3 - Henry V: The Prince and Cruelty

Summary

HAL AND HENRY V

LATE in the fourth act of Henry V occurs an incident which has gone down as one of the most controversial episodes in the whole of Shakespeare's drama of warfare. It concerns the Battle of Agincourt, and the scene is the English side of the field at the height of the conflict. The Earl of Exeter is giving the king's camp a moving account of the brave deaths of the Earls of Suffolk and York, in language which evokes the unmitigated pathos of the narratives of death found in the earlier tetralogy:

And over Suffolk's neck

He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips; And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd

A testament of noble-ending love.

(HS 4.6.24-7)

The king professes himself moved to tears:

I blame you not;

For, hearing this, I must perforce compound

With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.

(32-4)

Suddenly the alarm sounds: the French have regrouped for a fresh attack, and in response Henry gives a command, based on expediency, which seems all the more brutal in contrast to the mood of compassion which he has just indulged:

But, hark! What new alarum is this same?

The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men.

Then every soldier kill his prisoners;

Give the word through.

(35-8)

Juxtaposing sorrow with severity in this stark way enlivens the drama but, as a representation of Henry (described as a ‘gallant king’ in the play, and a ‘valiant knight’ by Holinshed), it calls his humanity into question. Machia- velli of course would have had no difficulty in endorsing Henry's swift, decisive action. Readiness to cope with the exigencies of circumstance, which as we have seen already from our analysis of passages in Il Principe threaten constant change, must take precedence over everything else. From the Machiavellian perspective, Henry, like Cesare Borgia, is a leader who can combine virtù with ferocità as the occasion demands, and who possesses accordingly a Borgian grandezza dello animo.