Henry IV, Part 2

The tone of much of the play is elegiac, focusing on Falstaff's age and his closeness to death, which parallels that of the increasingly sick king.

Finally, he asks the Chief Justice for one thousand pounds to help outfit a military expedition, but is denied.

Shallow brings forward potential recruits for the loyalist army: Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, Shadow and Wart, a motley collection of rustic yokels.

Another rebellion is launched against Henry IV, but this time it is defeated, not by a battle, but by the duplicitous political machinations of Hal's brother, Prince John.

The two story-lines meet in the final scene, in which Falstaff, having learned from Pistol that Hal is now King, travels to London in expectation of great rewards.

Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York appears also to have been consulted, and scholars have also supposed Shakespeare to have been familiar with Samuel Daniel's poem on the civil wars.

[4] The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers' Company on 23 August 1600 by the booksellers Andrew Wise and William Aspley.

Some critics believe that Shakespeare never intended to write a sequel, and that he was hampered by a lack of remaining historical material with the result that the comic scenes come across as mere "filler".

In the 1960 mini-series An Age of Kings, Tom Fleming starred as Henry IV, with Robert Hardy as Prince Hal and Frank Pettingell as Falstaff.

[7] The 1979 BBC Television Shakespeare version starred Jon Finch as Henry IV, David Gwillim as Prince Hal and Anthony Quayle as Falstaff.

[8] In the 2012 series The Hollow Crown, Henry IV, Part I and Part II were directed by Richard Eyre and starred Jeremy Irons as Henry IV, Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal and Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff.

The film stars Welles himself as Falstaff, John Gielgud as King Henry, Keith Baxter as Hal, Margaret Rutherford as Mistress Quickly and Norman Rodway as Hotspur.

Gus Van Sant's 1991 film My Own Private Idaho is loosely based on both parts of Henry IV.

[10] In 2015, the Michigan Shakespeare Festival produced an award-winning combined production, directed and adapted by Janice L. Blixt of the two plays,[11] focusing on the relationship between Henry IV and Prince Hal.

The Ultimate Edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail features subtitles correlating scenes in the film to lines from the play.