SOURCE: Fujita, Minoru. “Royal Procession in Henry IV.” In Pageantry and Spectacle in Shakespeare, pp. 71-93. Tokyo: The Renaissance Institute, 1982.

In the following essay, Fujita contrasts Hal's arrival in regal costume and procession in Act V, scene v of Henry IV, Part 2 with Falstaff's appearance in dirty and disheveled clothes, and contends that the fat knight's disregard of ceremony and his mockery of royalty, though amusing in Part 1, can no longer be tolerated by the new king.

1 the Concept of “royal”

In his tribute to Hamlet, Fortinbras says that he was likely “to have proved most royal.” The ideals and values invested in the word royal make it a richly complex term, one no doubt owing something to politics and society in Shakespeare's day, but one more important to us for its symbolism and its representation on the Elizabethan stage. We may hypothesize that the idea had much...