Henriad in the context of "Henry IV, Part 1"

In the First Folio (1623), the plays of William Shakespeare were in three categories: (i) comedies, (ii) histories, and (iii) tragedies. Alongside the history plays of his Renaissance playwright contemporaries, the histories of Shakespeare define the theatrical genre of history plays. The historical plays also are biographies of the English kings of the previous four centuries, and include the plays King John, Edward III, and Henry VIII, and a continual sequence of eight plays known as the Henriad, for the protagonist Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England.

The chronology of Shakespeare's plays indicates that the first tetralogy was written in the early 1590s, and discusses the politics of the Wars of the Roses; the four plays are Henry VI, parts I, II, and III, and The Tragedy of Richard the Third. The second tetralogy was completed in 1599, and comprises the history plays Richard II, Henry IV, parts I and II, and Henry V.

Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against France made England one of the strongest military powers in Europe. Immortalised in Shakespeare's Henriad plays, Henry is known and celebrated as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England.

Henry of Monmouth, the eldest son of Henry IV, became heir apparent and Prince of Wales after his father seized the throne in 1399. During the reign of his father, the young Prince Henry gained early military experience in Wales during the Glyndŵr rebellion, and by fighting against the powerful Percy family of Northumberland. He played a central part at the Battle of Shrewsbury despite being just sixteen years of age. As he entered adulthood, Henry played an increasingly central role in England's government due to the declining health of his father, but disagreements between Henry and his father led to political conflict between the two. After his father's death in March 1413, Henry ascended to the throne of England and assumed complete control of the country, also reviving the historic English claim to the French throne.

The Life of Henry the Fifth, often shortened to Henry V, is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written circa 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was titled The Cronicle History of Henry the fift, and The Life of Henry the Fifth in the First Folio text.

The play is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2. The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, whom the Henry IV plays depicted as a wild, undisciplined young man. In Henry V, the young prince has matured. He embarks on an expedition to France and, despite his army being greatly outnumbered, defeats the French at Agincourt.

Prince Hal is the standard term used in literary criticism to refer to William Shakespeare's portrayal of the young Henry V of England as a prince before his accession to the throne, taken from the diminutive form of his name used in the plays almost exclusively by Falstaff. Henry is called "Prince Hal" in critical commentary on his character in Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, though also sometimes in Henry V when discussed in the context of the wider Henriad.

Hal is portrayed as a wayward youth who enjoys the society of petty criminals and wastrels, a depiction which draws on exaggerations of the historical Prince Henry's supposed youthful behaviour. The question of whether Hal's character is cynical or sincere has been widely discussed by critics.

The Life and Death of King Richard the Second (1595), also Richard II, is a Shakespearean history play about the lifetime and reign of King Richard II of England (r. 1377–1399). As a dramatised period history of the English monarchy, Richard II chronicles the machinations of the noblemen of the royal court who conspire, precipitate, and realise the downfall and death of the King of England.

As the first work in the Henriad tetralogy of English history plays, the political narrative of Richard II is thematically followed throughout the stories of Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V, which also are histories of the reigns of his royal successors to the Throne of England. Although the First Folio (1623) classifies The Life and Death of Richard the Second as an English history play, the earlier Quarto edition (1597) classifies Richard II as a tragedy, under the title The Tragedie of King Richard the Second.

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is also featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though primarily a comic figure, he embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is repudiated when Hal becomes king.

Falstaff has appeared in other works, including operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Otto Nicolai, a "symphonic study" by Edward Elgar, and in Orson Welles's 1966 film Chimes at Midnight. The operas focus on his role in The Merry Wives of Windsor, while the film adapts the Henriad and The Merry Wives. Welles, who played Falstaff in his film, considered the character "Shakespeare's greatest creation". The word "Falstaffian" has entered the English language with connotations of corpulence, jollity, and debauchery.

Gad's Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gads Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens. Today the building is the independent Gad's Hill School.

The house was built in 1780 for a former Mayor of Rochester, Thomas Stephens, opposite the present Sir John Falstaff Public House. Gad's Hill is where Falstaff commits the robbery that begins Shakespeare's Henriad trilogy (Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry V).