* It will be observed that Shakspeare almost invariably
makes Pistol speak in a kind of mongrel blank verse--
apparently in remote imitation of the masques, pageants, and
miracle plays then recently introduced into this country
from Italy--fashionable amusements, whereat the worthy
ancient (in his capacity of hanger-on of all dirty work to
the upper classes) doubtless frequently assisted, in a
supernumerary capacity. Sir John Falstaff answers him
playfully, from one of the earliest known specimens of this
kind of composition--See Payne Collier’s History of Dramatic
Poetry, and other works to be met with in the admirable and
compendious catalogue of the British Museum, which will
amply repay perusal.
The time long hoped for had then arrived. There was no more thought of
drowsiness or dissipation for that night,--no more of debt or difficulty
for the future. Henry of Monmouth--Sir John’s pet pupil, his “tender
lambkin”--was king; and surely, if such feelings as gratitude and
goodfellow-ship existed in the hearts of princes, no man had greater
right to look forward to emoluments and dignities under the new _regime_
than Sir John Falstaff. He himself was incapable of forgetting old
friends in his prosperity, and he could not suspect such baseness in
others. We have heard him declare that he would double charge Pistol
with dignities, that Master Shallow might choose what office he would in
the land--it should be his! Bardolph, knowing his master’s disposition,
would not take a knighthood for his fortune. Not one present was omitted
from the circle of Sir John Falstaff’s comprehensive benevolence.
Even to poor Master Silence he performed the only kindness which
that vocalist was just then capable of benefiting by,--he ordered his
inebriated worship to be carried up to bed!
Depend upon it, there was no time lost in booting and saddling for the
townward journey. Be sure that the command to “take any man’s horses”
was carried out to the letter, and backed by the legal warrant of
Justice Shallow--(for were they not on His Majesty’s service? could the
government of the realm possibly go on without the immediate presence in
the capital of Sir John Falstaff?)
What a terrible distance was that which separated Sir John from London
and the young king! How he wished for the power to annihilate time
and space! Alas! he was born in a wrong age for locomotive purposes.
Half-a-dozen centuries earlier, a knight-errant of his vast merit and
renown, wishing for a rapid mode of transit, would but have had to
summon his guardian fairy, and that obliging genius would have ordered
her griffins to be put-to for his accommodation, with a lift in her
enchanted car, immediately. In the present day, four hundred and forty
years later, the thing would be scarcely more difficult. A post-chaise
to the Tewkesbury station, and a special train thence to London, would
settle the matter in three or four hours. But the task of conveying Sir
John Falstaff, rapidly, over the vile roads of the fifteenth century,
by mere horse-power, would be a difficulty which the mind of a Pickford
alone could be qualified to grapple with.
And yet, incredible as it may seem, Sir John Falstaff actually contrived
to reach the metropolis on the third day after his departure from Master
Shallow’s residence. I am not prepared to say that no magic power
was employed in effecting this apparently miraculous transit. On the
contrary, the aid of a rather potent magician appears to have been
successfully invoked for the occasion--one, at whose bidding, the
roughest roads become level, the stoutest doors fly open, the veriest
griffins, tigers, crocodiles, and Cerberi of gate-keepers become docile
as lambs; an enchanter, at whose very aspect, or even name, horses
saddle themselves, inn-tables spread themselves, corks fly out of
self-pouring wine-bottles, pigs spit themselves, larks, pheasants, and
wild duck stop in their mid-air course, and fall, ready-stuffed and
roasted, on to eager travellers’ plate. Need I say that I allude to the
evil, but fascinating necromancer, King Money?
Sir John Falstaff borrowed a thousand pounds of Master Robert Shallow!
I would have it printed in letters of gold, would the arrangements
of the printing-office admit of such distinction, for I am proud to
chronicle so meritorious an achievement, the glory of which is doubled
by the moral certainty that Master Shallow never received a single
farthing of the money back again. On one account only can I be brought
to regret the transaction: I am sorry the amount was not two thousand.
IX. INAUGURATION OF THE NEW RÉGIME.--MALIGNITY OF THE LORD CHIEF
JUSTICE.
The news of Henry the Fourth’s decease was the occasion of a state of
public excitement to which we should in vain look for a parallel in any
dynastic or ministerial crisis of modern times. Rumour, with all her
hundred tongues gabbling at once, flew hither and thither, announcing
that the respectabilities were “out,” and the reprobates “in.” For a few
brief hours Sir John Falstaff really ranked, in the popular estimation,
as the most influential subject in the realm (and that distinction,
however briefly enjoyed, is something for a man to look back to
with satisfaction!) The knight’s “paper,” previously a drug in the
money-market, was eagerly bought up by the Jews, calling themselves
Lombards *, of the city. Traders, on the fair pages of whose ledgers the
name of Sir John Falstaff had long stood as a blot and eyesore, ordered
expensive dinners, and made rash presents to their wives and daughters.
