The Creation of an English Identity in Shakespeare's "Henry V"

Through his various history plays, Shakespeare wrote his own version of English history that was meant for the edification of a nascent national identity. Of course, since it was a version of history that Shakespeare had agreed upon, it had only a very distant resemblance to the actual sequence of events. Henry V is a seminal work in many ways – it repackaged past historical events to change how the English viewed themselves and how the world viewed the English. To this end, an enduring myth of a good, kind, and just Christian king, Henry V, was created – this king ruled wisely—and when needed—ruthlessly, and launched just wars, as required against the eternal enemy of the English soul – France.

Shakespeare’s Henry V is based mostly on Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, but condensed it for time to achieve dramatic effect. Ordinary events were over-dramatized, and inconvenient facts were ignored or glossed over.

When Henry V is shown as wrestling with fundamental questions that haunted him as the Christian ruler of a Christian realm – Should a Christian kingdom wage war? Should it wage war against another Christian kingdom? When is such a war justified? Shakespeare ropes in the authority of the Church to explain away such uncomfortable questions. The Archbishop of Canterbury provides the required moral justification for launching this war – Henry V is told that by Salic law, he has a God-given right to the French throne, however obscure that might seem. In this manner, Shakespeare, through Henry V, sets the precedent of the state using the Church as a Public Relations department to justify the state’s seemingly unchristian acts for it. Simultaneously, in all of this turmoil, England is depicted as a firmly Christian nation, Church and State, moving lock in step with each other, united and resolved, furthering each other’s ambitions both at home and abroad.