Henry of Monmouth Volume I Part 17

Between his accession and his coronation, Henry of Monmouth was much engaged in exercises of devotion; and various acts of self-humiliation are recorded of him. Even in the midst of the splendid banquet of his coronation, (as persons, says Elmham, worthy of credit can testify,) he neither ate nor drank; his whole mind and soul seemed to be absorbed by the thought of the solemn and deep responsibility under which he then lay. For three days he never suffered himself to indulge in repose on any soft couch; but with fasting, watching, and prayer, fervently and perseveringly implored the heavenly aid of the King of kings for the good government of his people. Doubtless, some may see in every penitential prayer an additional proof of his former licentiousness and dissipation: others, it is presumed, may not so interpret these scenes. Perhaps candour and experience may combine in suggesting to many Christians that the self-abas.e.m.e.nt of Henry should be interpreted, not as a criterion of his former delinquencies in comparison with the principles and conduct of others, but as an index rather of the standard of religious and moral excellence by which he tried his own life; that the rule with reference to which a practical knowledge of his own deficiency filled him with so great compunction and sorrow of heart, was not the tone and fashion of the world, (p. 336) but the pure and holy law of G.o.d; and that, consequently, his degree of contrition does not imply in him any extraordinary sense of immorality in his past days, but rather the profound reverence which he had formed of the divine law, and a consciousness of the lamentable instances in which he had failed to fulfil it.[312] Be this as it may, a calm review of all the intimations with regard to his principles, his conduct, and his feelings, which history and tradition offer, seems to suggest to our thoughts the expressions of the Psalmist as words in which Prince Henry might well and sincerely have addressed the throne of grace. "I have gone astray, like a sheep that is lost.

O! seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments!"

[Footnote 312: It is quite curious and painful, but at the same time instructive, to observe how differently the same acts may be interpreted, accordingly as they are viewed by persons under the influence of various prejudices and peculiar a.s.sociations. In the case of Henry of Monmouth, the confession of his own unworthiness is adduced in evidence only of his former habits of dissoluteness and dissipation. The same confession in his contemporary, Lord Cobham, is hailed only as an indication of the work of grace in his soul.--See Milner, Cent. XV. ch. i.]

CHAPTER XV. (p. 337)

SHAKSPEARE. -- THE AUTHOR'S RELUCTANCE TO TEST THE SCENES OF THE POET'S DRAMAS BY MATTERS OF FACT. -- NECESSITY OF SO DOING. -- HOTSPUR IN SHAKSPEARE THE FIRST TO BEAR EVIDENCE TO HENRY'S RECKLESS PROFLIGACY. -- THE HOTSPUR OF HISTORY THE FIRST WHO TESTIFIES TO HIS CHARACTER FOR VALOUR, AND MERCY, AND FAITHFULNESS IN HIS DUTIES. -- ANACHRONISMS OF SHAKSPEARE. -- HOTSPUR'S AGE. -- THE CAPTURE OF MORTIMER. -- BATTLE OF HOMILDON. -- FIELD OF SHREWSBURY. -- ARCHBISHOP SCROPE'S DEATH.

The Author has already intimated in his Preface the reluctance with which he undertook to examine the descriptions of the Prince of dramatic poets with a direct reference to the test of historical truth; and he cannot enter upon that inquiry in this place without repeating his regret, nor without alleging some of the reasons which seem to make the investigation an imperative duty in these Memoirs.

