Volume I Part 17 (1/2)
Between his accession and his coronation, Henry of Monmouth was much engaged in exercises of devotion; and various acts of self-humiliation are recorded of him. Even in the midst of the splendid banquet of his coronation, (as persons, says Elmham, worthy of credit can testify,) he neither ate nor drank; his whole mind and soul seemed to be absorbed by the thought of the solemn and deep responsibility under which he then lay. For three days he never suffered himself to indulge in repose on any soft couch; but with fasting, watching, and prayer, fervently and perseveringly implored the heavenly aid of the King of kings for the good government of his people. Doubtless, some may see in every penitential prayer an additional proof of his former licentiousness and dissipation: others, it is presumed, may not so interpret these scenes. Perhaps candour and experience may combine in suggesting to many Christians that the self-abas.e.m.e.nt of Henry should be interpreted, not as a criterion of his former delinquencies in comparison with the principles and conduct of others, but as an index rather of the standard of religious and moral excellence by which he tried his own life; that the rule with reference to which a practical knowledge of his own deficiency filled him with so great compunction and sorrow of heart, was not the tone and fas.h.i.+on of the world, (p. 336) but the pure and holy law of G.o.d; and that, consequently, his degree of contrition does not imply in him any extraordinary sense of immorality in his past days, but rather the profound reverence which he had formed of the divine law, and a consciousness of the lamentable instances in which he had failed to fulfil it.[312] Be this as it may, a calm review of all the intimations with regard to his principles, his conduct, and his feelings, which history and tradition offer, seems to suggest to our thoughts the expressions of the Psalmist as words in which Prince Henry might well and sincerely have addressed the throne of grace. ”I have gone astray, like a sheep that is lost.
O! seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments!”
[Footnote 312: It is quite curious and painful, but at the same time instructive, to observe how differently the same acts may be interpreted, accordingly as they are viewed by persons under the influence of various prejudices and peculiar a.s.sociations. In the case of Henry of Monmouth, the confession of his own unworthiness is adduced in evidence only of his former habits of dissoluteness and dissipation. The same confession in his contemporary, Lord Cobham, is hailed only as an indication of the work of grace in his soul.--See Milner, Cent. XV. ch. i.]
CHAPTER XV. (p. 337)
SHAKSPEARE. -- THE AUTHOR'S RELUCTANCE TO TEST THE SCENES OF THE POET'S DRAMAS BY MATTERS OF FACT. -- NECESSITY OF SO DOING. -- HOTSPUR IN SHAKSPEARE THE FIRST TO BEAR EVIDENCE TO HENRY'S RECKLESS PROFLIGACY. -- THE HOTSPUR OF HISTORY THE FIRST WHO TESTIFIES TO HIS CHARACTER FOR VALOUR, AND MERCY, AND FAITHFULNESS IN HIS DUTIES. -- ANACHRONISMS OF SHAKSPEARE. -- HOTSPUR'S AGE. -- THE CAPTURE OF MORTIMER. -- BATTLE OF HOMILDON. -- FIELD OF SHREWSBURY. -- ARCHBISHOP SCROPE'S DEATH.
The Author has already intimated in his Preface the reluctance with which he undertook to examine the descriptions of the Prince of dramatic poets with a direct reference to the test of historical truth; and he cannot enter upon that inquiry in this place without repeating his regret, nor without alleging some of the reasons which seem to make the investigation an imperative duty in these Memoirs.
In our endeavours to ascertain the real character and conduct of Henry V, it is not enough that we close the volume of Shakspeare's dramas, determining to allow it no weight in the scale of evidence. If nothing more be done, Shakspeare's representations will have (p. 338) weight, despite of our resolution. Were Shakspeare any ordinary writer, or were the parts of his remains which bear on our subject few, unimportant, and uninteresting, the biographer, without endangering the truth, might lay him aside with a pa.s.sing caution against admitting for evidence the poet's views of facts and character. But the large majority of readers in England, who know anything of those times, have formed their estimate of Henry from the scenic descriptions of Shakspeare, or from modern historians who have been indebted for their information to no earlier or more authentic source than his plays. Even writers of a higher character, and to whom the English student is much indebted, would tempt us to rest satisfied with the general inferences to be drawn from the scenes of Shakspeare, though they willingly allow that much of the detail was the fruit only of his fertile imagination. A modern author[313] opens his chapter on the reign of Henry V. with a pa.s.sage, a counterpart to which we find expressed, or at least conveyed by implication, in many other writers, to whose views, however, the searcher after truth and fact cannot possibly accede. ”With the traditionary irregularities of the youth of Henry V. we are early familiarized by the magical pen of Shakspeare, never more fascinating than in portraying the a.s.sociates and frolics of this ill.u.s.trious Prince. But the personifications of the poet (p. 339) must not be expected to be found in the chroniclers who have annalised this reign.”--”The general facts of his irregularities, and their amendment, have never been forgotten; but no historical Hogarth has painted the individual adventures of the princely rake.”
