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Power, Protestantism, and Shakespeare’s Princes:

Understanding Henry IV, Part One in Its Protestant-Elizabethan Context

William Shakespeare’s history plays are lauded for their potent representations of corrupt

kings, silver-tongued usurpers, valiant under-dog princes, vindictive women made widows to

woeful beds, and comedic foils like John Falstaff: arguably the greatest—albeit, most morally

depraved—Shakespearean character of the two historical tetralogies. Critics, scholars, and

audiences alike are quick to examine these characters within their political, social, and historical

frameworks, surveying their characteristics and motivations at the micro level, that is, as they

directly relate to the works in which they appear, as well as on a broader scale, framing them in

comparison to their historical counterparts. However, as some Shakespearean scholars suggest,

one context that remains to be thoroughly examined is that of religion, specifically Elizabethan

Protestantism. Shakespeare’s own religious leanings are notoriously enigmatic and contested, yet

his history plays, specifically those within the Henriad tetralogy—particularly Henry IV, Part

One—exhibit religious standards that are characteristic of the Puritanical virtues espoused by

Elizabethan England during Shakespeare’s lifetime. With this framework in mind, I intend to

examine Henry IV, Part One, specifically the characters of Prince Henry and Falstaff, in light of

Protestant sentiments of morality and Shakespeare’s own religious background; thus, I hope to

better orient the play within its Protestant-Elizabethan context.

First and foremost, there needs to be some explication in terms of Shakespeare’s

background and why his religious affiliation is so vague and contested considering the

abundance of his poetry and plays and the popularity he experienced during his lifetime.

Whereas the width and breadth of his 400-year-old wit is canonized in anthologies everywhere
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and entrenched in our modern English language, the records of Shakespeare’s life history remain

incomplete. According to historians, Shakespeare was born in Stratford, England, in the spring of

1564 to John and Mary Shakespeare. He was the third of eight children. John Shakespeare was a

glove-maker and businessman and he eventually rose to be the town bailiff; Mary (formerly

Mary Arden) came from a prominent family in the Stratford area. It is assumed that Shakespeare

attended the rigorous grammar school located in Stratford where he would have become

proficient in Latin and the art of rhetoric. In 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway and

they had three children, Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet, before Shakespeare moved to London to

pursue playwriting, leaving his wife and children in Stratford. However, when exactly

Shakespeare made the move to London is unclear, as there is a significant gap of unaccounted

for time following the births of Judith and Hamnet. Gaps like these, in addition to a lack of

written records, are what make piecing together Shakespeare’s life so difficult.

However, scholars like Stephen Greenblatt, Richard Dutton, Richard Wilson, and Alison

Findley postulate in their respective works on Shakespeare that his “lost years,” as they refer to

them, were spent in the North in the service of Catholic patrons; from this assumptive basis,

these same scholars contend that their arguments reveal “a religiously conflicted and at least

intermittently Catholic William Shakespeare,” as author Julia Reinhardt Lupton explains in her

essay “Birth Places: Shakespeare’s Beliefs/Believing in Shakespeare” (402). The argument that

the likes of Greenblatt and Dutton make about Shakespeare’s latent Catholicism are rooted in the

assumption that Shakespeare’s father, born before the Reformation, may have imparted Catholic

sympathies to his children. Due to the Catholic dominance that had a hold on England during the

brief reign of Mary Tudor, it is likely that John Shakespeare would have been Catholic; Lupton

notes this speculation, alluding to the Catholic “Spiritual testament” that some scholars attach to
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John Shakespeare (402). However, the advent of the Elizabethan era and its restoration of

Protestantism, coupled with the unpleasant aftertaste left by Mary Tudor’s bloody persecution of

Protestants, would have tainted the dominant public’s view of Catholicism and, likewise,

Catholics. If John Shakespeare maintained Catholic beliefs following the reinstatement of

Protestantism, he would have been very cautious and guarded with any religious expressions that

he made that were distinctly Catholic.

Furthermore, Shakespeare’s plays offer mixed religious signals, as Henry IV, Part One

appears to overtly endorse Protestant virtues, whereas Hamlet has significant Catholic

undertones. In Henry IV, Part One, Prince Henry develops into a distinctly Protestant

embodiment of temperance, fortitude, wisdom, and justice, and in Henry IV, Part Two, he fully

takes on the role of a righteous Protestant ruler, condemning the lewd and morally bankrupt

Fallstaff for his lack of virtue. Conversely, the ghost of King Hamlet in Hamlet is argued to be a

purgatorial ghost, as he makes overt references to the sacraments of Eucharist, confession, and

last rites. Understanding the status of the ghost in Hamlet—that is, whether or not it is a demon

or a purgatorial ghost—is crucial to understanding Hamlet’s motivations throughout the play.

