If Henry were recall ’ d to life again , These news would cause him once more yield the ghost . ( Act 1 , Scene 1 )
Later , Joan of Arc , apparently England ’ s enemy , will also boast that the English ascendency comes to an end with Henry ’ s death :
Glory is like a circle in the water , Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought . With Henry ’ s death the English circle ends ; Dispersed are the glories it included . ( Act 1 , Scene 2 )
These two passages on Henry ’ s demise , one expressed from the perspective of friends and the other from that of foes , prepare the background against which the events in the Henry VI trilogy , especially Part 1 and Part 2 , unfold , as these two parts are mainly concerned with the decline of the old-school English values , majorly associated with King Henry V , that had presumably made England the paradise and the powerful nation that it used to be .
In Part 1 , these old-school values find their manifestation in the person of Talbot “ the noble warrior ” whose fall forebodes the fall of England into chaos . He is a brave and loyal subject of the king and a patriotic noble . As such , what he represents is the old chivalric attitude most apparent in the Order of the Garter , established by none other than King Edward III , the patron of chivalry and the admirer of King Arthur and the crusading knights , as well as in the person of the deceased King Henry V . Talbot himself , by giving a glorious account of the history of the
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