Successive Princes of Wales have taken the transition of Prince Hal to the national icon King Henry V, dramatised in the Henry IV plays, as a way to excuse youthful excess and project future strong, sometimes military, leadership. In the process, they have attracted both Falstaffian acquaintances (politicians, showmen, social climbers) and a good deal of satire.

In the 1780s, George, Prince of Wales, dressed as The Winter’s Tale’s Florizel to mark his (brief) relationship with Mary Robinson, an actress whom he first encountered playing Florizel’s beloved Perdita. More ambiguously, the 'madness' of George III, since immortalised in Alan Bennett's play, drew inevitable comparisons with Shakespeare's King Lear.