Others, who had issued writs for the apprehension of the knight’s
person, called in those documents with breathless eagerness. Grave
burgesses, lawyers, and even ecclesiastics, who had the day before
commented severely on our hero’s irregularities, now boasted of his
acquaintance, and quoted his witticisms. A spirited hatter in the ward
of Chepe displayed, in front of his booth, a new falling hood-shape,
labelled with the recommendation, “as worne by Sir John Falstatfe and
ye Courte,” for copies of which he received an incredible number of
orders. The “Old Boar’s Head” did such a morning’s stroke of business
as had not been achieved within the memory of the oldest tippler. The
principal wine-merchants of the Vintry obsequiously intimated to Mrs.
Quickly that unlimited credit would be given to her at their respective
establishments, and our worthy hostess’s landlord immediately doubled
her rent.
* Precaution necessitated by the rigour of the existing
statute law, which excluded the Jewish people from residence
on English soil. Two unredeemed “obligacions,” in the
handwriting of Sir John Falstaff, for considerable sums
advanced,--one by Cosmo di Levi, the other by Ichi di
Solomoni,--are still in existence, to attest the observance
of this rule.--_Vide Strongate MSS._
The feeling of the Court may be summed up in one word--panic. The
favourites of the late king thought of nothing less than packing up
their portmanteaus, and making the best of their way to their several
country seats. The opinion was universal that Sir John Falstaff would
be raised to a rank, at all events, equivalent to what we call prime
minister; and it was of course anticipated that our knight would select
his companions in office from men of character and habits congenial to
his own. It is needless to say that none such could be found amongst
the lugubrious familiars of the late monarch. The princes of the blood
themselves--the new king’s own brothers--were by no means free from the
general apprehension. It seems rather odd that they should have believed
in the possibility of gratitude existing in the bosom of one of their
own blood; but it is nevertheless certain that they agreed to look on
Sir John Falstaff in the light of “the coming man,” a prospect they
regarded with considerable apprehension and alarm. For they were by no
means jovial princes, these young fellows. “A man,” as Sir John himself
had observed of one of them, “could not make them laugh.” The individual
Prince here referred to was John of Lancaster, afterwards Duke of
Bedford, whom we have already seen distinguish himself by treacherously
butchering a band of generous foemen, who had trusted themselves unarmed
to his honour--an achievement which he followed up later in life by
a congenial experiment on the person of one Joan of Arc, at Rouen, in
Normandy. A second was the renowned Duke Humphrey, whose social and
hospitable qualities have grown into a proverb. These two will serve
as examples of the entire stock. Such men could scarcely have felt
much sympathy for, or hoped anything from the friendship of, Sir John
Falstaff.
As for the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, he no sooner heard of the
old king’s death than he proceeded to make what, in modern colloquial
parlance, is termed “a bolt of it.” He had been hanging anxiously about
the palace during the morning, and on the confirmation of his worst
fears took precipitately to his heels. He was detected in that sagacious
but undignified act by the Earl of Warwick *, who detained him in
conversation.
* Immediately after the death of the king, Warwick stops
Gascoigne in a “room in the palace,” with the questions,
“How now my Lord Chief Justice? Whither away?” The
prevaricating responses of the learned justice betray his
nervous anxiety to be off.--_Vide_ Henry IV. Part II. Act v.
Scene 2.
Gascoigne made no concealment of his terrors; and indeed the noble
earl gave him no encouragement whatever to their mitigation. They
agreed--with the Princes John, Humphrey, and Thomas, who, accompanied
by the Earl of Westmoreland and other nobles of the Court, soon after
joined their conference--that the common prospects of the late king’s
favourites and admirers were decidedly unfavourable. It was the opinion
of the Earl of Warwick that many nobles who “_should_ hold their places”
(meaning himself for one), would have to “strike sail to spirits of
vile sort;” as a specimen whereof it is presumed he had the impudence to
allude to the hero of these pages. The Chief Justice confessed himself
prepared for the worst, admitting that the “condition of the time” could
not look “more hideously” upon him than his imagination had pictured to
him. It was admitted, on all hands, that his lordship’s only safe policy
would be to adopt the unpalatable course of “speaking Sir John Falstaff
fair.” This salutary piece of advice was first offered by the Duke of
Clarence. And I am willing to stake my reputation as a historian upon
the statement that the Lord Chief Justice _was perfectly prepared to
act upon it_, had not things taken a wholly unexpected turn. For he was
silent on the subject; and the case was evidently one of those wherein
silence is consent.
But the new king made his appearance amongst the group (who were waiting
in an antechamber like criminals to hear their sentence), and speedily
changed the aspect of things. He threw off the mask at once. He had no.
intention to alter anything. He had stepped into his father’s shoes, and
meant to walk in his father’s footsteps. _Le roi est mort, vive le
roi!_ If they had really been taken in by his having falsely represented
himself as a jovial good sort of fellow, why, he could only feel
flattered by the compliment to his powers of personation. In reality,
he had succeeded to the tyrannical and conquering business of his
unlamented father, which he intended to carry on with spirit, accepting
all the premises, bad-will, and fixtures as he found them. The princes
and earls were, of course, delighted, as feeling assured of a lengthened
tenure of Court favour and office. But the Lord Chief Justice was still
uneasy. He had once committed the present King of England to prison, and
monarchs are not in the habit of forgetting personal affronts.
