The Life of Sir John Falstaff

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The Prince of Wales.—Speak, sirs; how was it?

Mr. Babdolph.—We four set upon some dozen,—— *

Sir John Falstaff.—Sixteen, at least, my lord.

Mr. Bardolph.—And bound them.

Mr. Peto.—No, no, they were not bound.

Sir John Falstaff.—You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.

Mr. Bardolph.—As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us,——

Sir John Falstaff.—And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.

The Prince of Wales.—What, fought ye with them all?

Sir John Falstaff.—All? I know not what ye call, all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish: if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack then am I no two-legged creature.

Mr. Poins.—Pray God you have not murdered some of them.

Sir John Falstaff.—Nay, that’s past praying for: I have peppered two of them: two, I am sure, I have paid; two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal,—if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward;—here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me,—

The Prince of Wales.—What, four? thou saidst but two, even now?

Sir John Falstaff—Four, Hal; I told thee four.

Mr. Poins.—Ay, ay, he said four.

Sir John Falstaff.—These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.

The Prince of Wales.—Seven? why, there were but four, even now.

Sir John Falstaff.—In buckram.

Mr. Poins.—Ay, four, in buckram suits.

Sir John Falstaff.—Seven by these hilts, or I am a villain else.

The Prince of Wales.—Pr’ythee, let him alone; we shall have more anon.

Sir John Falstaff.—Dost thou hear me, Hal?

The Prince of Wales.—Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.

Sir John Falstaff.—Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram, that I told thee of,—

The Prince of Wales.—So, two more already.

Sir John Falstaff.—Their points being broken,—

Mr. Poins.—Down fell their hose.

Sir John Falstaff.—Began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in foot and hand; and with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.

The Prince of Wales—O monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!

Sir John Falstaff.—But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves, in Kendal green, came at my back, and let drive at me;—for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.

The Prince of Wales.—These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou villainous, obscene, greasy tallow-keech,—

Sir John Falstaff.—What! art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth, the truth?

The Prince of Wales.—Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? come tell us your reason: what sayest thou to this?

Mr. Poins.—Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.

Sir John Falstaff.—What, upon compulsion? No; were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion!

The Prince of Wales.—I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh.

Sir John Falstaff.—Away, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you stock-fish,—O, for breath to utter what is like thee!—you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck;—

The Prince of Wales.—Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again: and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.

Mr. Poins.—Mark, Jack.

The Prince or Wales.—We two saw you four set on four; you bound them, and were masters of their wealth.—Mark now, how plain a tale shall put you down.—Then did we two set on you four, and, with a word, out-faced you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house:—and Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done; and then say, it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole, canst thou now find out, to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?

Mr. Poins.—Come, let’s hear, Jack; What trick hast thou now?

Sir John Falstaff.—By the Lord, I knew ye, as well as he that made ye. Why, hear ye, my masters: Was it for me to kill the heir apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest, I am as valiant as Hercules: but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee, during my life. I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money__Hostess, clap to the doors; watch to-night, pray to-morrow.—Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What! shall we be merry? shall we have a play extempore?

The Prince of Wales.—Content;—and the argument shall be thy running away.

Sir John Falstaff.—Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.

Now, reader, do you know the opinion I have formed, after a careful study of the above historic dialogue? Perhaps you will not guess, as it is widely remote from the common one. It is, that Sir John Falstaff did know it was the Prince. I don’t mean to say in the heat of battle, when the outside of the knight’s head monopolised all his attention; but I believe, on after reflection, by calmly putting that and that together, he would have more than a shrewd guess at the character of his assailants. Why, then, all the lies and subterfuges? Why the hacking of the Falstaffian sword with the Falstaffian dagger? Why the tickling of the noses with spear grass to draw blood? and the subsequent “beslubbering” of their garments therewith, under pretence of its being the blood of true men (a stratagem somewhat unworthily betrayed by Lieutenant Bardolph)? Wherefore all these devices, with the certainty of detection?

