Please read Act I, sc. 3, of 1 Henry IV. Politics.
Pronunciation guide: 'Worcester' = WOOS-ter (just as, when you visit England, 'Leicester' = LES-ter). There's also 'Blount' (as in, Sir Walter Blount) = BLUNT. Don't ask me why! I'm innocent! I just try to report what they say.
Family connections within the Percy Family, a powerful feudal clan in the north of England:
The head of the war-like clan -- albeit confusingly at first -- is Henry Percy, Lord of Northumberland, once a loyal ally to King Henry IV (Bolingbroke).
Northumberland's son is -- ahhh! Nooo! -- also Henry Percy; however, this hot-tempered & unruly young Percy is easier to remember thanks to his nickname: Hotspur.
Northumberland's son-in-law and Hotspur's brother-in-law (he's married to Hotspur's sister) is Mortimer. Mortimer is the Percy who campaigned unsuccessfully against the Welsh and is now a prisoner of the savage Welsh commander, Owen Glendower.
Once a trusted advisor to King Henry IV (Bolingbroke), but now a freelance advisor, ever more closely allied with the Percy family, is the ominous Wooster (*spelled 'Worcester'!!).
THE POINT? BRITISH KIDS KNOW ALL THIS STUFF AS THEY WALK THROUGH THE DOOR OF THE THEATER. Before the curtain goes up, they know these relationships in much the same way American audiences know the relationships when they see the musical "1776." Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. George Washington commanded the Revolutionary Army and served as the first U.S. President, with John Adams, of Massachusetts, as his V.P. James Madison was married to a woman named Dolly. Where an American audience would take these things for granted, a British audience might need a wee glossary for "1776"... much as American students do when they first encounter a Shakespearean history. Voila.
