Chapter XII: Book THE FOURTH: , 1410--1413 (5)

It is needless to say that Sir John had no wish to be excused, but that he had come intentionally to stop. He had long had Master Robert Shallow “tempering between his finger and thumb,” and had now come to “seal with him.” He had, years ago, seen to the bottom of Justice Shallow. He knew that ornament to the magistracy to be nothing better than a time-serving humbug, and he had come, as I think most justifiably, to take any possible advantage of him. It was a breach of hospitality, if you will; but remember we are treating of great men and their motives. My only regret is that I am compelled to exhibit my hero, towards the end of his career, engaged in the pursuit of “such small deer” as a pitiful country justice. When I compare John Falstaff, in his sixty-seventh year, on this particular evening, stretching his limbs under Master Shallow’s oak (as yet the mahogany tree was an unnaturalised exotic), picking the short legs of Master Shallow’s roasted hens, and washing down as much of Master Shallow’s garrulous mendacity as limitless draughts of Master Shallow’s sack and Bordeaux might enable him--all the while meditating through what particular chink in Master Shallow’s vanity he could best get at the same gentleman’s purse-strings;--when I compare this with another picture presented on the preceding evening, by another great man of imperfect notions of _meum_ and _teum_, frequently mentioned in these pages, younger in years, but centuries older in depravity than Sir John, and with both feet already in the grave--legs, body, and all rapidly sliding in after them--Henry Bolingbroke on his death-bed, in short--counselling his young son and successor--

“to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels: that action hence borne out
May waste the memory of the former days;”

(that is, the days of his early rascality, the fruits of which he would have his son preserve by the fomentation of fresh villanies)--when I compare the conduct of these two waning celebrities, the one within half a dozen hours of death, the other with good two years and a quarter of life in him, (alas! no more,) I am more forcibly than ever reminded of my reluctantly formed suspicion, that the character of Sir John Falstaff may have been really deficient in the heroic element after all, and am made to feel that he comes out, by comparison with the more wholesale practitioner, in a pitifully moral and respectable light.

I am getting so near the end of my poor old knight, (I call him mine, though I have but the sorriest stepfather’s claim to him, and doubtless deserve to have him removed from my charge for ill-treating him as I have done,) and am so closely in sight of the overthrow of his last hopes and energies, that I have scarcely the heart any longer to make light of his rogueries. I will try and explain how I feel with regard to Sir John Falstaff. Consider me a street urchin in a town where a very fat old gentleman has been in the habit of misconducting himself, and so publishing his irregularities in the public thoroughfares, as to have forfeited the respect of well-behaved citizens, and make himself the target for all kinds of pleasantry from the lowest and most thoughtless. I have had my jeer, and my pebble, and perhaps my rotten egg, at the poor old man, with the rest of the gamins, and rare fun we have considered it. But a day arrives when I see the old gentleman paler than usual. The red of his cheeks has become an unwholesome purple. He no longer walks jauntily, but totters. The stick, that he used to shake in merry defiance at his tatterdemalion critics, is now necessary to support his steps. There is a tear in his eye. He is suffering--failing--and I (being, perhaps, a sensitive, well-meaning ragamuffin) beat my breast, and am ashamed of my conduct. I feel inclined to go whimpering for pardon to him, and ask him to let me serve him in some menial but comforting capacity. But the stronger boys are not of my way of thinking. To them he is more ridiculous than ever in his weakness and decay. They pelt him the more, and laugh at him the louder. He falls. I run to try and help him. I look in his face, and wonder that I could ever have seen there anything to laugh at. It is to me all sadness and bitter suffering. I forget the stories I have heard against him. I am conscious of nothing but an old man, fallen in the mud, who cannot raise himself. I would do anything to express to him my contrition and sympathy. I feel an absurd inclination to offer him my tops and marbles--nay, my very slice of bread and butter itself. At least, I would treat him respectfully. But----the other boys jeer at me, and I am ashamed of my passing weakness; and, like a mean-spirited young sneak as I am, I turn round, and make game of the poor old gentleman more mercilessly than ever, with a strong sensation that I deserve to be flayed alive for doing so.

At any rate, I am glad that the spring of 1413 _was_ a genial one--seeing that Sir John had but two more springs of any kind between him and the grave; and was doomed to bask in but little more sunshine, either of the actual or of the figurative kind. It pleases me to dwell on such little pleasures and comforts I may find proof of his having enjoyed from this time forth. I am delighted to feel confident that the supper provided for him by the anxious care of Master Shallow was good and abundant. I take comfort in believing that William Cook had done his spiriting with zeal and ability: that the short-legged hens were roasted to a turn; that the joint of mutton was a small brown haunch, which had walked, when capable of pedestrian exercise, towards Gloucestershire, in a south-easterly direction--from the Welsh mountains in fact (a hope, not without foundation in presumptive evidence--seeing that Master Shallow had, at any rate, one kindly friend from that hospitable district--Hugh Evans, byname, a gentleman in holy orders, at this time established in the neighbouring county of Berkshire); that the pigeons were plump and tender victims, either served up on an altar of the crispest toast, or brought to the sacrifice in a sarcophagus of melting crust; and that the “pretty little tiny kickshaws” embraced every available delicacy of the early season.

