Note the grammatical difference between history and plays (or other literary texts): in history things tend to happen once and for all, hence we speak of them in the past tense; in plays, things are happening every time you open the text or watch a performance, hence present tense. Thus, the historical Hotspur was old enough to be Hal's father, but the two characters, Hotspur and Hal, meet on the battlefield in Act 5.
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