Volume I Part 16 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIV. (p. 313)
HENRY OF MONMOUTH'S CHARACTER. -- UNFAIRNESS OF MODERN WRITERS. -- WALSINGHAM EXAMINED. -- TESTIMONY OF HIS FATHER -- OF HOTSPUR -- OF THE PARLIAMENT -- OF THE ENGLISH AND WELSH COUNTIES -- OF CONTEMPORARY CHRONICLERS. -- NO ONE SINGLE ACT OF IMMORALITY ALLEGED AGAINST HIM.
-- NO INTIMATION OF HIS EXTRAVAGANCE, OR INJUSTICE, OR RIOT, OR LICENTIOUSNESS, IN WALES, LONDON, OR CALAIS. -- DIRECT TESTIMONY TO THE OPPOSITE VIRTUES. -- LYDGATE. -- OCCLEVE.
The hour of his father's death having been fixed upon as the date of Henry's reputed conversion from a career of thoughtless dissipation and reckless profligacy to a life of religion and virtue, this may appear to be the most suitable place for a calm review of his previous character and conduct.
In the very threshold of our inquiry, perhaps the most remarkable circ.u.mstance to be observed is this, that whilst the charges now so unsparingly and unfeelingly brought against his character, rest solely on the vague, general, and indefinite a.s.sertions of writers, (many of whom appear to aim at exalting his repentance into somewhat approaching a miraculous conversion,) no one single act of violence,[296] intemperance, injustice, immorality, or even (p. 314) levity of any kind, religious or moral, is placed upon record. Either sweeping and railing accusations are alleged, unsubstantiated by proof or argument; or else his subsequent repentance is cited to bear testimony to his former misdoings. Thus one writer a.s.serts;[297] ”This monarch, in the former part of his life, was remarkable for dissipation and extravagance of conduct; in the latter, he became the slave of the popedom. Voluptuousness, ambition, superst.i.tion, each in their turn had the ascendant in this extraordinary character.” Thus does another sum up the whole question in one short note:[298] ”The a.s.sertions of his reformation are so express, that the fact cannot be justly questioned without doubting all history; and, if there were reformation, there must have been previous errors.”[299]
[Footnote 296: The story of the Chief Justice, &c.
will be examined separately and at length. The charge from Calais of peculation (we have already seen) brought with it its own refutation: whilst the evidence on which alone the charge against him of undutiful conduct towards his father rests is proved to be altogether devoid of credit.]
[Footnote 297: Milner, Church History, Cent. XV.]
[Footnote 298: Turner, History of England, book ii.
ch. x.]
[Footnote 299: Rapin, who follows Hall, and gives no better authority, tells us that Prince Henry's court was the receptacle of libertines, debauchees, buffoons, parasites, and the like. The question naturally suggests itself, ”Ought not such a writer as Rapin to have sought for some evidence to support this a.s.sertion?” Had he sought diligently, and reported honestly, such a sentence as this could never have fallen from his pen. Carte gives a very different view of Henry of Monmouth's court; and a view, as many believe, far nearer the truth.
”It was crowded,” he says, ”by the n.o.bles and great men of the land, when his father's court was comparatively deserted.”]