The answer is very simple.

It was Sir John Falstaff’s object to make the Prince of Wales believe himself a much cleverer fellow than he really was; and I maintain that he succeeded most triumphantly in the present instance.

Well, the money was safe. The Prince was satisfied—Falstaff perfectly contented. Credit was unlimited—sack abundant. Nothing remained but to make a night of it. A night was accordingly manufactured; the principal ingredient in its composition being the first specimen of a now popular class of entertainment on record,—namely, an amateur play, in which Sir John Falstaff, with much dignity, sustained the character of King Henry the Fourth, the Prince of Wales being represented (on that occasion, and by particular desire), by His Royal Highness in person. The two leading comedians subsequently exchanged parts. The performance was received with thunders of applause by a select, if unfashionable, audience. For the libretto of this highly successful production, the reader is referred to the collected works of the able dramatist who has already met with such frequent and encouraging notice in these pages.

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V. HISTORIC DISSERTATION UPON THE GREAT CIVIL WAR

WAGED BETWEEN THE REVOLTED HOUSES OF PERCY AND MORTIMER, ABETTED BY THE WELSH CHIEFTAIN, OWEN GLENDOWER, AND THE SCOTS, UNDER ARCHIBALD EARL OF DOUGLAS, ON THE ONE SIDE; AND KING HENRY THE FOURTH AND SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, WITH THEIR ALLIES AND FOLLOWERS, ON THE OTHER: WITH THE ARMING OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF’s TROOPS, AND THE MARCH TO COVENTRY.

IN order to appreciate fully the position of Sir John Falstaff amid the stirring national events succeeding upon the action of Gadshill, it behoves us to quit, for a while, the private park of Biography, and turn into the high road of History; that is to say, to leave Sir John to his fate for a page or so, and give some passing attention to the doings of practitioners in his own line, but in a more extensive way of business.

In the commencement of the fifteenth century, the Scotch, obeying the hereditary instincts of their race, made repeated incursions into England—not, it should be stated, with that invariable success which has attended their more modern attempts in a similar direction. After various reverses, the flower of Scottish chivalry, commanded by Hepburn of Hales, were effectually routed by an English force, under the Earl of March, at Nesbit Moor, in the spring of 1402.

Archibald, Earl of Douglas, “sore displeased in his mind for this overthrow, procured a commission to invade England.” So writes Hollinshed. It appears singular to us, that a Scottish gentleman should, at any time, have thought it necessary to apply to his government for permission to fulfil a portion of his natural destiny; but, of course, every age has its own manners. The Douglas, with an army of ten thousand men, advanced as far as Newcastle, but finding no army to oppose him, he retreated, loaded with plunder, and satisfied with the devastation he had committed, and the terror he had produced. The King, at this time, was vainly chasing Glendower up and down his mountains; but the Earl of Northumberland, and his son, Hotspur, gathered a powerful army, and intercepted Douglas on his return to Scotland. This army awaited the Scots near Milfield, in the north of Northumberland, and Douglas, upon arriving in sight of his enemy, took up a strong post upon Homildon Hill. The English weapon, the long bow, decided the contest, for the Scots fell almost without fight. Douglas and the survivors of his army were made prisoners.

Events immediately ensuing upon this engagement led to a rupture between King Henry the Fourth and the family of the Percies. The origin of the quarrel is thus described by Hollinshed:—

“Henry, Earl of Northumberland, with his brother Thomas, Earl of Worcester, and his son, the Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, which were to King Henry, in the beginning of his reign, both faithful friends and earnest aiders, began now to envy his wealth and felicity; and especially were they grieved, because the king demanded of the earl and his son such Scottish prisoners as were taken at Homildon and Nesbit, for, of all the captives taken in the conflicts fought in those two places, there was delivered to the king’s possession only Mordake, Earl of Fife, the Duke of Albany’s son, though the king did at divers and sundry times require deliverance of the residue, and that with great threatenings: wherewith the Percies, being sore offended, for that they claimed them as their own proper prisoners and peculiar prizes, * * * * came to the king unto Windsor (upon a purpose to prove him), and then required of him, that, either by ransom or otherwise, he would cause to be delivered out of prison Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, their cousin-german, whom (as they reported) Owen Glendower kept in filthy prison, shackled with irons, only for that he took his part, and was to him faithful and true.

