Garrett Smith

Colonel Miller

ERH 321WX 02

9 September 2018

 

1 Henry IV- English Views of Civic Order and Rebellion

Part 1

Throughout the story of King Henry IV there exists a duality of the political and home front. There existed in both court and tavern rebellious and riotous behavior that threatened to turn the political and social order upside down. Hotspur went so far as to call it “topsy-turvy down.” On one hand it comes from the Earls and leaders of the Percy family and their alliances. There does exist a certain other rebellious nature on the home front from the King’s own son who wants to shirk his own regal responsibilities and almost desires to ‘stick it to’ his father. By the time of the late medieval period, there was a firmly entrenched notion of natural law, or the concept that the King was the vice regent of God. At the same time there was a fine balance between political reform concerning the balance of power between the monarchy and parliament, and the power retained by the regent. A fine line had to be walked in order to avoid a usurpation of power. The play itself delves into the questions of the righteous use of power, the relationship between kings and their subjects, and the rights of subjects to rebel.

Although there had been a central monarchy in Great Britain for generations and typically the throne was passed down via direct descendants, there existed a feudal, familial system. This system was mostly found in the powerful northern families who were able to dole maintain a strong level of autonomy by doling out privileges to those that promised loyalty to them. In this system these families found themselves rulers of their own pseudo fiefdoms, able to raise and attempt to mount rebellions occasionally. Through this there was a problem with the competing loyalties. Loyalty to the lineage, and loyalty to the nation state and empire. Although religious dissidence did not play as large a part in Henry IV’s, previous and subsequent revolts scared the monarchy enough to prompt the writing of a specific homily to be read in church that would denounce rebellion and treason to the crown. They even went far enough as to cover the bases of good and bad leaders. Good leaders were blessings bestowed by God, conversely a bad leader was a pox put on subjects for their sins. The homily made it a sin to rebel even when the king is poor, since ‘subjects cannot judge their king.’ This single homily remained constant for several generations, the ultimate piece of propaganda that was used to align the monarchy, God, and the country and to tamp out rebellion.

The homily went so far as to call attention to the fact that murderers and thieves were comparatively not as bad as the rebel, since the rebel spoiled the lives of a great many whereas the thief and murderer only spoiled the lives of a few. It also stated that “all good laws are by rebels violated and broken, and all sins possible to be committed against God or man, be contained in rebellion.” It stands then that anyone who participated in a rebellion was to be ostracized by his kin, countrymen, and any he kept company with. This effectively super stigmatized rebellion.

The late medieval British monarchies so feared rebellion that they made it the ultimate sin through their hijacking of the power of the church and the word of God. All other sins fell by the wayside or were encompassed by the sin of rebellion. Rebellion could be the cause of famine and plague, murder and thievery. If God disliked war, he hated civil war, and absolutely detested rebellion. Great Britain was ruled through the monarchy which acted as the right hand of God on earth. To rebel was to weaken the kingdom and accordingly to weaken God’s earthly grasp and bow down and invite Lucifer himself to take hold. Rebels who failed to repent would have an express trip to hell upon their inevitable defeat and execution.

Part 2  

In the play, Thomas Percy is seen as a manipulative and conniving old man. The uncle of Hotspur, he is guessed to be a strong hand in the rebellion, if not the ringleader himself. He is the Earl of Worcester and one of the heads of the powerful Percy family who helped bring the King to power. He is seen repeatedly manipulating the youthful arrogance of Hotspur and is even called out by the King’s own advisors as being the likely cause of Hotspur refusing to send his prisoners of war in the manner of tidings to the king.

Thomas Percy is a close approximation of the idea that rebellion is an all-encompassing, horrendous sin. Towards the end of the play, Thomas Percy is given information that the king would be willing to negotiate favorable terms of surrender that included pardons if the rebels only laid down their weapons, or barring that, Hotspur and Harry could face off in single combat and spare a whole battle. In his own arrogance and selfishness, Thomas decides not to tell Hotspur about this based on his belief that he would never truly be pardoned. His decision to carry out this battle on his own self-interested terms, resulted in upwards of 5,000 casualties and the deaths of several notable rebels that could have survived given the chance.

In this case, rebellion encompassed the sins of lying, in that fact that Percy lied to Hotspur about the nature of his diplomatic talks, greed in that he acted selfishly and sacrificed many, many lives, to include some of his own family. He was also a murderer and is directly responsible for the death of every man on that battlefield, whether peasant or noble.

Worcester:

“O, no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard, the liberal and kind offer of the King.” (V, II, 1-2)

Vernon:

“’Twere best he did.” (V, II, 3)

Worcester then goes on to explain how the king would always truly be suspicious of him and that while Hotspur could be forgiven and pardoned based on his youthful ignorance, he as an older man should know better. He believes that because of this the king will one day find a reason to trump up charges against him and have him executed. Worcester is cunning and wily enough to convince Vernon to side with him on this and lie to Hotspur, at least until a later time. He even takes the time to embellish the tale of how he presented their case to the king and begged for another solution to war.

Hotspur:

“Did you beg any? God forbid!” (V, II, 37)

Worcester:

“I told him gently of our grievances, of his oath breaking, which he mended thus, by now forswearing that he is forsworn. He calls us rebels, traitors and will scourge us with haughty arms this hateful name in us.” (V, II, 38-42)

Shakespeare is rather subtle about it but based on the homily that stated that rebellion encompassed all other sins, Worcester was the great deceiver.

 

 

Shakespeare, William. The First Part of King Henry the Fourth; Texts and Contexts . Edited by Barbara Hodgdon.

 

 

 

Help Received:

online citation creator MLA citation.

Works in work cited.

Used a modern English version of the play found online in order to ensure I understood concepts when writing about them. Compared to in text from the book.

Used Wikipedia to check casualty figures from the Battle of Shrewsbury.