Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV: A blend of Medieval and Tudor Morality Plays

Ruth Faust ‘09

Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV acts as both a historical play and a “political morality play” (Potter), focusing on the young Prince Hal’s human individuality and tendency to follow the moral-formula of “divine, fallen, redemption” (Potter 6) of which many morality play heroes played out many times before, and how Prince Hal manages to give a Shakespearean twist to the old morality formula. Shakespeare has the great advantage of being a playwright during a time where not only medieval morality plays already exist and have great influential works in existence available to inspire certain character development (which he most certainly utilizes in 1 Henry IV), but also during the infamous Tudor morality plays. Both types of morality plays brought about influential works and concepts important and relevant to the development of not only Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV, but also many of his other works.

Medieval morality plays claim their roots from the early “re-enactments of the Resurrection” (Potter 6) and the “cycles of spiritual plays, for popular performance at the feast of the Corpus Christi” (Potter 6). The Corpus Christi focused on the “ritual of the Eucharist” (Sponsler 136) and portrayed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in “large-scale urban performances of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries” (Sponsler 136). Unlike these spiritual plays meant for the Corpus Christi, the medieval morality plays focused on the masses and instead of focusing on Jesus Christ, the morality plays focused on the individual. The morality play came off as a “blend of high-mindedness and exuberant theatrical energy [and] pleased an impressively broad range of spectators, from the unlettered to the most sophisticated” (Greenblatt 32). These morality plays portray “man as a divine, fallen, redeemed creature, and do so in such a way as to suggest to the members of the audience that they are participants in the process, with significant choices to make” (Potter 8). Basically, the formula for the plays show the main character as being of moral standing, falling into sin and desolation, then at the last moment, receiving forgiveness and returning back into favor and moral standing. The key word to remember is “choice” when it comes to morality plays, for the individual and the humanistic ability of choice-, or rather, learn-by-experience (Potter 136) stands as the back bone to understanding the reason for the development of the morality plays in the first place.

The concept of the prodigal son fit well into the medieval morality plays’ agenda, for it fit the formula of “divine, fallen, redemption” (Potter 6) perfectly, and the influence of the prodigal son aspect of the medieval morality play definitely shows itself in Prince Hal. Within the very first act and scene of the play, the King makes it clear what state his relationship with his son is in, when he states he is jealous of Lord Northumberland because he is:

So blest a son - A son who is the theme of honor’s tongue, amongst a grove the very straightest plant, who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride, whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, see riot and dishonor stain the brow of my young Harry. Oh, that it could be proved that some night-tripping fairy had exchanged in cradle clothes our children where they lay, and called mine Percy, his Plantagenet! (Bevington 374).

This relationship between the King and Prince Hal creates an atmosphere for Hal of the prodigal son throughout the play for he ends up stating he will prove he is better than Hotspur and will win his father’s love and approval. As stated by Potter, Shakespeare…

considers the logic of the parable of the prodigal son, and the morality formula. If innocence and inexperience are qualities of weakness, and if there is indeed more joy in heaven over one that repenteth than for ninety and nine who do not sin, then experience is a prologue to better understanding, and a great king is made, not born. The ceremony of experience which is enacted in a morality play requires a mutable hero who will learn from all  his experiences, and ultimately benefit from encountering the worst as well as the best advisers and examples” (Potter 136).

Prince Hal takes his experiences from his times at the Boar’s Head Tavern and during his time with Falstaff, including the Gadshill robbery, and learns from it and utilizes all of it when he eventually becomes King Henry V. Prince Hal's and Falstaff's friendship draws similarities from the relationship of Mankind and Folly from the morality play, The Castle of Perseverance (Farnham). Mankind falls from good standing and knighthood by giving into his vices represented by spending times in taverns with Folly. He ends up having to separate from Folly to finally get out of his downward spiral towards redemption. Like Mankind, Hal goes around with Falstaff to taverns and even participates in planning a robbery, committing many acts of sin and succumbing to his vices. Hal's choice of friendship with Falstaff and his actions with him only distances himself further from his king father and also his future kingship, and Hal takes the step of separating himself as well from Falstaff later on when he learns from experience (Potter 136) back to good standing and fulfilling the moralistic prodigal son concept. He accomplishes becoming the “mutable hero” (Potter 136) because even though he had Falstaff around him throughout the whole play, he conquers over both Falstaff and Hotspur, and proves to his father his capability to become king someday.

