([E]) Exeter,] Shakespeare is a little too early in giving Thomas Beaufort the title of Duke of Exeter; for when Harfleur was taken, and he was appointed governor of the town, he was only Earl of Dorset. He was not made Duke of Exeter till the year after the battle of Agincourt, November 14, 1416. Exeter was half brother to King Henry IV., being one of the sons of John of Gaunt, by Catherine Swynford.
([F]) Archbishop of Canterbury,] The Archbishop’s speech in this scene, explaining King Henry’s title to the crown of France, is closely copied from Holinshed’s chronicle, page 545.
“About the middle of the year 1414, Henry V., influenced by the persuasions of Chichely, Archbishop of Canterbury, by the dying injunction of his royal father, not to allow the kingdom to remain long at peace, or more probably by those feelings of ambition, which were no less natural to his age and character, than consonant with the manners of the time in which he lived, resolved to assert that claim to the crown of France which his great grandfather, King Edward the Third, had urged with such confidence and success.” —Nicolas’s History of the Battle of Agincourt.
([G]) ——the law Salique,] According to this law no woman was permitted to govern or be a Queen in her own right. The title only was allowed to the wife of the monarch. This law was imported from Germany by the warlike Franks.
([H]) Tennis-balls, my liege.] Some contemporary historians affirm that the Dauphin sent Henry the contemptuous present, which has been imputed to him, intimating that such implements of play were better adapted to his dissolute character than the instruments of war, while others are silent on the subject. The circumstance of Henry’s offering to meet his enemy in single combat, affords some support to the statement that he was influenced by those personal feelings of revenge to which the Dauphin’s conduct would undoubtedly have given birth.
([I]) Enter Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, Mrs. Quickly, and Boy.] These followers of Falstaff figured conspicuously through the two parts of Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Pistol is a swaggering, pompous braggadocio; Nym a boaster and a coward; and Bardolph a liar, thief, and coward, who has no wit but in his nose.
[ Enter Chorus.]
Cho. Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies:
Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought