The Plight of the English War Veteran
Zach Davis
"To England / will I steal, and there I’ll steal" (Henry V, V.i.89-90). Pistol mutters these words in Henry V, after the Battle of Agincourt. He’s just learned his wife is dead (85), and with her presumably died his claim to the tavern she ran. The friends with whom he marched to war are gone too: Bardolph and Corporal Nim were hanged for looting against Henry’s orders (IV.iv.69-72); the young boy following them disappeared from the play, most likely slaughtered by the French with the rest of the English pages (IV.vii.1). What is left for Pistol at home? Nobody and nothing. In a play marked by the conversion of the king from wastrel to glorious warrior, Pistol sours the ending of the play by converting from loyal companion to criminal: he vows, "bawd [i.e. pimp] I’ll turn, and something / lean to cutpurse quick of hand" (V.i.88-89).
The English war veteran, by and large, was not the celebrated returning hero who could "strip his sleeve and show his scars" (IV.iii.50) and get drinks bought for him in the tavern, as King Henry urges the troops to imagine in his St. Crispin’s Day speech . Pistol’s situation – destitute and desolate – was more the rule than the exception. The lucky few had employment and loved ones waiting, but many more soldiers found they’d lost everything. A significant number were injured beyond the medical skill of the time. Poor and hobbled, many veterans turned to crime. And these were men used to wielding arms. At best, veterans were burdens on society. At worst, they were menaces.
Soldiers didn’t have it much better during active duty. Military leaders, for the most part, treated common soldiers with casual disdain. In Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff judges his new recruits, "good enough to toss; food for power, / food for powder" (IV.ii.66-67). In A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599, James Shapiro elaborates on the horror of becoming such gun-fodder. Men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were eligible, and there was hardly ever a lull in recruiting. The government was occasionally so desperate to fill out its ranks it would spend its Sundays conspiring with churchmen to run a painfully cynical sting. They’d bar church doors, then press-gang local men for the crime of not being in church. Imagine the betrayal and resentment the newly-minted criminals must have felt. The poorest and most genuinely lawless of the population thus comprised the bulk of Elizabethan armies. They were the ones unable to bribe their way out of service and unlikely to be missed (62-63). Imagine spending months alternating between fighting desperately for your life and relaxing in company of the violent dregs of England.
When Falstaff recruits in Henry IV, Part 2, he doesn’t care for the men he’s theoretically responsible for. He muses, “If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end” (III.ii.342-345).
Men going off to war heard such callous and oppressive sleights, and coming home, no longer whole, the sentiments surely continued ringing in their ears. And they had to reintegrate into a society that could openly say that?
Shakespearean audiences would have had an intimate knowledge of these sad and dangerous men. England’s perpetual war with Ireland flared up throughout the Henriad years. Without a full-time standing army, men were constantly conscripted left and right. And the horrors to which they were subjected became well-known. Tales of ghastly massacres trickled back to London, often on the lips of veterans or refugees. Shakespeare’s audience thus was fed a steady diet of propaganda extolling England’s martial prowess, but were also aware of the devastating consequences of war. As Shapiro explains, the push-and-pull of this information created mixed sentiments: "Shakespeare was aware that on some deep level, as their brothers, husbands, and sons were being shipped off to fight in Ireland, Elizabethans craved a play that reassuringly reminded them of their heroic, martial past. … But Shakespeare also knew that this same audience – already weary of military call-ups and fresh demands to arm and victual troops … were … of two minds about the campaign" (91).
Pistol and Falstaff’s recruits are windows through which we can glimpse how the nobles’ games affected commoners’ lives. Elizabethan audiences were keenly aware of the consequences of those games. These window scenes can be played with gravity and wrenching pathos. Yes, there is some comedy, albeit at the expense of poor sods about to be thrust into a French deathtrap. Yes, elsewhere in the Shakespeare opus people joke about how much they enjoy being bawds. But as Ancient Pistol drops the letter about his wife, and his eyes tear up, can you really imagine it’s from mirth?
The English war veteran, by and large, was not the celebrated returning hero who could "strip his sleeve and show his scars" (IV.iii.50) and get drinks bought for him in the tavern, as King Henry urges the troops to imagine in his St. Crispin’s Day speech . Pistol’s situation – destitute and desolate – was more the rule than the exception. The lucky few had employment and loved ones waiting, but many more soldiers found they’d lost everything. A significant number were injured beyond the medical skill of the time. Poor and hobbled, many veterans turned to crime. And these were men used to wielding arms. At best, veterans were burdens on society. At worst, they were menaces.
Soldiers didn’t have it much better during active duty. Military leaders, for the most part, treated common soldiers with casual disdain. In Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff judges his new recruits, "good enough to toss; food for power, / food for powder" (IV.ii.66-67). In A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599, James Shapiro elaborates on the horror of becoming such gun-fodder. Men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were eligible, and there was hardly ever a lull in recruiting. The government was occasionally so desperate to fill out its ranks it would spend its Sundays conspiring with churchmen to run a painfully cynical sting. They’d bar church doors, then press-gang local men for the crime of not being in church. Imagine the betrayal and resentment the newly-minted criminals must have felt. The poorest and most genuinely lawless of the population thus comprised the bulk of Elizabethan armies. They were the ones unable to bribe their way out of service and unlikely to be missed (62-63). Imagine spending months alternating between fighting desperately for your life and relaxing in company of the violent dregs of England.
When Falstaff recruits in Henry IV, Part 2, he doesn’t care for the men he’s theoretically responsible for. He muses, “If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end” (III.ii.342-345).
Men going off to war heard such callous and oppressive sleights, and coming home, no longer whole, the sentiments surely continued ringing in their ears. And they had to reintegrate into a society that could openly say that?
Shakespearean audiences would have had an intimate knowledge of these sad and dangerous men. England’s perpetual war with Ireland flared up throughout the Henriad years. Without a full-time standing army, men were constantly conscripted left and right. And the horrors to which they were subjected became well-known. Tales of ghastly massacres trickled back to London, often on the lips of veterans or refugees. Shakespeare’s audience thus was fed a steady diet of propaganda extolling England’s martial prowess, but were also aware of the devastating consequences of war. As Shapiro explains, the push-and-pull of this information created mixed sentiments: "Shakespeare was aware that on some deep level, as their brothers, husbands, and sons were being shipped off to fight in Ireland, Elizabethans craved a play that reassuringly reminded them of their heroic, martial past. … But Shakespeare also knew that this same audience – already weary of military call-ups and fresh demands to arm and victual troops … were … of two minds about the campaign" (91).
Pistol and Falstaff’s recruits are windows through which we can glimpse how the nobles’ games affected commoners’ lives. Elizabethan audiences were keenly aware of the consequences of those games. These window scenes can be played with gravity and wrenching pathos. Yes, there is some comedy, albeit at the expense of poor sods about to be thrust into a French deathtrap. Yes, elsewhere in the Shakespeare opus people joke about how much they enjoy being bawds. But as Ancient Pistol drops the letter about his wife, and his eyes tear up, can you really imagine it’s from mirth?