He fulfills the prodigal son’s triumphant return; however he does so with a Shakespearean twist. Unlike past morality plays with prodigal son concepts, such as Nice Wanton, Shakespeare puts more stress on individual experience and, unlike the good prodigal son in Nice Wanton desperately trying to convince his mother to not kill herself for the deaths of her two horrid children (Spivack 111), Shakespeare puts attention to how Prince Hal has learned, through his experiences, whether or not it occurred in a tavern or learned via robbery, has mastered the “game of consummate deception” (Potter 136), and will only benefit him to become a greater king on the battle field and in the political battle field as well.

In contrast to the medieval morality play, Tudor morality plays tend to focus less on the individual and bring in more of a “political moral” side to the message the playwright tries to present to the audience. Instead of having the individual go through the morality formula of “divine, fallen, redemption” (Potter 6), a shift occurs during the Tudor morality and now England takes the place of the individual. In the Tudor morality play, Republica, it focuses on how the lands of the church were “despoiled” (Potter 89) and, although it does not lay blame on a few people, it creates a figure that represents the wrongdoers against the church named Avarice, and the play ends with “morality scheme, only a prelude to repentance and forgiveness, with England received back into the body of the Church” (Potter 89).  Usually, these political morality plays focused on the unhappiness of a commonwealth (embodied by a figure, in this case, a peasant) and the reinstatement of its happiness by the placement of a new king (or Queen, in this case).

In 1Henry IV, King Henry IV’s title to the throne bears a shaky foundation of stability and meets much opposition from faces of former allies. King Henry’s inability to sustain a stable, strong hold upon his kingship and his kingdom represents the state of the commonwealth. King Henry’s acquiring of the throne was not through noble lineage, but rather of battle and bloodshed, casting a dark cloud upon his kingship and rule on the commonwealth that even the King himself felt. As Potter points out, “In guilt he plans a pilgrimage of repentance to the Holy Land, but pressures of royal office prevent him from carrying it out” (Potter 131). By creating such a state even by the first act of the play (shown by King Henry IV finding out about Hotspur not wanting to give up his prisoners to King Henry IV, which is open disrespect for the King), Shakespeare creates an atmosphere ready for the introduction of Prince Hal, the saving grace and “’the mirror of all Christian Kings’” (Potter 131), who takes the place of King Henry IV as new king of England after going through a “learn-through-experience” (Potter 136) moral period with Falstaff before arriving at kingship. Through his experience, Prince Hal is able to become the great king Henry IV was unable to amount to, for Prince Hal became a “mutable hero” of experience (Potter 136) and utilizes this for his advantage as future King Henry V. By also becoming a morally great King, he does not feel the plague of guilt like his father did from the beginning, which also caused the commonwealth to suffer in this play.

Shakespeare utilizes both the aspects and elements of medieval morality plays and Tudor morality plays to lay the foundation down to his own unique Shakespearean morality play that borderlines on both in 1 Henry IV. He uses the age-old morality formula of the individual’s moral process: “divine, fallen, and redemption” (Potter 6). He also incorporates the idea of embodying the state of the commonwealth, in this case the state of England during the time of King Henry IV’s takeover of the throne, into King Henry IV’s character while making Prince Hal play out two very important parts within the play: he not only represents the new monarch, King Henry V, that takes over and fixes the poor commonwealth and represents all that is good, but he also represents the prodigal son derived from morality plays and the Bible itself. By bringing together the many different aspects of both types of morality plays, Shakespeare creates a play that not only tells of a historical time in English history, but also tells of a young man that grows from a boy of no experience to a man with experience on both the good and bad spectrum, ready to utilize this for the good of his kingdom and people. As said best by Robert A. Potter, “The play [1 Henry IV ] is indeed in many respects ‘Shakespeare’s great morality play,’ but it is also perhaps Shakespeare’s first novel – a Bildungsroman of a young man’s education which explores in the special circumstances of a destined political leader, the perennial and difficult questions of innocence, experience, and responsibility” (Potter 138).

Works Cited

Farnham, Willard. "Tragedy and the English moral play: Fifteenth/Sixteenth Century." The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy. New York, NY: Barnes & Nobles Inc, 1956.

Greenblatt, Stephen. "Primal Scenes." Will in the World : How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated, 2004.

Potter, Robert A. English Morality Play. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Limited, 1975.

Shakespeare, William. "The First Part of King Henry the Fourth." The Necessary Shakespeare. By William Shakespeare and David M. Bevington. New York: Longman Group, 2004.

Spivack, Bernard. "The Morality Play." Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil. By Bernard Spivack. New York, NY: Columbia UP, 1958.

Sponsler, Claire. "Violated Bodies: The Spectacle of Suffering in the Corpus Christi Pageants." Drama and Resistance : Bodies, Goods and Theatricality in Late Medieval England. New York: University of Minnesota P, 1997.