The Life of Henry the Fifth, often shortened toHenry V, is ahistory play byWilliam Shakespeare, believed to have been written near 1599. It tells the story ofKing Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after theBattle of Agincourt (1415) during theHundred Years' War. In theFirst Quarto text, it was titledThe Cronicle History of Henry the fift,^[1]: p.6 andThe Life of Henry the Fifth in theFirst Folio text.

The play is the final part ofa tetralogy, preceded byRichard II,Henry IV, Part 1, andHenry IV, Part 2. The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in theHenry IV plays as a wild, undisciplined young man. InHenry V, the young prince has matured. He embarks on an expedition to France and, his army greatly outnumbered, defeats the French at Agincourt.

A Chorus (a lone speaker addressing the audience) delivers the Prologue, apologizing for the limitations of the theatre and wishing that: amuse could inspire the audience's imagination, real royals could be the actors, and the stage could be as large as a kingdom, to do justice to the story of King Henry V (or "Harry"). The Chorus encourages the audience to use their "imaginary forces" to overcome these limitations: "Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ... turning the accomplishment of many years / Into an hour-glass".

Act I deals largely with Henry and his decision to invade France, persuaded that, through ancestry, he is the rightful heir to the French throne. The FrenchDauphin, son ofKing Charles VI, answers Henry's claims with an insulting gift of tennis balls, meant to symbolize Henry's perceived youth and frivolity.

The Chorus reappears at the beginning of each act to advance the story. In Act II, he describes the country's dedication to the war effort: "Now all the youth of England are on fire... / Now thrive the armorers, and honor's thought / Reigns solely in the breast of every man". Act II focuses on a plot by theEarl of Cambridge and two comrades toassassinate Henry at Southampton. Henry's clever uncovering of the plot and his ruthless treatment of the conspirators show that he has changed from the earlier plays in which he appeared.

In Act III, Henry and his troops besiege the French port ofHarfleur after crossing the English Channel. The French king, says the Chorus, "doth offer him / Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry, / Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms", but Henry is not satisfied. At the siege of Harfleur, the English are beaten back at first, but Henry urges them on with one of Shakespeare's best-known speeches: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; / Or close the wall up with our English dead". After a hard-won battle, the English take Harfleur. Montjoy,herald of the French king Charles, delivers a message of Charles's taunts and threats, scorning Henry. Henry tells Montjoy that his forces have been so weakened that he will not yet attack Paris directly, but will instead march up the coast to Calais.

In Act IV, the full power of the French army has surrounded Henry at the small town of Agincourt. The night before the battle, knowing he is outnumbered, Henry wanders around the English camp in disguise, trying to comfort his soldiers and determine what they really think of him. He agonizes about the moral burden of being king, asking God to "steel my soldiers' hearts". Daylight comes, and Henry rallies his nobles with the famousSt Crispin's Day Speech: "we ... shall be remember'd; / We few, we happy few, we band of brothers". The messenger Montjoy returns to ask if Henry will avoid certain defeat by paying the French a ransom for his men's survival. Henry requests that Montjoy "bear my former answer back", thus refusing to surrender.

Shakespeare does not directly describe theBattle of Agincourt. Though the French in one scene complain that "Tout est perdu" ("all is lost"), the outcome is not clear to Henry until Montjoy reappears and declares that the "day is yours". Henry soon discovers it was a deeply lop-sided victory: the French suffered 10,000 casualties, while the English lost only a Duke, an Earl, a knight, a squire, and "of all other, but five and twenty". (InLaurence Olivier's 1944film adaptation, this line is modified to "of all other men, but five and twenty score", since historians believe the English toll was approximately 600). Henry praises God for his shocking victory.

Act V opens some years later, whenthe war comes to a brief interval of peace, as the English and French negotiate theTreaty of Troyes, and Henry tries towoo the French princess,Katharine. Neither Henry nor Katharine speaks the other's language well, but the humour of their mistakes actually helps Henry achieve his aim. The scene ends with the French king adopting Henry as heir to the French throne, and the prayer for unity of the French queen "that English may as French, French Englishmen, receive each other."

The play concludes with the Chorusforeshadowing the death of Henry (within two years) and the tumultuous reign of his sonHenry VI of England, "whose state so many had the managing, that they lost France, and made his England bleed, which oft our stage hath shown". (Shakespeare here is referring to the fact that he had previously staged the trilogy of plays that focus on these later events:Henry VI Part 1,Henry VI Part 2, andHenry VI Part 3.)

