Seven Ages

History · c. 1598

Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2

The autumnal sequel: rebellion sputters on, the king sickens, and the great question — what happens to Falstaff when Hal becomes Henry V — moves toward its answer.

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By the Seven Ages editors2 min read

The comedy is darker, full of aging bodies, unpaid debts, and country justices remembering their wild youths mostly inaccurately.

It is a quieter, sadder play than Part 1, and some readers love it more for exactly that. The final movement, from deathbed to coronation to the new king’s reckoning with his old companion, is one of the most emotionally complicated sequences Shakespeare wrote.

Henry IV, Part 2 on screen

1The Hollow Crown: Henry IV, Part 2 (2012)

TV film · dir. Richard Eyre

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Mark it in your record when you finish — one seat, kept for decades.

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