Volume I Part 19 (1/2)
1414. He refers for his authority to ”Patent 1 Hen.
V. m. 33;” but no entry of the kind is found there.]
The reason which then induced the persons who argued on these facts to suppose that Fuller had by mistake adopted the date of the year 1412 instead of 1413 was this:--It was very improbable that the words ”Die Dominica” should have been introduced by the copyist, if they were not really on the tomb. Hence it was inferred that he died on a Sunday.
Now December 17th was on a Sunday in the following year, (p. 376) 1413; and, since the date was in Roman letters, it was thought very probable that the last I had been obliterated in MCCCCXIII. The words, indeed, ”14th Henry IV,” were also quoted by Fuller: but it was unquestionably more credible that those words formed a marginal note in the reporter's ma.n.u.script, and were mere surplusages, than that they should have been allowed a place in the bra.s.s scroll of a monument.
Such was the state of our knowledge, and such was the course of our reasoning as to the time of Gascoyne's decease, till within a very short period of the publication of this work. A doc.u.ment, however, has been very lately brought to light on this subject, which supersedes that statement altogether; setting the whole argument in a new point of view, and reading a plain lesson on the care and circ.u.mspection with which inferences, however plausible, as to dates and facts, should be admitted. In the present instance, indeed, the conclusion to which we had before arrived, on the question of Gascoyne having survived Henry IV, remains una.s.sailable, or rather, is only still further removed from the possibility of historical doubt; and the whole argument on the vast improbability of Prince Henry having ever offered an insult to the Chief Justice, or of his ever having been committed to prison for any offence of the kind, remains at least equally strong as before. Most persons, perhaps, may consider the degree of improbability to have become still greater. Be this (p. 377) as it may, the facts now placed beyond further controversy as to Gascoyne's death are these. In the Registry of the Court of York the last Will and testament of William Gascoyne has been found recorded.
It bears date on the Friday after St. Lucy's Day in the year 1419; and it was proved on the 23rd of December following. In the year 1419, St.
Lucy's Day, December 13, was on a Wednesday. The Will was consequently made on Friday the 15th of December, and was proved on the morrow week, Sat.u.r.day, December 23rd. In the Will, the testator declares that he was weak in body; and the strong probability is that he died on the following Sunday, December 17, 1419.[338] This would accord precisely with Fuller's representation of the scroll on the tomb, ”on the Lord's Day, December 17.” Whilst the facility of mistaking MCCCCXIX for MCCCCXII, (being the obliteration only of one cross stroke in the last letter,) is even more remarkable than that of the error which on the former supposition was thought probable, from the obliteration of the last letter I in MCCCCXIII.
[Footnote 338: It must be regarded as a very curious coincidence connected with this argument, that the 17th of December should have fallen on a Sunday, both in the year MCCCCXIII, and in MCCCCXIX, but in no other year between 1402 and 1421.]
The Author has had recourse to every means within his reach to a.s.sure himself of the genuineness of this doc.u.ment, and to ascertain (p. 378) that the testator was the William Gascoyne[339] who was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The result is, that not a shadow of any of the doubts which he once jealously entertained, remains on the subject; whilst he gratefully remembers the prompt and satisfactory a.s.sistance rendered him by the present Registrar of York. The doc.u.ment must be admitted without reserve.
[Footnote 339: The mention in the body of the Will of the names of his former wife, and of his second wife then alive, and the record of the Will of that second wife, who states herself the widow of William Gascoyne, late Chief Justice, preserved in the same register, fix the ident.i.ty of the testator beyond dispute. The Author was first indebted for a knowledge of the existence of this doc.u.ment to the volume called Testamenta Eboracensia, published by the Surtees Society; though he cannot suppress the surprise with which he read the comment of the editors, the chief mistake of which was discovered in time to be rectified in an ”erratum” after the work had been printed.]
