"King Henry & Prince Hal: Machiavellian Monarchs"

As 1 Henry IV opens, the text reveals the plot?s intricate and inexorable connection with the events that unfold in Shakespeare?s prequel Richard II. King Henry IV, previously known as Bolingbrook the Duke of Hereford, begins the play with language truly fit for a king, although, ironically enough, he does not posses total legitimacy in granting himself that title. Henry IV attains this level of sovereignty through an indomitable guile?bolstered by his crestfallen comrades, his cousins?with which he usurps control of England from the true king, Richard II. His victory, however, is illusory because his royal crown weighs him down with apparent guilt and his country is marred by the ever-menacing threat of civil war. King Henry himself recognizes his culpability when he seeks to make penance in the Holy Land and thus ??wash this blood off from my guilty hand? (R2 5.6.50). His son, Prince Hal, mirrors his father in his socially-Darwinian worldview and both reveal their Machiavellian dispositions by way of their actions, but especially, through their words.
King Henry devotes much of his rhetoric to establishing his legitimacy, that is, acting as would the true king. In Richard II, Bolingbrook has decisively broken with the conventional form of political authority and ascendance. Richard obtains the throne by the laws of divine right of kings and inheritance, while Henry (and, as will be seen later, Hal) asserts that the crown belongs to the one who is most fit to rule, he that plays the political game best. Bolingbrook may have some moral authority on his side because of his grievances with the king?Richard commits a number of crimes against him and other nobles, such as seizing land?but Henry?s actions far outweigh these affronts. Consequently, King Henry must impose a new order with the use of words, thereby quelling the fire of possible ensuing civil strife and establishing a lasting peace. King Henry states ?No more the thirsty entrance of this soil/ Shall daub her lips with her own children?s blood,/ Nor bruise her flow?rets with the armed hoofs/ Of hostile paces? (1H4 1.1.5-9). King Henry knows that he has dealt the deathblow to all claims of legitimacy to the crown by his own actions against his cousin. Therefore, here, he moves quickly to assure his nobles that insubordination will not be tolerated. Ironically enough, however, these are the same nobles that stand with him against Richard and Henry himself has set the precedent that power supercedes right when it comes to matters of the throne.
Because of these crimes, King Henry perceives himself in a weakened state, physically and politically, but he also believes that his son Hal personifies retribution against him. At the onset of 1 Henry IV, King Henry verbalizes his vulnerable state by saying ?So shaken as we are, so wan with care?? (1H4 1.1.1). Clearly, Henry experiences the pangs of his defenselessness, but he also reveals his disappointment in his son, Prince Hal.
I know not whether God will have it so
For some displeasing service I have done,
That in his secret doom, out of my blood
He?ll breed revengement and a scourge for me;
But thou dost in the passages of life
Make me believe that thou art only mark?d
For the hot vengeance, and the rod of heaven,
To punish my misreadings. (1H4 3.2.4-11)