As in many of Shakespeare's history and tragedy plays, a number of minor comic characters appear, contrasting with and sometimes commenting on the main plot. In this case, they are mostly common soldiers in Henry's army, and they include Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph from theHenry IV plays. In a grim note, Bardolph is executed for looting. The army also includes a Scot, an Irishman, and an Englishman, andFluellen, a comically stereotypedWelsh soldier. In one scene of extended French dialogue, Princess Katharine tries to learn some basic English words for body parts from her maid. The play also deals briefly with the death ofSir John Falstaff, Henry's estranged friend from theHenry IV plays, whom Henry had rejected at the end ofHenry IV, Part 2.

Shakespeare's primary source forHenry V, as for most of his chronicle histories, wasRaphael Holinshed'sChronicles; the publication of the second edition in 1587 provides aterminus post quem for the play.Edward Hall'sThe Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York appears also to have been consulted, and scholars have supposed that Shakespeare was familiar withSamuel Daniel's poem on thecivil wars. An earlier play, theFamous Victories of Henry V is also generally believed to have been a model for the work.^[3]

On the basis of an apparent allusion tothe Earl of Essex's mission to quellTyrone's Rebellion, the play is thought to date from early 1599.^[1]: p.5The Chronicle History of Henry the fifth was entered into theRegister of theStationers Company on 14 August 1600 by the booksellerThomas Pavier; the firstquarto was published before the end of the year—though byThomas Millington and John Busby rather than Pavier.Thomas Creede did the printing.

Q1 ofHenry V is a "bad quarto", a shortened version of the play that might be an infringing copy or reported text. A second quarto, a reprint ofQ1, was published in 1602 by Pavier; another reprint was issued as Q3 in 1619, with a false date of 1608—part of William Jaggard'sFalse Folio. The superior text was first printed in the First Folio in 1623.

Readers and audiences have interpreted the play's attitude to warfare in several different ways. On the one hand, it seems to celebrate Henry's invasion of France and military prowess. Alternatively, it can be read as a commentary on the moral and personal cost of war.^[4] Gathered, Shakespeare presents warfare in all its complexity.

The American critic Norman Rabkin described the play as a picture with two simultaneous meanings.^[5] Rabkin argues that the play never settles on one viewpoint towards warfare, Henry himself switching his style of speech constantly, talking of "rape and pillage" during Harfleur, but of patriotic glory in his St Crispin's Day Speech.

Some scholars have connected thenationalistic glorification of warfare with contemporary military ventures in Spain and Ireland. The Chorus directly refers to the looked-for military triumphs of the Earl of Essex, in the fifth act. Henry V himself is sometimes seen as an ambivalent representation of the stage machiavel, combining apparent sincerity with a willingness to use deceit and force to attain his ends.^[6]

Other commentators see the play as looking critically at the reason for Henry's violent cause.^[7] The noble words of the Chorus and Henry are consistently undermined by the actions of Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym. Pistol talks in a bombasticblank verse that seems to parody Henry's own style of speech. Pistol and his friends, thus, show up the actions of their rulers.^[8] Indeed, the presence of theEastcheap characters fromHenry IV has been said to emphasise the element of adventurer in Henry's character as monarch.^[9]

The play's ambiguity has led to diverse interpretations in performance. Laurence Olivier's 1944 film, made during theSecond World War, emphasises the patriotic side, ignoring the fact that the enemy of the play, the French, were in fact allies in that conflict,^[b] while Kenneth Branagh's1989 film stresses the horrors of war. A 2003Royal National Theatre production featured Henry as a modern war general, ridiculing theIraq invasion.

In recent years, there has been scholarly debate about whether or not Henry V can be labeled awar criminal.^[10] Some denounce the question asanachronistic, arguing that contemporary legal terminology cannot be applied to historical events or figures like those depicted in the play.^[11] However, other scholars have supported the proposed viewpoint. For instance, Christopher N. Warren looks toAlberico Gentili'sDe armis Romanis, along withHenry V itself, to show how early modern thinkers (including Shakespeare) were themselves using juridical approaches to engage with the past.^[12] As a result, Warren argues, the question of whether Henry V was a war criminal is not only legitimate, but also "historically appropriate".^[13]

In a rhetorical display intended to intimidate the Governor of Harfleur into surrendering the city to the English, Henry denies personal responsibility for his soldiers' actions if battle is resumed – "What rein can hold licentious wickedness / When down the hill he holds his fierce career?" – and describes in graphic detail the violence they will do to the townsfolk if his demands are not met:

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,

And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,

In liberty of bloody hand shall range

With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass

Your fresh, fair virgins and your flowering infants.

