The Disunity of King Henry V

Abstract

King Henry V, it seems to be generally agreed, ‘was almost certainly written in the spring or summer of 1599’. The main evidence is the allusion to the Earl of Essex’s expedition into Ireland contained in the chorus before the fifth act. Essex ‘left London on 27 March 1599 and returned on 28 September in the same year having failed in his task’.¹ The allusion to Essex, however, only proves that the lines containing it, and possibly the whole chorus, were written in the spring or summer of 1599. It tells us nothing about the dating of the rest of the play, some of which could theoretically have been composed much earlier. There is good reason to believe that the ‘wooden O’ referred to in the prologue is the new Globe theatre and not the Curtain.² The Globe may not have been completed till August or September 1599 but it must have been going up in the early summer, and if Shakespeare was giving final shape to a play at that time it would be natural for him to anticipate its effect in the new theatre. So the prologue, too, may be a late addition, supposing Henry V was first begun soon after the completion of 2 Henry IV, i.e. possibly as early as 1597.