Prince John foregrounds the play's censorious mode. 'Monsieur Remorse', the play's mock-Puritan, points to its theological matrix with pious remarks on 'the spirit of persuasion', the 'ears of profiting' (1:1.2.106, 143-4), and the need for 'the fire of grace' if one is to be properly 'moved' (2.4.370-1). What one should be moved to by rebuke is confession, contrition (asking pardon), and 'a good amendment of life' (1.2.97). But as Calvin acknowledged in his discussion of rebuke and grace (Institutes, II.V.5), and as Falstaff habitually demonstrates, evasion is a common response. It is characteristic of the endemic dishonesty of Henry's unregenerate world that almost everyone responds to rebuke by denial, obfuscation, and retaliation in kind. The dialogue of the play, both comic and serious, is substantially built on rebuke, evasion, and counterrebuke.

Rebuke and evasion explode in the third scene of Part 1 when Henry berates all the Percys for his 'indignities', and Hotspur in particular for withholding his prisoners. Although he still refuses to surrender them, Hotspur protests in the most tortuous manner that he made no such refusal at all. Henry treats this evasion with contempt, a fierce quarrel erupts, and the scene ends with the Percys planning rebellion. On the battlefield, the initial pattern of rebuke and evasion becomes one of rebuke, evasion, and counter-rebuke. Henry lectures Worcester on his betrayal of trust and on the impropriety of old friends and old men confronting each other in 'ungentle steel' (5.1.9-21). Worcester responds at greater length, blaming the present conflict on Henry's violation of all faith and on his 'ungentle' treatment of his former allies (lines 30-71). Loftily dismissing this justification of rebellion, Henry employs a familiar Tudor discourse:

These things indeed you have articulate,
Proclaimed at market crosses, read in
  churches,
To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine colour that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurly-burly innovation.
And never yet did insurrection want
Such water-colours to impaint his cause …
                                               (lines 72-80)

Consistently with this discourse, however, Henry presents himself as the instrument of both grace and rebuke, offering pardon and redress if the rebels disarm: 'take the offer of our grace … if… not … rebuke and dread correction wait on us' (lines 106-11). Educated by history, Worcester distrusts his grace's word, lies to Hotspur, and the battle takes place. But Worcester is subjected to another homily on the point of execution: 'Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. / Illspirited Worcester, did we not send grace, / Pardon, and terms of love to all of you? / And wouldst thou … Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman's trust?' (5.5.1-5). While there is no suggestion here that rebellion is justified, the ironic inappropriateness in the given circumstances of the King's anti-rebellion rhetoric is unmistakable.

From the start, Falstaff's relationship with the Prince is governed by the same dynamics as that between Henry and the men who had and lost his favour. Most of Hal's speeches to the fat knight are either hilariously devastating criticisms of his self-indulgence and deceit or attempts to make him tell truth and shame the devil. And Falstaff's responses characteristically slide from evasion to counterattack. Hal's opening tirade on Falstaff's time-wasting is dissolved in sinuous word-play leading to the Puritan-sounding lament that Falstaff himself has been corrupted by Hal's company: 'O, thou … art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal, God forgive thee for it' (1.2.87-9). His superb escape from the charge of 'open and apparent shame' after Gad's Hill is followed by his warning that Hal should prepare to be 'horribly chid' (2.4.360) by his father. By playing the part of the rebuking king much to his own advantage, Falstaff provokes the exchange of roles which brings upon Hal and himself a thunderous royal rebuke: 'Swearest thou, ungracious boy? … Thou art violently fallen away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man … ' Falstaff's 'fencing' pretence of innocent and polite incomprehension is perfect: 'I would your grace would take me with you; whom means your grace?' (lines 429-44).