Essentially, Hamlet’s decision to kill Claudius is either the result of a demon’s prompting or is

motivated by the “Christian imperative” of a purgatorial ghost, as scholar Roy Battenhouse

describes it. If Hamlet is compelled to kill by the former, his motives are indictable; but if he is

influenced by the latter, a purgatorial ghost, then his actions are praiseworthy. However, the

religious affiliation of the ghost remains shrouded in ambiguity; with the exception of the ghost,

all the characters in Hamlet are Protestant, including the young prince Hamlet to whom the ghost

appeals. Thus, in light of this blended cast of Protestant and Catholic characters, the sentiments

expressed by the ghost are not definitive proof of Shakespeare’s Catholic assent.
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So, Shakespeare’s religious background is complex for several reasons: first, there are

gaps in the historical records of Shakespeare’s life which limit historians’ accuracy; secondly,

Shakespeare existed during a time of limited religious freedom and, similarly, religious

persecution; and, thirdly, many of Shakespeare’s plays display Christian sentiments that are

Catholic in some cases and Protestant in others. On the one hand, there are scholars like Sarah

Beckwith, who writes in her book Shakespeare and the Grammar of Forgiveness that

Shakespeare’s poetic language engages with rites of penance and confession belonging to

Catholicism; on the other, there are authors like Richard McCoy who present a case that removes

Shakespeare from religious affiliation entirely and reorients him as a secular poet. As many

scholars ultimately conclude, there is no definitive answer as to whether Shakespeare was

staunchly Protestant, devoutly Catholic, neither, or both; and, rather than grasping at speculative

straws, most critics tend to conclude that, for now at least, Shakespeare’s religious affiliation

remains a mystery, as Arthur Marotti notes in his essay “Shakespeare and Catholicism”:

First, Shakespeare's family background was Catholic, but his religious

education and acculturation were mixed; second, Shakespeare's audiences
(in the public theatre, at Court and in other venues) included Catholic
spectators; third, both the censorship of religious controversial material in
the drama and the danger of expressing dissident religious opinions
encouraged Shakespeare to use indirection and ambiguity… (19)
Turning back to Henry IV, Part One, we can now examine this particular Shakespearean

text, its overt Protestant nods, and Shakespeare’s particular religious sentiments given the

aforementioned understanding of Shakespeare’s indirection and ambiguity. Part of the ‘major’

teratology, as some have dubbed this particular grouping of history plays, Henry IV, Part One is

set in the years 1402-1403 and details the rise of the house of Lancaster following the forced

abdication of Richard II, a Plantagenet, to Henry Bolingbrook (Henry IV) in 1399. The play has

two plots that run parallel for most of the work, culminating in a climactic intersection at the end
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of the play. The first plot is the difficult relationship that exists between King Henry and Prince

Henry, his son; the second is the Percy rebellion and its call to war. Henry IV, Part One follows

Prince Henry’s development from a man who associates himself with drunkards and

highwaymen, significantly lacking in virtue and equally inclined towards vice, into one of

England’s greatest rulers and an exemplar of Protestant virtue, notes Sherman Hawkins in his

essay “Virtue and Kingship in “Henry IV”” (321). It is this coming of age story of Prince Henry

—or, Hal—that relates directly to Elizabethan notions of Protestantism, namely the virtues of

temperance, fortitude, justice, and wisdom.

As Hawkins notes in his analysis of virtue and kingship, Hal does not possess these

virtues at the outset of Henry IV, Part One. This moral lack on the part of Hal is what causes his

relationship with his father to be strained, but Hal’s own cognizance of his planned waywardness

becomes the motivation that spurs his transformation. In Act I, scene II, Hal reveals his

reasoning for associating with the likes of carousers and highway robbers like Falstaff and Poins,

stating that he will “imitate the sun, / Who doth permit the base contagious clouds / To smother

up his beauty from the world,” so as to appear better and be “wondered at” when he eventually

takes on his royal responsibilities (Henry IV, Part One Act I, scene II, 185-187, 189). Hawkins

contends that Hal’s wantonness and the immense focus that Shakespeare places on this from the

outset suggest the need for moral reformation before Hal can come into his own as a ruler.

