Northumberland's abandonment of his son, Hotspur, at a crucial moment in the play suggests that parents cannot always be trusted to care for and protect their children. In Henry IV Part 1, the tumultuous relationship between King Henry and Prince Hal dramatizes, on a small, intimate scale, the civil rebellion that threatens to destroy England. The word honor occurs frequently in Part 1, and its presence has raised some. There aren't any literal mothers in the play (what's up with that?), but Henry IV Part 1 does compare English soil to a cannibal mother in Act 1, Scene 1. INTRODUCTION PLOT SUMMARY CHARACTERS THEMES.A sequel, Henry IV Part II, continues the story begun in the first part. Although the play is based on the facts of history, it presents fictional characters, such as the wine-swilling Sir John Falstaff and his plebeian friends. The battle was between the King and his army, and the rebels led by Hotspur. Henry IV Part I is a history play with episodes of both comedy and tragedy. How would you characterize the relationship between Lady Percy and Hotspur? Is Hotspur cruel? Teasingly affectionate? How would you stage their intimate moments? How do these moments compare to scenes that portray the Mortimers? Lastly, the battlefield was the concluding setting in the play.Aside from Prince Hal's tumultuous relationship with King Henry, what other father-son relationships are examined in the play?.Why does King Henry say he wishes Hotspur were his son? Why focus so much attention on a family relationship in a political play about rebellion and power? Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part c.As it contrasts the relationships between the Percys and the Mortimers, it explores Elizabethan notions of gender and sexuality. Male relationships dominate the play, but Henry IV Part 1 also takes a look at husbands and wives. Yet, the play also reminds us that civil war and the struggle for the crown is a family affair. On the one hand, the meditation on family relations offers a way for the play to humanize the historical figures Shakespeare makes into characters of political intrigue. Shakespeare is particularly concerned with father-son relationships between Hal and King Henry, Hal and his surrogate father-figure, (Falstaff), and Northumberland and Hotspur. Family relations are at the heart of Henry IV Part 1.