Activity

Emily and Bethany,

I love this scene in Henry V from Act IV: Scene 1 where King Henry goes out into the battle camp in disguise to find out the predisposition of his men and find out what they honestly think about the upcoming Battle of Agincourt.  Henry challenges the idea that men are merely servants of the King under duty alone, and by following the King they have no responsibility for their own actions or sins committed while serving under their obligation of duty.  I think there is an important distinction made here, that we should not just blindly follow those in leadership, but should realize that we must look to our own conscience and accountability to God and recognize that what a leader tells us to do, if the guidance is immoral, does not absolve us from being held accountable before God if we do the action against our conviction.  Both Williams and Gates are unaware of who they are conversing with, so they speak without filters.

I think often times when we personally are praying in a group, we may not be as honest as we might, if we were praying where no one else could hear us but God alone.  I think God wants us to be honest with Him, and not just give the answers we think God wants to hear.  I think that is why God want’s us to have both a personal quiet time with Him, so there is no pretense of what others might think of us when we reveal our true thoughts.  He knows them anyway, but He wants us to be honest about them when talking to Him.

I know this is a very poor comparison, but in some ways I see a model in this story reflecting God’s model of walking among us, becoming one of us, to get the full sense of our weakness in humanity, before revealing Himself to be God and our King.  He joins us in the battle camp.  He refuses to be “ransomed” (to personally exempt himself from the shared harm), but takes upon himself the full consequence of what He has committed us to.

Note both Bate’s argument and that of Williams, and the King’s counter to each.

Here’s the text:

WILLIAMS We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think
we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?

KING HENRY V A friend.

WILLIAMS Under what captain serve you?

KING HENRY V Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

WILLIAMS A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: I
pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

KING HENRY V Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be
washed off the next tide.

BATES He hath not told his thought to the king?

KING HENRY V No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I
speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I
am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the
element shows to him as it doth to me; all his
senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies
laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and
though his affections are higher mounted than ours,
yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like
wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we
do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish
as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess
him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing
it, should dishearten his army.

BATES He may show what outward courage he will; but I
believe, as cold a night as ’tis, he could wish
himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he
were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

KING HENRY V By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king:
I think he would not wish himself any where but
where he is.

BATES Then I would he were here alone; so should he be
sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men’s lives saved.

KING HENRY V I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here
alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men’s
minds: methinks I could not die any where so
contented as in the king’s company; his cause being
just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS That’s more than we know.

BATES Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know
enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if
his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes
the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at
such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
well that die in a battle; for how can they
charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their
argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
will be a black matter for the king that led them to
it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of
subjection.

KING HENRY V So, if a son that is by his father sent about
merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be
imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a
servant, under his master’s command transporting a
sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the
business of the master the author of the servant’s
damnation: but this is not so: the king is not
bound to answer the particular endings of his
soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of
his servant; for they purpose not their death, when
they purpose their services. Besides, there is no
king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to
the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all
unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them
the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;
some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that
have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with
pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
defeated the law and outrun native punishment,
though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to
fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;
so that here men are punished for before-breach of
the king’s laws in now the king’s quarrel: where
they feared the death, they have borne life away;
and where they would be safe, they perish: then if
they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of
their damnation than he was before guilty of those
impieties for the which they are now visited. Every
subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s
soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in
the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every
mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death
is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was
blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:
and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think
that, making God so free an offer, He let him
outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
others how they should prepare.

WILLIAMS ‘Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon
his own head, the king is not to answer it.

BATES But I do not desire he should answer for me; and
yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

KING HENRY V I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMS Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but
when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we
ne’er the wiser.

KING HENRY V If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

WILLIAMS You pay him then. That’s a perilous shot out of an
elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can
do against a monarch! you may as well go about to
turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a
peacock’s feather. You’ll never trust his word
after! come, ’tis a foolish saying.

KING HENRY V Your reproof is something too round: I should be
angry with you, if the time were convenient.

WILLIAMS Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

KING HENRY V I embrace it.

WILLIAMS How shall I know thee again?

KING HENRY V Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my
bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I
will make it my quarrel.

WILLIAMS Here’s my glove: give me another of thine.

KING HENRY V There.

WILLIAMS This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come
to me and say, after to-morrow, ‘This is my glove,’
by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.

KING HENRY V If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

WILLIAMS Thou darest as well be hanged.

KING HENRY V Well. I will do it, though I take thee in the
king’s company.