The morality of the story and the pleasure of the performance are at odds. By the time he came to write 1 Henry IV, Shakespeare had already experienced a similar impasse in Richard III. Because the end of Richard’s story can’t really be the jubilant accession to the throne he has so long plotted to possess. No: in Richard III Shakespeare’s pragmatic end goal is actually the defeat of Richard by Henry, Earl of Richmond, better known to history as Henry VII and more familiar to his own audiences as the grandfather of the Tudor dynasty and of Queen Elizabeth I.
