Poins

Edward Poins
Henriad character
Poins and Hal, illustration by Fred Barnard
First appearance	Henry IV, Part 1
Last appearance	Henry IV, Part 2
Created by	William Shakespeare
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	royal hanger-on
Religion	Christian
Nationality	English

Edward "Ned" Poins, generally referred to as "Poins", is a fictional character who appears in two plays by Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2. He is also mentioned in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Poins is Prince Hal's closest friend during his wild youth. He devises various schemes to ridicule Falstaff, his rival for Hal's affections.

Unlike Hal's other principal low-life associates, who all either reappear or are mentioned in Henry V, Poins disappears from the narrative with no explanation.

Poins appears early in Henry IV, Part I to inform Falstaff that at Gads Hill there will be unprotected "pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses". He suggests that they organise a robbery. When Falstaff and the others agree, Poins says to Hal that the pair of them should play trick on Falstaff by letting them rob the travellers, but then robbing the robbers of their haul. The point of the jest will be to hear the "incomprensible [i.e. enormous] lies" Falstaff will tell to excuse himself. Poins and Hal disguise themselves. When they surprise Falstaff, he and his followers instantly run away.

Poins is with Hal when Hal plays a joke on Francis, a drawer (waiter) at the Boar's Head. He also listens to Falstaff's increasingly ridiculous lies.

In Part 2 Poins discusses the illness of Hal's father the king, expecting Hal to be pleased at the prospect of his father's death. Hal gets a letter from Falstaff, in which Falstaff tells him not to trust Poins because he has been telling people that Hal will be marrying Poins' sister Nell. Poins denies it. Bardolph and a boy arrive with news that Falstaff is metting Doll Tearsheet at the tavern. Poins suggests that they disguise themselves again, this time as waiters, to overhear the conversation. At the tavern, Doll asks why Hal likes Poins, Falstaff says that they are both similar in size and shape, and equally empty headed: "His wit’s as thick as Tewkesbury mustard. There’s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet [i.e. he's got no more brains than a hammer]."

Poins' principal role is to act as Hal's confidant. In Part 2 especially he is little more than a sounding board for Hal's views. In Part 1 he is presented as the more assertive of the two, being the "mastermind" of both the Gads Hill robbery and its comeuppance. In this respect Poins is an ambiguous figure, who is both part of the criminal underworld and also of the superior social world that looks down on it and undermines it. He is "of uncertain social standing", but his comment that his only problem is that he is a "second brother" implies that he is "a gentleman with no inheritance, his gentility making him an appropriate companion for Hal". He represents wayward tendencies within the upper class, closely linked to Hal's own behaviour.