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Why does the Lord Chief Justice come after Falstaff?
In act 1, scene 2, the Lord Chief Justice confronts Falstaff about the Gads Hill robbery, which took place in the second act of Henry IV, Part 1. Falstaff was summoned to give testimony about this crime later in Part 1, but as he had also been ordered to join the fight against the rebels at the Battle of Shrewsbury, he ignored the summons. Hence, the matter of his involvement in the robbery remains unresolved at the beginning of Part 2, and so the Chief Justice has been dispatched to bring him in. Falstaff succeeds in evading the Chief Justice’s inquisition, only to be caught by him again in act 2, scene 1, where he gets into a scuffle with two officers over the matter of his debt to Mistress Quickly.
How does the war with the rebels end?
The war with the rebels ends in act 4, scene 1, when the Earl of Westmoreland the John of Lancaster deceive the rebel leaders into disbanding their armies. Early in the scene, Westmoreland arrives to ask the Archbishop of York and Lords Hastings and Mowbray about their grievances with the king. Westmoreland departs to discuss what he learns with John of Lancaster. The two then return and pledge to the rebel leaders that their grievances will be addressed. With this promise in mind, the rebel leaders disperse their army, only to be arrested and sent for execution at John’s order.
Why does Prince Harry take his father’s crown?
In act 4, scene 3, Harry arrives to find his father seemingly asleep on a bed, with the crown lying next to his head. Harry addresses the crown and reflects on the burden it places on the king. At the end of the speech, Harry looks down to his father, who no longer seems to be breathing. Believing the king dead, Harry takes the crown and places it on his head, accepting his inheritance of its burden. It turns out, however, that Henry wasn’t dead. When the king wakes up, he accuses Harry of nabbing the crown out of an irresponsible lust for power. But this is a misunderstanding.
How does King Henry IV die?
King Henry IV dies of a grave illness that afflicts him throughout the play, but which is never specifically identified. The lack of details about his malady invites the audience to interpret his illness as a symbolic disease that has grown progressively malignant throughout his reign as king. This disease arguably first took hold around the time he assumed the throne and instigated the assassination of the former king, Richard II. It then moved into advanced stages as the kingdom descended into civil war. In the chaos and confusion of the present moment, the burden of kingship has left Henry exhausted to the point of death. He dies offstage between acts 4 and 5. In an oblique fulfillment of an old prophecy that predicted he’d die in the Holy Land, he breathes his last breath in a chamber of the castle known as “Jerusalem.”
Why does Harry banish Falstaff after he’s crowned King Henry V?
Harry predicted his banishment of Falstaff as early as the second scene in Henry IV, Part 1, where he outlined his plan to miraculously transform himself from a youthful rogue into a respectable prince and, finally, into a noble king. This trajectory implicitly necessitates the eventual rejection of the thieves and prostitutes of Eastcheap. As the unofficial mascot of this seedy section of London, Falstaff has, in a sense, been destined for rejection. Thus, Harry banishes Falstaff as the final of his self-transformation into the ruler of the land. Whereas Falstaff, the lord of misrule, had once served as a father figure to Harry, the new king has transferred his trust to the Lord Chief Justice, the prime representative of law and order.
