Part 7

Formerly this billet system was applied to the mansions of powerful barons. A succession of anti-chivalric monarchs had weakened the hospitable resources of these establishments. Taverns were their modern substitutes. Our hero, even as the commercial traveller in the present day (latest type of the knight-errant) is fain to put up with Railway carriages, where he once enjoyed his own gig,--accommodated himself to the change. But, whatever alteration had taken place around him, he himself was still true to the traditions of his order. Yes! John Falstaff could lay his hand on his heart and say,--that he never entered the meanest hostelry without treating the host and hostess exactly as, two hundred years earlier, he would have treated a baron and his lady. The favoured mansion at present enjoying his high consideration in this respect, was the renowned Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap--of which more anon.

The knight-errant of old occasionally acted as the tributary vassal to a powerful prince. Herein is the vast superiority of Falstaff manifest. He made the most powerful prince of his time act as tributary vassal to him.

Yes; it is not the smallest laurel in the Falstaffian crown, that our hero alone, of all men that ever lived, could boast of having conquered the Conqueror of Agincourt. That he did so is unquestionable. The prince himself, like a true Englishman, who never knows when he is beaten, was not aware of the fact himself. Those who may be inclined to doubt it, are requested to study the lives of the two men, and to decide calmly whether, in the long run, Sir John Falstaff had or had not decidedly the best of His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry the Fifth.

This young prince was a very great prince indeed; and has been justly held up as an example to the youth of succeeding generations. His claims to admiration are indeed somewhat remarkable, being founded apparently less upon the fact of his having proved a respectable character in later life, which might be questioned by detractors, than upon that of his having been an intolerable reprobate at the outset of his career--as to which there can be no doubt whatever. I cannot too highly commend the conduct of schoolmasters and writers in encouraging young people to the adoption of this effective principle of, what may be termed, Rembrandt Respectability,--a little streak of pure light looking so excessively brilliant when touched on to a background of utter darkness. Oh! my young friends, declaimers of Pinnock and readers of Goldsmith! adopt the Henry the Fifth philosophy as you hope to rise and be honoured. Would you aspire to a reputation for excessive humanity? In that case, kick your grandmother daily for ten years; then suddenly leave off and present the old lady with a new bonnet in a neat speech on gentleness. Is sobriety your ambition? Get intoxicated two or three times a day up to the age of, let us say thirty. By that time you will have sufficiently disgusted your neighbours with your life and conduct to make your sudden appearance in the character of a healthful, temperate, and well-ordered citizen (which, of course, it will be the easiest thing in the world for you to assume at a moment’s notice, throwing off your old habits like a harlequin’s cloak), matter of startling commentary. Would you shine by the light of your honesty? Then begin with robbing orchards, and proceed in due order to shop-tills, culminating with bank-safes and plate-baskets. Having thus attracted the public attention, you need only send your five pounds to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for unpaid Income Tax, and take your place amongst the honest folk, who will be delighted to receive you.

It is true, that for the modern commoner the same advantages do not exist for the safe pursuit of this line of conduct as were enjoyed by the crown prince of the fifteenth century. But, for the last time, let it he stated that greatness is to be measured by its besetting obstacles. Above all, there can be no harm in trying.

The Prince of Wales acted on this principle of contrast through life. Being a slim, well-built young gentleman, he liked to be seen walking with a stout overgrown elderly gentleman like our hero. Knowing he would be a king some day, when he would find it as advantageous to be thought an honest man as it would be easy to hang anybody who might say he wasn’t, he considered that his future would shine all the brighter from present companionship with rogues--such as a prejudiced society agreed to consider Falstaff and his followers. So Prince Henry studied the first crude principles of taxation by plundering his father’s subjects on the public roads in company with Sir John Falstaff. And Sir John Falstaff, like a sagacious treasurer, had usually the first pickings of the revenues thus acquired.