****

“The king, when he had studied on the matter, made answer, that the Earl of March was not taken prisoner for his cause, nor in his service, but willingly suffered himself to be taken, because he would not withstand the attempts of Owen Glendower, and his complices; therefore he would neither ransom him nor release him.

“The Percies, with this answer and fraudulent excuse, were not a little fumed, insomuch that Henry Hotspur said openly: ‘Behold, the heir of the realm is robbed of his right, and yet the robber with his own will not redeem him.’ So in this fury the Percies departed, minding nothing more than to depose King Henry from the high type of his royalty, and to place in his seat their cousin Edmund, Earl of March, whom they did not only deliver out of captivity, but also (to the high displeasure of King Henry) entered in league with the foresaid Owen Glendower.”

The rapidity with which I have dashed off the foregoing paragraphs convinces me that I must have a vocation for what is called the higher walk of history. It is true that this, my first attempt of the kind, has been favoured by great facilities such as I might not always be so fortunate as to meet with; seeing that the whole of the above—quotations from Hollinshed included—has been copied out of a printed book now lying open before me (the name of which I see no necessity for divulging), with but few interpolations and excisions. Perhaps if I were to push on a little further in the same path, I might be able to surmount greater difficulties than have yet presented themselves. I say nothing. But time and the publishers say something to me,—namely, that I have no business to trouble myself with writing the History of England in these pages, at all events except so far as it concerns Sir John Falstaff. Therefore, I must reserve myself for a future occasion.

However, as Sir John Falstaff took a most active part in the civil dissensions excited by the feud above alluded to, the Knight’s biographer must be permitted to dwell awhile upon the merits of that quarrel, ere resuming the thread of his personal narrative.

The “merits” of the case, in one sense of the term,—namely, according to the logic of the young naval officer who was ordered to report upon the “manners” of a barbarous people, may be briefly summed up, in the words of that marine authority, as “none whatever.” It was simply a carboniferous contest between the forces of King Pot on the one side, and those of the revolted chieftain Kettle (aided and abetted by divers of his brother Smuts) on the other. Do not suppose me capable of wilfully depreciating great names and achievements below their legitimate value. Only, let us have justice. My especial business is with the reputation of Sir John Falstaff. If, in spite of my convincing arguments and unanswerable facts, certain wrong-headed moralists will adhere to the opinion that my hero was a mere thief, and as such to be reprehended, I, in defence of my own position, must insist—upon the showing of my adversaries—that King Henry the Fourth, Hotspur, Glendower, and Company, only differed from Sir John Falstaff as pilchards do from herrings, “the pilchard being the greater.” * Hold me my knight virtuous; accept me the moonlit field of Gadshill as glorious; and I will honour Bolingbroke, glorify Shrewsbury, and weep over Percy with the most orthodox among you. But I will have no two laws,—one for the rich, the other for the poor. If Sir John is to hang, he shall make a fat pair of gallows. All the Harries of the period—old Harries and young Harries—shall hang with him!

Have the kindness, with all your dignity of History and what not, to show me the difference between the Gadshill expedition and the war of the Percy rebellion. What is it but one of magnitude? The King and the Percies had been in league to take advantage of certain Scotchmen—a people who, at that barbarous period, (however incredible it may appear now-a-days,) were not very well able to protect themselves—just as had been the King’s son and the Falstaff fraternity, quoad the helpless Kentish travellers. The Percies took all they could lay their hands on, and wanted to keep it. The King was jealous, and would’nt let them. History delights in these bizarre coincidences. At the same time, it is remarkable that the chief bone of contention should have been the right of proprietorship in a few Scotchmen,—a commodity which must have been much more scarce, and proportionately precious, in England at that period than in our own favoured time, when the supply of the article may certainly be pronounced equal to the demand.

