Henry V, which dates from 1599, is the last in Shakespeare's seriesof plays based on English history. It is also, of course, the sequel to the two Henry IV plays which had proved so successful with Elizabethan audiences and which, like Henry V itself, remain immensely popular today. Shakespeare was to move on to Julius Caesar – a kind of history play, to be sure, but safely remote from the difficult topical questions about royal succession and the justification of war which had to be handled carefully in a national (or nationalistic?) play like Henry V.