At all events, it is certain that Sir John had had something he liked, and plenty of it. There is no record in his life that displays him in a more thorough state of serenity and genial goodfellowship with all mankind than the passages in the chronicle of Henry the Fourth *, referring to the evening in question. There we find Sir John “unbuttoning himself after supper,” lounging “upon benches after noon” in Master Shallow’s orchard, inhaling the soft breeze of the premature summer, listening to the carols of the birds immortalised (through the medium of these pages) by the poet Thomas Chaucer ** and partaking of a “last year’s pippin” of the worthy justice’s “own graffing,” with the addition of a “dish of carraways and so forth.” The “so forth” is not particularised in the chronicler’s page; but from the conduct of Master Shallow himself and of his kinsman, Silence, on the festive occasion, it would seem to have been a long time in bottle, and furnished forth with no niggard hand.

* Part II. Act v. Scene 3.

** Nicholas Chaucer, kinsman of the above, was at about this
time a distinguished member of the Grocers’ Company, in the
city of London. Assuming that he combined with his aromatic
calling the congenial one of butterman, the preservation of
Thomas Chaucer’s manuscript--doubtless submitted to his
relative’s approval in the regular way of business--is at
once accounted for.

Let us follow the scene, as described in the chronicle, for its termination sounds the key-note to the great crisis in the history of our hero’s declining fortunes.

Master Shallow had drunk too much sack at supper. He said so, though there was not the slightest necessity for the confession. Master Silence had similarly committed himself, but to such an extent as to make any confession on his part a matter of some difficulty. We hear of men being blind drunk, crying drunk, roaring drunk. Master Silence was singing drunk. He could only express himself in snatches of old songs, which he poured forth with a volubility which nothing could stop.

“Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,
And praise Heaven for the merry year
When food is cheap and females dear,
And lusty lads roam here and there.
So merrily.
And ever among so merrily!”

I confess to a warm affection for Master Silence. He was a stupid old gentleman, and doubtless more tiresome in his taciturnity than even his cousin Shallow in his garrulity. But what there was of Master Silence seems to have been good. Much as has been said against old proverbs and old wine, there yet remains some defence for both. I believe in the truth of the proverb which asserts that there is truth in wine. It is a dangerous and exhaustive kind of manure, I admit. In agricultural phraseology, it “rots the ground” terribly. But, as long as the ground lasts, it develops the latent germs within it marvellously. Master Silence was little, if any, more inebriated than his kinsman. But the same flask (or number of flasks) which had made Justice Shallow only a coarser or an infinitely more vulgar sycophant and timeserver than ever, paying court, not only to Sir John Falstaff, but even to Bardolph and little Robin the scapegrace page, for the sake of the knight’s imaginary court influence, merely set Master Silence thinking of the pleasant season, of the bounty of Providence, of the claims of kindliness and goodfellowship. Unable to speak for himself, he searched in the dark, cobwebby, unhinged cupboards of his feeble memory for the most tuneful and thankful expression of his feelings, in other men’s words, that would help him to

“Praise Heaven for the merry year.”

I would rather have had his dim chaotic sensations about the fine spring weather and the beauty of earthly existence than Master Shallow’s most ambitious dreams of “penny in purse,” to be obtained through a “friend at court.” I resemble Sir John Falstaff, at all events in this respect, that “I do see the bottom of Mr. Justice Shallow,” and there is nothing in the bed of the puddle but mud, and stones, and potsherds. But I do not pretend to penetrate to the mystery of what Master Silence felt as he sat there, intoxicated and reprehensible, in the arbour, breathing in Nature, and mumbling old songs,--any more than I would dare to analyse the feelings of my fat baby, who now sits opposite to me in his mother’s arms, eating a pocket-handkerchief, and staring at the fire.

At any rate--as I wish from henceforth to regard none but the best phases in my hero’s character--I am glad to know that Sir John Falstaff treated Master Silence in his melodious cups with tolerant kindness and even encouragement. He would have fleeced Master Shallow, I sincerely believe, of every farthing in that dignitary’s exchequer--and (as I am upon the candid tack) I confess that my high estimate of his character would not have been materially lowered had he effected that desirable end. But I do sincerely believe that Sir John Falstaff would not have taken advantage of Master Silence’s condition to borrow from him so much as a hundred bezants--unless, indeed, provoked to do so by great necessity or temptation.

“There’s a merry heart!” said Sir John Falstaff, whom we may picture to ourselves picking his teeth lazily, with his legs stretched on the arbour seat, his head resting on the back of his plump hand, the broad, purple disc of his countenance reflecting the rays of the March sun that, like himself, had risen gloriously, had shone now and then brilliantly, but was now going down early and rapidly, covered with clouds and blotches (having made its appearance on earth, you see, in what was, after all, an unfavourable season). “Good Master Silence, I’ll give you a health for that anon.”

The sunset was lost on Master Shallow. His appreciation of out-of-door beauties was bounded by “Marry, good air!” It gave him an appetite, and he was quits with Nature. He was bent on serving the guests whom he intended to make serve him.

“Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy,” said his worship.

In Sir John Falstaff’s own words, “it was a wonderful thing to see the semblable coherence of his (Shallow’s) men’s spirits and his.” As Shallow was to Falstaff so was Davy to Bardolph and Robin. Davy--who also meditated a London season, with introductions to the best society--busied himself with attending to the wants of those subaltern officers.

Master Silence again burst into song, unsolicited--

“‘Tis merry, ‘tis merry, my wife’s as all;
For women are shrews both short and tall,
‘Tis merry in hall when beards wag all
And welcome merry Shrovetide.
Be merry, be merry, &c.”

“I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this mettle,” murmured Sir John, who, I think, by this time was beginning to get drowsy.