The story abounds in instructive morals. In the first place, the Earl of Douglas ought not to have attempted to return to his own country. It was an unnatural proceeding in a Scotchman; and the Nemesis of his people overtook him accordingly. It is but just to state that on his being made prisoner he remained in England as long as was practicable, even on the condition of fighting under the banner of his late conqueror; and only recrossed the Tweed upon compulsion. But the atonement came too late.

Enough of these wholesale dealers in the general Falstaff line for the present. Suffice it that the Percies were in the field at the head of a powerful army; and were known to all loyal subjects (i.e. cautious people waiting to see the issue of hostilities) as “the rebels” an offensive epithet, but they were used to it. They had been rebels more than a dozen years before, when they had stolen a crown for Henry Bolingbroke, who was then a rebel with them. Henry was a king now, and had turned round on them; just as his son was foredoomed to turn round upon Falstaff, Bardolph, &c., a few years later. It was in the blood, you will say? Possibly. Still it is a plague when princes and warriors cannot be true to one another.

The leaders on the Royalist side were the King himself, the Prince of Wales, some more princes, dukes, and earls, whose names are of no importance, and SIR JOHN FALSTAFF!

It will readily be believed that under these terrible circumstances the rebels had their work cut out for them.

Sir John Falstaff stood in need of warlike excitement. In his own words, “he had fallen off vilely since the last action.” Many things had occurred to sadden him. In the first place, the Prince of Wales, with characteristic meanness, had refunded the spoils of Gadshill to its original owners; and Sir John “liked not that paying back,” properly considering it “double labour.” He had grown hypochondriac, and took strange fancies. Amongst others, he preposterously imagined that he was becoming thin. Mistress Quickly, hostess of the Boar’s Head Tavern, knew better than this, having recently taken the knight’s measure for a dozen holland shirts, at eight shillings an ell, provided at her own expense, and supplied to Sir John on the faith of his knightly promise to pay. These shirts were a sore subject with Mistress Quickly. Let us respect the memory of her feelings, even at this distance of centuries. None but a sailmaker, who has equipped, on credit, an Indiaman, which has gone down with all the wealth of its owner on board, could fully appreciate them. Altogether, Sir John was out of sorts: he lacked society. The Prince of Wales—an amusing young man enough in his better moments—was busily preparing his programme for the future astonishment of the world. Mr. Poins was, of course, in close attendance upon his highness, and rarely showed. Gadshill and Peto were uninteresting plebeians, only to be used when wanted. Bardolph was very well in his way; but his way was not an enlivening one, at the best of times; he so rarely opened his mouth, except to put something into it. With regard to Mrs. Quickly, she was becoming intolerable: she wanted her bill.

Also, with regard to Mrs. Quickly, at this juncture of our narrative (when I say “our” reader, I mean yours and mine—I have no intention of adopting the mysterious “we” of conventional literature) it behoves the writer to digress and apologise. The latter let us consider done. The former process I will get over as rapidly as possible.

