Henry V

Henry V’s address to his troops on St Crispin’s Day is among the most famous verse in all Shakespeare. It is a speech that embodies the spirit of the play in which the civil unrest of the previous History plays has been replaced by a portrait of the nation united in war against France. Henry V is Shakespeare’s most heroic warrior king, but for all the stirring verse, there is romance, humour and vivid depictions of the horrors of war.

'A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene'
Henry V, Prologue