"Banish All the Wor(l)d": Falstaff's Iconoclastic Threat to Kingship in I Henry IV

In refusing to give lip service to the empty virtues of honor and courtesy, Falstaff emulates his historical counterpart, Lord Cobham, who refused to pay homage to false idols, asserting,

that whoso it be, that doth the worship to dead images that is due to God, or putteth such hope or trust in help of them, as he should do to God, or hath affection in one more than in another, he doth in that, the greatest sin of Mammetry [puppet, or idol-worship] [...] I owe them [holy relics and images] no service by any commandment of God. [...] It were best [...] to bury them fair in the ground, as ye do other aged people, who are God's images. (A&M 5: 327, 334)

These denunciations by Lord Cobham pit word against false image, in the same way that the Lollard believer privileges the word against the form or ceremony of the false religion. And so, too, Falstaff, against the "religion" of honor. In 3.3, Hal's lofty sentiment expressed in a couplet fairly glows with royal honor: "The land is burning. Percy stands on high, / And either we or they must lower lie" (203-04). Falstaff swiftly undercuts the high diction with the prose rejoinder that concludes the scene: "Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come. O, I could wish this tavern were my drum" (205-06).

Although typically Falstaff is characterized as the vice figure, with his "dagger of lath" and his temptation of the young prince from his royal role, Falstaff consistently casts Hal in the role of tempter - and it is tempting in this reading to see Hal, not Falstaff, as the engineer of a theft greater than that of the king's exchequer - the crown itself. In 1.2, Falstaff laments to Hal,

thou [...] art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal, God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over. By the Lord, an I do not I am a villain. (89-95)

In 2.2, Falstaff complains to Poins that Hal has bewitched him:

I have forsworn his [Hal's] company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else - I have drunk medicines. (15-19)

Falstaff's comments may easily be seen as self-serving, but there are moments when the assertions reveal a disarming truth. When castigated by Hal for accusing the Hostess of picking his pockets, Falstaff admits, "Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou see'st I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty" (3.3.165-69). Then, Falstaff slyly includes his own accusation against Hal, who must have rifled Falstaff's pockets to know the contents so well: "You confess then you picked my pocket" (169). The frailty of flesh serves as a good protestant motif for Falstaff. He may cling desperately to the life of indulgence, but his words echo the lament of a man aware of his good and evil natures, a duality that Hal hopes to deny in the making of his royal image.