From these now indisputable facts a thought might perhaps not unnaturally suggest itself to the mind of any one taking only a general view of the whole subject, that some countenance is here given to the prevalent notion that Gascoyne had displeased Henry during the years of his princedom; but that, instead of holding the worthy and intrepid Judge in higher honour, (as tradition tells,) and rewarding him for his n.o.ble bearing, on the contrary, the King resented the insult shown to his person, and dismissed him (contrary to the usual practice) from his high judicial station. A fact,[340] however, (p. 379) new (it is presumed) to history, enables or rather compels us to dismiss such a conjecture from our minds. Whatever was the definite cause of Gascoyne's withdrawal from the bench as Chief Justice of England; whether his declining health, or an inclination for retirement and repose after so long[341] and wearisome a discharge of his arduous duties, or the competency[342] of his fortune, induced him to draw back at length from the turmoils of public life, and (p. 380) pa.s.s his last days among his own friends and relatives in the privacy of a country residence; certainly he carried with him when he left his court, not the resentment and unkindness, but the most friendly feelings and respect of his new sovereign. By warrant, November 28, 1414, (that is, in the very year after his retirement,) the King grants to ”our dear and well-beloved William Gascoyne an allowance of four bucks and does out of the forest of Pontefract for the term of his life.”
[Footnote 340: For this fact, and many others, as well as for most valuable suggestions, and a.s.sistance of various kinds, the Author is indebted to T. Duffus Hardy, Esq. of the Record Office in the Tower,--a gentleman who, with a mind admirably stored with antiquarian knowledge, possesses also the faculty of applying his stores to the best advantage in the developement of whatever subject he undertakes, and the principle also of employing his knowledge and abilities in the cause of truth.]
[Footnote 341: Gascoyne had been Chief Justice of the King's Bench more than twelve years,--a portion of life considerably beyond the average duration of their office in those high functionaries. Reckoning either from Hanlow, 1258, in the reign of Henry III, or from Gascoyne, in 1401, in the reign of Henry IV, to the present time, the average number of years through which the Chief Justices of the King's Bench have retained their seats is below nine. Through the last century, however, (reckoning from Lord Hardwick's appointment, in 1733, to Lord Tenterden's death, in 1832,) the average has risen to above fourteen years.]
[Footnote 342: He was in a condition to lend the King money when the exigencies of the state pressed him hard. Among other creditors, the Pell Rolls (14th May 1420) record the repayment of a loan to the executors of William Gascoyne, which was within half a year of his death.]
The sum of the whole matter as to the historical representations of Henry's conduct is this:
Before the year 1534, far more than a century after Henry's death, no allusion whatever is made to any occurrence of the kind in any work, printed or ma.n.u.script, now extant and known. Sir Thomas Elyot, who mentions it incidentally as an anecdote, combining the merits ”of a good Judge, a good Prince, and a good King,” gives no reference to any authority whatever. Subsequently it is reported in detail by Hall, but with much exaggeration on Elyot's narrative. It then not only pa.s.sed current in our histories, but served as a topic of grave import in our Prince of tragedians, and of burlesque in the broad farces of later and perhaps earlier days than his. The biographers of Henry, though they detail in all their minute particulars many circ.u.mstances of his youth, far less important either to his character, or as facts of general and national interest, and who lived, some of them, (p. 381) almost a century nearer the date of the supposed transaction than Elyot, are to a man silent on the subject; not one of them betraying the shadow of suspicion that he was even aware of any rumour or vague tradition of the kind. Such facts as the committal to prison of the heir-apparent, especially such an heir-apparent as Henry (it is presumed), must have been notorious through the metropolis and the whole land, and must have excited a great and general sensation; and yet the Chronicles, though they often surprise us by their minute notice of trifling circ.u.mstances, do not contain the slightest intimation that any such affair as this had ever come to the knowledge of those who kept them. They are silent, and their silence seems natural.[343]
[Footnote 343: By the kind a.s.sistance of those to whom the state of the records of our courts of justice is most familiar, the Author has been enabled to a.s.sure himself satisfactorily that they offer nothing which can throw any light whatever on the question examined in these pages.]
On the whole, most persons will probably believe that either Gascoyne, or Hankford, or Hody would upon such evidence, we do not say merely charge the jury for an acquittal, but would, on perusing the depositions, have previously recommended the grand inquest to return ”Not a true Bill.” Still every reader has the evidence fairly before him, and must decide for himself!
