Movers and Shakespeares If you want to set something afire, you must burn yourself
Despite the rigorous enforcement of hierarchical order throughout the rest of the play (including the execution of his former friend for petty theft), there is a glance here at a vaguely egalitarian "band of brothers." Perhaps this is what appeals to the Republicans the most -- the reality of aristocracy smoothed over by the rhetoric of democracy.
He was fond of war and low company: -- we know little else of him. He was careless, dissolute, and ambitious; -- idle, or doing mischief. In private, he seemed to have no idea of the common decencies of life, which he subjected to a kind of regal licence; in public affairs, he seemed to have no idea of any rule of right or wrong, but brute force, glossed over with a little religious hypocrisy and archiepiscopal advice. . . . Henry, because he did not know how to govern his own kingdom, determined to make war upon his neighbours. Because his own title to the crown was doubtful, he laid claim to that of France. Because he did not know how to exercise the enormous power, which had just dropped into his hands, to any one good purpose, he immediately undertook (a cheap and obvious resource of sovereignty) to do all the mischief he could.
· characterization of Henry [PopPolitics]
PS: In Shakespeare's "Henry VI, Part Two," Jack Cade and his rebels, planning to overthrow the king, share a utopian reverie. "The first thing we do," says one, "let's kill all the tax collectors."
It is surprising -- or is it? -- what glee that passage occasions, even today
