Duke of Bourbon

The Duke of Bourbon is a French nobleman whose brief speeches give the French response to King Henry V’s invasion a volatile, public voice. He appears among the leaders confronting the English advance and, at the battlefield’s crisis, turns disgrace into an appeal for renewed combat; the play gives him no confirmed fate beyond that resolve.

Identity and Dramatic Presence

The Duke of Bourbon enters with the King of France, the Dauphin, the Constable of France, and other French courtiers. Later, he appears on another part of the field alongside the Constable of France, the Duke of Orleans, the Dauphin, and Lord Rambures. These placements associate him with the French leadership both as it receives news of the campaign and as it faces the battle’s immediate consequences. The play supplies no personal history or independent political program for him; his characterization rests chiefly on these moments of collective crisis and on the force of his reactions.

Response to the English Advance

After the King of France states that the English army has crossed the river Somme, Bourbon breaks into the repeated denunciation, “Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!” The exclamation conveys anger and agitation, but the brief passage does not clarify its precise target or develop it into a sustained military argument. Its repetition makes the speech less a measured assessment than an outburst, setting Bourbon’s heated manner against the strategic news that prompts the French court’s alarm.

Shame and Renewed Combat

On the battlefield, the Duke of Orleans asks whether this is the king to whom the French had sent a ransom demand. Bourbon answers, “Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!” and immediately urges the company to “die in honour” and go back into the fight. His response shifts the scene from recognition of the reversal to a demand for action: shame is not treated as something to explain away, but as a spur to recover honour through combat. Although he invokes death as a possibility, the play does not confirm that he dies; his last recorded action is the call to return to the fighting.