I professed, a few pages back, to have done with Mistress Quickly’s husband for good and all. Justice to my view of the lady’s character—which is one Of high admiration—compels me to allude to that shadowy person once more. I have stated that I believe him to have been ailing, giving the most probable cause of his indisposition. At this period, I believe his malady was approaching the final crisis, and that he lay on his deathbed babbling, not like Sir John Falstaff, some years later (in the same chamber who knows?) of green fields, but of black cats and other flitting shapes phenomena, I am informed, frequently witnessed by sufferers in the last stages of a complaint caught in the dangerous atmosphere of a spirit cellar too easy of access. I am sure there was some such domestic calamity harassing poor Mrs. Quickly at this time. There were heavy apothecaries’ bills to be met; and, perhaps, tradesmen’s accounts, (for which she had given her husband the money months ago, believing it duly paid,) pressing upon her. Otherwise she would never have troubled Sir John Falstaff as she did—for pitiful dross. Poor lady! it was not in her nature to give pain, and she knew how distasteful such questions were to the sensitive organisation of her illustrious guest. But that she had pressed him somewhat warmly is evident. For had not Sir John been compelled, in self-defence, to ward off her importunities by something in the shape of un-knightly fiction, as to certain valuables abstracted from his pocket in her house? There was no way else. The woman would not be appeased save by money or plausible excuses. If Sir John had possessed plenty of the former, and not had the slightest occasion for its immediate use, he would doubtless have paid her, in coin, and honourably commenced a fresh account. Having none, he could only offer her the substitute alluded to. The loss of “three or four bonds of forty pound a piece, and a seal ring of my grandfather’s,” is surely a fair reason for a gentleman of moderate means being temporarily straitened. After all, there was some truth in the matter. Sir John Falstaff’s pocket had been picked (by those miscreants, the Prince and Poins—vide Shakspeare), and in Mrs. Quickly’s house. The details of the robbery are of secondary importance. Nothing can be justly called a lie save that which is utterly divested of truth!

Worthy Dame Quickly! I regret to find that it is the custom to consider her a very ridiculous and improper personage. I think she was a very good woman in her own foolish way. If Hero Worship be a true creed, she deserves honour amongst the foremost ranks of the faithful. She believed, rightly or wrongly, in one whom she considered a great man; and clung to him till the last, suffering for her faith in purse and credit, like a simple-minded, illogical, immoral, ungrammatical martyr, as she was. I believe myself that she was right. Her powers of perception were limited, but correct, as far as they could range. She had just wit enough to see the good that was in Sir John Falstaff—no more; and obeyed him like a slave or a soldier, pandering with unquestioning loyalty to his very vices, on the principle that the king can do no wrong.

To dispose of Mrs. Quickly’s husband at once and for ever. I have already said that nothing certain can be ascertained about him; but a well-supported theory on the subject may be some consolation to those restless Shakspearian commentators who spend their lives in hunting after the unpublished facetiæ attributable to Juliet’s nurse’s husband—who write folios upon the probable birthplace of the undertaker’s journeyman in Richard the Third, who doesn’t want the Duke of Glocester to interfere with his professional duties,—and the like. It is, then, my confident opinion, that Mrs. Quickly became a widow at about the time of the battle of Shrewsbury—that is to say, if a lady can be said to become a widow who has never been legally married. That Mrs. Quickly had believed herself married let us hope. She was the most likely person in the world to be imposed upon, in this, as in other matters. But, assuming a legal contract to have taken place, how could she have preserved her maiden name? That Quickly was her maiden name is certain. For, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakspeare introduces us to a second Mistress Quickly, housekeeper to the celebrated Dr. Caius, who wrote the well-known treatise on English dogs *, a spinster, and most obviously the sister of our hostess—the family likeness being, indeed, so strong between them, as to have led to a confusion of their identities by the ignorant and unobserving. It is no doubt in search of sisterly consolation from this second Mrs. Quickly, in a time of great tribulation, that the heart-broken hostess of the Boar’s Head, in the third scene of the second act of the history of King Henry the Fifth, implores to be “carried to Staines,” near Windsor.

