Act One: The Claim · Henry V

Chorus. "O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene!" But this poor theatre could not hold the vasty fields of France: "can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? or may we cram within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?" Let the audience piece out its imperfections with their thoughts — "Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hoofs i' th' receiving earth; for 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings."

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely were worried. A bill before Parliament would strip the Church of half its lands. They hoped the young King Henry would oppose it. And they marvelled at how he had changed: the wild prince, the companion of tavern rogues, had become, the moment his father died, a grave and wise king — "consideration, like an angel, came and whipped th' offending Adam out of him." To win his favour, the Archbishop had offered him a great sum of money for a war with France, where the King had a claim to the crown through his great-great-grandmother.

In the council chamber, the King asked the Archbishop to explain, on his conscience, whether that claim was just — for many thousands would die for it. The Archbishop gave a long and intricate explanation of the "Salic law," which, the French said, forbade the crown to pass through a woman; it did not apply in France at all, he argued. The King asked once more: "May I with right and conscience make this claim?" "The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!" The lords urged him on. Some feared the Scots would invade while the army was in France; the King would leave enough men at home.

Ambassadors came from the Dauphin, the French King's son. The Dauphin answered Henry's claim with mockery: he sent him a barrel of tennis balls — a fitter gift for a young man's revels than dukedoms. The King's answer was cold and terrible:

"We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; his present and your pains we thank you for. When we have matched our rackets to these balls, we will in France, by God's grace, play a set shall strike his father's crown into the hazard . . . And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his hath turned his balls to gun-stones." Many thousand widows would curse the Dauphin's scorn.