Like its predecessor, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 is a history play that portrays events and characters from England's past. All of Shakespeare’s history plays focus on the life and reign of an English monarch. Henry IV Part 2, however, is really more about Prince Hal than King Henry IV, following his development from a wayward youth to the celebrated King Henry V.
Alongside Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, and Henry V, Henry IV, Part 2 is part of the Henriad, a sequence of Shakespearean history plays that together make up a tetralogy, or a cycle of four plays. Though the term “Henriad” was not used in Shakespeare’s day, modern literary scholars generally group these plays together because they feature many of the same characters, follow each other chronologically, and explore similar themes.
At a key moment in the play, the Earl of Warwick actually reflects upon the function of a history play. While King Henry IV reflects with guilt upon his violent overthrow of the former King Richard II, Warwick says that:
There is a history in all men’s lives
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things [...]
Such things become the hatch and brood of time.
First, Warwick suggests that every man’s life constitutes a personal “history” and that by examining the past closely, “a man may prophesy [...] the main chance of things.” Warwick, then, makes a strong argument for studying history: by knowing more about the past, a person might more accurately predict the future. In this history play, Shakespeare offers an extended opportunity to reflect upon the past.