Very different is Hotspur's churlish reply in the next scene to his uncle's kindly rebuke ('You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault'). And different to both is Hal's response in the ensuing scene to Henry's overblown, self-righteous condemnation of his 'rude' and 'degenerate' behaviour (3.2.14, 32, 128). The scenic juxtapositions are pointed, as is the nodal position given to the father-son encounter in the play's structure; for Hal's reaction to rebuke is designed (like his attitude to promises) to distinguish him from everyone else, marking him out as the figure of redemption and reformation, a man of grace. He is most respectful to his irate father ('my thrice gracious lord'); and while pleading that he is in part the victim of newsmongers, confesses that his 'youth / Hath faulty wandered and irregular', and so begs 'pardon'. Moreover, in making his solemn promise of amendment—that he 'will redeem' his 'shames' by defeating Hotspur—he acknowledges that success will depend on divine grace: 'This in the name of God I promise here, / The which if he be pleased I shall perform' (lines 26-8, 132-3, 144, 153-4). Since the defeat of the rebels effectively depends on the fulfilment of this promise, Calvin's teaching on the benefits of rebuking the elect when they 'be gone out of the way by the necessarie weakness of the fleshe' has been fully justified.

In keeping with its graver mood, Part 2 shows an extraordinary intensification in the spirit of rebuke. In addition to present rebukes, future rebukes are anticipated (4.2.37-41; 4.2.105-21), and past ones are remembered. Northumberland (says Henry) 'checked and rated' Richard II, who rebuked him and Henry in turn (3.1.67-70). Henry 'had many living to upbraid' his way of gaining the throne (4.2.320). Since Shrews-bury, Hal has fallen from grace again and suffered accordingly—as he recalls in his tactical rebuke of the Chief Justice: 'What! Rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison / Th' immediate heir of England?' (5.2.69-70). Mistress Quickly too has been reproved by the law—'Master Tisick the debuty'—for keeping uncivil customers (2.4.68).

In her response to rebuke ('You would bless you to hear what he said') the hostess set an example which Falstaff, 'deaf … to the hearing of anything good', conspicuously fails to follow (2.4.68-76; 1.2.54-5). He is now being reproved by everyone, from his tailor and his whore to Hal, John, and his dedicated moral 'physician' (1.2.100), the Chief Justice. Falstaff's pretended deafness with the latter emblematizes his chronic problem but is also symptomatic of his new impudence. However, the old tricks of sanctimonious reversal, pious pretence, and righteous indignation are in evidence too: it is not he who has misled Hal but Hal who misled him; he has 'checked' the 'rude Prince' for striking the Justice 'and the young lion repents' (lines 115, 153-4); his replies are not impudent sauciness but honourable boldness (2.1.97); if his manners are foolish and become him not he was a fool that taught them him (lines 150-1); abusing the prince behind his back was the part of a careful and true subject, designed to protect him from the love of the wicked (2.4.259-63); he 'never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour' (4.1.382-3).

As in Part 1, the most entertaining dialogue is woven around Falstaff's evasions. However, the volume and severity of the criticisms, and the waning of 'the right fencing grace' to which he still lays claim (2.1.151), anticipate the moment when he prepares to move from tavern to court, only to be fiercely rebuked ('Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace') and resolutely denied the opportunity to 'Reply … with a fool-born jest' (5.5.48, 51). The puritanical harshness of Hal's final rebuke may or may not be justified in the circumstances; but the significance of certain obvious facts is too often ignored. Falstaff's banishment (or 'excommunication') is the fulfilment of a promise ('I do, I will'), and it is not absolute: its harshness is moderated by the promise of a pension designed to keep Falstaff out of mischief and to help him 'reform' and so expect 'advancement' (that he is most unlikely to reform and seems deaf to what has been said is beside the point) (lines 64-6).³⁹ Hal's promise of a pension is a notably solemn one too: in his very last utterance, he emphasizes his own self-conception as defined at Shrewsbury: 'Be it your charge, my lord, / To see performed the tenor of my word' (lines 66-7). As for Falstaff's subsequent sending to the Fleet by the Chief Justice, that accords with Hal's public recognition that the Justice was right to 'rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison' the heir-apparent, and with his assurance that he would never interfere with the decisions of this 'bold, just, and impartial spirit' (5.2.115). It has been intimated throughout that if anything will redeem England it will be a strong leader who keeps his word and so inspires trust and loyalty. Thus it can be argued that the nature and circumstances of the final rebuke contribute to the conception of Hal as a redeemed and redeeming prince, one who possesses the major king-becoming graces. Clearly, however, the scene is intrinsic to a comprehensive structure of thought founded on Calvin's twin Augustinian themes.