“Who, I?” said the meek songster. “I have been merry twice and once ere now.”

The festivities continued, but with a somewhat languishing spirit. Master Shallow’s angular chin began to beat double knocks against his bony chest. He had the greatest difficulty in keeping one eye--the weather one, doubtless--open. Bardolph confined himself to the main business of his consistent life--good, steady drinking. Davy officiated as Ganymede. Robin was silently contemplative. There were spoons and tankards in the orchard, and nobody sober to watch them! Sir John spoke not, except to give a word of encouragement to Master Silence, whose vocal exertions he rather approved of, as calculated to save him the labour of conversation. It is not absolutely recorded, but circumstantial evidence makes it probable, that Sir John Falstaff, having drowsily pledged that inveterate songster in a bumper, fell instantly fast asleep, and was snoring in blissful ignorance of actual circumstances--only to dream of coronets that were never to be worn and coffers that were never to be filled--when he was roused from his nap by a terrific knocking at the outer gate.

Everybody was on the alert. Justice Shallow, in the midst of a dreamy platitude of welcome, breathed into the confidential recesses of his folded arms, started into wide-awakefulness with an echoing knock of chin against chest, which must have been highly detrimental to his remaining dental economy. Davy flew to the gate. Master Silence considered the startling occurrence an excuse for further melody. Bardolph drank. Robin, it may be presumed, took some advantage of the confusion; but as the Shallow spoons were not counted that evening, it is uncertain to what extent.

There was cause for disturbance. In those days an Englishman was obliged to make his house his castle. The meanest homestead--and Master Shallow’s was not one answering to that definition--had to be carefully guarded by moat and drawbridge. They kept early hours then. All the family were expected to be in-doors by sunset, for it was not safe to be out after dark. Any vassal, pig, or other retainer, stopping out after the gates were closed, might do so at his own peril. A late visitor--especially one making such formidable announcement of his arrival as that which disturbed Sir John Falstaff from his comfortable after-supper nap, and sent Master Shallow’s little dried walnut of a heart leaping into his mouth, like a parched pea from a shovel up the chimney--was not only a source of astonishment but of alarm. It might be a robber at the head of a forest-band come to levy what we should term an execution on the goods and chattels; or a travelling abbot on his way to some ecclesiastical conference, having brought the _élite_ of his monks and their appetites with them; or a proscribed nobleman and his suite, to harbour whom would be certain death in the course of a month, and to behave uncivilly to whom would be the same in the course of a minute and a half; or it might be the king who had been kicked off the throne, or the other king who had kicked him off in pursuit of him. In any case, the chances were ninety-nine and nine-tenths to a decimal fraction that the visitor would prove one who, at his departure, would leave the proprietor a sadder and a poorer man than he had been in the morning. The probability of a needy and harmless wight being found sufficiently mad or intoxicated to make a disturbance at a rich man’s door (more especially if the rich man happened to be in the commission of the peace), just as the family might be supposed to be retiring to rest, being of the remotest.

The speedy return of Davy to the orchard with the information that the demonstrative visitor was merely “one Pistol, come from the Court with news” for Sir John Falstaff must have had an immediately soothing and reassuring effect upon the assembly.

At the word “Court” Sir John Falstaff pricked up his ears instinctively. A momentary thrill ran through his system. Had they, at last, “sent for” him? Was he really wanted to guide, counsel, or amuse--at any rate, to be recognised and rewarded?

Pshaw! The very name of the messenger was a proof to the contrary. Pistol was, doubtless, in the neighbourhood; had heard of his patron’s whereabouts; and tracked him, as usual, in the hope of a flagon, a supper, and a piece of silver! Sir John was a philosopher, and was engaged in the digestion of his own supper. He would not allow that vital process to be prejudiced by the excitement of possibly fallacious hope. He fell back upon the garden seat, and ordered Pistol to be admitted.

Pistol strode into the orchard, looking daggers around him. Pistol was in the habit of looking daggers, as I might be in the habit of looking fifty pound notes. The process was by no means a proof that he had one about him to make use of when called upon. He said---- But you shall hear what he said, and what was said to, and about, him, in the dramatic chronicler’s own words, with such unwritten elucidations, or “stage directions,” as your humble servant may consider himself justified in venturing upon.

Sik John Falstaff (indifferently).--How now, Pistol?

Pistol (with gesticulations of extravagant homage’).--Sir John, God save you, sir.

Sir John Falstaff (suspiciously, buttoning his pockets).--What wind blew you hither Pistol?

Pistol.--Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet knight, th’art now one of the greatest men in the realm.

Master Silence (dimly reminded of a forgotten ballad, sings’)_“By’r lady, I think ho bo, but goodman Puff of Barson_.”

Pistol (at once discerning that Master Silence is a man who may be safely bullied).--Puff? Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!--Sir John, I am thy Pistol, and thy friend, and helter-skelter have I rode to thee; and tidings do I bring, and lucky joys, and golden times, and happy news of price.

Sir John Falstaff.--I pr’ythee now, deliver them like a man of this world.

Pistol.--A foutra for the world, and worldlings base! I speak of Africa, and golden joys.

Sir John Falstaff.--O base Assyrian knight! what is thy news? Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof.

Master Silence (sings seraphically).--“And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.”

Pistol.--Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons? And shall good news be baffled? Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies’ lap.

Master Shallow (rising, with magisterial assumption of sobriety).--Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.

Pistol.--Why then, lament therefore.

