the play, Falstaff may be at his worst and the Prince at his best. Or so it seems.
A few Oxfordians sense the figure of Lord Burghley behind at least early stages in the evolution of this character. But some also think that de Vere packed on some noticeable weight when he was in his 40s, and certainly some features strike us as autobiographical: “I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men” (Henry IV, Part 2 I.ii.9-10). Additionally, Falstaff’s girth may be metaphoric or symbolic.
In a sense, courtiers such as de Vere were the true impresarios of that time, being constantly “on stage” in the public eye. During his participation in the Royal Progress of 1580, de Vere, according to an eyewitness, incited laughter from the crowds by gesturing with his white staff of office. One can only imagine. Moreover, the very name of Falstaff suggests letting fall a staff representing a symbolic dignity. (Farina 123)
Henry IV, Part 1, Act by Act
Henry IV, Part 1 Intro
Further Resources
Filmography
Henry IV, Part 1.
Falstaff.
Henry IV, Part 1.
The Hollow Crown. Starring Jeremy Irons, Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale. Neal Street Productions, 2012.
Best Editions
Bevington, David, ed. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. 6th ed. Pearson Education Inc., 2009. 784-825.
Furness, Horace Howard, ed. Henry the Fourth, Part 1. A New Variorum Edition. Vol. 21. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1936.
Kastan, David Scott, ed. King Henry IV, Part 1. The Arden Shakespeare. 3rd Series. Bloomsbury, 2002.
Oxfordian Resources
Clark, Eva Turner. Hidden Allusions in Shakespeare’s Plays. 3rd ed. by Ruth Loyd Miller. Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1974. 680-705.
Delahoyde, Michael. “Subliminal Chaucer in Shakespere’s History Plays.” The Oxfordian 17 (2015): 153-162. Here.
Farina, William. De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2006. 115-119.
Gilvary, Kevin. Dating Shakespeare’s Play’s. Tunbridge Wells, UK: Parapress, 2010. 223-234.
Gontar, David P. “Extra Pointz.” In Hamlet Made Simple and Other Essays. Nashville: New English Review Press, 2013. 64-82.
Gontar, David P. “An Islamic Reading of King Henry IV.” In Hamlet Made Simple and Other Essays. Nashville: New English Review Press, 2013. 355-376.
Münnichow, Jens. “Falstaff’s Fencing: Shakespeare’s Special Knowledge in Henry IV, Part 1.” Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter 62.1 (Winter 2026): .
Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth & The Reality. 2nd ed. McLean, VA: EPM Publications, Inc., 1992.
Ogburn, Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn. This Star of England. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Pub., 1952. Esp. 713-722.
And Other General Resources
Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare. Vol. 1. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951. 161-214.
Smidt, Kristian. Unconformities in Shakespeare’s History Plays. NJ: Humanities Press, 1982. 103-120. Smidt finds numerous time discrepancies suggesting significant revision, compression, and rearrangement of scenes.
Shakespeare Authorship Organizations
The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship. Browse, get hooked, become a member.
The De Vere Society. Our Oxfordian friends and collaborators across the pond.
The Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable. We consider all possible authors behind the “Shakespeare” name.