Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1

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On the lowest calculation, a full month before Mortimer's capture, the
young royal warrior had scoured the whole country of Glyndwrdy in
person, and had burnt two of Owyn's mansions; whilst the strong
probability is, that he had headed his troops on that expedition more
than a year before.

It is very remarkable (though Shakspeare doubtless never became
acquainted with the circumstance) that the identical Percy whom he
makes Henry IV. desire to have been his son, instead of his own Henry,
bears ample testimony, at least a full year previously, to the valour
and kind-heartedness of him on whose brow the poet makes his father
lament "the stain of riot and dishonour."

Sir Edmund Mortimer was taken by Glyndowr at Melienydd in Radnor, June
12th, 1402; and, as early as the 3rd of May 1401, Percy wrote from
Caernarvon to the council that North Wales was obedient to the law,
except the rebels of Conway and Rees Castles, who were in the
mountains, whom he expresses his expectation that the Prince of (p. 352)
Wales would subdue. "These will be right well chastened," said he,
"if God please, by the force and governance which my lord the Prince
_has_ sent against them, as well of his council as of his retinue." In
the same letter Hotspur informs the King's council that the commons of
the counties of Caernarvon and Merioneth (who had come before him in
the sessions which he was then holding as Chief Justice of North
Wales) had humbly expressed their thanks to the Prince for the great
pains of his kind good-will in endeavouring to obtain their
pardon."[321] Henry Prince of Wales, whom the poet makes his father
thus to disparage at the mere mention of Henry Percy's victory, would
lose nothing in point of prowess, and generosity, and high-minded
bearing, at this very early period of his youth, by a comparison
either with Percy himself, or with any other of his contemporaries,
whose names are recorded in history.

[Footnote 321: See these facts stated historically
in previous chapters of this volume.]

The next passage of our historical dramatist which requires to be
examined, occurs in that very affecting interview between Henry and
his father on the news of Percy's rebellion, and the resolution
declared to take the field at Shrewsbury.[322]

"I know not whether God will have it so,
For some displeasing service I have done,
That, in his secret, doom out of my blood (p. 353)
He breeds revengement and a scourge for me.
But thou dost, in thy passages of life,
Make me believe that thou art only marked
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven,
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate and low desires,
Such barren, base, such lewd, such mean attempts,
Such barren pleasures, rude society,[323]
As thou art matched withal and grafted to,
Accompany the greatness of thy blood,
And hold their level with thy princely heart?
Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost, (p. 354)
Which by thy younger brother is supplied;
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court, and princes of my blood."

[Footnote 322: I Hen. IV. act iii. scene 1.]

[Footnote 323: It is curious to contrast this
description of his habits and pursuits, written by
the Prince of tragedians a century and a half after
Henry's death, with the advice represented to have
been given by an old man to a young aspiring poet
during his very lifetime. The Author is conscious
of the tautology of which he is guilty in again
recommending the reader not to pass over unread the
extracts in the Appendix from Occleve and Lydgate.

"Write to him a goodly tale or two,
On which he may disport him at night.
His high prudence hath insight very
To judge if it be well made or nay.
Write him nothing that soweneth to vice.
Look if find thou canst any treatise
Grounded on his estate's wholesomeness."--Occleve.

"Because he hathe joy and great dainty
To _read in books of antiquity_,
To find only _virtue to sow_,
By example of them; and also to eschew
The _cursed vice of sloth and idleness_:
So he enjoyed in _virtuous_ business,
In all that _longeth to manhood_
He _busyeth_ ever."--Lydgate.]

