William Shakespeare's historical play, Henry IV, is a story about playing the role of a king. It asks us: How can we know and stay true to ourselves when we are constantly expected to maintain our character and respect the roles other people have placed us in? Prince Hal is a character who must pay the debt of a performance he “never promised” (1.2.187). However, Prince Hal is not the only one with a role to play. King Henry, Richard II's usurper to the throne, is continually seeking ways in which he can prove to his people that he is worthy of his crown, while Hotspur, the rival of the Plantagenet dominion, seeks ways to muster forces to overthrow him. King Henry, Prince Hal, and Hotspur are all contenders for kingship playing at Eastcheap, he says, "Yet here I will imitate the sun" (1.2.175), and that the common people will be the "contagious clouds" that protect him until he will be ready to assume his responsibilities (1.2.176). Unlike Henry, who hid completely, Hal hides behind his apparent lack of grace and nobility to surprise people and gain their trust when he eventually reveals that he has these qualities within him. Furthermore, the lessons he learns in Eastcheap are invaluable to a king. Because he is able to change his colors for the people he meets in taverns, he becomes familiar with the lower classes who will be the foundation of his kingdom and the soldiers in his wars. He says, confident in his success in taking on different roles, recognizing the importance of language in assimilation, "...I can drink with any tinkerer in his own tongue in my life" (2.5.16-17). Furthermore, it is in the taverns that he engages in his drunken games with Falstaff, practicing future roles and demonstrating his understanding of the people he will continually deal with as ruler, such as Hotspur. Hal tells the king, "Doubtless I can purify / myself from many of which I am accused" (3.2.20-21), or that gaining a solid reputation is simply a matter of changing his clothes, and that "I d' now on, my thrice kind lord, I will be more myself” (3.2.93-94). However, this “self” is still dependent on other people, like Hotspur, who he thinks defeating in one-on-one combat. , will be able to exchange roles.