I have before hinted at a possibility that this event was a matter of
private arrangement between the prince and the judge, for purposes of
mutual popularity. But to take a liberty with a prince, even at his own
request, is always a ticklish business. If you exceed the limit of your
instructions, woe betide you! I do not say that such was the case; but
it is barely probable that the cell to which the Prince of Wales was
confined on the occasion in question, may have proved rather more damp,
and less comfortable, than His Royal Highness had intended. At any rate,
it is certain that Gascoigne on this, his first meeting with King Henry
the Fifth (in the royal capacity), was in a state of great trepidation,
and evidently apprehended nothing less than immediate disgrace and
suspension from office. Recovering, however, a little courage and
composure at the new King’s indications of a disposition to carry out
his late father’s policy--I was about to say principles--he ventured
upon a little special pleading in defence of his conduct in the matter
of the world-famous police case, which he judiciously mixed up with a
little covert flattery--delicately hinting that Henry the Fifth himself
might some day have a disreputable son, to whose vagaries a severe
administration of the Common Law might prove a wholesome corrective.
Acting on the old north-country proverb that “the old woman would
never have looked in the oven for her daughter if she hadn’t been there
herself,” His Majesty King Henry the Fifth (a sagacious man at all
times) saw the wisdom of this suggestion, and at once confirmed Chief
Justice Gascoigne in the permanent enjoyment of his dignities and
emoluments.
I grieve to write it--but the deed was done, and it shall be chronicled.
The first employment made by the Chief Justice of his new lease of power
was to indulge in a dastardly act of vengeance. With indecent haste
he rushed from the palace, and issued warrants for the apprehension of
Mistress Helen Quickly, licensed victualler, and of Mistress Dorothea
Tearsheet, spinster, on a frivolous and untenable charge. For what
reason? it will be asked. I can find no better one than that the former
was the friend, and the latter the beloved kinswoman, of Sir John
Falstaff. Do you suppose the justice had forgotten the setting down
he had received at the hands of our hero, the substance of which
(transferred from the pages of “Shakespeare”), will be found in the
second chapter of the fourth book of this history? And with the petty
vindictiveness we have seen him employ on more than one occasion, is it
probable that he was at all the sort of man to behave in the hour of
his own triumph with magnanimity towards a fallen foe? We will waive the
question of Gascoigne being possibly indebted to Mrs. Quickly for early
board and lodging, as being, if not irrelevant, at any rate superfluous.
The case is quite black enough against him as it stands.
At any rate, it is certain that the two ladies in question were
ignominiously arrested by the warrant of the Chief Justice *, and to
complete their disgrace (and Sir John Falstaff’s) transferred from the
custody of the constables to that of the town beadle.
* If not by his warrant, by whose? What less dignified
functionary would have presumed to put so large a
construction on the English laws of the period as that
manifested by the arrest in question? I would cheerfully
pause for a reply, were not the printer’s boy in such an
abominable hurry.
In proof that the arrest had been made under circumstances of extreme
injustice and barbarity, it need only be urged that each of the fair
captives was so violently provoked by her aggressors, as entirely
to forget all her antecedents of good breeding and propriety, and to
indulge in positively coarse and abusive language.
Mistress Tearsheet, for instance, was betrayed into the following
decidedly unladylike outburst, addressed to a beadle in human form:--
“I’ll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as
soundly swinged for this, you _blue-bottle rogue!_ you filthy, famished
correctioner! if you be not swinged, I’ll forswear half kirtles.”
I have extracted this passage from the chronicle, not for the vulgar
purpose of harrowing the reader’s feelings with the spectacle of lovely
woman goaded by injustice and violence even to the pitch of unbecoming
self-forgetfulness, but from motives purely archæological. The derisive
term “bluebottle”--so frequently heard in the present day, applied
to the guardians of the public peace by ladies and gentlemen in
circumstances of trial similar to those of Mistress Tearsheet--is
thereby proved to have had an origin at all events as early as
the commencement of the fifteenth century,--a valuable antiquarian
discovery, for which I trust some learned gentleman with capital letters
after his name will be just enough to give me credit in the pages of
some eminent scientific journal.
Ere the hour of noon had that day sounded Sir John Falstaff’s bills were
again waste paper. His creditors, who had indulged in costly dinners,
and given rash presents to their wives and daughters, countermanded
their suppers, and withdrew their names from numerous charitable
subscription lists. The writs were re-issued. The hatter in the Ward of
Chepe altered his placard to “Ye Gascoigne Shape?,” and disposed of his
invention more rapidly than before. By half-past three in the afternoon
the sheriff’s officers were in possession of the “Old Boar’s Head” for a
pitiful debt to a small ale brewer.