In the middle of The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, during the long nocturnal tavern scene, Shakespeare abruptly alters the elegiac mood by introducing a new character – Pistol. Significantly, his entrance is announced in advance: as soon as his name is mentioned Doll Tearsheet denounces him as 'a swaggering rascal' and 'the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England'. Her complaint instantly identifies his essential attribute, for like so many secondary characters in the second tetralogy, Pistol speaks a distinctive language.

‘Stuff’ indeed. Attempting to pass himself off as a valiant warrior, the coward has filched the rhetoric of a hero, and we need look no further for the source of his grandiloquent speech than the Elizabethan playhouse.