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Whether this was true that so he spake, as one that gaue too much credit to foolish prophesies & vaine tails, or whether it was fained, as in such cases it commonlie happeneth, we leaue it to the aduised reader to iudge.
But yet to speake a truth, by his proceedings, after he had atteined to the crowne, what with such taxes, tallages, subsidies and exactions as he was constreined to charge the people with; and what by punishing such as mooued with disdeine to see him usurpe the crowne (contrarie to the oth taken at his entring into this land, upon his return from exile) did at sundrie times rebell against him, he wan himself more hatred, than in all his life time (if it had beene longer by manie years than it was) had beene possible for him to haue weeded out & remooued.1
I
THE FIRST SCENE of Henry V presents us with a king who has set his own plots and plans, the most important feature of which is to shelter himself from responsibility. This sheltering is motivated by his desire to escape the effects of guilt, the shadow of blame or responsibility that would or might result from an action taken unsuccessfully.2 The etiology of personal rule (the man may feel compelled to play at being king based on his personal experience) and structural rule (the man plays the king in the manner he sees as proper to a ruler) divide the possibilities of action between the king's two bodies. In Henry Vs case, these two bodies are formed in the two preceding plays of the tetralogy through the constant tension between the prodigal Hal and the plotting Hal. Henry V yokes these two bodies together in the opening scene, but in this resolution of tension there is a crucial latent content that is key to understanding the new king, here and later: his "changed man" status is a fantasy or charade that allows Hal to displace threats to himself onto other, larger causes. Along the play's entire length Henry V counters every event that contains a potential setback or threat to his becoming "the mirrour of all Christian kings." In other words, the success of the play as a...