The same thematic twinship governs the two other most important scenes in Part 2: Prince John's encounter with the rebels, and the King's with his socially rebellious son. Here too the rhetoric of a censorious throne is turned against those who are thought to threaten its survival; and here too the nature and reception of the rebuke deserve scrutiny. Soundly rated by both West-moreland and the Prince for taking up arms, 'his grace of York' passes lightly over the motive of personal revenge which initially inspired him to rise against Henry; instead, he justifies his action by reference to unspecified common grievances and in particular to the pressures of 'the time misordered' (4.1.70-85, 261). Quite unlike Northumberland, who declared himself committed to anarchy and bloodshed (1.1.154), he repeatedly insists that he is bent, not on conflict, but on securing a genuine peace. His accent is that of confused sincerity, his manner dignified, and his attitude to his opposites trusting and half-apologetic. All of which serves to intensify the unsettling aspects of the criticism to which he is subjected. What is remarkable in the first place is that he is rebuked at length, in the most orotund manner, and twice over: first by West-moreland, and later by the youthful Prince: the artifice and the doubling intensifies the sense of hollowness and duplicity. Even the argument is the same in both rebukes: a variation on Henry's attack on Worcester in Part 1, suitably adapted to the person addressed, and evocative of the great historical paradigm and all the indignant eloquence it spawned. Both men expatiate on the horrible impropriety of a man of God dressing 'the ugly form / Of base and bloody insurrection' with 'the fair honours' of his calling, perverting 'the grace, the sanctities of heaven', and employing 'the countenance and grace of heaven' in 'deeds dishonourable' (4.1.39-41, 249-54). Given his treacherous intent, the Prince's preachifying shows that he has wholly appropriated 'the counterfeited zeal of God' (line 255) which he imputes to the bishop: an appropriation which sharply interrogates official Tudor attacks on 'the counterfeit service of God', the 'false pretences and shews', whereby the various rebel leaders purportedly deluded their gullible followers.⁴⁰

Henry's 'dear and deep rebuke' of Hal two scenes later is comparable to John's in its excess, and mistaken in its view of Hal as a 'rebel … spirit' in deep 'revolt' (4.2.195, 300); but it is at least sincere in its anger and its care for the commonwealth. What matters, however, is Hal's response. He is here reduced to tears by his father's words. When he speaks, he begins with the words, 'O pardon me', explains himself, and eloquently communicates feelings of filial love and duty. The effect of this response, like its counterpart in Part 1, is all-important: not, this time, for the commonwealth, but for the King. Reconciled and at one with Hal, Henry confesses his guilt for the first time, and begs pardon. Echoing his earlier and entirely characteristic, 'God knows, I had no such intent / But that necessity so bowed the state / That I and greatness were compelled to kiss' (3.1.71-3), he now says: 'God knows, my son, / By what by-paths and indirect crooked ways / I met this crown … How I came by this crown, O God forgive' (4.2.311-12, 346). He then learns that he has been resting in the Jerusalem Chamber, and he is satisfied: 'In that Jerusalem shall Harry die' (line 367). Some critics read this detail as a final sign of Henry's insufficiency. I take it as evidence that his pilgrimage is over; that he has, through his son, found grace. Unlike Falstaff and others, he has stopped wrenching the true cause the false way, has told truth and shamed the devil.