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SYNOPSIS

By J. ELLIS BURDICK

ACT I

Hotspur's father, the Earl of Northumberland, hears of his son's defeat and death at Shrewsbury and that the king has sent John of Lancaster and the Earl of Westmoreland against him. His anger at this news gives him strength and he resolves to resist. Scroop, Archbishop of York, becomes commander of the insurgent army.

ACT II

Sir John Falstaff while levying troops runs up an account at the tavern and the hostess threatens to sue him. The Prince of Wales finds him at the tavern and he is summoned to take up his army duties.

ACT III

Henry IV is disheartened over his own failing health and the wars in the north; he believes that the rebels are aiming at his throne; and his inability to keep his vow to visit the Holy Land also worries him.

ACT IV

In Gaultree Forest in Yorkshire the Archbishop of York at the head of the rebels faces John of Lancaster with the royal forces. The latter calls a conference of the rebel chieftains, promises to redress their grievances, and urges that both armies be dispersed. The rebels assent and begin to disperse their forces. Immediately, Lancaster has the rebel leaders, Hastings, York, and Mowbray, arrested, and

His own army

orders them executed for high treason. falls upon the scattering bands of insurgents and many are slain and taken prisoners. Messengers carry the news to the king, but he is too ill to care much about the tidings, and his condition grows rapidly worse. The Prince of Wales comes to attend his father; he is told that the king is sleeping and sits down beside him. The sleep, however, is so deep that the Prince believes his father dead and goes into another room, carrying with him the crown which had been on the pillow beside the king. The king awakes and accuses his son of being anxious for his death. The Prince explains his conduct and father and son are at peace again.

ACT V

After Henry IV's death, the Prince of Wales ascends the throne as Henry V. With his assumption of the crown, he dismisses from his companionship Falstaff and his friends, sending them to the navy until "their conversation appear more wise and modest to the world."

THE SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY IV

INDUCTION

Warkworth. Before the castle.
Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues.

Rum. Open your ears; for which of you

will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.

INDUCTION. "Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues"; so Q.; Ff., "Enter Rumor." In ancient pageants Rumor was often represented as apparelled in a robe "full of toongs"; Stephen Hawes, in his Pastime of Pleasure, describes Rumor as

"A goodly lady, environed about
With tongues of fire."

Similarly Chaucer, House of Fame, 298–300. Probably the idea was ultimately derived from Virgil, Æneid, IV. 173–188.-I. G.

In a masque on St. Stephen's Night, 1614, by Thomas Campion, Rumor comes on in a skin coat full of winged tongues.-H. N. H. INDUCT. 6. "tongues"; so Q.; Ff., "tongue."—I. G.

INDUCT. 8. "men"; so Q.; Ff., "them."-I. G.

I speak of peace, while covert enmity
Under the smile of safety wounds the world: 10
And who but Rumor, who but only I,

Make fearful musters and prepared defense, Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,

Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, And no such matter? Rumor is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, And of so easy and so plain a stop

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,

Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize

20

Among my household? Why is Rumor here? I run before King Harry's victory;

Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury

Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,

Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I To speak so true at first? my office is To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword, 30 And that the king before the Douglas' rage Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death. This have I rumor'd through the peasant towns Between that royal field of Shrewsbury And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone, Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland, 35. "hold of ragged stone"; Northumberland's castle.-H. N. H.

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