The battle of Shrewsbury was fought July 21, 1403. The tragedian
represents Henry the Prince as at this period in the full career of
his unbridled extravagances; his father bewailing his sad degeneracy,
himself pleading nothing in excuse, praying for pardon, and promising
amendment. It must appear passing strange to those who have drawn
their estimate of those years of Prince Henry's youth from Shakspeare,
to find the real truth to be this. Not only was he not then in London
the profligate debauchee, the reckless madcap, the creature of "vassal
fear and base inclination," "the nearest and dearest of his father's
foes;" not only was he acting valiantly in defence of his father's
throne; but that very father's own pen is the instrument to bear chief
testimony to his valour and noble merits at that very hour. It is as
though history were designed on set purpose, and by especial
commission, to counteract the bewitching fictions of the poet. Henry
IV. was on his road to assist Hotspur and the Earl of Northumberland,
in utter ignorance of their rebellion. Arrived at Higham Ferrers, he
wrote to his council, informing them that he had received, as well by
his son Henry's own letters, as by the report of his messengers, most
satisfactory accounts of this very dear and well-beloved son the (p. 355)
Prince, which gave him very great pleasure.[324] He then directs
them to send the Prince 1000_l._ to enable him to keep his forces
together. This letter is dated July 10, 1403, just eleven days before
the battle of Shrewsbury. The King heard of Hotspur's rebellion on his
arrival at Burton on Trent, from which place he dates his
proclamation. Henry of Monmouth was appointed Lieutenant of Wales on
the 4th of March 1403; and he was with his men-at-arms and archers
there, discharging the duties of a faithful son and valiant young
warrior, when Hotspur revolted; and he left his charge in Wales, not
to revel in London, but only to join his own to his father's forces,
and fight for their kingdom on the field of Shrewsbury.

[Footnote 324: See these facts stated historically
in former pages of this volume.]

The extraordinary confusion of place and time, pervading the "Second
Part of King Henry IV," is only equalled by the mistaken view which
the writer gives of the character of Henry of Monmouth. News of the
overthrow of Archbishop Scrope is brought to London on the very day on
which Henry IV. sickens and dies; whereas that King was himself in
person in the north, and insisted upon the execution of the
Archbishop, just eight years before. The Archbishop was beheaded on
Whitmonday (June 8) in the year 1405. Henry IV. died March 20, 1413.
And instead of Henry, the Prince, being either at Windsor hunting, or
in London "with Poins and other his continual followers," when (p. 356)
his father was depressed and perplexed by the rebellion in the north,
he was doing his duty well, gallantly, and to the entire satisfaction
of his father. We have a letter, dated Berkhemstead, March 13, 1405,
written by the King to his council, with a copy of his son Henry's
letter announcing the victory over the Welsh rebels at Grosmont in
Monmouthshire, which was won on Wednesday the 11th of that month. The
King writes with great joy and exultation, bidding his council to
convey the glad tidings to the mayor and citizens of London, that
"they (he says) may rejoice with us, and join in praises to our
Creator."

Thus does history prove that, in every instance of Shakspeare's
fascinating representations of Henry of Monmouth's practices, the poet
was guided by his imagination, which, working only on the vague
tradition of a sudden change for the better in the Prince immediately
on his accession, and magnifying that change into something almost
miraculous, has drawn a picture which can never be seen without being
admired for its life, and boldness, and colouring; but which, as an
historical portrait, is not only unlike the original, but misleading
and unjust in essential points of character.

It has been said, and perhaps with truth, to what extent soever we may
believe Shakspeare to have made "Europe ring from side to side" with
the vices and follies, the riots and extravagances, of the (p. 357)
young Prince, yet that he had spread his fame and glory far more
widely, and excited an incomparably greater interest in his character,
than history itself, however full, and however true in recording his
merits, could have done. The admirer therefore of the Prince's
character, who reflects on Shakspeare, is held to be ungrateful to
Henry's best benefactor; and, as far as his influence reaches, tends
to check the interest excited for the hero of his choice. But, whilst
he recalls with grateful reminiscence the enjoyment which he has often
drawn himself freely from the same well-head, the Author, in
attempting to distinguish between truth and fiction, would on no
account damp the ardour with which his countrymen will still derive
pleasure from these scenes of "Nature's child;" and he trusts that,
whilst he has supplied solid and substantial ground for Englishmen
still retaining Henry of Monmouth in their affections, among their
favourite princes and kings, his work has no tendency to close against
a single individual those sources of intellectual delight, which will
be open wide to all, whilst literature itself shall have a place on
earth.

