TRIUMPH OF THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE GASCOIGNE, AND DISGRACE OF SIR JOHN
FALSTAFF.
The coronation of Henry the Fifth took place immediately on his
assumption of the royal dignity. Authorities differ as to the exact date
of this imposing ceremony. Fleming, in his Chronicle, fixes it as late
as the 9th of April, in which he is supported by Stowe and a host
of respectable authorities. Rapin comes nearer the probable truth in
assigning it to the first of the same month--a date which leaves us
not without slight suspicion of a seasonable pleasantry intended by
the lively French historian at the expense of his readers. The general
balance of probabilities, supported by important circumstantial
evidence, brought to light in the search after materials for this
history, points out the 22nd of March as the day on which Henry the
Fifth practically succeeded to the crown of his father’s cousin. In
those days a king was considered no king until he had worn the crown;
and as it was never in the least degree clear, even to the most
discerning intellect, to whom the crown really belonged, the important
claim of possession was naturally the first thing thought of by the
individual enjoying the nearest prospect of its appropriation. It is
hardly probable that a sagacious prince like Henry of Monmouth
should have postponed the vital ceremony a single day longer than was
absolutely necessary. Pressing necessities of state afforded a decent
excuse for hastening the funeral of Henry the Fourth; and there can be
no doubt that his successor’s publicly announced alacrity to walk in his
father’s footsteps induced him to try on the paternal coronation shoes
on the earliest possible occasion.
Should any doubts on this subject exist, they are at once dispelled by
reference to the facts already in the possession of the reader--which it
may bo as well to recapitulate. Sir John Falstaff received the tidings
of the old king’s death on the 19th of March. On the third day after
this our knight was in London. That the day of Sir John’s arrival in the
metropolis was so that of Henry’s coronation is a matter of history.
The chronicler Fleming, speaking of the auspicious accession of Henry
the Fifth to the throne of England, informs us that--
“Such great hope and good
“expectation was had of this man’s fortunate successe to follow, that within
“three daies after his father’s decease diverse noble men and honorable
“personages did to him homage and sware to him due obedience, which had
“not beene seene done to any of bis predecessors kings of this realme, till
“they had beene possessed of the crowne.”
Differing with the learned and voluminous chronicler as to the absence
of precedent in such matter of homage (the worship of the rising sun, on
the appearance of his first rays of power, being older in England than
Stonehenge), I can only say that there was no noble man or honourable
personage whatever in the realm more eager to do to the new king homage,
and swear to him due obedience, than Sir John Falstaff, Knight. Only
that unfortunately Sir John was, as usual, a little too late with his
homage. All the nice pickings of court favour and promotion had been
snapped up before his arrival.
The coronation day, in the words of the venerable chronicler last
quoted, was
“a sore, ruggie and tempestuous day, with wind, snow and sleet, that
“men greatlie marvelled thereat, making diverse interpretations what the
“same might signifie.”
To Sir John Falstaff it might have been interpreted to signify the cold
blasts of adversity, icy ingratitude, flowery visions blown into the
air, fair prospects nipped in the bud, the tree of Hope torn up by the
roots and lying prostrate!
The day, however, so inauspiciously commenced would seem to have cleared
up, as upon the conclusion of the coronation ceremony (with the details
whereof it is not the present writer’s business to encumber his pages)
the royal party proceeded on foot in solemn procession from the
gateway of Westminster Abbey to Richard the Second’s great hall, in the
neighbouring palace. It is true that the royal party might have got
wet in so doing--the umbrella not having been yet invented, and the
cab-stand being an institution undreamt of even by the most Utopian
imagination. But I am inclined to think that if Henry the Fifth’s first
public appearance as a crowned head had been made under circumstances
so unfavourable to dignity as a pelting shower, some adverse chronicler
would have taken care to mention the circumstance. If the newly-placed
crown, for instance, had been blown off into the mud, or if the gartered
leg of majesty had got over its ankle in a puddle of the period, depend
upon it we should have heard of it. There were plenty of literary men
present, who would not have failed to report such a circumstance.
There was John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, for one, who had come to town
expressly to superintend the rehearsal of a coronation anthem (composed,
it was whispered, by the king himself), to which the worthy ecclesiastic
had adapted words. John, as a faithful courtier and professional
laureate, would infallibly have immortalised any such calamity in
sympathetic verse. And we should most likely have had the subject
treated from a facetious point of view, for the coronation guests of
that day had from North Britain; one James Stuart, in fact, a shrewd
humorist, an excellent poet, and a man of genius generally, but who
having made the mistake of coming into the world some five hundred
years before his time, and wishing to force upon an independent Scottish
nobility the glaring anachronism of an enlightened government in the
fifteenth century, was very properly shown the error of his ways, and
duly assassinated at midnight in his own chamber, according to the
custom of that country and period. Altogether I prefer adhering to Mr.