Ha! an unexpected solution to the moral difficulty! one that may remove the last taint of suspicion from the lady’s reputation. May not our Mrs. Quickly have been celebrated as the hostess of the Boar’s Head in her spinsterhood? May she not have taken to herself a husband, changing her name, to the church and the law, but not to her customers, according to the practice of queens, opera singers, poetesses, and other celebrated women? The conclusion is at least charitable; and those who like, are at liberty to adopt it. For my own part, I cling to the belief that her husband, “the vintner” of the first part of Henry the Fourth, was a sponge and an impostor, one who probably made a trade of marrying unprotected landladies for their taps and cash-boxes, who most likely had half-a-dozen wives living, whom he had fleeced and ill-treated, of which fact Mistress Quickly, his latest victim, had full knowledge; but was, nevertheless, kind to her betrayer, in an upbraiding, petting, devoted, inconsistent, womanly fashion, to the very last. I may be doing gross injustice to the memory of a most harmless and respectable citizen; but I am supporting my theory of Mrs. Quickly’s character admirably. Argument, like progress, according to a modern imperial authority, cannot march without its martyrs and its victims. If the vintner, in his lifetime, were really a good man, he would have forgiven me. So that upon the whole, we may consider the matter settled.

Sir John Falstaff, at the suggestion of Prince Henry, was entrusted with a charge of foot. It was all very fine to laugh at Sir John in time of security. When danger made its appearance, they were only too glad to rush to him for assistance. Prince Henry had staked his future reputation on the issue of the coming struggle, and chose his officers accordingly. Historians fix the date of the battle of Shrewsbury on the 21st of July, 1403. I am inclined to regard this as a proof that historians know nothing about it. At that period, the Prince Henry (who, it must be admitted, distinguished himself honourably in the action), could not have been more than fifteen years of age. Was this the sort of person, likely, not only to inspire the renowned and terrible Hotspur with jealousy of his fame and valour, but, moreover, to have previously obtained advantages, however temporary, over a man like Falstaff? I think not. Besides, the historians betray their habitual looseness in making Hotspur himself thirty-five years of age at the same period. This is simply preposterous. Would a weather-beaten warrior, whose spur had ne’er been cold since his thirteenth year, at a time of life approaching that, when, in the words of a chivalric bard, “grizzling hair the brain doth clear,” express thus passionately his eagerness for a personal encounter with an unfledged stripling:—

Who says the above speech is not historical? I tell you, I find it in Shakspeare, who is for me the most authentic of historians. He may be wrong, occasionally, in a date or a name, and may, perhaps, at times allow his imagination to run away with him. What then? if in nine cases out of ten, as I believe to be the case, his imagination, in two or three bounds, carries him nearer to the truth than the plodding foot-passengers of history can ever reach in their life’s time, encumbered as they are with their thick-soled shoes, clumsy staves, and ponderous knapsacks? In matters of remote history, we must take many things for granted, and can only sift the true from the false by our own instinctive sense of probability. When I compare a history of Shakspeare’s with a more prosaic record of the same events, the odds of verisimilitude are infinitely in favour of the former; and—as the less must be contained in the greater—when I find a man invariably right upon matters of real importance, why should I suppose him wrong upon trifles? Never tell me that a great mind will not stoop to the consideration of petty details, however essential. That is a weak invention of the incapable, who dread an invasion of the giants in their own little territory. The great mind knows that the world is made up of atoms, and can see a fly as well as a dragon. Virgil, in the present day, would have been a better authority upon steam ploughs and liquid manure than Mr. Mechi, of Tiptree Farm; Herodotus could have written a better sixpenny catechism of geography than Pinnock; I warrant Raphael Sanzio knew how to sharpen a crayon in less time, bringing it to a better point, and with less damage to his penknife, than any School of Design boy of the present century.

And so, upon the whole, I have decided to pin my historical faith—for great and for small, for positive and for doubtful—upon the representations of Shakspeare, as many wise men have not been ashamed to confess, in solemn assemblies, they have done before me.

This decision leads me to fix the date of the battle of Shrewsbury at the 21st of July (I yield the day of the month to Hollinshed and Co.), in the year 1408. At this time the Prince of Wales—history is generally pretty correct as to the birth of princes—was in his twenty-first year, and being a handsome youth, well trained to warlike exercises, with of course a princely command of ornamental outfit, would justify Sir Richard Vernon’s glowing description:—

Sir John Falstaff at the same date would be (alas!) in his sixty-second year. Hotspur, according to the new reading I am sanguine of establishing, could not have been born earlier than the year 1382.