In our endeavours to ascertain the real character and conduct of Henry V, it is not enough that we close the volume of Shakspeare's dramas, determining to allow it no weight in the scale of evidence. If nothing more be done, Shakspeare's representations will have (p. 338) weight, despite of our resolution. Were Shakspeare any ordinary writer, or were the parts of his remains which bear on our subject few, unimportant, and uninteresting, the biographer, without endangering the truth, might lay him aside with a pa.s.sing caution against admitting for evidence the poet's views of facts and character. But the large majority of readers in England, who know anything of those times, have formed their estimate of Henry from the scenic descriptions of Shakspeare, or from modern historians who have been indebted for their information to no earlier or more authentic source than his plays. Even writers of a higher character, and to whom the English student is much indebted, would tempt us to rest satisfied with the general inferences to be drawn from the scenes of Shakspeare, though they willingly allow that much of the detail was the fruit only of his fertile imagination. A modern author[313] opens his chapter on the reign of Henry V. with a pa.s.sage, a counterpart to which we find expressed, or at least conveyed by implication, in many other writers, to whose views, however, the searcher after truth and fact cannot possibly accede. "With the traditionary irregularities of the youth of Henry V. we are early familiarized by the magical pen of Shakspeare, never more fascinating than in portraying the a.s.sociates and frolics of this ill.u.s.trious Prince. But the personifications of the poet (p. 339) must not be expected to be found in the chroniclers who have annalised this reign."--"The general facts of his irregularities, and their amendment, have never been forgotten; but no historical Hogarth has painted the individual adventures of the princely rake."

[Footnote 313: Mr. Turner.]

It is not because we would palliate Henry's vices, if such there be on record, or disguise his follies, or wish his irregularities to be forgotten in the vivid recollections of his conquests, that we would try "our immortal bard" by the test of rigid fact. We do so, because he is the authority on which the estimate of Henry's character, as generally entertained, is mainly founded. Mr. Southey,[314] indeed, is speaking only of his own boyhood when he says, "I had learned all I knew of English history from Shakspeare." But very many pa.s.s through life without laying aside or correcting those impressions which they caught at the first opening of their minds; and never have any other knowledge of the times of which his dramas speak, than what they have learned from his representations. The great Duke of Marlborough is known to have confessed that all his acquaintance with English history was derived from Shakspeare: whilst not unfrequently persons of literary pursuits, who have studied our histories for themselves, are to the last under the practical influence of their earliest a.s.sociations: unknown to their own minds the poet is still their (p. 340) instructor and guide. And this influence Shakspeare exercises over the historical literature of his country, though he was born more than one hundred and sixty years after the historical date of that scene in which he first speaks of the "royal rake's" strayings and unthriftiness; and though many new sources, not of vague tradition, but of original and undoubted record, which were closed to him, have been opened to students of the present day. It has indeed been alleged that he might have had means of information no longer available by us; that ma.n.u.scripts are forgotten, or lost, which bore testimony to Henry's career of wantonness. But surely such a suggestion only renders it still more imperative to examine with strict and exact scrutiny into the poet's descriptions. If these are at all countenanced by a coincidence with ascertained historical facts, we must admit them as evidence, secondary indeed, but still the best within our reach.

But if they prove to be wholly untenable when tested by facts, and irreconcileable with what history places beyond doubt, we have solid grounds for rejecting them as legitimate testimonies. We must consider them either as the fascinating but aery visions of a poet who lived after the intervention of more than a century and a half, or as inferences built by him on doc.u.ments false and misleading.

[Footnote 314: Preface to his Poetical Works.]

It may be said that the poet, in his delineation of the manners (p. 341) of the time, and in his vivid representations of the sallies and excesses of a prince notorious for his wildness and profligate habits, must not be shackled by the rigid and cold bands of historical verity, any more than we would require of him, in his description of a battle, the accuracy of a general's bulletin. But if a master poet should so describe the battle as to involve on the part of the commander the absence of military skill, and of clear conceptions of a soldier's duty, or ignorance of the enemy's position and strength, and of his own resources, or a suspicion of faintheartedness and ungallant bearing, truth would require us to a.n.a.lyse the description, and either to restore the fair fame of the commander, or to be convinced that he had justly lost his military character. On this principle we must refer Shakspeare's representations to a more unbending standard than a poet's fantasy.

The first occasion on which reference is found to the habits and character of Henry, occurs in the tragedy of Richard II, act v. scene 3, in which his father is represented as making inquiries, of "Percy and other lords," in such terms as these:

"Can no man tell of my _unthrifty_ son?