Master Shallow.--Give me pardon, sir:--if, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it, there is but two ways, either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority.

Pistol (drawing a rusty rapier) Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or die.

Master Shallow.--Under King Harry.

Pistol.--Harry the fourth? or fifth?

Master Shallow.--Harry the fourth.

Pistol.--A foutra for thine office!--Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king: Harry the fifth’s the man. I speak the truth: when Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like the bragging Spaniard.

Sir John Falstaff (leaping to his feet like a colt).--What! is the old king dead?

Pistol.--As nail in door: the things I speak are just.

Sir John “Falstaff (quivering with excitement).--Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse.--Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, ‘tis thine.--Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities.

Master Bardolph--O joyful day!--I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.

(He drinks and exits.)

Pistol (smiling sardonically).--What! I do bring good news?

Sir John Falstaff.--Carry Master Silence to bed.--Master Shallow, my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am fortune’s steward. Get on thy boots: we’ll ride all night__O sweet Pistol!--Away, Bardolph.--Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something to do thyself good.--Boot, boot, Master Shallow: I know, the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man’s horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends, and woe unto my lord chief justice!

Pistol:

Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
Where is the life that late I led say they;
Why, here it is! (snaps his fingers.)
Welcome those pleasant days.

Scene closes. ]

* It will be observed that Shakspeare almost invariably
makes Pistol speak in a kind of mongrel blank verse--
apparently in remote imitation of the masques, pageants, and
miracle plays then recently introduced into this country
from Italy--fashionable amusements, whereat the worthy
ancient (in his capacity of hanger-on of all dirty work to
the upper classes) doubtless frequently assisted, in a
supernumerary capacity. Sir John Falstaff answers him
playfully, from one of the earliest known specimens of this
kind of composition--See Payne Collier’s History of Dramatic
Poetry, and other works to be met with in the admirable and
compendious catalogue of the British Museum, which will
amply repay perusal.

The time long hoped for had then arrived. There was no more thought of drowsiness or dissipation for that night,--no more of debt or difficulty for the future. Henry of Monmouth--Sir John’s pet pupil, his “tender lambkin”--was king; and surely, if such feelings as gratitude and goodfellow-ship existed in the hearts of princes, no man had greater right to look forward to emoluments and dignities under the new _regime_ than Sir John Falstaff. He himself was incapable of forgetting old friends in his prosperity, and he could not suspect such baseness in others. We have heard him declare that he would double charge Pistol with dignities, that Master Shallow might choose what office he would in the land--it should be his! Bardolph, knowing his master’s disposition, would not take a knighthood for his fortune. Not one present was omitted from the circle of Sir John Falstaff’s comprehensive benevolence. Even to poor Master Silence he performed the only kindness which that vocalist was just then capable of benefiting by,--he ordered his inebriated worship to be carried up to bed!

Depend upon it, there was no time lost in booting and saddling for the townward journey. Be sure that the command to “take any man’s horses” was carried out to the letter, and backed by the legal warrant of Justice Shallow--(for were they not on His Majesty’s service? could the government of the realm possibly go on without the immediate presence in the capital of Sir John Falstaff?)

What a terrible distance was that which separated Sir John from London and the young king! How he wished for the power to annihilate time and space! Alas! he was born in a wrong age for locomotive purposes. Half-a-dozen centuries earlier, a knight-errant of his vast merit and renown, wishing for a rapid mode of transit, would but have had to summon his guardian fairy, and that obliging genius would have ordered her griffins to be put-to for his accommodation, with a lift in her enchanted car, immediately. In the present day, four hundred and forty years later, the thing would be scarcely more difficult. A post-chaise to the Tewkesbury station, and a special train thence to London, would settle the matter in three or four hours. But the task of conveying Sir John Falstaff, rapidly, over the vile roads of the fifteenth century, by mere horse-power, would be a difficulty which the mind of a Pickford alone could be qualified to grapple with.

And yet, incredible as it may seem, Sir John Falstaff actually contrived to reach the metropolis on the third day after his departure from Master Shallow’s residence. I am not prepared to say that no magic power was employed in effecting this apparently miraculous transit. On the contrary, the aid of a rather potent magician appears to have been successfully invoked for the occasion--one, at whose bidding, the roughest roads become level, the stoutest doors fly open, the veriest griffins, tigers, crocodiles, and Cerberi of gate-keepers become docile as lambs; an enchanter, at whose very aspect, or even name, horses saddle themselves, inn-tables spread themselves, corks fly out of self-pouring wine-bottles, pigs spit themselves, larks, pheasants, and wild duck stop in their mid-air course, and fall, ready-stuffed and roasted, on to eager travellers’ plate. Need I say that I allude to the evil, but fascinating necromancer, King Money?

Sir John Falstaff borrowed a thousand pounds of Master Robert Shallow!

I would have it printed in letters of gold, would the arrangements of the printing-office admit of such distinction, for I am proud to chronicle so meritorious an achievement, the glory of which is doubled by the moral certainty that Master Shallow never received a single farthing of the money back again. On one account only can I be brought to regret the transaction: I am sorry the amount was not two thousand.