It must have been on or about the 10th of the same month (.e. July, 1408) that Sir John Falstaff, having got the nucleus of his troops in marching order, prepared to lead them against the enemy, proceeding from London in a north-westerly direction.

The departure of the Falstaff troops from the metropolis, though an event, judged by its results, worthy of celebration by the historic pencil, was not, per se, one of sufficient importance to call forth any such public demonstrations as the closing of shops, the erection of triumphal arches, or of balconies for spectators, the turning out of municipal authorities, the reading of addresses, &c. &c. The Lord Mayor of London on that day attended to his business, cuffing his ‘prentices and mixing his wines, stretching and powdering his broadcloth, washing his stale ribs of beef with fresh blood, or prematurely ripening his hides with marl and ash bark,—according to the civic chair in that year happened to be filled by vintner, clothier, butcher, or tanner,—just as though nothing were going forward. There was not even so much as a procession of virgins to scatter flowers before the warriors’ footsteps; not even a band of music to play before them; not so much as a wooden barrier to keep off the crowd that did not come to look at them!

There were two good reasons for this apparently contemptuous indifference on the part of the public. In the first place, it was not then customary to celebrate great victories until after they had been obtained. In the second place, the Falstaff troops were not, at their setting forth, conspicuous either by numbers or equipment. They amounted altogether to certainly not more than fifteen warriors, for the most part indifferently armed and clad. Of these, two were our friends Bardolph and Peto, the latter holding the rank of Lieutenant, to Captain—or, as he would now be called, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Falstaff. The exact grade of Bardolph in the expedition is not easy of definition: it is to be presumed he officiated as a sort of aide-de-camp, varying his titular distinction according to his audience. * The remainder of the troop were, it is true, men of some considerable renown, but owing their celebrity to achievements which made their gallant leader by no means over anxious to be seen in their company; so that the march from London was commenced in an unobtrusive, not to say straggling manner, Sir John Falstaff himself not taking horse till his forces had been some half-hour before him on the road to glory.

And was this intrepid chieftain actually about to risk the chances of battle against the armies of Percy, Douglas, and Glendower, with such fearful disadvantages of number and discipline as these? No, reader. Let us guard against exaggeration. There are limits to everything—even the heroism of Sir John Falstaff. We must not lose sight of the fact that our hero would have a king, with several princes and noblemen, with their followers, to support him in his expedition;—moreover, he was to recruit forces as he went along.

The mode of raising soldiers in those days was very simple, and much more efficacious than at present. There was, then, no occasion for foreign legions, militia nurseries, and such tedious devices. The king, who could only do one wrong—namely, that of allowing himself to be kicked off the throne by the other king—when he was in want of soldiers, resorted to the simple expedient of taking them. That is to say, he appointed his officers—who, instead of having to ruin themselves in scarlet cloth, bullion lace, sabres, feathers, and horseflesh, as in the present day—were merely expected to find their own soldiers, a commodity as cheap as dirt, and treated accordingly. This the king’s commission enabled them to do with great facility. Armed with the royal authority, the officer entered a parish or township, and said he wanted a certain number of men. The local authorities were compelled to furnish the number required, subject to the officer’s approval; and the men selected were compelled to go, whether they liked it or not. This admirable system of recruiting, subjected to slight modifications, is still in vogue on the continent. Its discontinuance in our own country fully accounts for the fact—so often pointed out to us by our neighbours, who of course are more qualified to judge of us than we are ourselves—that we have long ceased to be a great military nation; a fact which, though humiliating, is incontrovertible—witness the notorious incapacity of our Guards in the late Crimean war!

Sir John Falstaff was empowered to press into the service of King Henry the Fourth a hundred and fifty men. Amongst them there may have been several who looked upon that monarch as an usurper, and might object to fighting against the partisans of Mortimer, Earl of March, who, if English law meant anything, was certainly their lawful monarch. This was no business of Sir John Falstaff’s.

