49 pages • 1 hour read
William ShakespeareHenry IV, Part 1
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1597A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act II, Scene 1 Summary
Gadshill, one of Falstaff’s accomplices, learns that at least one of the pilgrims they plan to rob is carrying a great deal of gold.
Act II, Scene 2 Summary
The thieves and Hal meet before the planned robbery. Falstaff blusters and rages because he can’t find his horse and is too overweight to travel by foot. Falstaff’s accomplices Peto, Bardolph, and Gadshill arrive. After Gadshill informs them of what he learned in Act II, Scene 1, they don disguises. Hal and Poins slip away. Falstaff and the others rob pilgrims before fleeing the scene. Prince Hal and Poins return with their own disguise and easily rob Falstaff and the others.
Act II, Scene 3 Summary
Hotspur receives a letter from a nobleman who declines to join his rebellion. He reads the letter in a fury, recognizing that the nobleman could tell the king about their plan. However, he believes that they are well-prepared. He will set off that night.
Hotspur’s wife, Lady Percy, enters. She notices Hotspur’s behavior is different lately. He is paler, more melancholy, and talks in his sleep about war. Hotspur ignores her and calls for his horse, anxious to leave. Lady Percy is frustrated with Hotspur’s attitude. He will not tell her where he is going or what he plans to do in case she divulges the secret. However, he promises to send for her tomorrow.
Act II, Scene 4 Summary
Hal and Poins meet at the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastheap. Hal describes how he has become familiar with the underbelly of society, from thieves to bartenders. To pass the time while they wait for Falstaff, Hal and Poins play a prank on the waiter, Francis. Poins repeatedly calls his name from another room, while Hal tries to keep him engaged in conversation.
Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph and Peto enter the tavern. Falstaff tells a greatly embellished tale of how the four of them were robbed by a huge group of men; as he describes what happened, he cannot keep the details straight. Hal mocks him and finally reveals that it was he and Poins who robbed him. Falstaff immediately claims he saw through Henry’s disguise and held back his defense of the gold so as not to harm the heir apparent.
Falstaff suggests they put on an impromptu theatrical performance to entertain themselves. Before they begin, Mistress Quickly, the hostess of the tavern, announces a nobleman has come to see Prince Hal at the behest of the king. Falstaff meets with the nobleman and then reports that King Henry wants Hal to return to court tomorrow because of an impending civil war.
In jest, they act out tomorrow’s meeting with the king. Falstaff plays the king, mocking both Hal and his father, while praising himself as the only virtuous companion of Hal’s. Then they switch roles: Hal plays his father, while Falstaff plays Hal. Falstaff again uses his role to praise his “virtues.”
Hal and Falstaff are interrupted by the arrival of the sheriff, who wants to search the tavern for the travelers’ stolen money. Hal has Falstaff and the others hide, and he covers for them. After the sheriff leaves, Hal finds Falstaff sleeping. He searches him and finds some papers, including grocery bills. He tells the others they will all have to join the war effort and he plans to make Falstaff a foot soldier to torment him.
Act II Analysis
Act II serves as comic relief, focusing on Hal and Falstaff before it moves on to the growing rebellion. Readers learn about Hal and Falstaff’s characters through their responses to the robbery of the pilgrims and the dramatized meeting of Hal and King Henry. The robbery presents an opportunity for slapstick comedy. The overweight Falstaff, who complains “Eight yards of uneven ground / is threescore and ten miles afoot with me” runs at great speed when assailed by Prince Hal and Poins (2.2.25-26). Hal later recounts, “And, Falstaff, you carried / your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, / and roared for mercy, and still run and roared, as / ever I heard bull-calf” (2.4.268-71). Hal’s treatment of Falstaff verges on cruelty, given Falstaff’s affection for Hal. For his part, Falstaff is cowardly, deceitful, and vain. He is not, however, thin-skinned; he is able to rhetorically turn nearly any situation to his advantage. Caught in his lie about how many foes he fended off, Falstaff claims he recognized the prince all along and did not wish to harm him.
Prince Hal and Falstaff’s dramatization of Hal’s upcoming meeting with his father is one of the most iconic comedic scenes in Shakespeare, though it has an undercurrent of seriousness. It also necessitates specific props. Getting into his role as King Henry, Falstaff says, “This chair / shall be my state, this dagger my scepter, and this / cushion my crown” (2.4.389-91). On the surface, the role-playing allows Hal and Falstaff to make fun of one another. On a deeper level, it shows that, despite his wayward behavior, Hal is acutely aware of the expectations placed on him as a future king. Falstaff uses it as an opportunity to joke about hypocrisy and inconsistencies in societal norms.
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