Prince Henry, in his princely heart, had a great contempt for Sir John Falstaff, whom he looked upon as a mere tool to be thrown aside when no longer needed. It is to be feared that he had not properly calculated the sharpness of the implement, nor its probable effect upon his own fingers. It would have been gall and wormwood to his Royal Highness to know that, in the estimation of our philosopher, he ranked no higher than a second edition--more neatly got up, and with gilt edges--of Master Robert Shallow, formerly of Gray’s Inn, and now of His Majesty’s Commission, in the county of Gloucester.

Sir John was willing to be led wherever His Royal Highness pleased, and to dance to any tunes of the Prince’s dictation. Only it invariably happened that His Royal Highness had to pay the piper!

And now we have carefully reviewed our hero’s position; we have ascertained the site of his head-quarters, the number of his forces, the strength and disposition of his allies. Pegasus, bestridden by the historic muse, snorts impatiently for his first feed of warlike beans. Let us cling to the tail of the noble animal, and suffer him to drag us (with no more than necessary interruptions) to the field of Gadshill. At any rate, let us close the chapter; for we shall not come across such a splendid classical peroration again in a hurry.

II. HOW SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, WITH HIS SATELLITES THE PRINCE HENRY...

AND MR. EDWARD POINS, IN COUNCIL ASSEMBLED, PLANNED THE FAMOUS GADS HILL EXPEDITION.

The reader is invited to assist at a council of war.

The scene is a private room in the palace of Westminster. The members present are, 1. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. 2. Sir John Falstaff, Knight. The latter gentleman in the chair (which he finds rather a tight fit).

Sir John Falstaff opened the proceedings by asking His Royal Highness what time of the day it was.

_The Prince of Wales_.--

“Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old “sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after “noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldest “truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of day? unless “hours were cups of sack and minutes capons?”

For the remainder of His Royal Highness’s speech (the language of which is not strictly parliamentary) see Mr. William Shakspeare’s verbatim report; where, indeed, all particulars of the meeting are minutely chronicled. It is the present writer’s business merely to offer a brief summary.

After some general discussion (in the course of which Sir John moved for the Abolition of the Punishment of Death for larcenious offences, in the ensuing reign, but was induced to withdraw his motion by a promise of office under the crown, as public executioner), the meeting proceeded to the order of the day.

_His Royal Highness_.--“Where shall we take a purse to-night, Jack?”

_Sir John Falstaff_.--“Where thou wilt, lad; I’ll make one: an I do not, call me villain and baffle me.”

Carried _nem. con_.

At this juncture, a new member entered the council chamber in the person of Master Edward Poins. This was a young gentleman of good family, but bad morals; that is to say, for the present. He was one of those loyal natures who, in all ages, are to be found attaching themselves instinctively to some great man, taking their tone and colour in all things from the illustrious model. Mr. Poins cut his hair and his conscience in exact imitation of the Prince of Wales. The existing court fashions, as established by the Prince, were long hanging sleeves, pointed shoes, late hours, intoxication, and roystering. Mr. Poins followed them all with scrupulous fidelity; but was quite ready to change them for sad-coloured doublets, square toes, early rising, temperance, and respectability, at a moment’s notice.

The following debate ensued upon the order of the day:

Poins.-- “But my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning by four o’clock, early at Gadshill! “There are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, “and traders riding to London with fat purses.” (Hear, from the chair). “I have visors for you all, you have horses for yourselves: Gadshill lies to-night “in Rochester: I have bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap; we may “do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of “crowns: if you will not, tarry at home, and be hanged.”

Sir John Falstaff.-- “Hear me, Edward; if I tarry at home, and go not, I’ll hang you for going.”

Me. Poins.-- “You will, chaps?”

Sir John Falstaff.-- “Hal, wilt thou make one?”

The Prince of Wales.-- “Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.”

“Sir John Falstaff.-- “There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fel “lowship in thee, nor thou earnest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not “stand for ten shillings.”

The Prince of Wales.-- “Well, then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.”

Sir John Falstaff.-- “Why, that’s well said.”

The Prince of Wales.-- “Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.”

Sir John Falstaff.-- “I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.”

