Henry IV Part I, the first part of an historical trilogy, was written and performed about 1597-98, and Shakespeare drew on Hall and Holinshed's chronicles and Daniel's The Civil Wars for the background. Henry Percy, the legendary Harry Hotspur and elder son of the Earl of Northumberland, defeats the rebellious Scots but refuses to surrender his prisoners to the king unless his kinsman,Edmund Mortimer, the prisoner of the Welsh leader Owen Glendower, is ransomed. However, Mortimer is a pretender to thethrone of England and Henry refuses to ransom him……

 In Henry IV Part I Bolingbroke, the decisive usurper ofRichard Ⅱ has been transformed into the careworn KingHenry IV, thwarted in his desire to expiate his guilt oncrusade by the threat of civil war.

 His wayward son, Prince Hal, is entrapped by the decadentcharms of Sir John Falstaff, but triumphs in the decisivebattle of Shrewsbury when he kills the charismatic HarryHotspur. Shakespeare"s penetrating study of the nature ofkingship is a theme which recurs throughout his greatHistories, of which this is the second.