IX. INAUGURATION OF THE NEW RÉGIME.--MALIGNITY OF THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE.

The news of Henry the Fourth’s decease was the occasion of a state of public excitement to which we should in vain look for a parallel in any dynastic or ministerial crisis of modern times. Rumour, with all her hundred tongues gabbling at once, flew hither and thither, announcing that the respectabilities were “out,” and the reprobates “in.” For a few brief hours Sir John Falstaff really ranked, in the popular estimation, as the most influential subject in the realm (and that distinction, however briefly enjoyed, is something for a man to look back to with satisfaction!) The knight’s “paper,” previously a drug in the money-market, was eagerly bought up by the Jews, calling themselves Lombards *, of the city. Traders, on the fair pages of whose ledgers the name of Sir John Falstaff had long stood as a blot and eyesore, ordered expensive dinners, and made rash presents to their wives and daughters. Others, who had issued writs for the apprehension of the knight’s person, called in those documents with breathless eagerness. Grave burgesses, lawyers, and even ecclesiastics, who had the day before commented severely on our hero’s irregularities, now boasted of his acquaintance, and quoted his witticisms. A spirited hatter in the ward of Chepe displayed, in front of his booth, a new falling hood-shape, labelled with the recommendation, “as worne by Sir John Falstatfe and ye Courte,” for copies of which he received an incredible number of orders. The “Old Boar’s Head” did such a morning’s stroke of business as had not been achieved within the memory of the oldest tippler. The principal wine-merchants of the Vintry obsequiously intimated to Mrs. Quickly that unlimited credit would be given to her at their respective establishments, and our worthy hostess’s landlord immediately doubled her rent.

* Precaution necessitated by the rigour of the existing
statute law, which excluded the Jewish people from residence
on English soil. Two unredeemed “obligacions,” in the
handwriting of Sir John Falstaff, for considerable sums
advanced,--one by Cosmo di Levi, the other by Ichi di
Solomoni,--are still in existence, to attest the observance
of this rule.--_Vide Strongate MSS._

The feeling of the Court may be summed up in one word--panic. The favourites of the late king thought of nothing less than packing up their portmanteaus, and making the best of their way to their several country seats. The opinion was universal that Sir John Falstaff would be raised to a rank, at all events, equivalent to what we call prime minister; and it was of course anticipated that our knight would select his companions in office from men of character and habits congenial to his own. It is needless to say that none such could be found amongst the lugubrious familiars of the late monarch. The princes of the blood themselves--the new king’s own brothers--were by no means free from the general apprehension. It seems rather odd that they should have believed in the possibility of gratitude existing in the bosom of one of their own blood; but it is nevertheless certain that they agreed to look on Sir John Falstaff in the light of “the coming man,” a prospect they regarded with considerable apprehension and alarm. For they were by no means jovial princes, these young fellows. “A man,” as Sir John himself had observed of one of them, “could not make them laugh.” The individual Prince here referred to was John of Lancaster, afterwards Duke of Bedford, whom we have already seen distinguish himself by treacherously butchering a band of generous foemen, who had trusted themselves unarmed to his honour--an achievement which he followed up later in life by a congenial experiment on the person of one Joan of Arc, at Rouen, in Normandy. A second was the renowned Duke Humphrey, whose social and hospitable qualities have grown into a proverb. These two will serve as examples of the entire stock. Such men could scarcely have felt much sympathy for, or hoped anything from the friendship of, Sir John Falstaff.

As for the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, he no sooner heard of the old king’s death than he proceeded to make what, in modern colloquial parlance, is termed “a bolt of it.” He had been hanging anxiously about the palace during the morning, and on the confirmation of his worst fears took precipitately to his heels. He was detected in that sagacious but undignified act by the Earl of Warwick *, who detained him in conversation.

* Immediately after the death of the king, Warwick stops
Gascoigne in a “room in the palace,” with the questions,
“How now my Lord Chief Justice? Whither away?” The
prevaricating responses of the learned justice betray his
nervous anxiety to be off.--_Vide_ Henry IV. Part II. Act v.
Scene 2.

Gascoigne made no concealment of his terrors; and indeed the noble earl gave him no encouragement whatever to their mitigation. They agreed--with the Princes John, Humphrey, and Thomas, who, accompanied by the Earl of Westmoreland and other nobles of the Court, soon after joined their conference--that the common prospects of the late king’s favourites and admirers were decidedly unfavourable. It was the opinion of the Earl of Warwick that many nobles who “_should_ hold their places” (meaning himself for one), would have to “strike sail to spirits of vile sort;” as a specimen whereof it is presumed he had the impudence to allude to the hero of these pages. The Chief Justice confessed himself prepared for the worst, admitting that the “condition of the time” could not look “more hideously” upon him than his imagination had pictured to him. It was admitted, on all hands, that his lordship’s only safe policy would be to adopt the unpalatable course of “speaking Sir John Falstaff fair.” This salutary piece of advice was first offered by the Duke of Clarence. And I am willing to stake my reputation as a historian upon the statement that the Lord Chief Justice _was perfectly prepared to act upon it_, had not things taken a wholly unexpected turn. For he was silent on the subject; and the case was evidently one of those wherein silence is consent.

But the new king made his appearance amongst the group (who were waiting in an antechamber like criminals to hear their sentence), and speedily changed the aspect of things. He threw off the mask at once. He had no. intention to alter anything. He had stepped into his father’s shoes, and meant to walk in his father’s footsteps. _Le roi est mort, vive le roi!_ If they had really been taken in by his having falsely represented himself as a jovial good sort of fellow, why, he could only feel flattered by the compliment to his powers of personation. In reality, he had succeeded to the tyrannical and conquering business of his unlamented father, which he intended to carry on with spirit, accepting all the premises, bad-will, and fixtures as he found them. The princes and earls were, of course, delighted, as feeling assured of a lengthened tenure of Court favour and office. But the Lord Chief Justice was still uneasy. He had once committed the present King of England to prison, and monarchs are not in the habit of forgetting personal affronts.

