it is the way of the world. Women betray womanhood as much by
mildness as by wiles. Meanwhile, what duty does a man owe to a fine,
free, fearless spirit dragged down to his by commercial bargain with a
father who is also a fool?

_King Henry IV, Part I._

_Written._ (?)

_Published._ 1598.

_Source of the Plot._ Most of the comic scenes are the fruit of
Shakespeare's invention. A very popular play, _The Famous Victories
of Henry V_, by an unknown hand, gave him the suggestion for an
effective comic scene. In the historical scenes he follows closely
the _Chronicles_ of Holinshed.

_The Fable._ The play treats of the rising of Henry Hotspur, Lord
Percy, against Henry IV of England, and of the turning of the mind
of Henry, Prince of Wales, from low things to things more worthy
his birth. It ends with the killing of Hotspur, by the Prince of
Wales, on the battlefield at Shrewsbury. Hotspur is an uncommon
man, whose uncommonness is unsupported by his father at a critical
moment. Henry, Prince of Wales, is a common man, whose commonness
props his father, and helps him to conquer. The play is about a son
too brilliant to be understood, and a son too common to understand.

The play treats of a period some four years after the killing of King
Richard II. It opens at a time when the oaths of Henry Bolingbroke, to
do justice, have been broken on all sides, lest the injustice of his
assumption of kingship should be recognised and punished by those over
whom he usurps power. The King is no longer the just, rather kind, man
of affairs who takes power in the earlier, much finer play. He is a
swollen, soured, bullying man, with all the ingratitude of a king and
all the baseness of one who knows his cause to be wrong. Opposed to him
is a passionate, quick-tempered man, ready to speak his mind, on the
instant, to any whom he believes to be unjust or false.

This quick-tempered man, Lord Percy, has done the King a signal service.
Instead of asking for reward he tries to persuade the King to be just to
a man who has suffered wounds and defeat for him. The King calls him a
liar for his pains.

Percy, stung to the quick, rebels. Others rebel with him, among them
some who are too wise to be profitable on a council of war. War does not
call for wisdom, but for swiftness in striking. Percy, who is framed
for swiftness in striking, loses half of his slende