“Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you
I was down, and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at
an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be
believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour take the sin
upon their own heads. I’ll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound
in the thigh: if the man were alive and would deny it, I would make him
eat a piece of my sword.”
Prince John of Lancaster continued to whistle, and implied that the
story was, to say the least,--singular. It was evident he was inclined
to attach more credit to the representations of Sir John Falstaff
than to those of his elder brother. You see, they had been, at school
together. No man is a hero in the eyes of the valet who takes off his
boots when he is not in a condition to remove them himself; or in those
of the little brother whom he has fleeced, fagged, and bullied at a
public college.
Appearances were certainly against the Prince of Wales, and he was, at
any rate, philosopher enough to make the best of the difficulty. For
once, the conqueror of Agincourt--Englishman and warrior as he was--knew
and confessed himself beaten. He felt that in this particular contest
Sir John Falstaff had got decidedly the best of him, and morally yielded
his sword with princely grace.
He contented himself with remarking to the Prince of Lancaster, “this is
the strangest fellow, brother John.”
And then, addressing Falstaff,
“Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back.
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.”
At this juncture a retreat was sounded, proving that the fortune of war
had decided in favour of the Royalist faction. The two princes hastened
to their father’s tent, Sir John Falstaff following, with the body of
Hotspur on his back, soliloquising as follows:
“I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, Heaven reward
him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave sack,
and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.”
The above is the Shakspearian account, and--as I have already stated--in
consistency I am bound to adopt it. But what I want to know is
this,--why, if the Prince of Wales really killed Hotspur, the paid
chroniclers of the period have not reported it? I admit I can come to
no definite conclusion upon the subject, and will confine myself to the
expression of an opinion that _the death of Hotspur is still an open
question_,--with the supplementary reminder that Sir John Falstaff,
being only a private gentleman of limited means, could not hope for the
historic recognition of an honour disputed with him by the heir-apparent
of England. And--to come to the point at once--I really believe that Sir
John Falstaff _did_ kill Hotspur, and that his royal patron bore him
a grudge on that account to his dying day. It is the only logical
explanation of Henry the Fifth’s notorious ingratitude to his former
boon companion, whom it would have been so easy and natural for him to
load with honours.
The Earl of Douglas, as we have seen, was punished by being sent back
to Scotland. Sir John Falstaff, contrary to his reasonable expectations,
was not made either Duke or Earl, in recompense of an achievement for
which, whether really performed by him or no, he at least obtained
credit in the opinion of many impartial persons. Herein we find not
merely an illustration of the proverbial ingratitude of monarchs, but
also one, by implication, of the personal jealousy of Prince Henry
towards Sir John Falstaff, whom, as the sequel will show, the Prince
of Wales treated with the most pointed malignity from the date of the
Shrewsbury action to that of the knight’s death.
I will merely remark that Henry Plantagenet--fifth English king of that
name--_was not a man to do anything without a motive_.
What Sir John Falstaff really gained by his glorious victory of
Shrewsbury shall be seen in future chapters. It will be found that he
was not a loser by the transaction. I will conclude the present chapter
by a quotation from our knight’s expressed opinions before entering the
field of battle:--
“Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour pricks me off when I
“come on? How then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No.
“Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery
“then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that word honour?
“Air; a trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday?
“Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible, then?
“Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why?
“Detraction will not suffer it;--therefore, I’ll none of it. Honour is a
“mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.”
I think the above observations prove that Sir John Falstaff knew rather
more about honour than most people of his time, and therefore deserves a
prominent position amongst the honourable men of the age he lived in.