What happens in Henry V

A Chorus steps out and apologizes for the small wooden stage, asking the audience to imagine the armies and battles it cannot show. Then we meet the new king. The wild prince of the tavern days is gone; Henry V is sober, sharp, and dangerous. Two bishops, eager to protect church lands from a tax, encourage him toward war with France. They walk him through a tangle of inheritance law to prove his claim to the French crown is good. When the Dauphin sends him a mocking gift of tennis balls, Henry turns the insult into a vow of conquest.

On the eve of sailing from Southampton, Henry uncovers a plot. Three of his own noblemen — Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey — have taken French bribes to murder him. He lets them condemn themselves, then sends them to death, calmly noting that the worst betrayal comes from trusted friends. Meanwhile, in the streets of London, Falstaff’s old companions Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym mourn the fat knight’s death and shuffle off to the war as common soldiers. The army crosses the channel and lays siege to the town of Harfleur.

Before the breach, Henry rallies his men with the cry “Once more unto the breach.” When the town holds out, he stands at the walls and threatens horrors — fire, slaughter, ruin — unless it yields. The governor, hearing no help is coming, opens the gates. But the campaign is costly. Disease and hunger thin the English ranks, and Henry marches a sick, shrinking army toward Calais. The French, vastly more numerous, gather to cut him off. At their court, the princess Katharine practices a little broken English, sensing where this is heading.

The night before the battle of Agincourt, Henry borrows a plain cloak and walks among his soldiers in disguise. He argues with a man named Williams about whether a king truly shares his men’s risk, and afterward, alone, he carries the whole weight of the crown in a quiet, exhausted soliloquy. The French in their camp gamble and boast, certain the ragged English will be easy prey. At dawn Henry answers his lords’ despair with the St. Crispin’s Day speech, promising that the few who fight here will be remembered forever as a band of brothers.

The battle goes impossibly well. The French herald keeps demanding ransom; Henry keeps refusing, trusting in God. When French stragglers murder the unarmed boys guarding the baggage, Henry, enraged, orders the prisoners killed. The English lose the noble York and Suffolk, who die side by side. Then the count comes in: ten thousand French dead, against barely two dozen English. Henry forbids any man to boast of it and gives the victory to God alone.

The Chorus carries us home to a hero’s welcome and then back to France for the peace. With the treaty mostly settled by his council, Henry turns to wooing Katharine himself, in blunt soldier’s language rather than courtly verse. She resists, then relents, and they kiss. The two kingdoms are bound together by the marriage, and Henry will be heir to France. The Chorus closes on a sober note, reminding us that this peace did not last: Henry would die young, and his infant son’s reign would lose all that was won here, plunging England back into war.