By 1598, near the end of his first decade as a playwright, William Shakespeare had written a number of plays that dramatized England’s recent past. These plays concerned the struggles for control of the English throne that ravaged the country between 1399 and 1485. Henry V was the last of this set of plays to be written, and the only one that does not concentrate on the seizure of the English throne; rather, the triumphant reign of King Henry V, with its crowning jewel, the subjugation of the French at the Battle of Agincourt, provides the focus of the play. The play highlights a critical stage in the consolidation of authority under the English monarch.
The struggle for the English Crown. The reign of Henry V (1413-1422) constitutes one of the high points of the English monarchy. It was a period of triumph: Henry’s subjugation of France in three successful campaigns filled England with pride for centuries. Heightening the glories of Henry’s reign were the political and social instabilities that both preceded and succeeded his rule.
Trouble began with the death of Edward III, England’s king from 1327 to 1377.
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