CHAPTER XVI. (p. 358)

STORY OF PRINCE HENRY AND THE CHIEF JUSTICE. -- FIRST FOUND IN THE
WORK OF SIR THOMAS ELYOT, PUBLISHED NEARLY A CENTURY AND A HALF
SUBSEQUENTLY TO THE SUPPOSED TRANSACTION. -- SIR JOHN HAWKINS HALL --
HUME. -- NO ALLUSION TO THE CIRCUMSTANCE IN THE EARLY CHRONICLERS. --
DISPUTE AS TO THE JUDGE. -- VARIOUS CLAIMANTS OF THE DISTINCTION. --
GASCOYNE -- HANKFORD -- HODY -- MARKHAM. -- SOME INTERESTING
PARTICULARS WITH REGARD TO GASCOYNE, LATELY DISCOVERED AND VERIFIED.
-- IMPROBABILITY OF THE ENTIRE STORY.

In a little work, not long since published, intended to interest the
rising generation in the history of their own country, the preface
assigns as the author's reason for not coming down later than the
Revolution of 1689, "that, from that period, history becomes too
distinct and important to be trifled with." The doctrine involved in
the position, which is implied here, _that the previous history of our
country may be trifled with_, is so dangerous to the cause of truth,
that we may well believe the sentiment to have fallen from the pen of
the author unadvisedly. It is, however, unhappily a principle on which
too many, in works of far higher stamp and graver moment, (p. 359)
have justified themselves in substituting their own theories, and
hypotheses, and descriptive scenes, for the unbending strictness of
fact, thus sapping the foundation of all confidence in history. It is
not the poet only, and the fascinating author of historical romances,
who have thus "trifled with history;" our annalists and chroniclers,
our lawyers and moralists, often, no doubt unwittingly, certainly
unscrupulously, have countenanced and aided the same pernicious
practice. It is frequently curious and amusing to trace the various
successive gradations, beginning with surmise, and proceeding through
probability onward to positive assertion, each writer borrowing from
his predecessor; and then in turn, from his own filling-up of the
outline, furnishing somewhat more for another, who supplies at length
the whole historical portrait, complete in all its form and colouring.
Had the author above referred to not taken to himself practically in
the body of his work the indulgence which his latitudinarian principle
recognizes in the preface, he would not have so distorted facts in his
"story of Madcap Harry and the Old Judge," for the purpose of making a
pretty consistent tale,--consistent with itself, but not with the
truth of history,--to amuse children in their earliest days, at the
risk of misleading them, and giving them a wrong bias through their
lives.

In examining the alleged fact of Henry's violence and insults
exhibited in a court of justice, there is much greater (p. 360)
difficulty than may generally be supposed, in consequence of the
entire silence of all contemporary annalists and chroniclers. Not one
word occurs asserting it; no allusion to the circumstance whatever is
found previously to the reign of Henry VIII, nearly a century and a
half after Henry V.'s accession. Hume[325] asserts it on the authority
of Hall; and Hall has exaggerated the alleged facts most egregiously,
and most unjustifiably. Whether the fact took place, and, if it did,
what were the time, the place, and the circumstances, the reader must
judge for himself. The present treatise professes only to bring
together the evidences on all sides fairly.

[Footnote 325: Hume is no authority on any disputed
point. An anecdote, of the accuracy of which the
Author has no doubt, throws a strong suspicion on
the work of that writer, and marks it as a history
on which the student can place no dependence. Hume
made application at one of the public offices of
State Records for permission to examine its
treasures. Not only was leave granted, but every
facility was afforded, and the documents bearing
upon the subject immediately in hand were selected
and placed in a room for his exclusive use. He
never came. Shortly after his work appeared: and,
on one of the officers expressing his surprise and
regret that he had not paid his promised visit,
Hume said, "I find it far more easy to consult
printed works, than to spend my time on
manuscripts." No wonder Hume's England is a work of
no authority.]

It has been already stated that no historian or chronicler, (whose
work is now in existence and known,) for nearly one hundred and fifty
years, has ever alluded to the transaction. The first writer in (p. 361)
whom it is found is Sir Thomas Elliott (or Elyot), who, in a work
called The Governour, dedicated to Henry VIII. about the year 1534,
thus particularizes the occurrence. Elyot gives no reference to his
authority.

