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Summary
The funeral for King Henry V is attended by Bedford, Gloucester, Exeter, Warwick, Winchester, and Somerset. The lords mourn the dead king, who had ruled England so well and conquered his enemies so bravely. The new king, Henry VI, is still too young to rule in his father’s stead, and Gloucester has been named Lord Protector of the kingdom. Gloucester accuses Winchester, a bishop, of not praying enough for their dead king; perhaps if he had tried harder, he could have saved him. But Bedford urges them to stop their quarreling. As the coffin is carried out, Bedford asks the ghost of Henry V to help England prosper.
A messenger enters with bad news from France: the French have recaptured eight towns that Henry V took for England during his reign. Exeter asks what treachery has led to this event, but the messenger attributes it to a lack of men and money. The lords now express concern that at this time when solidarity is most needed, the leaders in England are dividing into factions. The messenger calls to the nobility to wake up and to not rest on their laurels, particularly regarding their French holdings.
Bedford, the Regent of the French lands, declares he will leave for France to right the situation. Just then, a second messenger enters, announcing that the French are revolting and have crowned the Dauphin Charles king in Rheims, where several lords have joined up with him. Bedford is again preparing to depart when a third messenger enters to tell of a terrible battle between the French forces and the English general, Lord Talbot. When retreating from the siege of Orléans, Talbot was surrounded by French troops and fought a hard fight. All the French soldiers were directed to take Talbot on, but none could defeat him, until the cowardly Englishman Sir John Fastolf fled, leaving Talbot open to be captured by the French.
Bedford is shocked by this tale and makes plans to free Talbot. As he leaves for France, the other noblemen go about preparing for the war: Gloucester heads to the Tower to check on the weapons stored there, and Exeter goes to attend to the young king’s safety. Winchester is left alone onstage, where he announces his intention to curry favor with the young king and thereby emerge as the most powerful man in the war.
In Orléans, the Dauphin Charles and his nobles Alençon and René express their pleasure at having captured Talbot, while the English troops lie leaderless outside the city walls. The Frenchmen agree that the English look pitifully weak, yet their foes continue their siege on the French, killing many. Then, the Bastard of Orléans enters with news for Charles. He announces that he may have found the key to their salvation: “A holy maid hither with me I bring / Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven, / Ordainèd is to raise this tedious siege / And drive the English forth the bounds of France” (1.3.30–33). Charles calls for this woman, named Joan la Pucelle, to be brought in, but he wants to test her clairvoyance and changes places with René before she enters. She immediately recognizes the ruse and asks the other lords to leave her to speak to Charles alone.
Joan explains that she is just a shepherd’s daughter, but one day when she was tending her sheep, a vision of God’s mother appeared and told her to leave her sheep and help free her country. She tells Charles to ask her whatever he wants, or even to challenge her to combat if he dares; she is endowed with the power to succeed in any undertaking. Charles, astonished at her audacity, agrees to a trial of single combat, saying he fears no woman. When Joan soundly beats him, he is impressed and suggests that she become his lover. But Joan declares she cannot yield to love, for her sacred task requires her to remain a virgin.
The other lords return and ask if they should abandon Orléans to the English. Joan replies that they will fight for the city, and Charles urges Joan to do what she can to end the siege.
Analysis
The play opens with the death of Henry V, considered one of England’s most charismatic and successful leaders. During his brief reign, as depicted in Shakespeare’s later play Henry V, Henry conquered much of France. However, it was prophesied that Henry’s son would quickly lose the lands that so many had died to gain under his father’s rule. And indeed, Henry V is barely in the ground before word comes from France announcing the first losses: the French are revolting against the English, and England’s great champion, Talbot, has been taken prisoner.
Shakespeare plays fast and loose with historical facts throughout this play, which belongs to the “history play” genre but does not remain strictly faithful to real dates and events. For one thing, time is condensed: England’s holdings in France didn’t fall to the French until some years after Henry V’s death. Other details, such as Henry VI’s age and the timing of battles, are similarly finagled by Shakespeare, presumably for the sake of a more compelling narrative.
However old Henry VI may be at this point in the play (historically, he was just eight months old when his father died), he is not yet in command of the kingdom, so a network of noblemen must take control. Yet even in their first scene, they do not work well together. They are ambitious politicians, determined to pursue their own power, even when they claim every action is for the good of the nation. Each in turn is portrayed as inferior to Talbot, the original feudal knight, symbol of a dying breed of honorable and brave men devoted to the good of England. Internal dissension among these politicians poses as dangerous a threat to the kingdom as the assaults of the French soldiers. Shakespeare emphasizes this parallel danger in the play’s key structuring principle, which is to move back and forth swiftly between the military conflicts in France and the political disputes in England.
These opening scenes also introduce the remarkable figure of Joan of Arc—known here as “Joan la Pucelle” (i.e., Joan the Virgin). When she first challenges Charles to a duel, he calls her an Amazon and compares her to a prophet from the Old Testament. For the moment, he seems to genuinely value her, and she seems deserving. Indeed, she seems to possess at least some of the powers she claims to have been given: she recognizes Charles without ever having met him before, just as, later, she will effortlessly to reduce Talbot’s armies to a disorganized chaos. Yet in Shakespeare’s portrayal she comes across as a complex figure. The English refer to her as a witch and a whore, suggesting a reluctance to accept a woman in a position of power, and especially a woman playing the role—and wearing the clothes—of a man.
