Oaths, Threats and Henry V

Abstract

Why is Shakespeare's Irish captain, MacMorris, so full of angry oaths? Why does the valiant Fluellen profanely swear ‘By Cheshu’? To address these questions is to be led through early modern accounts of swearing into the binding language of Henry V, with its dramatic potential not just to secure through speech acts but to mislead, evade and threaten. This article puts the play's preoccupation with oaths into context, both in relation to such plays as Edward III and Richard II and more largely in connection with sixteenth-century attitudes to gages, pledges, ransom and earnest. It pursues binding words not just through the main, historical action but through the King Henry and Williams plot, and the related comic sequence that leads to Fluellen beating Pistol. Overarching the discussion is a reappraisal of the play's relationship with the Elizabethan wars in Ireland. Analogues of MacMorris are found in Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir and the State Papers, while Sir Francis Bacon's observations about the oaths and vows of princes are used to illuminate the unresolved outcome of the play's high-political drama.