Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

The line closes a soliloquy in Act III, scene 1 of Henry IV, Part 2. It is past one in the morning, and the King, in his nightgown, cannot sleep. He thinks of the thousands of his poorest subjects asleep at that hour, and reproaches sleep for visiting “smoky cribs” and hard pallets rather than the “perfum’d chambers of the great”. Sleep even rocks a ship-boy on a high mast in a storm, yet denies itself to a king “With all appliances and means to boot”.

“Then, happy low, lie down!” he tells the humble: let them sleep, since he cannot. The line follows. When the Earls of Warwick and Surrey enter, he speaks of the “rank diseases” of his kingdom: rebellion is spreading, and Henry, who took the crown from Richard II, is failing in health.

Shakespeare wrote the play in the late 1590s; it was printed in 1600. The line is often misquoted as “Heavy is the head that wears the crown”, and applied to anyone who bears great responsibility.

Henry IV, Part 2, Act III, scene 1 (King Henry), 1600

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