he is more than ever in the council chamber driving an astute bargain, a piece of shrewd diplomacy, between one king and another.

But this is to disregard the newly urgent style of utterance, and the considerable preparation for this moment. Harry had perhaps wept for the traitors as they reminded him that a “full-fraught” man may be suspected. He had earnestly commanded the archbishop to justify his title to the French crown with

conscience washed
As pure as sin with baptism. (1.2.31-32)

Moreover the need for an honest heart and Harry’s equal responsibility with all men are taken up in the following scenes in ways which can betray to the audience’s intensified interest his deep concern with these issues.

His address to the soldiers before battle is not a spurring on of others, in the vein of “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” Compared with that conjuring up of the blood before Harfleur, it is thoughtful:

... if it be a sin to covet honor,
I am the most offending soul alive. (4.3.28-29)

Because it is their feast day, he remembers the two noble brothers, Crispin and Crispian, who during the Roman persecution served as shoemakers yet were still martyred for their obvious Christianity; and they become an image for his men in battle:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne‘er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition. (60-63)

Harry covets honor in his heart and would have his soldiers do so with him; and this is his battle cry. In fight he is still valiant, gay almost with hardiness, angry, ruthless, efficient. He is again the Harry of the first three acts, ready in anger to kill all his prisoners. But afterwards there are further reminders of his inward knowledge and need. Perhaps the repeated insistence with which he gives all credit to God is one. Certainly when Fluellen, the robustly confident Welshman, claims brotherhood—

I am your ajesty’s countryman, I care not who know it.... I need not to be ashamed of your Majesty, praised be God, so long as your Majesty is an honest man—(4.7.114-18)

Harry answers directly and simply, “God keep me so”—that is an “honest man”-and only then turns to public, urgent matters. Later, when Williams excuses his quarrel, his words must strike the monarch more deeply than the puzzled soldier could guess:

All offenses, my lord, come from the heart: never came any from mine that might offend your Majesty. (4.8.46-48)

Some of the audience, at least, will remember that this king has recognized an “offending” heart within himself. (As Shakespeare directed Harry to listen to Williams after battle, the seed for the epilogue to The Tempest may have been in his mind: “As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free: ‘)

In that Henry the Fifth has a central scene of intense focus which shows the King acknowledging his guilt, it is obviously indebted to Henry the Fourth, Part Two. But Shakespeare has modified his purpose and his technique. Harry does not win peace like his father, only a recognition of the need for pardon; moreover, he remains a figure in the center of others. In this play, the predominantly wide view is reestablished and the audience’s inward knowledge of Harry’s personal crisis is used to deepen the view of the whole scene, and of the many other characters to whom, unlike Henry the Fourth, this king is dramatically related. Williams, Fluellen, Montjoy, and the soldiers are only the first to reenter the picture, the whole fifth act sustains and develops this experience.

It begins with the ludicrous unmasking of the braggart, Pistol, who is forced to eat Fluellen’s leek. This is more than a comic counterpart to heroism, for he is left alone onstage and in a direct and immediate soliloquy he may briefly provoke empathetic sympathy:

Old I do wax, and from my weary limbs
Honor is cudgeled. (5.1.87-88)

The moment is passed as he gathers confidence and decides to return to England to cheat and steal. And the audience’s view is fully extended as the kings of France and England and their nobility fill the stage for the final scene in quiet and formal meeting. In a long, deliberate speech, the peacemaker, the Duke of Burgundy, describes.France ravaged by war and a generation of her sons growing

like savages—as soldiers will,
That nothing do but meditate on blood—
(5.2.59-60)

The whole play, its action and consequences, passes in general review, seen this time with French eyes—or rather with a timeless concern with the arts and sciences of peace, and with natural affections. This new perspective is generalized, but as the two parties leave the stage to debate the terms of peace, Harry remains with Katherine, Princess of France, and her maid: here the dramatic interest is as narrow as before Agincourt. As Harry woos his bride, he speaks sometimes as if in soliloquy, for she cannot understand all he says. It is a complex scene: clearly this is to be a political, but also a personally felt, marriage; clearly Harry offers himself as a simple man, but he does so with wit and eloquence; clearly he is confident and a conqueror, but he is also suitor. And as he warms to his theme he speaks again, directly and with immediacy, of a “good heart”:

a good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather, the sun, and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. (163-70)

Katherine questions “Is is possible dat I sould love de ennemie of France?” And he can only answer with a riddle:

No, it is not possible... but in loving me you should love the friend of France: for I love France so well, that I will not part with a village of it—I will have it all mine.