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Summary: Act 5: Prologue
In the prologue to act 5, the Chorus relates that King Henry has returned to the port city of Calais in France and, from there, has sailed back to England. The women and children of England are overjoyed to have their men returned to them, and everyone is also glad to see King Henry. When Henry returns to London, the people flock to see him and to celebrate. But Henry is humble and forbids a triumphal procession to celebrate his victory. The Chorus then orders the audience to shift their minds back to France, where Henry has returned after the passage of some time.
Read a translation of Act 5: Prologue.
Summary: Act 5: Scene 1
In scene 1, Fluellen and Gower converse at an English army base in France. Gower is curious about why Fluellen still wears a leek in his hat, since St. Davy’s Day was the previous day. (St. Davy is the patron saint of Wales, and on St. Davy’s Day, March 1, Welsh people traditionally wear a leek in their hats as a show of patriotism.)
Fluellen explains that, the day before, the obnoxious soldier Pistol insulted him by sending him bread and salt and suggesting that Fluellen eat his leek. So, when Pistol appears, Fluellen starts to beat him with his cudgel until he agrees to the condition that will satisfy Fluellen’s pride: Pistol himself must eat the leek that Fluellen has been carrying in his hat. Pistol eats the leek, and Fluellen gives him some money to ease the pain of his cudgel wounds. After Fluellen leaves, Pistol vows revenge for having been force-fed the leek, but Gower says it was Pistol’s own fault for making fun of Fluellen—and for underestimating him simply because he speaks with a funny (Welsh) accent.
When he is left alone, Pistol turns serious; we learn that his wife, the hostess, has died of venereal disease (presumably syphilis) and that he no longer has a home. He decides to become a pimp and a thief back in England.
Summary: Act 5: Scene 2
Scene 2 shifts to the palace of the king of France, where King Henry has come to meet with Charles VI and his queen, Isabel. The goal of the meeting is to negotiate a lasting peace between France and England. Despite his military victory, King Henry will allow Charles to retain his throne. However, Henry has a list of demands, the first of which is that he be allowed to marry his distant cousin, Princess Catherine of France. That way, Henry and his heirs will inherit France as well as England.
The others discreetly retire from the room, leaving Henry and Catherine alone together, with Catherine’s maid, Alice, to help translate. In a lengthy comic scene, Henry courts Catherine, trying to persuade her to marry him. Understanding the gist of his flood of English words and few French ones, Catherine eventually agrees, pointing out that the decision is up to her father.
The rest of the noblemen come back in, and Henry and the Duke of Burgundy trade some innuendoes about what Catherine will be like in bed. Everyone signs the treaty that will make Henry and his sons heirs to the throne of France after the king of France dies.
Read a translation of Act 5: Scene 2.
Summary: Act 5: Epilogue
Act 5 concludes with a brief epilogue, where the Chorus mentions the birth of Catherine and Henry’s son, King Henry VI of England, who went on to lose France and bring England into war. With a final plea for the audience’s tolerance, the Chorus brings the play to a close.
Analysis: Act 5: Prologue; Act 5: Scenes 1 & 2; and Act 5: Epilogue
The first scene in act 5 is also the last scene to feature Fluellen, Pistol, and Gower, and it provides much-needed comic relief following the intensity of act 4. Pistol and Fluellen are similar in their being quick to anger, though by this point in the play it’s quite clear to the audience that whereas Pistol is ridiculous and often insulting, Fluellen maintains a fastidious sense of righteousness. The Welshman’s humiliation of the swaggering ensign is thus fully deserved. That said, the tensions between Pistol and Fluellen may seem to indicate a bigger issue: namely, that the patriotic unity that had previously galvanized men from different parts of Britain has now begun to dissipate. But Gower quickly diffuses that interpretation when he tells Pistol why Fluellen wanted to humiliate him in the first place: “You thought because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel. You find it otherwise, and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition” (5.2.79–83). In other words, Fluellen didn’t seek to revive tensions between the Welsh and the English so much as assert their equality.
Pistol’s revelation of the news of his wife’s death adds an unexpected note of pathos to the end of the scene. Though it’s worth noting that in the Folio text of the play, Pistol laments the death of the prostitute Doll Tearsheet, not his wife, Mistress Quickly. This incongruity remains unexplained. But regardless of who is being mourned here, Pistol’s announcement reminds us of other deaths from members of the Eastcheap community. In particular, it recalls the deaths of Bardolph and Nym, and it also causes us to speculate about the boy who attended them, and whose disappearance from the play may indicate that he died in battle with the other pages. The reminder of mortality darkens the play’s conclusion and further humanizes Shakespeare’s presentation of his commoners.
Being full of witty banter and earthy humor, the second scene in act 5 closes the play on a light note. Though the scene begins with a long and serious speech from the Duke of Burgundy about the need to establish peace between England and France, the dramatic center of the scene is the extended courtship between Henry and Catherine. On the one hand, this scene echoes previous scenes where Shakespeare has wrested much humor from miscommunication across languages. Yet for all the humor that arises in the partial understanding between Henry and Catherine, it isn’t entirely clear to what extent the match between these two is a true love match. Although Henry appears to woo Catherine with a genuine interest, as we’ll find out later in the scene, the terms of their marriage have already been proposed. In other words, their union is, first and foremost, a political matter. Catherine seems to understand this fact, as she indicates when she insists that the decision about their possible marriage is one her father must make.
Yet even if we in the audience question the degree to which Catherine has a real choice in marrying Henry, it’s important to note that Henry takes his responsibility as her future husband seriously—at least, seriously enough to approach her with warmth, good humor, and humility. He demonstrates this last quality most clearly when he insists on being “such a plain king” who “hath not the gift to woo” (5.2.130, 161). Henry’s claim that he lacks the kind of “infinite tongue” that other men may use to “rhyme themselves into ladies’ favors” is obviously inaccurate (5.2.162–63). Indeed, many times in this play have we seen evidence of Henry’s gifts as an orator. But his words, however blatantly false, also demonstrate a humility that he has performed throughout the play. As always, however, it remains ambiguous just how authentic Henry is being here. Those familiar with his character’s trajectory throughout Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 has shown his talent for political theater. We must therefore ask ourselves if his courtship of Catherine is just another act in an ongoing drama whose ultimate goal is to accrue yet more honor and, ultimately, power.
Read more about Catherine and her relationship to Henry V.
The play officially ends with the promise of a marital union between Henry and Catherine and a political union between England and France. In view of this conclusion, the epilogue strikes a somber note that reminds the audience of the historical reality that followed such an apparently happy ending. Though Henry and Catherine would go on to have a son, this son would not ensure a lasting union between England and France. Instead, Henry V would die young, leaving both kingdoms to the infant Henry VI who, with poor advice from too many advisors, would “los[e] France and ma[k]e his England bleed” (5.Epilogue.12). This is a story that has already been dramatized frequently on the Elizabethan state in Shakespeare’s own trilogy of plays about Henry VI. The Chorus’s references to this history brings the otherwise heroic story of Henry V to a sobering close.