'Tis full THREE MONTHS since I did see him last: If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.

I would to Heaven, my lords, he might be found!

Inquire at London 'mongst the taverns there, For there, they say, he daily doth frequent, With unrestrained loose companions; Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, (p. 342) And beat our watch, and rob our pa.s.sengers; While he, young, wanton, and effeminate boy, Takes on the point of honour to support So dissolute a crew."

To this inquiry PERCY is made to answer,

"My lord! some two days since I saw the Prince, And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford."

_Bolinbroke._--"And what said the gallant?"

_Percy._--"His answer was--he would unto the stews, And from the common'st creature pluck a glove, And wear it as a favour; and, with that, He would unhorse the l.u.s.tiest challenger."

_Bolinbroke._--"As dissolute as desperate: yet, through both, I see some sparkles of a better hope, Which elder days may happily bring forth."

To understand what degree of reliance should be placed upon this pa.s.sage as a channel of biographical information, it is only necessary to recal to mind two points established beyond doubt from history: first, that the Prince was then not twelve years and a half old; and secondly, that the circ.u.mstance, previously to which this lamentation must be fixed, took place NOT THREE MONTHS after the coronation, subsequently to which the King created this his "unthrifty son," "this gallant, dissolute as desperate," Prince of Wales.[315] The scene is placed by Shakspeare at Windsor; and the conversation between (p. 343) Henry IV. inquiring about his son, and Percy, so unkindly fanning his suspicions, is ended abruptly by the breathless haste of Lord Albemarle, who breaks in upon the court to denounce the conspiracy against the King's life. This could not have been later than January 4, 1400; for on that day the conspirators entered Windsor, after Henry IV, having been apprised of their plot, had left that place for London. The coronation was celebrated on the 13th of the preceding October, and the Prince of Wales was born August 9, 1387. The whole year before his father's coronation he was in the safe-keeping of Richard II, through some months of it in Ireland; and, on Richard's return to England, he was left a prisoner in Trym Castle. How many days before the coronation he was brought from Ireland to his father, does not appear; probably messengers were sent for him immediately after Richard fell into the hands of Henry IV. The certainty is, that "_full three months_ could not have pa.s.sed" since they last saw (p. 344) each other; the strong probability is, that both father and son had kept the feast of Christmas together at Windsor. That a boy of not twelve years and a half old, just returned from a year's safe-keeping in the hand of his father's enemy and whom his father, not three months before, had created Prince of Wales with all the honours and expressions of regard ever shown on similar occasions, should have been the leader and supporter of a dissolute crew of unrestrained loose companions, the frequenter of those sinks of sin and profligacy which then disgraced the metropolis (as they do now), is an improbability so gross, that nothing but the excellence of Shakspeare's pen could have rendered an exposure of it necessary.[316]

[Footnote 315: Reference is here made to the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales, not in anywise for the purpose of insinuating that he would not have been raised to that honour by his father, had he been the "desperate gallant" which the poet delineates, but solely to show that the King's lamentation cannot be historically correct.

The poet, having fastened on the general tradition as to Henry's wildness, gives rein to his fancy, and would fain carry his readers along with him in the belief that Henry had absented himself for full three months from his paternal roof, and revelled in abandoned profligacy; whilst the facts with which the poet has connected it, fix the outbreaking of the Prince to a time when the real Henry was not twelve years and a half old.

Shakspeare's poetry is not inconsistent with itself, but it is with historical verity.]

[Footnote 316: There are, however, other circ.u.mstances deserving our attention, which took place, some undoubtedly, and others most probably, within the three months preceding this very time.

