Source: "The Henry IV Plays," in Shakespeare's History Plays: The Family and the State, Ohio State University Press, 1971, pp. 171-224.

[Pierce maintains that in Henry IV, Part One, personal, familial order is presented as a way of understanding the larger, political structure in the play. He shows how the basic conflicts in the play-the struggle of Henry, and the nation, to create harmony from Civil war, the struggle of Prince Hal to mature from a careless youth into an independent king-illuminate the larger conflict-the struggle to create order from disorder-being examined. Pierce shows how the pray is essentially divided between the public story of rebellion and the private story of Hal's adventures with Falstaff and how the additional plot of Hal's estrangement from Henry links the play's public and private worlds,]

Shakespeare's Henry IV plays explore the theme of political order with a new depth and subtlety...