The expressions of Walsingham, (being the same in his History, (p. 315) and in the work called ”Ypodigma Neustriae,” or ”A Sketch of Normandy,”
which he dedicated to Henry V. himself,) are considered by some persons to have laid an insurmountable barrier in the way of those who would remove from Henry's ”brow,” as Prince, ”the stain” of ”wildness, riot, and dishonour.” And, doubtless, no one who would discharge the office of an upright judge or an honest witness, would either suppress or gloss over the pa.s.sage which is supposed to present these formidable difficulties, or withdraw from the balance a particle of the full weight which might appear after examination to belong to that pa.s.sage as its own. In our inquiry, however, we must be upon our guard against the fallacy in which too many writers, when handling this question, have indulged by arguing in a circle. We must not first say, Walsingham bears testimony to Henry's early depravity, therefore we must believe him to have been guilty; and then conclude, because tradition fixes delinquency on Henry's early days, therefore Walsingham's pa.s.sage can admit only of that interpretation which fixes the guilt upon him. Let Walsingham's text be fairly sifted upon its own merits; and then, whatever shall appear to have been his (p. 316) meaning of an adverse nature, let that be added to the evidence against Henry; and let the whole be put into the scale, and weighed against whatever may be alleged in refutation of the charges with which his memory has been a.s.sailed. It would be the result then of a morbid deference to the opinions of others, rather than the judgment of his own reasoning, were the Author to withhold his persuasion that more importance has been a.s.signed to Walsingham's words than a full and unbia.s.sed scrutiny into their real bearing would sanction. To the judgment of each individually must this branch of evidence, no less than the entire question of Henry's moral character, be left. A transcript of Walsingham's words, as they appear in the printed editions of his History and in the ”Ypodigma Neustriae,”[300] will be found at the foot of the page.[301] The following is probably (p. 317) as close a rendering of the original, as the strangely metaphorical, and in some cases the obscure expressions of Walsingham will bear. ”On which day [of Henry's coronation] there was a very severe storm of snow, all persons marvelling at the roughness of the weather. Some considered the disturbance of the atmosphere as portending the new King's destiny to be cold in action, severe in discipline and in the exercise of the royal functions; others, forming a milder estimate of the person of the King, interpreted this inclemency of the sky as the best omen, namely, that the King himself would cause the colds and snows of vices to fall in his reign, and the mild fruits of (p. 318) virtues to spring up; so that, with practical truth, it might be said by his subjects, 'The winter is past, the rain is over and gone.' For verily, as soon as he was initiated with the chaplet of royalty, he suddenly was changed into another man, studying rect.i.tude, modesty, and gravity, [or propriety, moderation, and steadiness,] desiring to exercise every cla.s.s of virtue without omitting any; whose manners and conduct were an example to persons of every condition in life, as well of the clergy as of the laity.”
[Footnote 300: The Author has searched in vain for any contemporary ma.n.u.script of Walsingham's ”Ypodigma Neustriae.” There is a copy in the British Museum, written up to a certain point on vellum; the latter part, containing these sentences, is on paper, and of comparatively a very recent date, transcribed, as the Author thinks, not from a previous MS. of the Ypodigma, but from a copy of the History. His ground for this inference is the circ.u.mstance that the interpolation in the History, as to Edmund Mortimer's death, which is not found in the printed editions of the Ypodigma, occurs in this MS. The MS. on vellum, preserved in the Heralds' College, is a copy of the History, transcribed, as the Author conceives, by a very ignorant copyist. The same interpolation of ”Obiit”
occurs here also; and, instead of calling the person spoken of Edmund Mortimer, it has ”Edmundus mortifer.” The Author was very desirous of comparing the original copy of Walsingham's Ypodigma, as dedicated to Henry V, with subsequent transcripts or versions. He entertains a strong suspicion that the sentences here commented upon were not in the original; but, in the absence of the means of ascertaining the matter of fact, he reasons upon them as though they were actually submitted to the eye of Henry himself.]
[Footnote 301: ”Quo die fuit tempestas nivis maxima, cunctis admirantibus de temporis asperitate; quibusdam novelli Regis fatis impingentibus aeris turbulentiam, velut ipse futurus esset in agendis frigidus, in regimine regnoque severus. Aliis mitius de persona Regis sapientibus, et hanc aeris intemperiem interpretantibus omen optimum, qud ipse videlicet nives et frigora vitiorum faceret in regno cadere, et serenos virtutum fructus emergere; ut posset effectualiter a suis dici subditis, 'Jam enim hyems transiit, imber abiit et recessit.' Qui revera, mox ut initiatus est regni infulis, repente mutatus est in virum alterum, honestati, modestiae, ac gravitati studens, nullum virtutum genus omittens quod non cuperet exercere. Cujus mores et gestus omni conditioni, tam religiosorum quam laicorum, in exempla fuere.”]
