Taking its lead from a famous scene in 2 Henry IV and drawing upon the latest historical scholarship, this chapter surveys the modernization of England’s military capacity during the reign of Elizabeth I. By contrast with the success of England’s naval revival, the parallel effort to overhaul the antiquated county militia system and to create armies for service abroad achieved only partial success. While bows and bills were gradually replaced by guns and pikes and a proportion of each county’s militia was formed into “trained bands,” the sheer scale of the effort meant that the modernization of England’s military capacity on land always remained a frustratingly incomplete endeavor. Even so, Elizabeth’s privy council and the lord lieutenants of the counties made greater progress in this effort than has typically been recognized and managed to sustain war on multiple fronts over a period of more than twenty years.

This chapter focuses on just war theory as an approach to Shakespeare and war. It gives an overview of different theories of war and illustrates their significance in the Elizabethan historical context. This includes a discussion of the most important readings of Shakespeare as a realist or a pacifist and a subsequent analysis of Shakespeare’s use of just war theory. Drawing on a variety of examples, this chapter exemplifies what is considered a just cause, a right intention, or a legitimate authority in Shakespeare’s plays; the analysis shows who is presented as culpable or responsible and under which circumstances the relation between the cause and cost of a war must be considered out of balance. The author traces this line of argument along illustrative readings of 3 Henry VI, 2 Henry IV, Henry V, and Troilus and Cressida and suggests that just war theory may offer another perspective on Shakespeare and war.