In the first scene, the battle is just about to begin, however, the King meets
with Worcester and Vernon to try and give the rebels one last chance to accept
his pardon. Worcester says that he would rather be in peace in his old age than
fight this battle. Also, Prince Hal comes up with another idea to evade the war.
His idea is to have himself and Falstaff engage in a battle to the death,
whoever wins the battle wins the war. After Worcester leaves, Falstaff asks Hal
to bestride him and Hal picks on Falstaff by saying that only a Colossus could
such a thing. Then Falstaff goes into a long soliloquy about honor and how it
means nothing in the long run because anyone who gets honor is dead so they
can’t enjoy it.
In the next
scene, before Worcester meets with Hotspur, he tells Vernon to mention nothing
of the second pardon offer by the king. He says this because, as he explains to
Vernon, if they take the pardon now, the king will find some other way to punish
them. Then Hotspur and Douglas comes in and Worcester lies and says the king
wants to battle. Then he goes on to tell the truth about Hal wanting to fight
one on one. Vernon follows by saying good things about the prince for the second
time. After, letters come in for Hotspur. He says he cannot read them now. Since
Hotspur never reads them these could be letters from the king offering the
pardon directly to Hotspur again. The king may do this because he senses that
Worcester won’t tell Hotspur of the pardon. Finally, a messenger comes and
says the king is coming to fight. The rebels embrace and prepare to fight.
In the first
battle scene, Douglas finds a man dressed up like the king. Little does he know,
it is Sir Walter Blunt. They fight, Douglas killing Blunt. Douglas calls over
Hotspur saying he has killed the king. Hotspur, examining the body, tells
Douglas it is not the king but a knight name Walter Blunt. Then, Falstaff
enters, trying not to engage anyone, and Prince comes in shortly after. Hal,
seeing Falstaff not doing anything, asks for his sword. Falstaff, not wanting to
be defenseless, answers no. He then offers his pistol instead. However, when he
goes to get it there is a bottle of wine in its place.
In the second
battle scene the king wants Hal to go to his tent from being injured. However,
Hal refuses to because he says the wound is only a scratch. Then, as the king
goes to fight, he meets Douglas again who has killed those who wear the king’s
colors. This time he is lucky and actually finds the king. They fight and just
as Douglas is going to kill the king Prince comes and saves the king. He scares
Douglas off and this proves that the Prince cares for his father, unlike all the
people had said. If he had wanted for him to die he could have let him be killed
by the Douglas. The king leaves and the Prince sees Hotspur. They start to
fight. Then Falstaff comes in who encourages Hal. Douglas enters who starts to
fight Falstaff. Before Falstaff actually gets killed he fakes dead. Therefore,
Douglas leaves. After a long battle the prince stabs Hotspur. After Hotspur
dies, Hal says a long speech about how honorable Hotspur was. He doesn’t want
anybody to see his mangled face so he hides it under a handkerchief. Then he
spies Falstaff. He again says a long speech this time about how much he’ll
miss Falstaff. These speeches show great growth in Hal because he originally
didn’t care about anyone or anything. Now, he grieves for his friend and has
respect for his enemy. However, since Falstaff is not dead, he gets up and sees
Hotspur. He thinks that he can stab him and take credit for Hotspur’s death by
saying Hotspur was only playing dead too. He does this and Hal allows him to
have a bit of honor.
In the final
scene, the king immediately sentences Worcester and Vernon to death. Then, he
lets Hal make the decision to let Douglas go back to Scotland for free. Then,
finally, they decide to split up and take on the rest of the rebellion (Glendower
and Northumberland).