In the first place, the Commons, who had at the coronation sworn the same fealty to the Prince as to the King, on the 3rd of November pet.i.tion that the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales might be entered on the record of Parliament; and on the same day they pray the King that the Prince might not pa.s.s forth from this realm, (in consequence of the movements of the Scots,) "forasmuch as he is of tender age." In the course of that same month of November 1399, a negociation was set on foot to bring about the espousals for a future union of the Prince with one of the daughters of the King of France. And about the same time (probably within a month of the scene of Shakspeare which we are examining,) the Prince makes a direct appeal to the council to fulfil the expressed wishes of his royal father as to his establishment, seeing that he was dest.i.tute of a suitable house and furniture; whilst not a hint occurs in allusion to any extravagance, or folly, or precocious dissipation, in any single doc.u.ment of the time.]

The second introduction of the same subject occurs in the scene (p. 345) in the court of London, the very day after the news arrived of Mortimer being taken by Owyn Glyndowr.

_Westmoreland._--"But _yesternight_; when all athwart there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news; Whose worst was that the n.o.ble Mortimer, Leading the Herefordshire men to fight Against the irregular and wild Glyndower, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken."

The anachronism of Shakspeare, in making the two reports, of Mortimer's capture and of the battle of Homildon, reach London on the same day, though there was an interval of more than three months between them, only tends to show that we must not look to him as a channel of historical accuracy. How utterly inappropriate is the desponding lamentation of Henry IV, the bare reference to actual dates is alone needed to show.

_Westmoreland._--"Faith! 'tis a conquest for a prince to boast of."

_K. Henry._--"Yea: there thou makest me sad, and makest me sin In envy that my Lord Northumberland Should be the father of so blest a son; Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, See riot and dishonour stain the brow Of my young Harry. O that it could be proved (p. 346) That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet; Then I would have his Harry, and he mine!

But let him from my thoughts."

In this glowing page of Shakspeare is preserved one of those exquisite, fascinating illusions which are scattered up and down throughout his never-dying remains, and which, arresting us everywhere, hold the willing imagination spell-bound, till, after reflection, Truth rises upon the mind, and with one gleam of her soft but omnipotent light varies the charm, and contrasts the satisfaction of reality with the pleasures of fiction. The poet's imagery paints to our mind's eye Harry Hotspur and Harry of Monmouth lying each in his "cradle-clothes" on some one and the same night, when the powers of Fairy-land might have exchanged the boys, and called Percy, Plantagenet. To effect such a change, however, of the first-born sons of Northumberland and Bolinbroke, an extent of power and skill must have been in requisition far beyond what their warmest advocates are wont to a.s.sign to those "night-tripping" personages. Hotspur was at least one-and-twenty years old when Henry of Monmouth "lay in his cradle-clothes." The pencil also of the painter has lent its aid to confirm and propagate the same delusion as to the relative ages of these two warriors. In the representation (for example) of the Battle-field of Shrewsbury, Hotspur and Henry, the heroes in the (p. 347) fore-ground, are models of two gallant youths, equal in age, struggling for the mastery: and in the chamber-scene, whilst Henry is represented in all the freshness of a beardless youth, his father shows the worn-out veteran; his brow and cheeks deeply furrowed, his whole frame borne down towards the grave by length of days as much as by infirmities, though when he died his age did not exceed his forty-seventh year.

The time of Hotspur's birth has generally been considered matter only for conjecture; but whether we draw our inferences from undisputed facts, and the clearest deductions of sound argument, or rest only on the direct evidence now for the first time, it is presumed, brought forward, we cannot regard Hotspur at the very lowest calculation as a single year younger than Henry of Monmouth's father, the very Bolinbroke whom the poet makes to utter such a lamentation and such a wish. Bolinbroke's birth-day cannot be a.s.signed (as we have seen) to an earlier date than April 6, 1366; and the Annals of the Peerage[317]

refer Hotspur's birth to May 20, 1364.[318] The Author, however, is disposed to think that the Annals have antedated his birth by more than a year at least. In the Scrope and Grosvenor (p. 348) controversy,[319] the record of which supplied us with the ages of Glyndowr and his brother, the commissioners examined both Hotspur and his father. The father, usually called the "aged Earl," gave his testimony on the 19th November 1386, as "the Earl of Northumberland, of the age of forty-five years, having borne arms thirty years."