[Footnote 313: Mr. Turner.]
It is not because we would palliate Henry's vices, if such there be on record, or disguise his follies, or wish his irregularities to be forgotten in the vivid recollections of his conquests, that we would try ”our immortal bard” by the test of rigid fact. We do so, because he is the authority on which the estimate of Henry's character, as generally entertained, is mainly founded. Mr. Southey,[314] indeed, is speaking only of his own boyhood when he says, ”I had learned all I knew of English history from Shakspeare.” But very many pa.s.s through life without laying aside or correcting those impressions which they caught at the first opening of their minds; and never have any other knowledge of the times of which his dramas speak, than what they have learned from his representations. The great Duke of Marlborough is known to have confessed that all his acquaintance with English history was derived from Shakspeare: whilst not unfrequently persons of literary pursuits, who have studied our histories for themselves, are to the last under the practical influence of their earliest a.s.sociations: unknown to their own minds the poet is still their (p. 340) instructor and guide. And this influence Shakspeare exercises over the historical literature of his country, though he was born more than one hundred and sixty years after the historical date of that scene in which he first speaks of the ”royal rake's” strayings and unthriftiness; and though many new sources, not of vague tradition, but of original and undoubted record, which were closed to him, have been opened to students of the present day. It has indeed been alleged that he might have had means of information no longer available by us; that ma.n.u.scripts are forgotten, or lost, which bore testimony to Henry's career of wantonness. But surely such a suggestion only renders it still more imperative to examine with strict and exact scrutiny into the poet's descriptions. If these are at all countenanced by a coincidence with ascertained historical facts, we must admit them as evidence, secondary indeed, but still the best within our reach.
But if they prove to be wholly untenable when tested by facts, and irreconcileable with what history places beyond doubt, we have solid grounds for rejecting them as legitimate testimonies. We must consider them either as the fascinating but aery visions of a poet who lived after the intervention of more than a century and a half, or as inferences built by him on doc.u.ments false and misleading.
[Footnote 314: Preface to his Poetical Works.]
It may be said that the poet, in his delineation of the manners (p. 341) of the time, and in his vivid representations of the sallies and excesses of a prince notorious for his wildness and profligate habits, must not be shackled by the rigid and cold bands of historical verity, any more than we would require of him, in his description of a battle, the accuracy of a general's bulletin. But if a master poet should so describe the battle as to involve on the part of the commander the absence of military skill, and of clear conceptions of a soldier's duty, or ignorance of the enemy's position and strength, and of his own resources, or a suspicion of faintheartedness and ungallant bearing, truth would require us to a.n.a.lyse the description, and either to restore the fair fame of the commander, or to be convinced that he had justly lost his military character. On this principle we must refer Shakspeare's representations to a more unbending standard than a poet's fantasy.
The first occasion on which reference is found to the habits and character of Henry, occurs in the tragedy of Richard II, act v. scene 3, in which his father is represented as making inquiries, of ”Percy and other lords,” in such terms as these:
”Can no man tell of my _unthrifty_ son?
'Tis full THREE MONTHS since I did see him last: If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.
I would to Heaven, my lords, he might be found!
Inquire at London 'mongst the taverns there, For there, they say, he daily doth frequent, With unrestrained loose companions; Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, (p. 342) And beat our watch, and rob our pa.s.sengers; While he, young, wanton, and effeminate boy, Takes on the point of honour to support So dissolute a crew.”
To this inquiry PERCY is made to answer,
”My lord! some two days since I saw the Prince, And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford.”
_Bolinbroke._--”And what said the gallant?”
_Percy._--”His answer was--he would unto the stews, And from the common'st creature pluck a glove, And wear it as a favour; and, with that, He would unhorse the l.u.s.tiest challenger.”
