Prince Hal

Henry Plantagenet
Henriad character
Ronald Gower's sculpture in Stratford-upon-Avon depicting Prince Hal trying on the crown
First appearance	Henry IV, Part 1
Last appearance	Henry IV, Part 2
Created by	William Shakespeare
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	heir to the throne of England
Religion	Christian
Nationality	English

Prince Hal is the standard term used in literary criticism to refer to Shakespeare's portrayal of the young Henry V of England as a prince before his accession to the throne, taken from the diminutive form of his name used in the plays almost exclusively by Falstaff. Henry is called "Prince Hal" in critical commentary on his character in Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2.

Hal is portrayed as a wayward youth who enjoys the society of petty criminals and wastrels, a depiction which draws on exaggerations of the historical prince Henry's supposed youthful behaviour. The question of whether Hal's character is cynical or sincere has been widely discussed by critics.

In the two plays, the diminutive "Hal" is only ever used of the prince, not of any of the other characters named "Henry". It is only one of the several versions of "Henry" used. In fact the prince is variously referred to in the plays as "Hal", "Harry" and "Harry Monmouth", but never as "Henry". Only Falstaff and Poins ever call the prince "Hal", and Poins does so only twice. In the two plays, Falstaff does so forty times, even hailing him as "King Hal" at his coronation.

In Part 1, the name "Harry" is most commonly used to refer to Harry Hotspur, who is set up as the dramatic foil of the prince. The prince himself is typically called "Harry" when the two are being contrasted. In Part 2, it isn't most commonly used when he is being compared to his father, notably at the end by Henry V himself when he refers to the Turkish tradition of killing a newly installed king's brothers, saying that his own brothers should not worry, as "not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,/But Harry Harry". In Henry V he is never called Hal, only Harry. The official royal name "Henry" is only used once, in the epilogue, in reference to his son "Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King / Of France and England".

There has been longstanding debate about the character of Hal in the two Henry IV plays, particularly concerning the extent to which Hal's riotous and rebellious behaviour is authentic and to what extent it is wholly calculated. The portrayal of Hal as a son in conflict with his father derives from stories that circulated in English popular culture before Shakespeare. These had previously been portrayed in the anonymous play The Famous Victories of Henry V, in which Hal's criminal and riotous behaviour is depicted as entirely unfeigned. In Shakespeare's plays Hal has soliloques in which he says that he is self-consciously adopting a wayward lifestyle in order to surprise and impress people by his later apparent character transformation: