_For the Table Book._
The elastic buoyancy of spirits, joined with the rare affability of
disposition, which prominently marked the character of the prince whose
recent loss we deplore, rendered him the enthusiastic admirer and steady
supporter of the English stage. I hope I shall not be taken to task for
alluding to a trifling coincidence, on recalling to recollection how
largely the mighty master of this department, our immortal Shakspeare,
has drawn upon his royal highness’s illustrious predecessors in title,
in those unrivalled dramatic sketches which unite the force of genius
with the simplicity of nature, whilst they impart to the strictly
accurate annals of our national history some of the most vivid
illuminations which blaze through the records of our national eloquence.
The touches of a master-hand giving vent to the emanations of a mighty
mind are, perhaps, no where more palpably traced, than throughout those
scenes of the historical play of Richard II., where Edmund of Langley,
duke of York, (son of king Edward III.,) struggles mentally between
sentiments of allegiance to his weak and misguided sovereign on the one
hand, and, on the other hand, his sense of his other nephew
Bolingbroke’s grievous wrongs, and the injuries inflicted on his country
by a system of favouritism, profusion, and oppression.
Equal skill and feeling are displayed in the delineation of his son
Rutland’s devoted attachment to his dethroned benefactor, and the adroit
detection, at a critical moment, of the conspiracy, into which he had
entered for Richard’s restoration.
In the subsequent play of Henry V., (perhaps the most heart-stirring of
this interesting series,) we learn how nobly this very Rutland (who had
succeeded his father, Edmund of Langley, as duke of York) repaid Henry
IV.’s generous and unconditional pardon, by his heroic conduct in the
glorious field of Agincourt, where he sealed his devotion to his king
and country with his blood.
Shakspeare has rendered familiar to us the intricate plans of deep-laid
policy, and the stormy scenes of domestic desolation, through which his
nephew and successor, Richard, the next duke of York, obtained a glimpse
of that throne, to which, according to strictness, he was legitimately
entitled just before
“York overlook’d the town of York.”
The licentious indulgence, the hard-hearted selfishness, the reckless
cruelty, which history indelibly stamps as the characteristics of his
son and successor, Edward, who shortly afterwards seated himself firmly
on the throne, are presented to us in colours equally vivid and
authentic. The interestingly pathetic detail of the premature extinction
in infancy of his second son, prince Richard, whom he had invested with
the title of York, is brought before our eyes in the tragedy of Richard
III., with a forcible skill and a plaintive energy, which set the
proudest efforts of preceding or following dramatic writers at defiance.
To “bluff king Hal,” (who, during the lifetime of his elder brother,
Arthur, prince of Wales, had next borne this exclusively royal title of
duke of York,) ample justice is rendered, in every point of view, in
that production, as eminent for its gorgeous pageantry as for its
subdued interest, in which most of our elder readers must have been
sufficiently fortunate to witness the transcendant merits of Mrs.
Siddons, as Queen Catherine, surpassing even her own accustomed
excellence.
Had, contrary to the wonted career of the triumph of human intellect, a
Shakspeare enraptured and adorned the next generation, what studies
would not the characters and fates of the martyred Charles I., and his
misguided son, James II., have afforded to his contemplation. Both these
sovereigns, during the lives of their respective elder brothers, bore
the title of duke of York.
The counties of York and Lancaster are the only two in England from
which the titles conferred have been exclusively enjoyed by princes of
the blood royal. It may be safely asserted, that neither of these
designations has ever illustrated an individual, who was not either son,
brother, grandson, or nephew of the sovereign of this realm.
Richard, duke of York, killed at the battle of Wakefield, may, at first
sight, strike the reader as an exception to this assertion, he being
only cousin to Henry VI.; but we ought to bear in mind, that this
Richard was himself entitled to that throne, of which his eldest son
shortly afterwards obtained possession, under the title of Edward IV.
By the treaty of Westphalia, concluded at Munster, in 1648, which put an
end to the memorable war that desolated the fairest portion of the
civilized world during thirty years, it was stipulated that the
bishopric of Osnaburgh, then secularized, should be alternately
possessed by a prince of the catholic house of Bavaria, and the
protestant house of Brunswick Lunenburgh. It is somewhat remarkable, on
the score of dates, that the Bavarian family enjoyed but one
presentation between the death of Ernest Augustus, duke of York, in
1728, and the presentation of his great, great, great nephew, the
lamented prince whose loss, in 1827, is so deeply and justly deplored.