_Bolinbroke._--”As dissolute as desperate: yet, through both, I see some sparkles of a better hope, Which elder days may happily bring forth.”
To understand what degree of reliance should be placed upon this pa.s.sage as a channel of biographical information, it is only necessary to recal to mind two points established beyond doubt from history: first, that the Prince was then not twelve years and a half old; and secondly, that the circ.u.mstance, previously to which this lamentation must be fixed, took place NOT THREE MONTHS after the coronation, subsequently to which the King created this his ”unthrifty son,” ”this gallant, dissolute as desperate,” Prince of Wales.[315] The scene is placed by Shakspeare at Windsor; and the conversation between (p. 343) Henry IV. inquiring about his son, and Percy, so unkindly fanning his suspicions, is ended abruptly by the breathless haste of Lord Albemarle, who breaks in upon the court to denounce the conspiracy against the King's life. This could not have been later than January 4, 1400; for on that day the conspirators entered Windsor, after Henry IV, having been apprised of their plot, had left that place for London. The coronation was celebrated on the 13th of the preceding October, and the Prince of Wales was born August 9, 1387. The whole year before his father's coronation he was in the safe-keeping of Richard II, through some months of it in Ireland; and, on Richard's return to England, he was left a prisoner in Trym Castle. How many days before the coronation he was brought from Ireland to his father, does not appear; probably messengers were sent for him immediately after Richard fell into the hands of Henry IV. The certainty is, that ”_full three months_ could not have pa.s.sed” since they last saw (p. 344) each other; the strong probability is, that both father and son had kept the feast of Christmas together at Windsor. That a boy of not twelve years and a half old, just returned from a year's safe-keeping in the hand of his father's enemy and whom his father, not three months before, had created Prince of Wales with all the honours and expressions of regard ever shown on similar occasions, should have been the leader and supporter of a dissolute crew of unrestrained loose companions, the frequenter of those sinks of sin and profligacy which then disgraced the metropolis (as they do now), is an improbability so gross, that nothing but the excellence of Shakspeare's pen could have rendered an exposure of it necessary.[316]
[Footnote 315: Reference is here made to the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales, not in anywise for the purpose of insinuating that he would not have been raised to that honour by his father, had he been the ”desperate gallant” which the poet delineates, but solely to show that the King's lamentation cannot be historically correct.
The poet, having fastened on the general tradition as to Henry's wildness, gives rein to his fancy, and would fain carry his readers along with him in the belief that Henry had absented himself for full three months from his paternal roof, and revelled in abandoned profligacy; whilst the facts with which the poet has connected it, fix the outbreaking of the Prince to a time when the real Henry was not twelve years and a half old.
Shakspeare's poetry is not inconsistent with itself, but it is with historical verity.]
[Footnote 316: There are, however, other circ.u.mstances deserving our attention, which took place, some undoubtedly, and others most probably, within the three months preceding this very time.
In the first place, the Commons, who had at the coronation sworn the same fealty to the Prince as to the King, on the 3rd of November pet.i.tion that the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales might be entered on the record of Parliament; and on the same day they pray the King that the Prince might not pa.s.s forth from this realm, (in consequence of the movements of the Scots,) ”forasmuch as he is of tender age.” In the course of that same month of November 1399, a negociation was set on foot to bring about the espousals for a future union of the Prince with one of the daughters of the King of France. And about the same time (probably within a month of the scene of Shakspeare which we are examining,) the Prince makes a direct appeal to the council to fulfil the expressed wishes of his royal father as to his establishment, seeing that he was dest.i.tute of a suitable house and furniture; whilst not a hint occurs in allusion to any extravagance, or folly, or precocious dissipation, in any single doc.u.ment of the time.]
The second introduction of the same subject occurs in the scene (p. 345) in the court of London, the very day after the news arrived of Mortimer being taken by Owyn Glyndowr.
_Westmoreland._--”But _yesternight_; when all athwart there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news; Whose worst was that the n.o.ble Mortimer, Leading the Herefords.h.i.+re men to fight Against the irregular and wild Glyndower, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken.”
The anachronism of Shakspeare, in making the two reports, of Mortimer's capture and of the battle of Homildon, reach London on the same day, though there was an interval of more than three months between them, only tends to show that we must not look to him as a channel of historical accuracy. How utterly inappropriate is the desponding lamentation of Henry IV, the bare reference to actual dates is alone needed to show.