—Act III, Scene iii.

On the other hand, Henry is portrayed as a great leader, as he keeps his temper when insulted: "we are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us". He also admits to his past mistakes: "did give ourselves to barbarous licence" and is shown to have great confidence: "I will rise there with so full a glory that I will dazzle all the eyes of France".

A mock trial of for the crimes associated with the legality of the invasion and the slaughter of prisoners was held inWashington, DC in March 2010, drawing from both historical record and Shakespeare's play. TitledThe Supreme Court of the Amalgamated Kingdom of England and France, participating judges wereJusticesSamuel Alito andRuth Bader Ginsburg. The outcome was originally to be determined by an audience vote, but due to a draw, it came down to a judges' decision. The court was divided on Henry's justification for war, but unanimously found him guilty on the killing of theprisoners after applying "the evolving standards of the maturing society". Previously, the fictional Global War Crimes Tribunal ruled that Henry's war was legal, no noncombatant was killed unlawfully, and Henry bore no criminal responsibility for the death of the POWs. The fictional French Civil Liberties Union, who had instigated the tribunal, then attempted to sue in civil court. The judge concluded that he was bound by the GWCT's conclusions of law and also ruled in favour of the English. The Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion, thus leaving the matter for the Supreme Court's determination.^[14][15][16]

Very brief snippets ofHenry V are written originally in the French language; Act 5, Scene 2 is an example.^[17]

The Chorus refers to Essex's 1599 campaign in Ireland without any sense that it would end in disaster. The campaign began in late March and was scuttled by late June, strongly suggesting that the play was first performed during that three-month period.

A tradition, impossible to verify, holds thatHenry V was the first play performed at the newGlobe Theatre in the spring of 1599—the Globe would have been the "wooden O" mentioned in the Prologue—butShapiro argues that theChamberlain's Men were still atThe Curtain when the work was first performed, and that Shakespeare himself probably acted the Chorus.^[18][19] In 1600, the first printed text states that the play had been played "sundry times". The earliest performance for which an exact date is known, however, occurred on 7 January 1605, at Court atWhitehall Palace.

Samuel Pepys saw aHenry V in 1664, but it was written byRoger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, not by Shakespeare. Shakespeare's play returned to the stage in 1723, in an adaptation byAaron Hill.^[20]

The longest-running production of the play in Broadway history was the staging starringRichard Mansfield in 1900 which ran for 54 performances. Other notable stage performances ofHenry V includeCharles Kean (1859),Charles Alexander Calvert (1872), andWalter Hampden (1928).

Major revivals in London during the 20th and 21st centuries include:

• 1900Lyceum Theatre,Lewis Waller as Henry
• 1914Shaftesbury Theatre,F. R. Benson as Henry
• 1916His Majesty's Theatre, Martin Harvey as Henry
• 1920Strand Theatre, Murray Carrington as Henry
• 1926Old Vic Theatre,Baliol Holloway as Henry
• 1928Lyric, Hammersmith,Lewis Casson as Henry (Old Vic Company)
• 1931 Old Vic Theatre,Ralph Richardson as Henry
• 1934Alhambra Theatre,Godfrey Tearle as Henry
• 1936Ring, Blackfriars,Hubert Gregg as Henry
• 1937 Old Vic Theatre,Laurence Olivier as Henry
• 1938Drury Lane Theatre,Ivor Novello as Henry
• 1951 Old Vic Theatre,Alec Clunes as Henry
• 1955 Old Vic Theatre,Richard Burton as Henry
• 1956Stratford Shakespeare Festival,Christopher Plummer as Henry, withWilliam Shatner as his understudy who substituted for him in one performance
• 1960Mermaid Theatre, William Peacock as Henry
• 1960 Old Vic Theatre,Donald Houston as Henry
• 1965Aldwych Theatre,Ian Holm as Henry (Royal Shakespeare Company)
• 1972 Aldwych Theatre,Timothy Dalton as Henry (Prospect Theatre Company), also in 1974 in Roundhouse Theatre
• 1976 Aldwych Theatre,Alan Howard as Henry (Royal Shakespeare Company)
• 1985Barbican Theatre,Kenneth Branagh as Henry (Royal Shakespeare Company)
• 2003Royal National Theatre,Adrian Lester as Henry
• 2013Noël Coward Theatre,Jude Law as Henry (Michael Grandage Company)
• 2015RSC and The Barbican,Alex Hassell as Henry
• 2022Donmar Warehouse,Kit Harington as Henry

In theShakespeare's Globe's 2012Globe to Globe festival,Henry V was the UK entry, one of 37 and the only one performed in spoken English.Jamie Parker performed the role of Henry.

