At the very beginning, King Henry sounds much like King Richard in the play we have just finished and which immediately precedes it in the First Tetralogy.The new King is already sick of internecine fighting, and very poetically describes the effects of civil war, like an ill-sheathèd knife. Also like Richard, his advisers come to give him unwelcome news from the west (Wales) and from the north, not only Scotland but northern England itself, where earlier Henry Bolingbroke had received such strategic aid. But civil rebellion is not the only thing on King Henry's mind. His own son shows very little promise as a successor to the throne. Near the end of the first scene Henry laments that his new rival, Northumberland, has such a courageous, indeed heroic son called Hotspur for his speed and valor on the battlefield.

Whilst I by looking on the praise of him [Hotspur]
See riot and dishouour stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle clothes our children where they lay,
And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet!

In Scene 2 of Act 1 we have a chance to see young Harry, and frankly it is not very pretty. He has fallen under the influence of that great misleader of youths and corrupter of morals, Falstaff. Most students have an idea of who Falstaff is even if they have not read one of Shakespeare's plays featuring the old reprobate. His character is very famous...