"The most renowned Prince, King Henry V. late King of England, during
the life of his father, was noted to be fierce and of wanton courage.
It happened that one of his servants, whom he well favoured, was, for
felony by him committed, arraigned at the King's Bench. Whereof the
Prince being advertised, and incensed by light persons about him, in
furious rage came hastily to the bar, where his servant stood as a
prisoner, and commanded him to be ungyved and set at liberty: whereat
all men were abashed, reserved [except] the Chief Justice, who humbly
exhorted the Prince to be contented that his servant might be ordered
according to the ancient laws of this realm; or, if he would have him
saved from the rigour of the laws, that he should obtain, if he might,
from the King his father his gracious pardon, whereby no law or
justice should be derogate. With which answer the Prince nothing
appeased, but rather more inflamed, endeavoured himself to take away
his servant. The Judge, considering the perilous example and
inconvenience that might thereby issue, with a valiant spirit and
courage commanded the Prince upon his allegiance to leave the prisoner
and depart his way. With which commandment the Prince being set (p. 362)
all in a fury, all chafed and in a terrible manner came up to the
place of judgment, men thinking that he would have slain the Judge, or
have done to him some damage; but the Judge, sitting still without
moving, declaring the majesty of the King's place of judgment, and
with an assured and bold countenance, had to the Prince these words
following: 'Sir, remember yourself: I keep here the place of the King
your sovereign lord and father, to whom ye owe double obedience;
wherefore eftsoons in his name I charge you desist of your wilfulness
and unlawful enterprise, and from henceforth give good example to
those which hereafter shall be your proper subjects. And now, for your
contempt and disobedience, go you to the prison of the King's Bench,
whereunto I commit you; and remain ye there prisoner until the
pleasure of the King your father be further known.' With which words
being abashed, and also wondering at the marvellous gravity of that
worshipful Justice, the noble Prince laying his weapon apart, doing
reverence, departed; and went to the King's Bench, as he was
commanded. Whereat his servants disdaining, came and showed the King
all the whole affair. Whereat he awhile studying, after as a man all
ravished with gladness, holding his hands and eyes up towards heaven
abraided, saying with a loud voice, 'O merciful God, how much am I
above other men bound to your infinite goodness, specially that (p. 363)
ye have given me a Judge who feareth not to minister justice, and
also a son who can suffer semblably, and obey justice!'"

Sir John Hawkins,[326] when he cites this passage as evidence of an
ebullition of wanton insolence and unrestrained impetuosity, in
illustration of the character of Henry, to whom he ascribes the
unjustifiable suppression of an act of parliament, lays himself open
to blame in more points than one. In the first place, he ought not, as
regards the suppression of an act of parliament, to have charged upon
Henry, as a self-willed act, what, to say the very least, was equally
the act of the whole Privy Council; and then he ought not to have
endeavoured to brand him with disgrace on the testimony of a witness
who wrote nearly a century and a half after the asserted event.

[Footnote 326: Pleas of the crown.]

Hall, who wrote only at the commencement of the reign of Edward VI,
(the first edition of his work having appeared in 1548,) thus states
the charge against Henry:

"For imprisonment of one[327] of his wanton mates and unthrifty
playfaires, he strake the Chief Justice with his fist on his face; for
which offence he was not only committed to streight prison, but also
of his father put out of the Privy Council and banished the (p. 364)
court, and his brother Thomas Duke of Clarence elected president of
the King's counsail, to his great displeasure and open reproach."

[Footnote 327: Shakspeare represents Henry as
having given the Chief Justice the blow some time
before the expedition against the Archbishop of
York.--2 Hen. IV. act i.]

Perhaps it might be argued without unfairness, that the great
variation and discrepancy in the traditions respecting this affair in
the Prince's life would induce us to believe that, at all events,
something of the kind actually took place; that, without some
foundation in real fact, so extraordinary a transaction could never
have been invented; that, whatever difficulty we may find in filling
up the outline, the broad reality of an insolent and violent bearing
shown by the Prince to a Judge on the bench ought to be admitted; and
that any variation as to the person of the Judge, or the court over
which he presided, or the time at which the incident might have taken
place, or the degree of insult and personal violence exhibited, is
unessential, and proves only the inaccuracy in detail of various
accounts, all of which combine, independently of those minute
circumstances, to establish the main point. To this argument it might
also be added, that the very circumstance of an inspection of original
documents presenting names of real living persons, identically the
same with those which Shakspeare has given to the minor heroes of his
drama, (such as Bardolf, Pistol, &c.) intimates a knowledge on his
part of the transactions of those times which entitles him to a higher
degree of credit, as seeming to imply that he might have had (p. 365)
recourse to documents which are now lost:

"Sir, Here comes the nobleman who committed the
Prince for striking him about BARDOLF."
2 HEN. IV. act. i.

