# Henry IV, Part II: every role by lines, words, and stage time

> William Shakespeare. 48 speaking roles, 25,392 words, about 181 minutes of speech.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/henry-iv-part-ii
- Last updated: 2026-10-08

**Falstaff** has the most to say in Henry IV, Part II: about 632 lines and 5,475 words, 21.6% of the play. Henry IV, Part II follows the old king’s final illness while Falstaff recruits soldiers in the country and waits for Hal to take the throne. Falstaff is again the largest part, with more than a fifth of the words. Hal appears as the Prince in only 3 of 20 sections, while Shallow, the Hostess, and the Chief-Justice each have about 5 to 6%.

- Speaking roles: 48
- Scenes: 20
- Words: 25,392
- Speech time: 181 min

## Every role, largest first

| Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Falstaff | 632 | 5,475 | 21.6% | 39.1 | 8 |
| King | 392 | 3,063 | 12.1% | 21.9 | 5 |
| Prince | 194 | 1,555 | 6.1% | 11.1 | 3 |
| Shallow | 189 | 1,527 | 6% | 10.9 | 4 |
| Hostess | 166 | 1,412 | 5.6% | 10.1 | 3 |
| Chief-Justice | 147 | 1,136 | 4.5% | 8.1 | 4 |
| Archbishop | 149 | 1,094 | 4.3% | 7.8 | 3 |
| Westmoreland | 110 | 853 | 3.4% | 6.1 | 4 |
| Northumberland | 106 | 818 | 3.2% | 5.8 | 2 |
| Lancaster | 107 | 806 | 3.2% | 5.8 | 5 |
| Lord Bardolph | 86 | 647 | 2.5% | 4.6 | 2 |
| Doll | 77 | 634 | 2.5% | 4.5 | 2 |
| Morton | 78 | 625 | 2.5% | 4.5 | 1 |
| Warwick | 77 | 571 | 2.2% | 4.1 | 4 |
| Pistol | 78 | 551 | 2.2% | 3.9 | 3 |
| Poins | 66 | 541 | 2.1% | 3.9 | 2 |
| Mowbray | 56 | 434 | 1.7% | 3.1 | 3 |
| Hastings | 57 | 417 | 1.6% | 3.0 | 3 |
| Lady Percy | 46 | 372 | 1.5% | 2.7 | 1 |
| Bardolph | 51 | 345 | 1.4% | 2.5 | 6 |
| Rumour | 40 | 297 | 1.2% | 2.1 | 1 |
| Davy | 34 | 275 | 1.1% | 2.0 | 2 |
| Silence | 40 | 255 | 1% | 1.8 | 2 |
| Page | 27 | 203 | 0.8% | 1.5 | 3 |
| Clarence | 21 | 160 | 0.6% | 1.1 | 3 |
| Travers | 16 | 120 | 0.5% | 0.9 | 1 |
| Bullcalf | 14 | 113 | 0.4% | 0.8 | 1 |
| Gloucester | 15 | 112 | 0.4% | 0.8 | 3 |
| Second Drawer | 11 | 95 | 0.4% | 0.7 | 1 |
| Mouldy | 12 | 94 | 0.4% | 0.7 | 1 |
| Feeble | 13 | 93 | 0.4% | 0.7 | 1 |
| Servant | 12 | 84 | 0.3% | 0.6 | 1 |
| First Drawer | 9 | 75 | 0.3% | 0.5 | 1 |
| First Beadle | 9 | 72 | 0.3% | 0.5 | 1 |
| Colevile | 9 | 64 | 0.3% | 0.5 | 1 |
| Harcourt | 8 | 64 | 0.3% | 0.5 | 1 |
| Gower | 8 | 56 | 0.2% | 0.4 | 1 |
| Fang | 10 | 53 | 0.2% | 0.4 | 1 |
| Peto | 6 | 45 | 0.2% | 0.3 | 1 |
| Lady Northumberland | 5 | 38 | 0.1% | 0.3 | 1 |
| Shadow | 5 | 34 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 |
| Messenger | 4 | 33 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 |
| Porter | 4 | 28 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 |
| First Groom | 3 | 16 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Snare | 3 | 15 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Princes | 1 | 7 | 0% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Second Groom | 1 | 5 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |
| Wart | 2 | 4 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |

## Who speaks in which scene

Words each role speaks in each scene (scene: words). Scenes: Ind = Induction; 1.1 = Act 1, Scene 1; 1.2 = Act 1, Scene 2; 1.3 = Act 1, Scene 3; 2.1 = Act 2, Scene 1; 2.2 = Act 2, Scene 2; 2.3 = Act 2, Scene 3; 2.4 = Act 2, Scene 4; 3.1 = Act 3, Scene 1; 3.2 = Act 3, Scene 2; 4.1 = Act 4, Scene 1; 4.2 = Act 4, Scene 2; 4.3 = Act 4, Scene 3; 4.4 = Act 4, Scene 4; 4.5 = Act 4, Scene 5; 5.1 = Act 5, Scene 1; 5.2 = Act 5, Scene 2; 5.3 = Act 5, Scene 3; 5.4 = Act 5, Scene 4; 5.5 = Act 5, Scene 5.

- **Falstaff**: 1.2 (1,569), 2.1 (394), 2.4 (831), 3.2 (1,035), 4.3 (885), 5.1 (255), 5.3 (234), 5.5 (272)
- **King**: 3.1 (609), 4.4 (586), 4.5 (1,085), 5.2 (559), 5.5 (224)
- **Prince**: 2.2 (670), 2.4 (253), 4.5 (632)
- **Shallow**: 3.2 (979), 5.1 (229), 5.3 (242), 5.5 (77)
- **Hostess**: 2.1 (702), 2.4 (636), 5.4 (74)
- **Chief-Justice**: 1.2 (416), 2.1 (288), 5.2 (389), 5.5 (43)
- **Archbishop**: 1.3 (252), 4.1 (660), 4.2 (182)
- **Westmoreland**: 4.1 (633), 4.2 (129), 4.3 (6), 4.4 (85)
- **Northumberland**: 1.1 (676), 2.3 (142)
- **Lancaster**: 4.2 (507), 4.3 (162), 4.5 (8), 5.2 (46), 5.5 (83)
- **Lord Bardolph**: 1.1 (300), 1.3 (347)
- **Doll**: 2.4 (546), 5.4 (88)
- **Morton**: 1.1 (625)
- **Warwick**: 3.1 (220), 4.4 (136), 4.5 (118), 5.2 (97)

## The longest speeches

| Speech | Scene | Words | Lines |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Falstaff: “I would you had but the wit: ’twere better than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh; but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then when they marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme: it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.” | Act 4, Scene 3 | 373 | 38 |
| King: “Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:” | Act 4, Scene 5 | 371 | 46 |
| King: “You are right, justice, and you weigh this well;” | Act 5, Scene 2 | 356 | 44 |
| King: “O my son,” | Act 4, Scene 5 | 347 | 43 |
| Falstaff: “Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk’s tribute. I do remember him at Clement’s Inn like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a’ was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: a’ was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a’ was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a’ came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the over-scutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I’ll be sworn a’ ne’er saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal’s men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I’ll be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I will make him a philosopher’s two stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.” | Act 3, Scene 2 | 340 | 34 |
| Prince: “O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,” | Act 4, Scene 5 | 319 | 39 |
| Rumour: “Open your ears; for which of you will stop” | Induction | 297 | 40 |
| Lady Percy: “O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars!” | Act 2, Scene 3 | 295 | 37 |
| Archbishop: “Wherefore do I this? so the question stands.” | Act 4, Scene 1 | 273 | 35 |
| Falstaff: “Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel—the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, ’tis not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?” | Act 1, Scene 2 | 270 | 27 |

## Small roles that can be doubled

These pairs of small roles never speak in the same scene, so one actor could play both. Check entrances and silent appearances in your script before you cast it this way.

- Chief-Justice and Archbishop
- Chief-Justice and Westmoreland
- Chief-Justice and Northumberland
- Chief-Justice and Lord Bardolph
- Chief-Justice and Doll
- Chief-Justice and Morton
- Chief-Justice and Poins
- Chief-Justice and Mowbray
- Chief-Justice and Hastings
- Chief-Justice and Lady Percy
- Chief-Justice and Bardolph
- Chief-Justice and Rumour

## Questions actors ask

### Who has the most lines in Henry IV, Part II?

Falstaff, with about 632 lines and 5,475 words, 21.6% of everything spoken in the play. King is next, with about 392 lines (12.1%).

### How long is Henry IV, Part II?

The full text has 25,392 spoken words, about 181 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

### How many speaking roles are in Henry IV, Part II?

48 named roles speak in this edition, across 20 scenes. 32 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.

## How we count

Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-shakespeare/henry-iv-part-ii) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).