Hotspur, who was examined on the 30th of the preceding October, that is, in the year before Henry of Monmouth was born, gave his testimony as "Sir Henry Percy, of the age of twenty years." Hotspur must, therefore, have been born between the end of October 1365 and the end of October 1366. And if the annalists are right in fixing upon the day of the year on which he was born, his birth-day was in the month next following the birth-day of Bolinbroke. On the most probable calculation, he might have been five months older than Bolinbroke; he could not have been seven months younger. It is a curious and interesting circ.u.mstance, that, instead of specifying the number of years through which he had borne arms, Hotspur referred the commissioners to the first occasion of his having seen and shared the real service of battle: "First armed when the castle of (p. 349) Berwick was taken by the Scots, and when the rescue was made." The surprise of Berwick by the Scots took place on the Thursday before St.

Andrew's day in the year 1378, (which fell on November 25,) so that Hotspur pa.s.sed his noviciate in the field of battle when he was only just past his twelfth year, and almost nine years before Henry of Monmouth was born. In 1388, when Henry was only one year old, Hotspur was taken prisoner by the Scots. His eldest son, whom Henry with so much generosity restored to his honours and estates, was born February 3, 1393.[320]

[Footnote 317: See Collins' Peerage by Brydges, vol. ii. p. 267.]

[Footnote 318: The same authorities record that he was knighted at the coronation of Richard II, July 16, 1377.]

[Footnote 319: "Le Count de Northumberland del age de XLV ans; armez de x.x.x ans."

"Mons. Henr' de Percy del age de vynt ans, armez premierement, quant la chastell de Berwick etait pris par les Escoces, et quant le rescous fuist fait."]

[Footnote 320: We cannot read the doc.u.ment on which these observations are founded without being reminded at how early an age in those times the youth of our country were expected to take up arms, and follow some experienced captain, or even themselves lead their warriors to the field. When Hotspur accompanied his father to the rescue of Berwick, he was only in his thirteenth year; his father had borne arms from the age of fifteen; and Henry of Monmouth (accompanied we know by a tutor or guardian, as probably Hotspur was at Berwick) was certainly in Wales, "chastising the rebels,"

soon after he had completed his thirteenth year.

Another reflection, forced upon the mind by a familiar acquaintance with the political and the domestic history of those times, is on the very low average of human life at that period of the English monarchy. Few reached what is now called old age; and persons are spoken of as old, who would now be scarcely considered to have pa.s.sed the meridian of life. It would form a subject of an interesting, and perhaps a very useful inquiry, were a philosophical antiquary (who would found his conclusions on a wide induction of facts, and not seek for evidence in support of any previously adopted theory,) to trace the existence, and operation, and extent of those causes, physical and moral, which exercise doubtless important influences over human life, and, under Providence, contract or lengthen the number of our days here.

Unquestionably, such an investigator would immediately find many changes adopted in the present day conducive to longevity, in the structure of our habitations, the nature of our clothing, our habits of cleanliness, our food, comparative moderation in the use of inebriating liquors, with many other causes of health now believed to exist among us. To two causes of the average shortness of life, in operation through that range of years to which these Memoirs chiefly refer, the Author's mind has been especially drawn in the course of his researches: one of a political character,--in itself far more obvious, and chiefly affecting men; the other arising from habits of domestic life with regard to one of our inst.i.tutions of all the most universally comprehensive,--a cause chiefly, but far from exclusively, affecting the life of females. The first cause, awful and appalling, is seen in the precarious tenure of human life, during the violence of those political struggles which deluged the whole land with blood. Those families seem to have been rare exceptions, of which no member forfeited his life on the scaffold or in the field; those houses were few which the scourge of civil or foreign wars pa.s.sed over without leaving one dead.

