The film opens with Sir John Falstaff and Justice Shallow walking through the snow, then to a warm fire inside the Boar's Head Tavern, as the two reminisce. After a main credit sequence, the narrator explains that King Henry IV of England has succeeded Richard II of England, whom he has killed. Richard II's true heir, Edmund Mortimer, son of the 3rd Earl, is a prisoner in Wales, and Mortimer's cousins Northumberland, Worcester, and Northumberland's son Hotspur demand that Henry rescue Mortimer. The king refuses, and thus Mortimer's cousins begin to plot Henry's overthrow.