Hawkins further argues this point, stating that “In Part One, Hal overcomes his appetitive and

irascible instincts as he abandons Falstaff and vanquishes Hotspur... In Part Two, he becomes

King, learning the "regnative" virtues of wisdom and justice” (321). In his monologue in Act I,

scene II, Hal explicitly refers to his transformation as a moral reformation, stating “My

reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault, / shall show more goodly” (201-202).

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Hawkins argues that following his moral transformation, Hal comes to embody the

Protestant virtues of temperance and fortitude by eschewing his base desires of drunkenness and

carousing in Henry IV, Part One and taking on wisdom and justice in Henry IV, Part Two. While

I agree that Hal learns the virtues of temperance and fortitude in Part One, I’d contend that Hal’s

justice and wisdom manifest much sooner than Hawkins implies. In my opinion, Hal magnifies

his sense of justice and wisdom following the battle in Act V of Henry IV, Part One when he

frees Lord Douglass, a prisoner of Hotspur’s forced to fight on his behalf. Vernon and

Worcester, true insurrectionists who fanned the flame of rebellion, are killed for their rebellion,

yet Hal’s merciful wisdom is extended to Lord Douglass, whom he calls a “noble Scot”; Hal

further notes that Douglass showed true bravery: “His valours shown upon our crests today /

Have taught us how to cherish such high deeds / Even in the bosoms of our adversaries” (Act V,

scene v, 17, 29-31). Through his ability to recognize Douglass’ bravery even though they fought

as enemies, Hal shows his newfound tempered wisdom, and by freeing a largely innocent

Douglass, he testifies to his propensity for just mercy. However, this act of maturity occurs in

Henry IV, Part One, long before the scene in Part Two that Hawkins cites as Hal’s pivotal

moment of moral reformation.

In his article “Falstaff’s Lateness: Calvinism and the Protestant Hero in “Henry IV,””

Michael Davies further links Elizabethan Protestantism to Henry IV, Part One through the

characters of Hal and Falstaff. Davies’ key argument is concerned with Hal’s treatment of

Falstaff in Henry IV, Part Two and the Protestant sermon-esque style with which Hal berates and

subsequently casts off Falstaff in Act V, scene v. The scholar argues that Hal’s moralizing

monologue emphasizes a theme “so popular to Elizabethan sermons generally: Henry V now

exhorts Falstaff to individual 'reformation', a turning away from the unholy actions of an
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unwholesome self” (“Falstaff’s Lateness” 353). In light of Hal’s significant moral transformation

over the course of the two plays, and Falstaff’s maintained stasis of avarice, Davies assesses the

relationship between the two men in light of Protestant sentiments regarding homiletic discourse

on drunkenness and gluttony (353). The scholar takes Henry IV, Part Two as his keystone text

for understanding the influence of Protestant thought. However, here again I’d argue that Hal’s

initial reprimand against Falstaff’s perpetual gluttony, drunkenness, and moral profanity is made

in Henry IV, Part One, and so Davies’ analysis can be applied to Hal and Falstaff’s overall

relationship throughout the two-part play, not only Henry IV, Part Two.

Although one of Shakespeare’s most-beloved characters, Falstaff is the antithesis of

goodness and a far cry from the Elizabethan ideal of Protestant virtue. His character is

reminiscent of the debauchery-inspired festival of Carnival—a morally relaxed celebration that

allowed for the temporary suspension and inversion of rigid social, sexual, and class rules—that

influenced many of Shakespeare’s plays; Falstaff appears to be an intentional embodiment of this

wantonness and depravity. Nonetheless, he and Hal maintain a friendship throughout most of the

two-part play and Falstaff is even depicted as a father-like figure, a corrupt stand-in for Hal’s

own father, King Henry, in Henry IV, Part One. However, as Hal begins to realize his need for

moral reformation and change, he turns a critical eye to Falstaff’s own amorality. In Act II, scene

iv of Henry IV, Part One, one of the most comedic and famous scenes within the Henriad

tetralogy, Hal and Falstaff rehearse how Hal should present himself when he returns to his father,

King Henry. The two men take turns play-acting as King Henry and Hal, with Falstaff making

the situation light-hearted and humorous. However, Hal, acting as King Henry, tears into

Falstaff, who is acting as Hal, and unleashes a torrent of cutting insults that reveal Hal’s true

perspective on Falstaff’s way of life. At the end of this comic-turned-serious lecture, Hal
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criticizes Falstaff, saying: “Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but / in all

things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?” (441-442).