And how did Sir John speed with his recruiting? Admirably, as he did in most of his undertakings. His number was soon complete. Of the quality of his troops and his manner of raising them let him speak for himself. No description of mine could approach his own inimitable picture. (Let it be premised, in justification of this great captain’s occasional regard of his own interest in the matter, that the commanders of regiments in those days had no such privileges as tailoring contracts, &c., and were fain to avail themselves of such advantages as offered.)

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The above profound reflections (which every officer of irregular infantry would do well to lay to his heart) were made by Sir John Falstaff, on the occasion of a review of his troops near Coventry—at which the Prince of Wales and the Earl of Westmoreland assisted. I am inclined to fix the date of this important military display on the third day previous to the battle of Shrewsbury. The Royalist forces were proceeding towards that city by forced marches. Sir John Falstaff, as is well known, came upon the field in ample time to give battle to the rebels; and it is improbable that any system of forcing could have got him over sixty miles of ground in less than three days.

Whether or not the knight found the hedgerows of Warwick, Stafford, and Salop of such fruitfulness—in the matter of linen—as he had anticipated, the historian has no means of ascertaining. The shirt in those days, it should be stated, was a comparatively recent invention—nor had the art of the laundress been brought to its present perfection.

VI. HOW SIR JOHN FALSTAFF WON THE BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY.

EVEN had the Royalist side been deprived of the immense weight of Sir John Falstaff’s counsels and support, the issue of the struggle could not have been doubtful. Fortune seemed to have declared against the rebels from the outset. The Earl of Northumberland was taken ill at Berwick, and unable to join his gallant son in the field. The Welsh under Glendower did not come up in time for the battle. All the efforts of their gallant and patriotic chieftain to bring his troops past the neighbouring cheese districts of the border county of Chester had proved ineffectual.

Nevertheless the rebels determined on giving battle, which was perhaps a superfluous piece of generosity on their part, as the king, the princes, and Sir John Falstaff had come determined to take it. Hotspur—the warmth of whose heels would not seem to have produced in him any remarkable coolness of head—sent, on the eve of the engagement, an epistle to the king, which is strikingly illustrative of the knightly courtesy of the period. In this document he accuses Henry of murder, perjury, illegal taxation, obtaining money under false pretences, kidnapping, and bribery at elections. * The crimes of garrotting and stealing drinking vessels from the railings of private dwellings were not then known, or it is more than probable that these too would have entered into the wholesale list of accusations. Such a document, it will be admitted, was not calculated to dispose the king to leniency or placability. He was a monarch of the bilious temperament, and not at any time remarkable for excessive amiability or good humour. A popular historian has informed us that “he was subject to fits, which bereaved him for a time of reason.” ** The effect of such a communication on a monarch so constituted may be imagined.

Whether it was that the insurgent chieftains had formed a mistaken estimate of the king’s nature, and imagined that he required a great deal of provoking before he could be induced to give them the thrashing they seemed so ardently to desire, it would be difficult to say. At any rate, on the morning of the battle, Sir Thomas Percy, the Earl of Worcester, thought it advisable to look in on the royal camp, as he happened to be passing, with a flag of truce, and favour his Majesty with a viva voce resume of some of the heads of his nephew’s spirited epistle of the preceding night, which might have slipped the royal memory. To Percy’s address—which has been put into excellent blank verse by Shakspeare—the king replied with a proposal that the rebels should lay down their arms and go home quietly, which he knew would not be accepted. Percy departed, and the royal council of war at which he had been heard—and at the deliberations of which the Princes Henry and John, with Sir Walter Blunt and Sir John Falstaff, had assisted—broke up to prepare for action.

The rival armies were drawn up on a large plain near the town of Shrewsbury overlooked by Haughmond Hill. The character of the ground is indicated in the opening lines of the fifth act of the chronicle of “Henry the Fourth” (Part I.):—