I have before hinted at a possibility that this event was a matter of private arrangement between the prince and the judge, for purposes of mutual popularity. But to take a liberty with a prince, even at his own request, is always a ticklish business. If you exceed the limit of your instructions, woe betide you! I do not say that such was the case; but it is barely probable that the cell to which the Prince of Wales was confined on the occasion in question, may have proved rather more damp, and less comfortable, than His Royal Highness had intended. At any rate, it is certain that Gascoigne on this, his first meeting with King Henry the Fifth (in the royal capacity), was in a state of great trepidation, and evidently apprehended nothing less than immediate disgrace and suspension from office. Recovering, however, a little courage and composure at the new King’s indications of a disposition to carry out his late father’s policy--I was about to say principles--he ventured upon a little special pleading in defence of his conduct in the matter of the world-famous police case, which he judiciously mixed up with a little covert flattery--delicately hinting that Henry the Fifth himself might some day have a disreputable son, to whose vagaries a severe administration of the Common Law might prove a wholesome corrective. Acting on the old north-country proverb that “the old woman would never have looked in the oven for her daughter if she hadn’t been there herself,” His Majesty King Henry the Fifth (a sagacious man at all times) saw the wisdom of this suggestion, and at once confirmed Chief Justice Gascoigne in the permanent enjoyment of his dignities and emoluments.

I grieve to write it--but the deed was done, and it shall be chronicled. The first employment made by the Chief Justice of his new lease of power was to indulge in a dastardly act of vengeance. With indecent haste he rushed from the palace, and issued warrants for the apprehension of Mistress Helen Quickly, licensed victualler, and of Mistress Dorothea Tearsheet, spinster, on a frivolous and untenable charge. For what reason? it will be asked. I can find no better one than that the former was the friend, and the latter the beloved kinswoman, of Sir John Falstaff. Do you suppose the justice had forgotten the setting down he had received at the hands of our hero, the substance of which (transferred from the pages of “Shakespeare”), will be found in the second chapter of the fourth book of this history? And with the petty vindictiveness we have seen him employ on more than one occasion, is it probable that he was at all the sort of man to behave in the hour of his own triumph with magnanimity towards a fallen foe? We will waive the question of Gascoigne being possibly indebted to Mrs. Quickly for early board and lodging, as being, if not irrelevant, at any rate superfluous. The case is quite black enough against him as it stands.

At any rate, it is certain that the two ladies in question were ignominiously arrested by the warrant of the Chief Justice *, and to complete their disgrace (and Sir John Falstaff’s) transferred from the custody of the constables to that of the town beadle.

* If not by his warrant, by whose? What less dignified
functionary would have presumed to put so large a
construction on the English laws of the period as that
manifested by the arrest in question? I would cheerfully
pause for a reply, were not the printer’s boy in such an
abominable hurry.

In proof that the arrest had been made under circumstances of extreme injustice and barbarity, it need only be urged that each of the fair captives was so violently provoked by her aggressors, as entirely to forget all her antecedents of good breeding and propriety, and to indulge in positively coarse and abusive language.

Mistress Tearsheet, for instance, was betrayed into the following decidedly unladylike outburst, addressed to a beadle in human form:--

“I’ll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you _blue-bottle rogue!_ you filthy, famished correctioner! if you be not swinged, I’ll forswear half kirtles.”

I have extracted this passage from the chronicle, not for the vulgar purpose of harrowing the reader’s feelings with the spectacle of lovely woman goaded by injustice and violence even to the pitch of unbecoming self-forgetfulness, but from motives purely archæological. The derisive term “bluebottle”--so frequently heard in the present day, applied to the guardians of the public peace by ladies and gentlemen in circumstances of trial similar to those of Mistress Tearsheet--is thereby proved to have had an origin at all events as early as the commencement of the fifteenth century,--a valuable antiquarian discovery, for which I trust some learned gentleman with capital letters after his name will be just enough to give me credit in the pages of some eminent scientific journal.

Ere the hour of noon had that day sounded Sir John Falstaff’s bills were again waste paper. His creditors, who had indulged in costly dinners, and given rash presents to their wives and daughters, countermanded their suppers, and withdrew their names from numerous charitable subscription lists. The writs were re-issued. The hatter in the Ward of Chepe altered his placard to “Ye Gascoigne Shape?,” and disposed of his invention more rapidly than before. By half-past three in the afternoon the sheriff’s officers were in possession of the “Old Boar’s Head” for a pitiful debt to a small ale brewer.

X. CORONATION OF HENRY THE FIFTH.

TRIUMPH OF THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE GASCOIGNE, AND DISGRACE OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.

The coronation of Henry the Fifth took place immediately on his assumption of the royal dignity. Authorities differ as to the exact date of this imposing ceremony. Fleming, in his Chronicle, fixes it as late as the 9th of April, in which he is supported by Stowe and a host of respectable authorities. Rapin comes nearer the probable truth in assigning it to the first of the same month--a date which leaves us not without slight suspicion of a seasonable pleasantry intended by the lively French historian at the expense of his readers. The general balance of probabilities, supported by important circumstantial evidence, brought to light in the search after materials for this history, points out the 22nd of March as the day on which Henry the Fifth practically succeeded to the crown of his father’s cousin. In those days a king was considered no king until he had worn the crown; and as it was never in the least degree clear, even to the most discerning intellect, to whom the crown really belonged, the important claim of possession was naturally the first thing thought of by the individual enjoying the nearest prospect of its appropriation. It is hardly probable that a sagacious prince like Henry of Monmouth should have postponed the vital ceremony a single day longer than was absolutely necessary. Pressing necessities of state afforded a decent excuse for hastening the funeral of Henry the Fourth; and there can be no doubt that his successor’s publicly announced alacrity to walk in his father’s footsteps induced him to try on the paternal coronation shoes on the earliest possible occasion.