Should any one be disposed to think that questions of this sort (p. 382) might well be left undecided, and that the settlement of them is not worth the trouble and research often required for their thorough investigation, the Author ventures to suspect that, in the generality of instances, such reflections originate in an inexperience of the vast practical moment which facts, the most trifling in themselves, often carry with them in the investigation of the most important questions. Doubtless, the wise man will exercise his discretion in not confounding great things with small; but, on the contrary, in stamping on every thing its own intrinsic and comparative value. Still, in great things and small, (though each in its own weight and measure,) the truth is ever dear for its own sake, and should be for its own sake pursued. And it must never be forgotten, that one truth, in itself perhaps too minute and insignificant for its worth to be felt in the calculation, when probabilities are being estimated, may be a guiding star to other truths of great value, which, without its leading, might have remained neglected and unknown. In itself, a false statement, though generally acquiesced in, may be unimportant; in its consequences, it may be widely and permanently prejudicial to the cause of truth. If viewed abstractedly, it might appear like a cloud in the horizon not larger than a man's hand; but that speck may be the harbinger of wind and tempest. With regard, indeed, to those natural appearances in the sky, the most experienced observer can do nothing towards arresting the progress of the threatened storm; his (p. 383) foresight can only enable him to provide himself a shelter, or hasten him on his journey, ”that the rain stop him not.” In the case of literary, physical, moral, religious, and historical subjects of inquiry, (or to whatever department of human knowledge our pursuits may be directed,) by rectifying the minutest error we may check the propagation of mischief, and preserve the truth (it may be some momentous practical truth) in its integrity and brightness.
Connected with the subject of this and the preceding chapter, problems of very difficult solution present themselves, a full and comprehensive elucidation of which would involve questions of deep moral and metaphysical interest with regard to the structure, the cultivation and training, the a.s.sociations and habits of the human mind. Upon the merits of those problems in their various ramifications the Author has no intention to venture; and probably few persons would p.r.o.nounce unhesitatingly how far on the one hand the facts of past ages (const.i.tuting a valuable deposit of especial trust) should be kept religiously distinct from works of fiction; or on the other hand how far the field of history itself is legitimate ground for the imagination in all its excursive ranges to disport upon freely and fearlessly: in a word, how far the practice is justifiable and desirable of bending the realities of historical record to (p. 384) the service of the fancy, and moulding them into the shape best suited to the writer's purpose in developing his plot, perfecting his characters, and exciting a more lively interest in his whole design.
Whatever might be the result of such questions fully enucleated, the Author, with his present views, cannot suffer himself to doubt that society is infinitely a gainer in possessing the historical dramas of Shakspeare, and the historical romances of Walter Scott. Instead of putting the moral and intellectual advantages, the improvement and the pleasure with which such extraordinary men have enriched their country and the world in one scale, and jealously weighing them against the erroneous a.s.sociations which their exhibition of past events has a tendency to impart, a philosophical view of the whole case should seem to encourage us in the full enjoyment of their exquisite treasures; suggesting, however, at the same time, the salutary caution that we should never suffer ourselves to be so influenced by the naturalness and beauty of their poetical creations, as to forego the beneficial exercise of ascertaining from the safest guides the real facts and characters of history.
APPENDIX, No. I. (p. 385)
OWYN GLYNDOWR's ABSENCE FROM THE BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY.
Had Owyn Glyndowr joined the army of Hotspur before Henry IV. had compelled that gallant, but rash and headstrong warrior, to engage in battle, their united forces might have crushed both the King and Henry of Monmouth under their overwhelming charge, and crowned the Percies and Owyn himself with victory; but the reader is reminded that the question for the more satisfactory solution of which an appeal is made to the following original doc.u.ments, is simply this: Did Owyn Glyndowr wilfully absent himself from the fatal battle of Shrewsbury, leaving Hotspur and his host to encounter that struggle alone, or are we compelled to account for the absence of the Welsh chieftain on grounds which imply no compromise of his valour or his good faith?
The first of the series of doc.u.ments from which it is presumed that light is thrown on this subject, is a letter from Richard Kyngeston, Archdeacon of Hereford, addressed to the King, dated Hereford, Sunday, July 8, and therefore 1403,--just thirteen days before the battle of Shrewsbury. It is written in French; but the postscript, added evidently in vast trepidation, and as if under the sudden fear that he had not expressed himself strongly enough, is in English. ”His eagerness for the arrival of the King in Wales by forced marches, is expressed with an earnestness which is almost ridiculous.”[344]
[Footnote 344: See Ellis.]