Mia Torres
Dr. Ingrid Ranum
ENGL 205 02
October 28 2021
Trusting Hotspur
It is no secret that romantic relationships have many complicated aspects. For example, many individuals believe that open communication is the key to a happy relationship. On the other hand, some believe that secrets can be kept from individuals, sometimes to protect the other person or save the relationship. In The First Part of Henry the Fourth, Shakespeare provides his take on the matter. He argues that secrets cannot be kept in a trusting relationship. In
Act 2, scene 3, he first presents this view in the conversation between Lady Percy and Hotspur. The scene introduces opposing views on trust through the discussion of transparency in a romantic relationship. Shakespeare then further expands the trust motif throughout the play and allows it to determine the plot’s outcome.
Shakespeare utilizes Lady Percy’s determination to understand her husband to depict what testing trust looks like in a marriage. Lady Percy desires to know if her husband loves her; in her view, trust is equivalent to love. She believes that for there to be trust, there must be complete honesty. Shakespeare introduces Lady Percy’s worry for her husband after Hotspur’s frustrated soliloquy about the Lord of York’s letter. In her monologue, Lady Percy relays her concern for Hotspur’s symptoms and admits her objective, saying, “... I must know it, else he loves me not” (2.3.64). Thus, by inquiring about what troubles her husband and if he will be honest, she tests his love. Lady Percy tries several ways of appealing to him to discover whether he has enough confidence in her to release his burdens onto her. She initially attempts to extract information from him by kindly asking what upsets him, but to no avail (2.3.37-72). He is distracted and perhaps chooses not to hear. She asks him again, but he attempts to evade the topic by making a joke about his horse (2.3.73-75). Growing impatient, she teases him in response, calling him a “mad-headed ape” and comparing him to a weasel (2.3.76-79). Even with her good humor, she remains an understanding wife while still maintaining her determination to know what bothers him. She references what she believes to be the source of his disconcertion to empathize with him, but Hotspur cuts her off, telling her that her yammering will give him a headache (2.3.80-84). To that, she playfully calls him “paraquito”, essentially calling him a hypocrite, as he never stops talking (2.3.850). Finally, the lady threatens to hurt him if he refuses to confess (2.3.86-88). Shakespeare depicts Lady Percy’s various methods of offering consolation to demonstrate how she views commitment to transparency as an act of love.
To Lady Percy’s disappointment, she learns that he does not trust her enough to admit what worries him. Much to the lady’s dismay in the pivotal moment of the scene, Hotspur rashly replies to her:
Away, you trifler! Love, I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world
To play with mammets and to tilt with lips. We must have bloody noses and crack’d crowns,
And pass them current too. God’s me, my horse!
What say’st thou Kate? What wouldst thou have with me? (2.3.90-95).
He says that he does not love her and is too busy to deal with her when a war is commencing. Hotspur is distracted by thoughts of the upcoming war and desperate to be left alone. However, his good humor is ever-present. He still uses her pet name (Kate) and playfully asks for her opinion on his response (2.3.94). He means it to be a playful speech, but seemingly the delivery is poorly executed. He fails to recognize her genuine concern for him because of her recent teasing. Pained by his words, Lady Percy worriedly questions him three times about the truth and sincerity of his admission (2.3.96-99). Her reaction to his verbal statements combined with his dishonest behavior displays the solidity of Lady Percy’s association between love and trust. Based on her definition of love, she must conclude that his dishonesty proves that he does not love her.
By watching Lady Percy’s adverse reaction to his retort, Hotspur realizes that her definition of love differs from his and proceeds to explain his views to her. Hotspur believes that secrets can exist in a trusting relationship. To that end, Hotspur thinks he can love and trust her, even if he cannot tell her everything; in fact, he asks her to trust him differently. Attempting to pacify her, he apologetically admits his conditional love, “… I will swear / I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate, / I must not have you henceforth question me” (2.3.101-103). Disclosing that he trusts her but only “so far…” (2.3.112), Hotspur asks his wife to trust his word that she should remain uninformed about his issues. Resembling a gangster, Hotspur says he cannot have her questioning him about his affairs, as he must do and go where he must (2.3.103-106). He compliments her by calling her gentle, wise, and loyal, and “…for secrecy, / no lady closer…” (2.3.110). But he believes that women will always be tempted to reveal what she must not, and therefore thinks she should remain in the dark on the subject, as she cannot tell what she does not know (2.3.111). Given his view of women, her possession of traitorous knowledge could jeopardize the entire operation.
Hotspur’s statements clarify that he views trust as a quality of love and not as its equivalent; because of this, he must argue that he loves her without confiding in her with secrets.
He believes that marriage attaches partners to each other, forming a special kind of unity, and where one partner goes, the other will go too (2.3.115-116). When Lady Percy asks her husband one final time to trust her enough to say what is on his mind, he replies that he cannot (2.3.113114). But he reminds her that they are together in his mess and that she will join him the next day
(2.3.115-116). He asks if this will content her, to which she replies that “it must of force”
(2.3.117). Implying that it does not satisfy her, but she has given up and will settle for it. Lady Percy does not buy into Hotspur’s general theory about love and trust, so her conflicted thoughts remain unresolved in this scene.
Regardless, it seems that Shakespeare does not believe Hotspur’s theory; he takes Lady Percy’s side of the argument by presenting opposition to Hotspur’s beliefs through various characters aside from Lady Percy. Shakespeare argues that to have a trusting relationship, there must be transparency. In the greater context of the play, the King and Prince Hal doubt that the traitors would accept the peace deal; the pair admits that they would eventually have to turn on the rebellious forces (5.1.115-118). Per their prediction, Worcester pursues the rebellion because he does not trust that the King would ever forgive the treasonous behavior. Worcester makes this clear to Vernon when he says:
It is not possible, it cannot be,
The King should keep his word in loving us.
He will suspect us still, and find a time
To punish this offense in other faults. (5.2.4-8).
Worcester concludes his argument with comparisons to foxes that can never be trusted by humans and oxen that can never trust humans (5.2.9-15). Worcester thinks that once a secret is revealed in a relationship, it causes irreparable damage to a person’s trust. He believes that if grudges or secrets persist, it is impossible to know where one stands in a relationship or whether one confides in another. He insists to Vernon that Hotspur must remain ignorant of the peace deal because he may be tempted to accept the offered forgiveness, which would not benefit Vernon or Lord Northumberland (5.2.16-21). By arguing this point, Vernon reinforces the theory that Hotspur views trust differently from the other characters. Thus, because of Hotspur’s opposing belief that secrets can coexist with trust, perhaps if presented the deal, he might have accepted it, leading to an alternative conclusion for the play.
On the contrary, Shakespeare uses Worcester to verbalize his final verdict on trust: secrets and dishonesty are unsurpassable obstacles in a trusting relationship. On that account, Shakespeare clarifies his beliefs by determining the outcome of the play using Worcester’s theory. Finally, he affirms his perspective on trust by concluding the play with the death of Hotspur and his philosophies. Whether or not the Bard is correct in his conclusion that trust depends on transparency is debatable, and audiences are left to decide whether to accept and apply Shakespeare’s conclusion or to believe Hotspur’s counterargument and allow secrets to
fester under the surface.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. The First Part of Henry the Fourth. The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by G. Blakemore Evans, Houghton Mifflin, 1974, pp. 847–881.