Should any doubts on this subject exist, they are at once dispelled by reference to the facts already in the possession of the reader--which it may bo as well to recapitulate. Sir John Falstaff received the tidings of the old king’s death on the 19th of March. On the third day after this our knight was in London. That the day of Sir John’s arrival in the metropolis was so that of Henry’s coronation is a matter of history.

The chronicler Fleming, speaking of the auspicious accession of Henry the Fifth to the throne of England, informs us that--

“Such great hope and good “expectation was had of this man’s fortunate successe to follow, that within “three daies after his father’s decease diverse noble men and honorable “personages did to him homage and sware to him due obedience, which had “not beene seene done to any of bis predecessors kings of this realme, till “they had beene possessed of the crowne.”

Differing with the learned and voluminous chronicler as to the absence of precedent in such matter of homage (the worship of the rising sun, on the appearance of his first rays of power, being older in England than Stonehenge), I can only say that there was no noble man or honourable personage whatever in the realm more eager to do to the new king homage, and swear to him due obedience, than Sir John Falstaff, Knight. Only that unfortunately Sir John was, as usual, a little too late with his homage. All the nice pickings of court favour and promotion had been snapped up before his arrival.

The coronation day, in the words of the venerable chronicler last quoted, was

“a sore, ruggie and tempestuous day, with wind, snow and sleet, that “men greatlie marvelled thereat, making diverse interpretations what the “same might signifie.”

To Sir John Falstaff it might have been interpreted to signify the cold blasts of adversity, icy ingratitude, flowery visions blown into the air, fair prospects nipped in the bud, the tree of Hope torn up by the roots and lying prostrate!

The day, however, so inauspiciously commenced would seem to have cleared up, as upon the conclusion of the coronation ceremony (with the details whereof it is not the present writer’s business to encumber his pages) the royal party proceeded on foot in solemn procession from the gateway of Westminster Abbey to Richard the Second’s great hall, in the neighbouring palace. It is true that the royal party might have got wet in so doing--the umbrella not having been yet invented, and the cab-stand being an institution undreamt of even by the most Utopian imagination. But I am inclined to think that if Henry the Fifth’s first public appearance as a crowned head had been made under circumstances so unfavourable to dignity as a pelting shower, some adverse chronicler would have taken care to mention the circumstance. If the newly-placed crown, for instance, had been blown off into the mud, or if the gartered leg of majesty had got over its ankle in a puddle of the period, depend upon it we should have heard of it. There were plenty of literary men present, who would not have failed to report such a circumstance. There was John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, for one, who had come to town expressly to superintend the rehearsal of a coronation anthem (composed, it was whispered, by the king himself), to which the worthy ecclesiastic had adapted words. John, as a faithful courtier and professional laureate, would infallibly have immortalised any such calamity in sympathetic verse. And we should most likely have had the subject treated from a facetious point of view, for the coronation guests of that day had from North Britain; one James Stuart, in fact, a shrewd humorist, an excellent poet, and a man of genius generally, but who having made the mistake of coming into the world some five hundred years before his time, and wishing to force upon an independent Scottish nobility the glaring anachronism of an enlightened government in the fifteenth century, was very properly shown the error of his ways, and duly assassinated at midnight in his own chamber, according to the custom of that country and period. Altogether I prefer adhering to Mr. Cruikshank’s pictorially recorded opinion of the weather on the occasion of Henry the Fifth’s first emerging a crowned monarch from the portals of Edward the Confessor’s venerable minster. The wish is father to the thought, I admit. If only for the sake of the fair spectators in the balcony, I must strive to believe that the day turned out fine. I cannot bear to think that those dainty creatures--many of whose effigies may doubtless be found, at this day, in the neighbouring cloisters, lying on their backs, with crossed hands and chipped noses (attributed, by the vergers of the abbey, as a matter of course, to the iconoclast malice of Oliver Cromwell)--should have had their hoods, kirtles, and day’s pleasure spoiled by the “wind, snow, and sleete” of a “ruggie and tempestuous day.” Depend upon it that, towards ten o’clock in the morning (the hour at which, according to the early habits of the period, the coronation ceremony would have come to a close), the sky began to clear up.

In a literal and physical sense only, be it understood. Metaphorically, as far as Sir John Falstaff was concerned, the sun was never destined to shine more; for the sun of poor old Jack’s existence was Henry Plantagenet, fifth king of England by that name, and the face of that sun Jack Falstaff was never to see but once again. And then--oh, Nemesis, Parcæ, and all unkind heathen deities whatsoever!--with what clouds before it?

Clouds of coldness, of displeasure, of--yes, I will say it, and quite in earnest--of cruelty. Aye, and a yet more impenetrable obstruction to the desired rays than any such clouds--the presence of a powerful enemy! On the brief and only occasion of Sir John Falstaff being brought face to face with King Henry the Fifth (as a crowned monarch) Chief Justice Gascoigne was at His Majesty’s elbow, the most favoured servant of the realm. Alas! poor Jack!

