William Shakespeare

The prospect of facing daunting odds made his cousin quail, but Henry V acted like a true King.

The centrepiece of William Shakespeare’s play Henry V (?1599) is the Battle of Agincourt on October 25th, 1415, when Henry V clashed with the Dauphin (heir to the French crown) in a winner-takes-all struggle for England’s estates in France. That morning, an edgy Duke of Westmoreland regrets not bringing more men from England; but his cousin, King Henry, will have none of such talk.

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Macbeth becomes wound in spells, and finds that one murder leads to another.

Macbeth was a real Scottish king, succeeding Duncan I in 1040 after defeating him in battle. But Shakespeare’s thought-provoking tragedy, one of the greatest stories in all English literature, is almost entirely fiction.

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The Prince of Denmark is bound to avenge his father’s murder.

The Danish Prince came home to find his father mysteriously dead, and his uncle ready to marry his mother the Queen, and claim the crown.

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Brutus tells Cassius to act while everything is going his way, or be left with nothing but regrets.

Brutus, Caesar’s assassin, is urging Cassius to march on Philippi to meet Octavius (Octavian) and Anthony in the struggle for power in Rome. Cassius is reluctant, but Brutus argues that it must be now or never.

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