St. Crispin's Day

Then call we this the field of Agincourt,

Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

Last night Lynn and I watched “Henry V” in honor of both Shakespeare and that most famous of English kings.  We had a difficult choice as we have 6 versions (Laurence Olivier, David Gwillim, Robert Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Jamie Parker, Tom Hiddleston) from which to choose.  I love them all; we’re fans.  We settled on Branagh as it was the one we’d seen least recently.
 

Branagh made the film when he was young but after years of experience with the RSC and in particular performance in the histories.  All that work and apparent passion paid off in originality and accessibility.  He had the courage and foresight to find the political drama in minor scenes often dismissed to comedy and find the honest feeling and humanity in the “low characters” who previously were so often turned into clowns.

My favorite scene in his version is in Act IV, Scene 7, when Henry and Fluellen (Ian Holm) embrace after the battle, weeping, obviously amazed they’re still alive.

 

FLUELLEN:  Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.
KING HENRY V:  They did, Fluellen.
FLUELLEN:  Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.
KING HENRY V:   I wear it for a memorable honour; For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

My favorite production, nevertheless remains, the Trevor Nunn production for the RSC, directed by Terry Hands with Alan Howard as Henry.  I’d seen the play a few times before and didn’t like it much, particularly compared to Henry IV, part 1.  It had always seemed, stagey, declamatory and lacking in drama.

 

Then I saw Alan Howard’s Henry.  I suspect he found his emotional center in the king’s fearful sense of personal guilt for his father’s usurpation expressed in Henry’s prayer before the battle.  Here was a very human Henry living on edge striving to balance devastating emotions and ferocious will.  Every time the French herald came to him the audience could see his terror and his heroism. Here was a Henry who could have lost the battle of Agincourt but didn’t because he won the battle to balance himself.  It seemed to me then, and still does, that Howard and Hands had seen more deeply into the heart of the play than any before and found a drama about the nature of courage.
 

I freely admit that there is much of that Henry in my characterization of "that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales" at Crecy.
 

I want to mention two books about the historical Henry that I highly recommend.  The first is Juliet Barker’s Agincourt who comes closer than anyone else I’ve read to a reasoned derivation of Henry’s character from his history.  Her insights about Shrewsbury, the horrible facial wound he suffered there and the consequences are particularly original.  The second is Ian Mortimer’s 1415: Henry V's Year of Glory  Mortimer’s book is a day by day chronicle of that year and everything that was transpiring in Europe, and how Henry was affected by and took advantage of those events.  Both books changed how I view the late medieval world and may dramatically change your perception as well.