The second cause is traced to the very early age at which marriages were then solemnized. The day of Nature's trial came before the const.i.tution had gained strength for the struggle, and an awful proportion of females was thus prematurely hurried to the grave; whilst the offspring also shared in the weakness of the parent. Comparatively a small minority sunk by gradual and calm decay; in the case of very few could the comparison of Job's reprover be applied with truth, "Thou shalt come to the grave in full age, as a shock of corn cometh in his season."]

Though these facts prove that Shakspeare has spread through the (p. 350) world a most erroneous opinion of the relative ages and circ.u.mstances of Bolinbroke, Hotspur, and Henry of Monmouth,--a circ.u.mstance, (p. 351) indeed, in itself of no great importance,--the question on which we are engaged will be more immediately and strongly affected if it can be shown precisely, that at the very time when (according to the poet's representation) Henry IV. uttered this lamentation, expressive of deep present sorrow at the reckless misdoings of his son, and of antic.i.p.ations of worse, that very son was doing his duty valiantly and mercifully in Wales.

On the lowest calculation, a full month before Mortimer's capture, the young royal warrior had scoured the whole country of Glyndwrdy in person, and had burnt two of Owyn's mansions; whilst the strong probability is, that he had headed his troops on that expedition more than a year before.

It is very remarkable (though Shakspeare doubtless never became acquainted with the circ.u.mstance) that the identical Percy whom he makes Henry IV. desire to have been his son, instead of his own Henry, bears ample testimony, at least a full year previously, to the valour and kind-heartedness of him on whose brow the poet makes his father lament "the stain of riot and dishonour."

Sir Edmund Mortimer was taken by Glyndowr at Melienydd in Radnor, June 12th, 1402; and, as early as the 3rd of May 1401, Percy wrote from Caernarvon to the council that North Wales was obedient to the law, except the rebels of Conway and Rees Castles, who were in the mountains, whom he expresses his expectation that the Prince of (p. 352) Wales would subdue. "These will be right well chastened," said he, "if G.o.d please, by the force and governance which my lord the Prince _has_ sent against them, as well of his council as of his retinue." In the same letter Hotspur informs the King's council that the commons of the counties of Caernarvon and Merioneth (who had come before him in the sessions which he was then holding as Chief Justice of North Wales) had humbly expressed their thanks to the Prince for the great pains of his kind good-will in endeavouring to obtain their pardon."[321] Henry Prince of Wales, whom the poet makes his father thus to disparage at the mere mention of Henry Percy's victory, would lose nothing in point of prowess, and generosity, and high-minded bearing, at this very early period of his youth, by a comparison either with Percy himself, or with any other of his contemporaries, whose names are recorded in history.

[Footnote 321: See these facts stated historically in previous chapters of this volume.]

The next pa.s.sage of our historical dramatist which requires to be examined, occurs in that very affecting interview between Henry and his father on the news of Percy's rebellion, and the resolution declared to take the field at Shrewsbury.[322]

"I know not whether G.o.d will have it so, For some displeasing service I have done, That, in his secret, doom out of my blood (p. 353) He breeds revengement and a scourge for me.

But thou dost, in thy pa.s.sages of life, Make me believe that thou art only marked For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven, To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else, Could such inordinate and low desires, Such barren, base, such lewd, such mean attempts, Such barren pleasures, rude society,[323]

As thou art matched withal and grafted to, Accompany the greatness of thy blood, And hold their level with thy princely heart?

Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost, (p. 354) Which by thy younger brother is supplied; And art almost an alien to the hearts Of all the court, and princes of my blood."

[Footnote 322: I Hen. IV. act iii. scene 1.]

[Footnote 323: It is curious to contrast this description of his habits and pursuits, written by the Prince of tragedians a century and a half after Henry's death, with the advice represented to have been given by an old man to a young aspiring poet during his very lifetime. The Author is conscious of the tautology of which he is guilty in again recommending the reader not to pa.s.s over unread the extracts in the Appendix from Occleve and Lydgate.