Hal’s censure of Falstaff in Act II, scene iv of Henry IV, Part One is a precursory

example of Hal’s eventual transformation into a virtuous Protestant king. As Davies suggests,

Protestantism and its ideology of goodness and moral perfection, as manifested in the virtues of

temperance, fortitude, justice, and wisdom, plays an important role in the two parts of Henry IV.

Similarly, the author posits that Falstaff and Hal’s relationship is best understood when it is

understood in light of Hal’s Protestant ‘reformation’ and his eventual pursuit of virtue; he argues

that homiletic sermons like the one Hal delivers in Henry IV, Part Two, Act II, scene iv are

revelatory, stating that:

it is precisely the homiletic aspect of the rejection speech that I wish to

explore further here…because its religiousness is, I will argue, central to
the drama of Henry IV as a whole, and to the twin roles that Hal and
Falstaff play within it…it is only by understanding the rejection speech
much more accurately as a 'sermon’, as well as why Hal preaches it in the
first place, that we can begin to recognize the broader significance of
Shakespeare's Henry IV as a specifically Protestant drama. (353)
As Davies suggests, the religious implications of Hal’s moralizing speeches are the linchpin of

understanding both Hal’s relationship to Falstaff and the relationship of Henry IV, Part One to

Elizabethan Protestantism. In this particular case, Davies is referring to Hal’s “rejection speech”

in Henry IV, Part Two. However, as previously mentioned, this rejection speech is preceded by

Hal’s censure of Falstaff which occurs in Henry IV, Part One and displays replicate signs of

Protestant homiletics, only much earlier. Thus, I’d argue that Shakespeare’s incorporation of

Elizabethan Protestantism is not limited to Henry IV, Part Two; rather, the Protestant themes of

fortitude, temperance, wisdom and justice are embodied by Hal in Part One and then carried

over and magnified in Part Two.

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In the first rejection speech, Hal is far more biting, describing Falstaff as “reverend Vice,

that grey iniquity,” a “white-bearded Satan,” and “that villainous abominable misleader of

youth” (Act II, scene iv 437, 445, 446). However, as Davies and other scholars have noted, these

speeches made by Hal, which assume his own righteousness, are not Shakespeare’s way of

depicting Hal as “a puritanical puppet of piety,” as Davies writes; rather, these two speeches

cement the young prince’s growth and development into “one of the greatest proto-Protestant

kings in English History—Henry V” (353). Inherent in Hal’s rebuke of Falstaff’s moral turpitude

is his own moral growth, his transformation from a friend of gluttons and revelers to a virtuous

Protestant prince who embraces the Elizabethan virtues of temperance and fortitude. As Davies

suggests, the two rejection scenes that play out over the course of the two-part play represents a

“turning-point in a drama which explores exactly what it means to be a godly Protestant in late

Elizabethan England” (353).

Thus, understanding Shakespeare requires an evaluation of all the contexts. When

scholars remove Henry IV, Part One from its religious framework, Hal becomes an overbearing

and prudish mouthpiece of dogmatic virtue. Yet, when he is examined in light of Protestantism

and the reformative theology that it preaches, his transformation and casting off of the old ways

—and Falstaff—becomes understandable and further informs the moral themes of the play:

specifically, what it means to be a virtuous leader. Fundamentally, Henry IV, Part One is

influenced by religion and religious ideology; to separate Shakespeare’s canon of plays from the

fullness of their original context impairs the ability to understand their dynamism in its fullness.
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Works Cited

Battenhouse, Roy W. “The Ghost in ‘Hamlet’: A Catholic ‘Linchpin’?” Studies in Philology, vol. 48, no.

2, 1951, pp. 161–192. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4172970. Accessed 13 May 2020.

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Davies, Michael. “Falstaff's Lateness: Calvinism and the Protestant Hero in ‘Henry IV.’” The Review of

English Studies, vol. 56, no. 225, 2005, pp. 351–378. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3661565.

Hawkins, Sherman H. “Virtue and Kingship in Shakespeare's ‘Henry IV.’” English Literary

Renaissance, vol. 5, no. 3, 1975, pp. 313–343. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43446826.

Lupton, Julia Reinhard. “Birth Places: Shakespeare's Beliefs / Believing in Shakespeare.”

Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 4, 2014, pp. 399–420.,

www.jstor.org/stable/24778571.

Marotti, Arthur F. "Shakespeare and Catholicism," in Theatre and Religion. Pg. 219-241.

Shakespeare, William. Henry IV, Part One. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford World’s Classics.

1987. Pgs. 127-286.