In vain have we searched for Henry V’s penny in his play but, by Shakespeare’s day, a penny was literally small change and might not have bought Sir John Falstaff a pint of sack from Mistress Quickly.  Pennies in Mediaeval times were one ‘pennyweight’ but by Elizabethan times their weight had decreased considerably.  In Shakespeare’s day a penny paid for standing room in the courtyard of the Globe theatre and was the price of a loaf of bread. In Henry V’s reign it might have paid for 5 loaves or 2 dozen eggs.