Henry IV Part 2 (1921) Yale/Appendix B
APPENDIX B
The History of the Play
The success of Henry IV, Part I, led Shakespeare, apparently, to write the second part as a sequel. The date of its composition may be definitely stated as lying somewhere between 1596 and 1599. The death of Amurath III, to which reference is made in V. ii. 48, occurred in 1596; and in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour (Act V. sc. ii.), written in 1599, reference is made to Justice Silence. That Henry IV, Part II, was written before Henry V is evidenced by the unfulfilled promise in the Epilogue of the present play (see the note on that passage).
An acting version of the play, the only known contemporary Quarto edition, was printed in 1600 and entered on the Stationers' Register on August 23 of that year. The full text of the play appeared for the first time in the First Folio in 1623. Of the many contemporary allusions to the play of Henry IV and the characters of the play, the following refer unquestionably to Part II.
(1) Sir Charles Percy, third son of the twentieth Earl of Northumberland, Lord of Dumbleton in Gloucestershire, a follower of the Earl of Essex, and an admirer, perhaps a friend, of Shakespeare's, writes in a letter dated December 27, 1600 (?): "I am here so pestered with country business that I shall not be able as yet to come to London. If I stay here long in this fashion, at my return you will find me so dull that I shall be taken for Justice Shallow or Justice Silence."
(2) Dekker in Satiromastix (1602), Ad Lectorem, refers to Master Justice Shallow.
(3) Ben Jonson in Epiccene (1609), II. v., refers to Doll Tearsheet.
Of early performances and players of Henry IV, Part II, there are even fewer records than there are of Part I. James Wright in his Historia Histrionica (1699) says that 'before the wars' Lowin acted Falstaff 'with mighty applause.' Pepys, who attended at least three revivals of the first part of the play between 1660 and 1668, makes no mention of any Restoration revival of the second part. In 1700 Betterton, after a triumphant revival of Part I, undertook a revision and revival of Part II. His version held the stage for many years, and is reprinted in Lacy's Acting Edition of Old Plays. Chetwood tells an amusing anecdote concerning Betterton's interpretation of the part of Falstaff in Part II. Johnson, an actor, while playing in Dublin, had seen Baker, a master-pavior, play Falstaff. Upon his return to England he gave Mr. Betterton the manner of Baker's playing, which the great actor not only approved of, but imitated, and allowed that it was better than his own.
Betterton's arrangement of the play was as follows:
Act I begins with I. ii.; then follow the scene at the Archbishop's, and the arrest of Falstaff from Act II.
Act II contains the rest of Shakespeare's Act II, with the Warkworth Castle scenes omitted.
Act III begins with the scene at Shallow's house, but the rest of the act follows Shakespeare.
Act IV begins with the King's soliloquy on sleep, taken from Act III; then comes the scene of the King's death, followed by the scene in which Silence sings; and the act closes with the interview between the Lord Chief Justice and King Henry V.
In Act V, Betterton omits the comic scenes (i. and iv.), and opens the act with the King's progress to Westminster Abbey. Falstaff is rebuked, but is not sent to the Fleet, and the play concludes with an abridgment of the first Act of Henry V.
Betterton had the good taste not to tamper with Shakespeare's wording to any great extent.
On December 17, 1720, at Drury Lane, the play was revived again. It was acted five nights successively and once afterwards. It was in this revival that Cibber first appeared as Justice Shallow and made 'one of the great successes of the day.' Mills was Falstaff, and Wilks the Prince. Eleven years later (1731) came another Drury Lane revival, with Mills as the Prince, Harper as Falstaff, and Cibber still playing Shallow. Five years later (1736) the same company, with the exception of Harper, produced the play again at Drury Lane for the benefit of the great Quin, who played Falstaff. In 1744 and 1749 there were revivals at the Covent Garden Theatre, Quin again playing Falstaff.
A performance at Drury Lane in 1758 was made notable by Garrick's first appearance in the rôle of the King. He had appeared as Hotspur in Part I twelve years before, but had not achieved great success in that role. As the King in Part II 'his figure did not assist him, but the forcible expression of his countenance, and his energy of utterance, made ample amends for the defect of person.'
On December 11, 1761, and for twenty-two consecutive days, King Henry IV, Part II, was presented at Covent Garden in honor of the coronation of King George III. For this performance an elaborate coronation pageant was devised which was used again in 1821 by Macready at the time of the coronation of William IV. Other revivals occurred at Drury Lane in 1764 and 1777, and at Covent Garden in 1773, 1784, and 1804. A sensational feature of the 1773 performance was the appearance of an anonymous 'Gentleman' as the King, 'his first performance on any stage,' and of Mrs. Lessingham, for whose benefit the play was given, as Prince Hal. In the 1804 production John Philip Kemble played the King, and Charles Kemble the Prince. Charles Kemble again appeared as the Prince in Macready's production in June, July, and August, 1821.
Of Macready's performance he himself writes in his Reminiscences; 'Kemble had revived the play in 1804, but produced little effect. Garrick had not given the prominence he had expected to the part of the King, and for these reasons I begged to be excused from appearing in it. But my objections were set aside. . . . To every line of it I gave the most deliberate attention, and felt the full power of its pathos. The audience hung intently on every word. The admission of the perfect success of the performance was without dissent. The revival rewarded the managers with houses crowded to the ceiling for many nights, nor was this attributable to the pageant only, for the acting was of the highest order. Fawcett was the best Falstaff then upon the stage, but he more excelled in other parts.' The per- fection of Macready's success was not, however, 'without dissent.' 'An old playgoer,' in a letter to Tallis's Dramatic Magazine for April, 1851, says of Macready's Henry IV: "In this role he approached nearest to an elocutionist, but generally the effect of his declamation was unpleasant, harsh, and grating. Kemble's poses were studied but graceful, not like the stiff upright poses of Macready wherein I have often wondered how he could preserve his equilibrium."
On March 17, 1853, in his ninth season at Sadler's Wells, Samuel Phelps produced King Henry IV, Part II, he himself playing the double role of the King and Justice Shallow. Contemporary reviews speak of his complete triumph, and say that sceptical critics are now converted to this as a stage play. Phelps used Betterton's version, and revived the play again in London in 1864 and in 1874. In the 1874 production Forbes-Robertson, aged 21, appeared as Prince Hal. William Winter records an interesting anecdote of the first rehearsal. Phelps, after watching Forbes-Robertson for a time, said: 'Young man, I see that you know nothing about this. Come to my room tonight.'
The play has been practically unknown on the American stage. There were twenty-six revivals of Part I in America in the eighteenth century, but apparently none of Part II. In the nineteenth century the American comedian, James H. Hackett, played the part of Falstaff almost annually from 1830 to 1870, in both England and America, but it was the Falstaff of Part I and of The Merry Wives. In 1895-1896 Miss Julia Marlowe played the part of Prince Hal in an abridged version of the two parts of the play; and in 1896-1897 Daly planned a revival which never got beyond rehearsal. Miss Ada Rehan was to play Prince Hal, and James Lewis, Falstaff. The Delta Psi Dramatic Club of Harvard University gave a creditable amateur performance of Part II in the winter of 1915-1916.