A king goes out to cheer his men on the night before battle ...

I’ve been reading the short stories of Jack London lately — powerful stuff! And savage; though even in that Klondike Jack there are strains of real romance, and a longing, almost an aching, for meaning in this life which his own philosophy could not provide. There’s many a tribal chief in his tales, or a ship’s captain, or the head of an expedition across the frozen wastes, and sometimes, but only sometimes, there is something kingly about them, rather than merely domineering, ambitious, or rapacious. But Christian literature — and, for that matter, the great pagan folk tales all the world over — often presents us with a king whose virtue wins the heart; you want to follow him even into the jaws of battle. The Christian king, or the ideal that is held out for him and for us, adds to that winsomeness a reversal of expectations. Mark Twain, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, subjects medieval romance to what had by then become sour and cynical in him, and still there are scenes of genuine kingliness, as the narrator himself confesses, when he sees Arthur humbling himself to minister to his people sick with the plague. That’s not a gladhanding politician pretending to be jus’ folks with guys at a bar, to win favor in a democratic society. It really is an embodiment of that reversal at the heart of Jesus’ person and revelation: He who humbles himself shall be exalted.

Our Poem of the Week comes from the Chorus’s lines at the beginning of Act IV of Shakespeare’s play, Henry V. The scene is Agincourt, on the eve of the great battle. The English are greatly outnumbered; they are battle-weary to the marrow of their bones; the French are confident, indeed too confident. It is night. And Henry goes forth, first in his own person, and then in disguise, to cheer his officers, and to bring comfort to the common men, while hearing and judging what they say when they do not know that it’s the King they are talking to. I won’t say that the historical Henry V was a saint. In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis names him alongside Napoleon as ambitious devotees of war that spreads misery over the earth. That’s a surprise, isn’t it, from Lewis, a stout English patriot if ever there was one — but Lewis had his own fill of warfare in World War I, and that, if anything, would temper your enthusiasm for people like Alexander and Caesar and their like.

But I’m not passing judgment here on Henry; that would require a lot of historical balancing and weighing and comparing and supposing, which isn’t to my point. It’s what Shakespeare gives us in his portrayal of the King that I wish to show. This is what Shakespeare, in part, believed Henry V to be, or perhaps what he holds up as an example of what kingliness really is. The king is brave and stalwart, but not in a futile or grandiose cause. He cares for his men, but as men, and not as a sentimentalist who pretends to care. He steps down from his pedestal, not to curry favor by flattering the crowds, but to set aside the ceremony and the trappings that separate him from them, the better to feel what they feel, and to lead them as their clear and intelligent leader in battle. It isn’t a false democracy. It goes beyond equality. It is royal not in arrogance but in devotion to England and her people and what is right — at least, what Shakespeare presents the king as believing to be right. It is royal in the soul.

It is interesting to consider, I think, that of all the presidents we have had in America, the most kingly of them all was the first, Washington, the father of our country. I don’t mean that he put on airs. I mean that he was most like the ideal of a Christian king, such that his probity, his power of command, his self-sacrifice, and his strain of quiet meekness could overawe even somebody as proud and vain as Jefferson. Had there been no Washington, I don’t think the nation would have survived even twenty years. He who fought against the rule of a king would have made — and in a way did make — a better king himself. So imagine Washington at Valley Forge, when we hear these lines from the Chorus, at Agincourt.

“King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt,” Harry Payne. Public Domain.

Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch:
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umbered face.
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents 
The armorers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, 
And the third hour of drowsy morning name. 
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires 
Sit patiently, and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger; and their gesture sad
Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats 
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruined band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent, 
Let him cry "Praise and glory on his head !" 
For forth he goes and visits all his host,
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,
And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note 
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of color
Unto the weary and all-watched night;
But freshly looks and overbears attaint 
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty; 
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.
A largess universal like the sun,
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all 
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.

Word & Song by Anthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymn, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. Join us as a paid subscriber now during our Christmas Special Forever Rate.