What happens in Henry IV, Part 2

A figure called Rumour, painted with a hundred mouths, opens the play and admits that she lies. Prince Hal beat Hotspur at Shrewsbury, but Rumour spreads the opposite story, telling England that the rebels won and the king nearly died. The false report reaches Warkworth Castle first, where the rebel earl Northumberland waits for word of his son. Hope flares, then dies: Morton arrives with the truth. Hotspur is dead, the rebellion has failed, and the old earl must decide whether to flee or fight again.

Away from the war, Falstaff is in fine form, fat and broke and dodging his creditors. The Lord Chief Justice scolds him for leading the prince astray, but Falstaff talks his way out of every charge and even borrows money. Mistress Quickly has him arrested for debt; he negotiates it down and promises to pay. Hal, meanwhile, is weary of his old life. He and Poins disguise themselves as servers to spy on Falstaff at the Boar’s Head, where the knight is carousing with Doll Tearsheet and the swaggering Pistol. Hal catches Falstaff insulting him behind his back, then leaves abruptly when news comes that the king is ill.

The rebels regroup under the Archbishop of York, who argues the kingdom is diseased and rebellion is the cure. But Northumberland, begged by his dead son’s widow Lady Percy, withdraws to Scotland rather than fight, leaving the cause weaker. At Gaultree Forest the rebels meet the king’s army, led by Hal’s cold younger brother, Prince John of Lancaster. John listens to their grievances and seems to grant them, promising to address the wrongs if the rebels disband. They trust him and send their soldiers home. The moment the army scatters, John arrests the Archbishop, Mowbray, and Hastings for treason and sends them to execution. It is a trap, and the rebellion is finished.

Falstaff, late as always, stumbles into the action and captures a fleeing rebel knight, Colevile, then claims the whole victory for himself. John mocks him and rides to court. Falstaff heads for Gloucestershire to fleece an old acquaintance, the foolish Justice Shallow, recruiting ragged soldiers and pocketing bribes along the way.

The king is dying. Sleepless and exhausted by years of guilt and war, Henry IV collapses and is carried to a chamber that happens to be named Jerusalem. Hal keeps watch alone by the bed and, believing his father already dead, takes the crown from the pillow and tries it on, speaking to it as a heavy enemy. When the king wakes and finds the crown gone, he assumes his son has snatched it out of greed. Hal returns in tears and explains that he spoke to the crown in anger, not desire. Henry, moved, forgives him, gives him the crown willingly, and dies.

Now King Henry V, Hal enters his court a different man. The Lord Chief Justice expects punishment for once jailing the wild prince. Instead the new king praises his fairness, keeps him in office, and pledges to rule justly. Word of the old king’s death races to Gloucestershire, where Falstaff, drinking with Shallow, hears it from Pistol and is overjoyed. He believes his tavern friend is now king and that riches and power are his at last. He rushes to London and waits outside Westminster Abbey to greet Henry as he passes from the coronation.

The reunion is brutal. Henry looks at the old man and says he does not know him, then banishes Falstaff from his presence on pain of arrest. The Lord Chief Justice leads Falstaff away to prison. England has a new king, sober and strong, but his old life and his oldest friend are cast off behind him.