On British television, the play has been performed as:

• 1951Clement McCallin as Henry,Marius Goring as Chorus,Willoughby Gray as Pistol
• 1953Colin George as Henry,Toby Robertson as Chorus,Frank Windsor as Pistol
• 1957John Neville as Henry,Bernard Hepton as Chorus,Geoffrey Bayldon as Pistol
• 1960Robert Hardy as Henry,William Squire as Chorus,George A. Cooper as Pistol
• 1979David Gwillim as Henry,Alec McCowen as Chorus,Bryan Pringle as Pistol, part of theBBC Television Shakespeare series
• 2012Tom Hiddleston as Henry,John Hurt as Chorus,Paul Ritter as Pistol, part ofThe Hollow Crown TV series.

In 2017, thePop-up Globe, the world's first temporary replica of the second Globe Theatre, based in Auckland, New Zealand, performed 34Henry V shows. London-trained Australian actor Chris Huntly-Turner took on the role of Henry, Irish actor Michael Mahony as Chorus, and UK–New Zealand actor Edward Newborn as Pistol/King of France.

The first film adaptation,Henry V (1944), directed by and starring Laurence Olivier, is a colourful and highly stylised version which begins in the Globe Theatre and then gradually shifts to a realistic evocation of theBattle of Agincourt.^[21] Olivier's film was made during theSecond World War and was intended as a patriotic rallying cry at the time of theinvasion of Normandy.^[21]

The second major film,Henry V (1989), directed by and starringKenneth Branagh, attempts to give a more realistic evocation of the period, and lays more emphasis on the horrors of war. It features a mud-spattered and gruesome Battle of Agincourt.

There is a 2007 low budget adaptation byPeter Babakitis.

A recent major film,The King (2019), starringTimothée Chalamet as Henry V, was adapted from Shakespeare's playsHenry IV Part I,Henry IV Part II, andHenry V.

In 2012, theBBC commissioned atelevision adaptation of the play as part ofThe Hollow Crown series. It was part of a tetralogy that televised the entirety of Shakespeare'sHenriad. Produced bySam Mendes and directed byThea Sharrock, it starredTom Hiddleston as Henry V, who had played Prince Hal in The Hollow Crown's adaptations ofHenry IV, Part I andHenry IV, Part II. The BBC scheduled the screening of Shakespeare's history plays as part of the2012 Cultural Olympiad, a celebration of British culture coinciding with the2012 Summer Olympics.

In 2004, post-modern choreographerDavid Gordon created adance-theatre version of the play calledDancing Henry Five, which mixedWilliam Walton's music written for the Olivier film, recorded speeches from the film itself and byChristopher Plummer, and commentary written by Gordon. The piece premiered atDanspace Project in New York, where it was compared favorably to a production ofHenry IV (parts 1 and 2) atLincoln Center.^[22] It has been revived three times—in 2005, 2007, and 2011—playing cities across the United States, and received aNational Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces in Dance Award.^[23]

Suite from Henry V is a 1963 orchestral arrangement of music that composer William Walton wrote for the 1944 Olivier film. The arrangement is byMuir Mathieson, and is in five movements.^[24]

Henry V – A Shakespeare Scenario is a 50-minute work for narrator, SATB chorus, boys' choir (optional), and full orchestra.^[25] The musical content is taken from Walton's score for the Olivier film, edited byDavid Lloyd-Jones and arranged byChristopher Palmer.^[26] It was first performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London, in May 1990. Performers for this premiere were Christopher Plummer (narrator), the Academy Chorus, Choristers ofWestminster Cathedral, andAcademy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. The conductor was SirNeville Marriner. A CD of the work with these performers was released by Chandos in 1990.^[27]

O For a Muse of Fire is a symphonic overture for full orchestra and vocal soloist, written byDarryl Kubian. The work is 12 minutes long, and was premiered by theNew Jersey Symphony Orchestra in March 2015.^[28][29] The work is scored for full orchestra, with vocal soloist. The vocal part incorporates selected lines from the text, and the vocal range is adaptable to different voice types. The soloist for the premiere performances with the New Jersey Symphony was formerOctober Project lead singer (and formerSony Classical artist)Mary Fahl.

• List of idioms attributed to Shakespeare

• Henry V atStandard Ebooks
• Fully edited texts ofHenry V, both original-spelling and modernised, at theInternet Shakespeare Editions
• Henry V atProject Gutenberg
•  Henry V public domain audiobook atLibriVox