And he said that Falstaff,
instead of fighting, had run as fast as his legs could carry him.
There was real goodness as well as merriment in Prince Hal. And
so the people found; for when he became king on the death of his
father he told his wild companions that the days of his wildness
were over; and he advised them to lead better lives in future.
As Henry V, Prince Hal made himself famous in English history by
his war with France.
Normandy, you remember, had belonged to Henry's ancestor, William
the Conqueror. It had been taken from King John of England by the
French king, Philip Augustus, in 1203.
Soon after his coronation Henry sent a demand to the French king
that Normandy should be restored, and he made the claim which his
great-grandfather, Edward III, had made that he was by right the
king of France.
Of course, the king of France would not acknowledge this. Henry
therefore raised an army of thirty thousand men and invaded France.
Before he began to attack the French he gave strict orders to his
men that they were to harm no one who was not a soldier and to
take nothing from the houses or farms of any persons who were not
fighting.
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