1 Henry IV explores the struggle between vice and virtue.

As a historical representation of fifteenth century England, William Shakespeare’s play, 1 Henry IV, explores the continuous struggle between vice and virtue through the individual characters who strive to shape the world according to their own fantasies. Under the shadow of civil war that later produces a newly unified image of England, Shakespeare suggests that no character can be singularly defined by vice or virtue, but rather the coexistence of these qualities is embedded within them. Hotspur, in his pursuit to attain the chivalric ideal, is a man who embodies the heroism and bravery that the realm regards as virtuous, yet lacks respect and is impetuous. In the same way, Falstaff, with his plebeian cunning and Epicurean philosophies, embodies the virtues of pleasure- orientated subjectivity and contains a certain bliss of freedom that are in conflict with the vice of his moral stance and social disorder. Even so, Hal is able to place the models of Hotspur and Falstaff in perfect equipoise, and dissolve the vice of his past to fulfil his monarchic expectation in a realm that is threatened by rebellion and self-interest as much as it is by dignity and decency.

In 1 Henry IV, the virtues of Hotspur’s character – honour and chivalry – are undermined by his vices – impetuosity and arrogance. Disregarding allegiance to anyone but himself, Hotspur rants in a language of heroism, setting himself up against a monarch who he regards not as the “sun” – a traditional image of kingship – but as the “moon” – a wan reflection of the legitimate king whom Henry deposed. “By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the pale- faced moon,” he vaunts, “so that he that doth redeem her may wear without corrival all her dignities.” The nakedness of his ambition is palpable, and these virtues come into conflict with his arrogance. In the final scene at Shrewsbury, Hotspur is dying, slain by Hal – a Harry killed by a Harry – and his language here, as so frequently, is lofty, mythic, reaching beyond the common world. The victorious Hal, appropriating the language of Hotspur along with his spirit, completes the thought: “For worms brave Percy.” When Hotspur loses speech, he comes to realise the vice of his character. Indeed, Hotspur is heroic and idealistic, but his greatest flaw, in this play of vice and virtue, is his complete ignorance of the vice within his character. His boisterous valour is not without a mixture of boyish obstinacy, rude manners and arrogance; and these errors, which prepare him for an early death, disfigure the virtuous image of his noble youth. Hotspur’s death leaves the audience poised between the ironic and the tragic, adequately summed up in the self-conscious pathos in his reference to the “earthy and cold hand of death”. Shakespeare invites his audience to realise that Hotspur’s ultimate undoing is his complete rejection of the vice embedded within his character.

Indeed, Falstaff does not experience the struggle between vice and virtue, but embraces this struggle and uses it as stimulus to fulfil the gaiety of his fancy. The resurrection scene recapitulates Falstaff’s existence between vice and virtue: the ultimate “putdown”, the magical rising, the extrication and revitalisation as he puns and riddles himself back into a commanding stage presence. “Give me life,” cries Falstaff on the battlefields, whereas Hotspur cries, “Die all, die merrily”. The prince killed Hotspur in the battle, and Falstaff, with one of his most inspired lies, claimed the deed as his own. Here, Falstaff’s virtue derives from his humorous superiority, while his masterful counterfeit of death is representative of his vice. He seems to embody a constant resistance to interpellation – this kind of resistance to interpellation, while it has its heroic potentialities, is by no means to be applauded, rife as it is with possibilities of denial of reality, escapism, and self-indulgence. After feigning death at Shrewsbury, he thus soliloquizes: “Counterfeit? I lie. I am no counterfeit. To die is to be counterfeit, for he is the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man.” He mocks Sir Walter Blunt’s king-costumed corpse and his own slaughtered draftees: “…I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered.” The only existence the “mortal men” have is the one that Falstaff invokes for them as an embarrassment to the heroic ethic. Although Falstaff’s vice and lack of principle makes him a dubious representative of any credo, his virtues of freedom and vitality endows him with a certain universal appeal of resistance to a vainglorious moral imperative. Shakespeare suggests that Falstaff understands the vice and virtue of his character, and yet still moves towards vice as it allows him to exist beyond the boundaries of time and reality.

And yet, the Protean Prince, while initially embodying both vice and virtue, is able to dissolve the doubleness of his situation to fulfil his monarchic expectation. The first scene raises the worrisome issue: “Shall there be allows standing in England when thou art king?” Hal is a young man of great abilities and violent passions, whose sentiments are right, though his actions are wrong, whose virtues are obscured by negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated by levity. In his tavern days, Hal is tempted by the vice of “sweet Jack Falstaff” who has bequeathed a never-failing inheritance of jolly to make mankind merrier. Even so, Hal is of a comprehensive nature, responsive to the whole range of potentiality and is able to “drink with any tinker in his own language”. He has placed himself in vital touch with the whole spectrum of English life, and is ruled simultaneously by every human motive that exists. “So when this loose behaviour I throw off and pay the debt I never promised”: an economic language of debt and payment acts as a healing antidote the counterfeit imagery that pursue Hal’s father. Thus, however familiar Hal makes himself with bad company, he can never be mistaken for one – the ignoble does indeed touch, but does not contaminate him. For on the first occasion which wakes him out of his unruly vice he is able to distinguish himself in the most chivalrous guise. By defeating Hotspur in the battle, Hal affirms to values of courtesy which are to be a necessary part of his royal virtues. When his coronation is accomplished, Hal’s comprehensive nature is comprehensive no more, but partial and exclusive – he has cultivated a responsiveness to the whole range of human potentiality only to disavow it. Thus, Hal dissolves his vice to become an embodiment of virtue, dedicated to effective government and the subordination of personal pleasure to legal and political ends.

1 Henry IV, Shakespeare lyrical representation of fifteenth century England from its fall to its glorious rebirth, explores the struggle between vice and virtue through individual characters within the play. Hotspur, a character described in terms that come from classical mythology, neglects his vices – arrogance and impetuosity – which results in a death devoid of honour. Falstaff, a man of paradox, is conscious of both his vices and virtues, and uses them ensure the gaiety of his fantasy. Nevertheless, Prince Hal is able to balance the vice and virtue within his character in perfect equipoise and, in doing so, rises to an eminence of valour that can only be associated with quasi- mythic heroism.