In the Elizabethan era, honor primarily represented a person's reputation and offered respect and admiration. Shakespeare undoubtedly chose to position the responder to represent his or her own perception of honor due to its prevalence in his political landscape and its impact on everyday life. The concept of honor is first established in the guilt-ridden King Henry IV, who wears a figurative bloody crown following the deposition of his cousin, Richard II. King Henry IV kicks off the show with an attempt to clear his conscience while maintaining the illusion that he has cleared it for his subordinates. He says to the Lord of Lancaster and the Earl of Westmoreland: "To pursue these heathens into those holy fields / over whose acres walked those blessed feet / which fourteen centuries ago were nailed / for our benefit upon the bitter cross." in Act 1, Scene 1. There are two red herrings that Shakespeare throws to produce the illusion of a stable conscience and an honorable heart for his subjects and these are the use of blank verse to indicate nobility and therefore power, and the use of pluralistic language found in “our advantage.” The King shuns the singular ego so as not to draw attention to the plague that devastates his conscience, and Shakespeare in this way highlights the gratuitousness of an act like a Saint