Henry expresses guilt here in the sense that he regrets his actions because of the punishment he receives. In actuality, Henry feels no such guilt and uses language to his own advantage. At the beginning of the play, he feigns a need for penance by announcing a trip to the Holy Land, which he knows would never happen, and later he plays the part of the heart-broken father in order to make his son comply and pursue more honorable activities, such as his nephew Hotspur. Therefore, Henry is not guilt-ridden, but fearful that his son will not have the qualities required to rule in the very power scheme that he devises. The nobility cannot, as they once could, be trusted because in destroying Richard, Henry and his allies destroy the basis for political trust between powerful people, namely, that words (especially promises) have permanent meaning, bind the parties to the promise, and thus guarantee a stable future. In order to get the throne, Henry and his friends pretend to be loyal (as they were obliged to be by their oaths of allegiance) only to break that loyalty to increase their own power; and thus, they inherit the world they created.
The only way in which Hal can succeed in this cutthroat world is to immerse himself in an already clandestine system is to embody Machiavellian ideals. Hal must therefore transform himself into the consummate actor to achieve these goals. At the start of 1 Henry IV, Hal is described as a degenerate cohort of knaves (such as the flagitious Falstaff) and, indeed, he appears more at home in the taverns and on the highways of London than at his father?s court. King Henry?s disapproval is, of course, more than apparent for reasons previously stated. Thus, at the outset we find Hal stranded between three worlds: Falstaff's taverns, Henry's court, and Hotspur's feudal countryside. Everyone, especially the king, appears to have condemned him to the seedy underbelly of English society, but Hal uses his social mobility in order to learn what he must from men like Falstaff. For example, Hal and Poins trick Falstaff and steal his booty; Hal utilizes this opportunity to listen to what lies Falstaff concocts in order to learn first-hand from a master deceiver.
In essence, the worlds Harry inhabits are different forms of the same game. The game played at the court and the battlefield is dangerous and devious; devised by King Henry and his nobles, to err here would mean almost certain demise. Instead of taking his chances immediately and engrossing himself totally in political or military matters, Hal uses the Boar?s Head Tavern as a ground for practicing his cunning craft. Hal is an unemotionally manipulative Machiavellian character right from the start, a man who is, in effect, using his friends as means to a political end, without much regard for their feelings, following closely in his father?s footsteps. Hal is truly a selfish and cruel political operator, fond of painful practical jokes (for example, his treatment of Francis), whose every move is part of a calculated game plan. Therefore, Prince Hal is Shakespeare's depiction of just how cold and calculating successful political operators should be.
The most powerful weapon that Hal acquires?one that King Henry readily employs as well?is that of speech. They are both experts at adopting a language that is particularly suitable to the situation. Their ability to manipulate people relies on their skillful, active use of language more than anything else. Hal?s conniving capability and the fact that he is only biding his time reveal themselves in his first soliloquy.
So when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised;
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men?s hopes,
And like bright metal on a sullen ground.
My reformation. glitt?ring o?er my fault,
Shall show more goodly attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I?ll so offend, to make offense a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will. (1H4 2.1.208-17)

First of all and most obvious is Hal?s decision to shift from prose to poetry. He speaks in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) as does his father and as is commonplace in the high court. And, he closes this soliloquy with a rhymed couplet, as only the most noble of individuals do. This brings to light the fact that Hal can easily make the transition from one social situation to the next very easily, in this case from the lowly tavern to the noble court. Second, this soliloquy is reminiscent of one King Henry delivers in Richard II because of its use of symbolism and metaphor, especially those pertaining to natural elements. King Henry, then Bolingbrook, states that he and Richard will meet:
With no less terror than the elements
Of fire and water, when their thund?ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I?ll be the yielding water;
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
My waters?on the earth, and not on him. (R2 3.3.55-60)

Henry displays his deviousness because of his sly use of the images of water and fire. Though it may seem that fire is fiercer than water, it is that very relenting water that quells the fire (and also perhaps spirit) and takes the life of the virtually innocent Richard II. Hal also uses natural images:
Yet herein I will imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world.
That when he please again to be himself.
Being wanted, he may be more wond?red at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapors that did seem to strangle him. (1H4 1.3.197-203)

Ironically, Hal chooses to compare himself to the sun; in Richard II, his father becomes the clouds that obscure the sun, that is, King Richard. This reveals that the entire system of monarchical ascendance and privilege has been turned entirely on its crowned head. Finally, these words reveal how quickly and utterly Hal can sever himself from the base society in which he has basically lived and the fact that this has been his plan all along. He ravenously consumes all that he needs from the lower classes in order to transfer these newly acquired skills to the arena of politics and the battlefield. Like his opportunistic father, he straddles the fine lines of the social order, bending the rules to his will and mastering the craft of performing as the situation dictates.
Prince Hal has quite clearly committed himself to following in his father's footsteps. He never debates with himself that point, and his first soliloquy exposes unequivocally that he is resolved to emerge and make his mark on the political scene. Hal is totally aware that his illustrious return to the realm of royalty will seem that much more extraordinary because he has been mired in the badlands of England. Furthermore, this soliloquy informs us that Prince Hal has a firm grasp on the fact that the essential quality of the powerful leader is theatrical: the ability to put on a dazzling and surprising public performance. His justification for being in the tavern, after all, is that it will, like a good play, enable him to make a crowd pleasing show out of his transformation. As seen in Richard II and 1 Henry IV, the machiavellian personalities of King Henry IV and King Henry V reveal themselves through actions, but also remarkably by way of words.