Let us particularise the scene.

Sir John Falstaff--with Master Shallow, his friend; Bardolph, his henchman, maître d’hotel, valet, and factotum; Pistol, his indefinite subaltern; and Robin, his page--reached the gates of Westminster Abbey just as the ringing of bells and the harmonious swelling of many hundred voices within the sacred edifice, almost drowned by the shouts of the populace outside, announced that the ceremony was at an end. Sir John had ridden post, his impatience scarcely allowing him to sleep during the whole of his three days’ journey. He was untrimmed, draggled, jaded, and travel-stained. He was nervous, breathless, excited. I am not prepared to assert positively that he was quite sober; and, indeed, it may be slightly palliative to the conduct of Henry the Fifth, which I am about to describe in terms of the severest reprehension, that--for a newly-crowned monarch of doubtful antecedents, anxious to stand well with the more respectable portion of the community--to be hailed as a bosom friend, in the presence of kings, princes, and ambassadors, by a group composed of Messrs. Falstaff, Shallow, Bardolph, and Co., under the influence of a three days’ journey, having been for the most part performed in bad weather, in the course of which frequent attempts had doubtless been made to replace the important necessity of sleep by recourse to refreshment of a widely different character,--would naturally be rather a trying business. However, let us to the facts.

Of course Sir John Falstaff had sufficient influence with the guards and retainers to force his way through barriers of every description. He was treated with negative respect on all sides; but he certainly did not meet with the enthusiastic reception he had anticipated. As he glanced anxiously round on the many familiar faces present, he noticed an expression of awkwardness and constraint upon each. Many old acquaintances averted their heads. Such as were bound to recognise the knight did so in terms of studied formality. Sir John began to feel the raw March atmosphere absolutely oppressive. He strove to crush his rising misgivings.

“Stand here, by me, Master Robert Shallow,” he said, lugging that magistrate through the last layer of the king’s Cheshire archers that stood between them and the royal pathway. “I will make the king do you grace. I will leer at him as he comes by, and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.”

“Bless thy lungs, good knight!” said the valiant Pistol, who had already shown himself publicly in his ancient haunts, and, indeed, turned a pretty penny by the acceptance of peace-offerings from myrmidons of the law, his former enemies and oppressors.

“Come here, Pistol; stand behind me,” said Sir John. Alack, how nervous he was getting! He twirled and plucked at the ends of his beard till he winced with pain. He gnawed his finger nails. He played the old gentleman’s tattoo with his mud-stained boot on the steaming rushes beneath him. He twisted buttons off his _just-au-corps_. His breath was short, his under lip drooped, and his teeth chattered.

“Oh, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pounds I borrowed of you!”

Master Shallow winced. He, too, was nervous.

“But ‘tis no matter; this poor show doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.”

“It doth so.” Master Shallow breathed his answer thickly.

“It shows my earnestness in affection.”

“It doth so.”

“My devotion.”

“It doth, it doth, it doth.”

(Heavens! how Master Shallow must have twiddled with his chain or chewed at the cape of his riding hood as he repeated these words in rapid crescendo!)

“As it were, to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me.”

“It is most certain.”

“But to stand stained with travel and sweating with desire to see him; thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him.”

“‘Tis _semper idem_ for _absque hoc nihil est_” put in Pistol. “‘Tis all in every part.”

“‘Tis so, indeed.” Master Shallow gasped out these words, which were scarcely audible. He was in a high state of trepidation, and it will be admitted that he had exactly one thousand reasons for feeling so.

The moments seemed hours. Would the king never come? Sir John almost dreaded that he should die with his eyes unblessed by the sight of his royal pupil and favourite, clad in the attributes of majesty. His gaze was riveted on the cathedral door. He was deaf to all sounds in his eager listening for one well-known footstep. Pistol vainly attempted to enlist his sympathies by a narrative of the wrongs of the Fair Dorothea. Sir John mechanically promised to deliver the captive princess from her oppressors, but his words scarcely conveyed a meaning.

The anthem swelled. The shouts were resumed. Officious retainers bustled forth to clear the way. Sir John Falstaff’s heart beat almost audibly. He felt sick and giddy as a dazzling vision burst upon his sight--round which all other objects on the scene, animate and inanimate, seemed whirling like weird shapes in a demon dance about a magic fire. King Henry the Fifth, in all the pride and splendour of newly anointed majesty, stood before him!

I dare be bound Henry of Monmouth never more thoroughly merited Master Stowe’s simple panegyric on his personal graces than at that moment. “This prince,” says the worthy old Cockney, “exceeded the mean stature of men; he was beautiful of visage, his neck long, bodye slender and leane, and his bones small; nevertheless he was of marvellous great strength, and passing swift in running.”

I have no doubt that His Majesty, on reaching the open air, would have been but too happy to exercise his skill in the latter accomplishment so as to avoid the compromising recognition of Sir John Falstaff and his friends, had circumstances permitted; but it was an ordeal not to be avoided.

“Save thy grace, King Hal! My royal Hal!” Sir John shouted at the top of his voice.

It is possible that Sir John Falstaff’s muddy boots, drenched doublet, three days’ linen and all, might have been tolerated on the score of gentle birth and past services. But there was no getting over the bodily presence of Bardolph, Pistol, and a dilapidated, draggle-tailed country justice from the wilds of Gloucestershire.

“The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!” was the salutation of Pistol.

“Save thee, my sweet boy!” added Falstaff.