Cruikshank’s pictorially recorded opinion of the weather on the occasion
of Henry the Fifth’s first emerging a crowned monarch from the portals
of Edward the Confessor’s venerable minster. The wish is father to the
thought, I admit. If only for the sake of the fair spectators in the
balcony, I must strive to believe that the day turned out fine. I cannot
bear to think that those dainty creatures--many of whose effigies may
doubtless be found, at this day, in the neighbouring cloisters, lying
on their backs, with crossed hands and chipped noses (attributed, by the
vergers of the abbey, as a matter of course, to the iconoclast malice
of Oliver Cromwell)--should have had their hoods, kirtles, and day’s
pleasure spoiled by the “wind, snow, and sleete” of a “ruggie and
tempestuous day.” Depend upon it that, towards ten o’clock in the
morning (the hour at which, according to the early habits of the period,
the coronation ceremony would have come to a close), the sky began to
clear up.
In a literal and physical sense only, be it understood. Metaphorically,
as far as Sir John Falstaff was concerned, the sun was never destined
to shine more; for the sun of poor old Jack’s existence was Henry
Plantagenet, fifth king of England by that name, and the face of
that sun Jack Falstaff was never to see but once again. And then--oh,
Nemesis, Parcæ, and all unkind heathen deities whatsoever!--with what
clouds before it?
Clouds of coldness, of displeasure, of--yes, I will say it, and quite in
earnest--of cruelty. Aye, and a yet more impenetrable obstruction to the
desired rays than any such clouds--the presence of a powerful enemy! On
the brief and only occasion of Sir John Falstaff being brought face
to face with King Henry the Fifth (as a crowned monarch) Chief Justice
Gascoigne was at His Majesty’s elbow, the most favoured servant of the
realm. Alas! poor Jack!
Let us particularise the scene.
Sir John Falstaff--with Master Shallow, his friend; Bardolph, his
henchman, maître d’hotel, valet, and factotum; Pistol, his indefinite
subaltern; and Robin, his page--reached the gates of Westminster Abbey
just as the ringing of bells and the harmonious swelling of many hundred
voices within the sacred edifice, almost drowned by the shouts of the
populace outside, announced that the ceremony was at an end. Sir John
had ridden post, his impatience scarcely allowing him to sleep during
the whole of his three days’ journey. He was untrimmed, draggled,
jaded, and travel-stained. He was nervous, breathless, excited. I am not
prepared to assert positively that he was quite sober; and, indeed, it
may be slightly palliative to the conduct of Henry the Fifth, which I
am about to describe in terms of the severest reprehension, that--for
a newly-crowned monarch of doubtful antecedents, anxious to stand well
with the more respectable portion of the community--to be hailed as a
bosom friend, in the presence of kings, princes, and ambassadors, by a
group composed of Messrs. Falstaff, Shallow, Bardolph, and Co., under
the influence of a three days’ journey, having been for the most part
performed in bad weather, in the course of which frequent attempts
had doubtless been made to replace the important necessity of sleep
by recourse to refreshment of a widely different character,--would
naturally be rather a trying business. However, let us to the facts.
Of course Sir John Falstaff had sufficient influence with the guards and
retainers to force his way through barriers of every description. He
was treated with negative respect on all sides; but he certainly did not
meet with the enthusiastic reception he had anticipated. As he glanced
anxiously round on the many familiar faces present, he noticed
an expression of awkwardness and constraint upon each. Many old
acquaintances averted their heads. Such as were bound to recognise the
knight did so in terms of studied formality. Sir John began to feel
the raw March atmosphere absolutely oppressive. He strove to crush his
rising misgivings.
“Stand here, by me, Master Robert Shallow,” he said, lugging that
magistrate through the last layer of the king’s Cheshire archers that
stood between them and the royal pathway. “I will make the king do
you grace. I will leer at him as he comes by, and do but mark the
countenance that he will give me.”
“Bless thy lungs, good knight!” said the valiant Pistol, who had already
shown himself publicly in his ancient haunts, and, indeed, turned a
pretty penny by the acceptance of peace-offerings from myrmidons of the
law, his former enemies and oppressors.
“Come here, Pistol; stand behind me,” said Sir John. Alack, how nervous
he was getting! He twirled and plucked at the ends of his beard till
he winced with pain. He gnawed his finger nails. He played the old
gentleman’s tattoo with his mud-stained boot on the steaming rushes
beneath him. He twisted buttons off his _just-au-corps_. His breath was
short, his under lip drooped, and his teeth chattered.
“Oh, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed
the thousand pounds I borrowed of you!”
Master Shallow winced. He, too, was nervous.
“But ‘tis no matter; this poor show doth better; this doth infer the
zeal I had to see him.”
“It doth so.” Master Shallow breathed his answer thickly.
“It shows my earnestness in affection.”
“It doth so.”
“My devotion.”
“It doth, it doth, it doth.”
(Heavens! how Master Shallow must have twiddled with his chain or chewed
at the cape of his riding hood as he repeated these words in rapid
crescendo!)
“As it were, to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to
remember, not to have patience to shift me.”
“It is most certain.”
“But to stand stained with travel and sweating with desire to see him;
thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if
there were nothing else to be done but to see him.”
“‘Tis _semper idem_ for _absque hoc nihil est_” put in Pistol. “‘Tis all
in every part.”
