“Presume not that I am the thing I was:
For Heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn’d away my former self,
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots;
Till then, I banish thee on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
_Not to come near our person by ten mile._
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil;
And as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strength and qualities,
Give you advancement.--Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform’d the tenor of our word.
Get on.”
And then King Henry the Fifth, with his crown on, followed by
his brothers, cousins, nobles, ambassadors, clergy, mace-bearers,
sword-bearers, pages, retainers, and what not--by no means forgetting
James the First, poet and King of Scotland (who, I am sure, cast
a glance of sympathy at the paralysed figure of Sir John Falstaff,
kneeling aghast and open-mouthed among the damp rushes of the
courtyard), and Master John Lydgate, the laureate monk of Bury (who
also, I am willing to believe, was rather distressed at the turn things
had unfortunately taken)--took the arm of the triumphant Lord Chief
Justice Gascoigne, and proceeded to dinner in the hall of Richard
the Second, as though such a person as John Falstaff had never had
existence. .
Sir John, after a moment’s stupefaction, started to his feet. He pressed
his hand over his burning eyeballs. A convulsive shudder passed through
his entire system; and one brief sob escaped him. It was over. Sir John
relieved his oppressed lungs of a long-pent-up breath; wiped his smoking
forehead, and looked composedly at Justice Shallow. Justice Shallow
looked at Sir John Falstaff. Not composedly though, by any means.
“Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds,” said Sir John Falstaff.
It was a fact at all events, and, therefore, worthy of mention.
“Ay, marry Sir John,” the justice faltered, “which I beseech you to let
me have home with me.”
“That can hardly be, Master Shallow,” was the reply. “Do not you grieve
at this; I shall be sent for in private to him! Look you, he must seem
thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet that
shall make you great.”
“I cannot well perceive how, unless”--imminent pecuniary danger had lent
the worthy justice unwonted smartness,--“you should give me your doublet
and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have
five hundred of my thousand.”
“Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a
colour.”
“A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John.”
“Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant Pistol *; come,
Bardolph; I shall be sent for to-night.”
* A spontaneous promotion of the worthy Ancient, as it would
seem, upon the brevet principle.
Sir John Falstaff had not to wait until nightfall ere he was sent
for. Scarcely had he spoken when the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne,
accompanied by Prince John of Lancaster (whose grudge against our
knight, for the Gualtree affair, was, if possible, stronger than that
of the justice himself), reappeared on the scene with a posse of
constables. These men had even quitted a royal dinner table for the
gratification of private vengeance. Could the force of malignity go
further?
The lord chief justice, not trusting himself to an accusation which
might have led to discussion, wherein he would inevitably have been
discomfited, ordered Sir John Falstaff and his companions to be conveyed
to the Fleet Prison!
Sir John naturally attempted to protest against a persecution so
unprecedented.
“My lord, my lord,----”
“I cannot now speak,” said the chief justice. “I will hear you soon.
Take them away.”
And they _were_ taken away--Bardolph, Pistol, and poor little Robin
included--aye, and even Master Robert Shallow, of Gloucestershire, in
the commission of the peace, _custos rotulorum_, whose only offence was
one against the laws of ordinary human judgment; to wit, that he
had lent Sir John Falstaff the sum of one thousand pounds under the
impression that he would one day get it back again.
Now I should be very much obliged to any individual learned in the
antiquities of English law, who will inform me by what then existing
statute Sir John Falstaff, with his friend and retainers, were committed
to the Fleet Prison? If, after all I have been at the pains of writing
in the course of this publication,--since the acknowledged failure of
my attempt to make out a case in favour of the Lord Chief Justice
Gascoigne--there should remain any apologists for the character and
conduct of that eminent justiciary, I should also feel thankful to them
if they can inform me how they intend reconciling the behaviour of their
_protégé_, on this occasion, with his hitherto established reputation
as an upright judge. With regard to Prince John of Lancaster, afterwards
Duke of Bedford, I trouble myself but little. History can have left him
no friends. No amount of apologetic whitewash would serve to frost over
the thick coating of smut from the funeral pyre of Joan of Arc, by which
his memory must stand blackened to all eternity.
_Apropos des bottes_. I am happy to be able to convict Henry the Fifth
in a glaring falsehood. He did _not_ banish, “on pain of death,” the
whole of his early associates in debauchery and misdemeanour, nor forbid
them all “to come near his person by ten mile.” Master Edward Poins,
a discreet, timeserving young gentleman, continued in the enjoyment of
court favour, and received the dignity of knighthood on the very day of
his majesty’s coronation.