To Sir John Falstaff, Knight, be this deliverred.
“Sir Edward Poins grieves that his many duties as a humble but diligent
servant of King Henry (whom Heaven preserve!) may not permit him to
enjoy the pleasure of Sir John Falstaffs company at Windsor Castle,
whereof his Most Gracious Majesty hath been pleased to appoint Sir
Edward for a time custodian. It is not, however, in Sir Edward’s nature
to refuse a service to any one. If Sir John Falstaff is anxious for
himself or friends to obtain the privilege of viewing the improvements
in progress as well as the tapestries and pictures of the palace, Sir
Edward will give instructions to the wardens and porters of the building
to admit Sir John and friends to the same (within the hours allotted
to the admission of the public) with the assurance that Sir John and
friends will be treated with right due courtesy.
“P.S. It is entreated that no largesse or drink money shall be given
to any of the Castle servitors--the same subjecting such servitors to
immediate dismissal.”
That Sir Edward Poins--always a faithful imitator, to the best of his
ability, of King Henry the Fifth--should have thus behaved towards his
early friend and patron will surprise no student of human nature. This
coolness and ingratitude, however, of a supposed friend had no other
effect than to induce Sir John Falstaff during his residence in the
neighbourhood to choose his associates exclusively from the middle
classes--the lesser landowners, clergy, and even small traders of
extra-palatial Windsor. In such unassuming society Sir John passed
his time for the most part agreeably enough, and not altogether
unprofitably--though with many serious drawbacks to his comfort,
dignity, and finances.
On the whole, I confess, I feel no temptation whatever to expatiate upon
this portion of my hero’s rapidly closing career. The Windsor adventures
of Sir John Falstaff, forming as they do the basis of one of the most
admirably faithful and picturesque of Shakspeare’s historical studies,
present, after all, but an exceptional and, in my opinion, most painful
episode in the knight’s history. They show us the harrowing spectacle
of a great man in his decline. Many thoughtless commentators have
pronounced the portrait of Sir John Falstaff, as drawn in the “Merry
Wives of Windsor,” to be wanting in verisimilitude, and have therefore
called its authenticity into question. No discerning mind can mistake
the likeness. It is the same man whom we have so often seen drawn by the
same master-hand under more favourable circumstances--but how changed,
how fallen! The features are all unmistakeably there; but the
expression, bearing, and complexion, how sadly deteriorated! Age,
disappointment, and suffering have done their work. Sir John can no
longer hold his ground against the most contemptible adversary. The
victor is vanquished--the biter bitten. The more than match for the
keen-witted Harry Monmouth--the conqueror of Gascoigne and the terror of
Poins--becomes the easy dupe of a couple of practical-joking Berkshire
housewives. It is distressing to contemplate a man--whom we have seen
cross swords with Douglas; capture Colevile of the Grange; and who,
after all (as hath been demonstrated), there is strong reason to
believe, was the actual slayer of the terrible Henry Percy--sunk so low
as to receive without resentment a sound cudgelling administered, in
a fit of insensate jealousy, by a _bourgeois_ inhabitant of Peascod
Street, Windsor--who, for aught I can discover to the contrary, may
have been a retired grocer. * It may be urged that Sir John Falstaff,
in justice to his knightly standing, could not challenge an ignoble
curmudgeon like Ford to mortal combat; and that he acted becomingly
in preferring the more appropriate vengeance of keeping that citizen’s
money--intrusted to him for an avowedly immoral purpose. This was all
very well in its way, but did not wipe out the original outrage. That
shameful business of the buck-basket, also, was an indignity to which
Sir John in the heyday of his powers could never have submitted. “Men of
all sorts take a pride to gird at him” with a vengeance, at this time,
and the meanest are permitted to do so with impunity. His very retainers
turn against him (always excepting the faithful Bardolph, who relieves
his master, when under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, of the
cost of his maintenance, by turning tapster and waiting on the knight
at another person’s expense). He is even braved by Pistol; and that
“drawling, affecting rogue,” Nym, refuses to carry his messages. He is
cajoled, hoaxed, bamboozled. He suffers himself to be “made an ass” in
Windsor Park, where he exposes himself in a tom-fool disguise, and gets
pinched by all the charity boys and girls in the parish, believing them
to be avenging fairies. He is bound to admit that his wit has been “made
a Jack a Lent of.” A Cambrian parson, even, dares to laugh at him; and
he is “not able to answer the Welsh flannel.” It is a sad business.
I repeat that I have no heart to dwell upon these painful details.
Shakspeare has not scrupled to particularise them, and the curious
are referred to his able but pitiless pages. My good friend GEORGE
CRUIKSHANK also--an amiable man in the social relations of life, but
who when there is a stern truth to be recorded pictorially, has no more
feeling than the sun peering through a photographic lens--has added his
testimony to the principal features of the case. Let _my_ feelings be
spared--for I sympathise with poor Sir Jack, and, with all his faults,
love him.
[Illustration: 277]
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There is this excuse to be urged for Sir John Falstaff’s submitting to
all kinds of temporary inconvenience and degradation at the hands of
the contemptible citizens of Windsor. His mind was occupied with
more exalted subjects. He still contemplated the possibility of his
restoration to Court favour. He was sixty-three, it is true, and
prematurely broken in constitution. But a courtier and statesman must
be very old and shaken indeed to renounce his hopes of power and
advancement. Sir John watched his opportunity, and was willing to abide
his time. You will be willing to abide your time, reader, at the age
of a hundred (Heaven send you may live to it!) and never suspect for a
moment that your “time” will be out in the early part of next autumn.
* For the events here referred to, see the Merry Wives of
Windsor.
Sir John’s opportunity (as he imagined) at length arrived. King Henry
the Fifth prepared for his memorable invasion of France, by demanding,
from the French king, the hand of the Princess Katherine, and a
concession of territory sufficiently unreasonable to ensure the refusal
desired by the English crown. The Dauphin Louis answered the application
by his memorable present of a cask of tennis balls, which he assured
King Henry “were fitter playthings for him, according to his former
course of life, than the provinces demanded.” * The British cabinet was
nonplussed, there being nobody in office capable of replying to a joke.
This was Sir John Falstaffs opportunity.
Sir John, who had, of course, his agents posted about the Court, heard
of the dilemma. He despatched the following private note to His Majesty,
having securely arranged for its certain delivery into the royal hands:--