“‘Tis so, indeed.” Master Shallow gasped out these words, which were
scarcely audible. He was in a high state of trepidation, and it will be
admitted that he had exactly one thousand reasons for feeling so.
The moments seemed hours. Would the king never come? Sir John almost
dreaded that he should die with his eyes unblessed by the sight of his
royal pupil and favourite, clad in the attributes of majesty. His gaze
was riveted on the cathedral door. He was deaf to all sounds in his
eager listening for one well-known footstep. Pistol vainly attempted to
enlist his sympathies by a narrative of the wrongs of the Fair Dorothea.
Sir John mechanically promised to deliver the captive princess from her
oppressors, but his words scarcely conveyed a meaning.
The anthem swelled. The shouts were resumed. Officious retainers bustled
forth to clear the way. Sir John Falstaff’s heart beat almost audibly.
He felt sick and giddy as a dazzling vision burst upon his sight--round
which all other objects on the scene, animate and inanimate, seemed
whirling like weird shapes in a demon dance about a magic fire. King
Henry the Fifth, in all the pride and splendour of newly anointed
majesty, stood before him!
I dare be bound Henry of Monmouth never more thoroughly merited Master
Stowe’s simple panegyric on his personal graces than at that moment.
“This prince,” says the worthy old Cockney, “exceeded the mean stature
of men; he was beautiful of visage, his neck long, bodye slender and
leane, and his bones small; nevertheless he was of marvellous great
strength, and passing swift in running.”
I have no doubt that His Majesty, on reaching the open air, would have
been but too happy to exercise his skill in the latter accomplishment
so as to avoid the compromising recognition of Sir John Falstaff and
his friends, had circumstances permitted; but it was an ordeal not to be
avoided.
“Save thy grace, King Hal! My royal Hal!” Sir John shouted at the top of
his voice.
It is possible that Sir John Falstaff’s muddy boots, drenched doublet,
three days’ linen and all, might have been tolerated on the score of
gentle birth and past services. But there was no getting over the bodily
presence of Bardolph, Pistol, and a dilapidated, draggle-tailed country
justice from the wilds of Gloucestershire.
“The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!” was the
salutation of Pistol.
“Save thee, my sweet boy!” added Falstaff.
Henry the Fifth was certainly a great man. The opportunity for
exercising his “passing swiftness in running” failing him, he was fain
to fall back upon his “marvellous great strength” of moral assurance,
and appear to deny all knowledge of his former associates. He drew
himself up to his full height, “exceeding the mean stature of men,” and,
turning to the illustrious dignitary at his side, said coldly--
“My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.”
Which of course my Lord Chief Justice was only too eager to do, in his
own chosen terms.
“Have you your wits? know you what ‘tis you speak?” his
lordship inquired, in his most withering,
commit-you-three-months-for-contempt-of-court tones.
“My king! my Jove!” Falstaff had eyes and ears for the monarch alone. “I
speak to thee, my heart.”
It was no easy matter “to cut” Sir John Falstaff. He would make himself
heard; and nature had provided him with the amplest resources for
making himself seen. The future conqueror of Agincourt was for a moment
nonplussed. But, with characteristic promptness, he rapidly decided on
the part he should play. Taking Sir John’s last greeting as his cue to
speak, he gave utterance to one of the most remarkable royal speeches on
record. The only assumed verbatim report of this oration extant is from
the pen of Shakspeare, by whom it was, doubtless, slightly modified,
as to verbal construction, in obedience to the rules of versification
usually observed by writers of his school and epoch. But there is
no reason to believe that any undue advantage of the reporter’s
prescriptive licence to correct, harmonise, and embellish, was taken on
the occasion. That the substance of the speech was as follows we have
the amplest corroborative evidence in the pages of various contemporary
historians:--
[Illustration: 265]
“I know thee not, old man! Fall to thy prayers.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
So surfeit swell’d, so old, and so profane;
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandising; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.”
As one entertaining an excusable professional jealousy on behalf of
the much-maligned and decidedly unprofitable calling of “fool and
jester”--(which I was so injudicious as to take up with, very early in
life, and have already an “ill-becoming” sprinkling of premature “white
hairs” amongst my black ones, to show as a natural consequence of
that error)--I dwell with malicious pleasure on the fact that, at this
juncture of his homily, his no longer jocular majesty, Henry the Fifth,
was suddenly “pulled up” by a reminder, on the countenance of his senior
whom he had presumed to lecture, that he, the king, had unconsciously
slipped back into his old habits, and, while reprimanding levity, had
committed himself by making a joke upon Falstaff’s bulk, as in the jolly
old days of the Boar’s Head fraternisation. In the words of an able
commentator upon this historical passage:--“He saw the rising smile and
smothered retort upon Falstaff’s lip, and he checks him with--‘Reply not
to me with a fool-born jest.’”
The very thing he was afraid of! He had rashly challenged old Jack with
the knight’s own weapons, and was fain to plead benefit of royalty to
sneak out of the combat in which he knew he must be worsted. To impose
silence on his adversary was his only chance.