ABSTRACT
The French Queen Consort does not appear until Act 5 in Shakespeare's playtext of Henry V, and then she speaks less than thirty lines. Like the Duke of Burgundy, she arrives in time to participate in the peace accords designed to end the bloodshed produced by King Henry's campaign for the French throne, the war between England and France that constitutes the play's central action. Both the Queen's belatedness and brevity have no doubt contributed to the relative dearth of attention accorded her ambiguous remarks and dramatic function. Even critical discussions that focus on the play's gendered anxieties regarding the Salic law (the bar to inheritance through the female line that blocks Henry's claim to the French throne), or on the role of Princess Katherine, or the feminized representation of France, either ignore Queen Isabel or mention a few of her words in passing. 1 Nor have twentieth-century directors often been kinder. Why include a character who arrives so late and says so little?