On the other side, it might with equal, perhaps with greater fairness
be argued, that this is not one of those cases in which various
independent authorities bear separate testimony to one important fact;
whilst minor discrepancies as to time and place, and persons and
circumstances, tend only to confirm the testimony, placing the
authority above suspicion, and exempting the case from all idea of
conspiring witnesses. Such arguments are then only sound when the
witnesses are contemporary with the fact, or live soon after its
alleged date. But when chroniclers and biographers, who write
immediately of the times and of the life of the person charged,
recording circumstances far less important and characteristic, omit
all mention whatever of an event which must have been notorious to
all,--but of which no trace whatever can be found, nor any allusion
directly or indirectly to it is discovered, for more than a century
and a quarter after the death of the accused,--the investigator
appears to be justified in requiring some auxiliary evidence; at all
events, such discrepancies cease to contribute the alleged aid to the
establishment of the main fact. When, for example, the Chronicle of
London records an affray in East-Cheap between the townsmen and (p. 366)
the Princes,[328] mentioning by name Thomas and John, and registers
the journeys of John of Gaunt, the execution of Rhys Duy, the
Welshman, with unnumbered events, far less important and notorious
than must have been the commitment to prison of the heir-apparent of
the throne, and on that circumstance is altogether silent, not having
the slightest allusion to anything of the kind; and when those
biographers who lived and wrote nearest to the time (such as Elmham,
Livius, Otterbourne, Hardyng, Walsingham, all of whom speak more or
less strongly of his irregularities and youthful vices, and subsequent
reformation,) never allude to any story of the sort, and apparently
had no knowledge even of any tradition respecting it; the charge
either of partiality or incredulity does not seem to lie at the door
of any one who might doubt the reality of the whole. It is not as
though the deed were regarded as having fixed an indelible stain on
the Prince's memory, and therefore his partial biographers would
gladly have buried it in oblivion. Sir Thomas Elyot (and his (p. 367)
seems to have been the general opinion) appears to have considered the
issue of the transaction as far more redounding to the Prince's
honour, than its progress stamped him with disgrace; and he attracts
the reader's especial attention to it by a marginal note: "A good
Judge, a good Prince, a good King." It is curious to observe the
progress of this story. Sir Thomas Elyot, the first in point of time
who states it, makes no mention either "of the blow on the Chief
Justice's face with his fist," or the removal of the Prince from the
council, and the substitution of his brother. Hall, on whom Hume
builds, adds both those facts; and then Hume in his turn proceeds to
affirm that his father, during the _latter years_ of his life, had
excluded him _from all share in public business_. Had Hume examined
the original documents for himself, instead of building only upon
"printed accounts" of later date by more than a century, he could not
have fallen into this error. But a refutation of this mistake, only
incidental to our present question, belonged to another part of this
work, where it may be found in its chronological order. To the
ancillary argument drawn from the names of Henry's supposed reckless
companions in Shakspeare occurring in the records of real history, it
may be answered, that if that fact proved anything, it proves too
much. If, indeed, men of those names were found in Henry's company, as
Prince of Wales, either in London, in Wales, or in Calais, and were
afterwards lost sight of, or seen only in obscurity and (p. 368)
separate from him, that fact might be regarded as confirmatory of the
popular tradition. But the reality is otherwise. The names of Pistol
and Bardolf[329] are found among those who accompanied the King in his
careers of victory in France: and in the very year before Henry's
death (a fact hitherto unnoticed by historians) William Bardolf was
one of the Barons of the Cinque Ports, and Lieutenant of Calais; a
post which he appears to have held for some years with great credit,
and enjoying the royal favour and confidence. William Bardolf had been
employed ten years before by Henry IV, as one of the commissioners
appointed to treat with the Duke of Burgundy.[330]

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