Unquestionably, from these expressions an inference may be drawn fairly, and without harshness or exaggeration, that the ”changed man”
had been in times past negligent of some important branches of moral duty; vehement, hasty, and impetuous in his general proceedings; and not considering in his pursuits their fitness for his station and place; in a word, guilty of moral delinquencies immediately opposed to the virtues enumerated. On the other hand, by specifying those three moral qualities, (in which this pa.s.sage is interpreted to imply that Henry's life had undergone a sudden and total change,--rect.i.tude, modesty, and steadiness,) Walsingham appears to have selected exactly those identical points, for Henry's full possession of which the parliament of England had felicitated his father; and which, either separately, or in combination with other excellencies, continued to be ascribed to him at various times, as occasion offered, even to (p. 319) a period within a few months of his accession to the throne. Never did a young man receive from his contemporaries more unequivocal testimony to the practical exercise in his person of propriety, modesty, and perseverance, than Henry of Monmouth received before he became King.
It may be said, and with perfect fairness, that the testimony of parliament to his virtues so early as the year 1406 leaves a most important chasm in a young man's life, during which he might have fallen from his integrity, and have rapidly formed habits of the opposite vices. But through that period no expressions occur in history which even by implication involve any degeneracy, any change from good to bad. On the contrary, to his zeal and steadiness, and perseverance and integrity, such incidental testimony is borne from time to time as would of itself leave a very different impression on the mind from that which Walsingham's words in their usual acceptation would convey; whilst no allusion whatever is discernible to any habits or practices contrary to the principles of religious and moral self-government. Indeed, it has been, not without reason, doubted whether, in the absence of more positive testimony, such sudden changes, first from good to bad, and then from bad to good, be not in themselves improbable.
On the whole, whilst each must be freely left to p.r.o.nounce his own verdict, it is here humbly but sincerely suggested that (p. 320) Walsingham's words fairly admit of an interpretation more in accordance with the view of Henry's moral worth generally adopted in these Memoirs; namely, that his character rose suddenly with the occasion; that new energies were called into action by his new duties; that his moral and intellectual powers kept on a level with his elevation to so high a dignity, and with such an increase of power and influence; and that he continued to excite the admiration of the world by improving rapidly in every excellence, as his awful sense of the momentous responsibility he then for the first time felt imposed upon him grew in strength and intenseness. He became ”another, a new man,”
by giving himself up with all his soul to his new duties as sovereign; and by cultivating with practical devotedness those virtues which might render him (and which, as Walsingham says, did actually render him) a bright and s.h.i.+ning example to every cla.s.s of his subjects.[302]
[Footnote 302: Hardyng uses this expression:
”A new man made in all good regimence.”]
Undoubtedly most of the subsequent chroniclers not only speak of his reformation, but broadly state that he had given himself very great licence in self-gratification, and therefore needed to be reformed.
Before Shakspeare's day, the reports adopted by our historiographers had fully justified him in his representation of Henry's early courses; and, since his time, few writers have considered it their duty to verify the exquisite traits of his pencil, or examine (p. 321) the evidence on which he rested.
”His addiction was to courses vain; His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow; His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports; And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity.”
Let the investigator who is resolved not to yield an implicit and blind a.s.sent to vague a.s.sertion, however positive, and how often soever repeated, well and truly try for himself the issue by evidence, and trace Henry from his boyhood; let him search with unsparing diligence and jealous scrutiny through every authentic doc.u.ment relating to him; let his steps be followed into the marches, the towns, the valleys, and the mountains of Wales; let him be watched narrowly month after month during his residence in London, or wherever he happened to be staying with the court, or in Calais during his captaincy there; and not a single hint occurs of any one irregularity.[303] The research will bring to light no single expression savouring of impiety, dissoluteness, carelessness, (p. 322) or even levity.
[Footnote 303: The Author having heard of a reported arrest of the Prince at Coventry for a riot, with his two brothers, in 1412, took great pains to investigate the authenticity of the record. It is found in a ma.n.u.script of a date not earlier than James I; whilst the more ancient writings of the place are entirely silent on the subject. The best local antiquaries, after having carefully examined the question, have reported the whole story to the Author as apocryphal.]