The Prince of Wales.-- “I care not.”

Poins-- “Sir John, I pr’ythee, leave the prince and me alone; I will “lay him down such reasons for this adventure, that he shall go.”

Sir John Falstaff.-- “Well, mayst thou have the spirit of persuasion, “and be the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move, and what he “hears may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation sake) prove a “false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell; “you shall find me in Eastcheap.”

The Prince of Wales.-- “Farewell, thou latter spring! Farewell All-hallown summer!”

The meeting then, as far as concerns Sir John Falstaff, broke up. The Prince of Wales and his friend Poins, may be left to their own devices.

Thus do we see how a great man works silently to his own ends by encouraging his inferiors to think for him. Here was the campaign of Gadshill ready planned and arranged down to the very moment of attack, and the equipment of the forces, without a personal effort on the part of our hero.

Forestalling the policy of a more modern general, Louis the Fourteenth--who never showed himself on a field of battle till he was assured that his subordinate officers had made victory certain, and who then, in the most considerate manner, always came up in time to take the credit of it out of their hands--the task of Falstaff was simply to gather the ripened fruit, which, _but for the blackest and most unparalleled act of treachery that ever disgraced the annals of warfare_----But let us not anticipate.

Had I the pen of Homer (who, by the way, supposing that fabulous person to have existed, could not possibly have known the use of such an article) I might write out a list of the warlike preparations made by Sir John Falstaff and his followers, in the course of the day, that might equal, in vivid dramatic interest, the famous catalogue of ships. Mine would it be to enumerate the scores of Kentish oysters, the hundreds of Gloucestershire lampreys, the skins of Canterbury brawn, the breasts of capons, the green-goose pies, the veal toasts, the powdered mutton, the marchpanes, the hartshorn jellies, the stewed prunes, the pippins and the cheese, stowed away in the vast resources of our hero’s commissariat department, as provisions for the approaching campaign. Then would ye have, in succession, the vast and irresistible phalanx of sturdy oaths and light-winged cajoleries arrayed against the hostess of the tavern (a married woman, it must be admitted, but whose husband was already ailing) to induce her to yield further credit for the victualling and liquoring of the troops, resulting in the entire rout of her scruples, and the unconditional surrender of her cellar keys. Nor would be forgotten the hundreds, nay thousands, of matchless libs, by which Patroclus Bardolph obtained a new saddle for his master from a dealer in Watling Street, and released the knight’s steed from the spells of enchantment, which a cruel magician (in what we should now call the livery stable interest) had cast about the animal for some weeks.

All these details, and many more--down to a list of the snores of the thunder-vying Falstaff as he took his after-dinner nap to fortify himself for the coming fatigues, and of the glasses of strong waters tossed off by the lightning-shaming Bardolph while his master wasn’t looking--would I enumerate had I the pen of Homer.

But as it has been already satisfactorily proved that neither I nor any other writer, ancient or modern (especially Homer), could ever have enjoyed the possession of that article, I will not attempt anything so ambitious.

III. THE BATTLE OF GADSHILL.

Now did the chaste Diana despatch Mercury with a message to her brother Phoebus, requesting the latter to pull up his horses for an hour or two, so that Sir John Falstaff might not be incommoded by the light of his solar gig-lamps; promising the messenger that, if he would make haste back, she would show him a little sport in his own Une. It is not positively on record that, on the morning of the battle of Gadshill, the sun rose two hours later than his regular appointment with society. But, on the other hand, historic fairness compels me to state that there is no proof whatever to the contrary.

Then did Diana throw her hooped petticoat of clouds over her head, so as to conceal the silver light of her countenance--merely reserving a peep-hole large enough to enable her to wink at the doings of her chosen minions.

She could not resist the temptation of showing her full face just once, to bestow an Endymion kiss upon a solitary pedestrian who emerged from the wood of Gadshill into the chalk-white Rochester Road. The Moon embraced him coquettishly--and hid herself immediately. He was a fine looking man, and portly--albeit advanced in years. There was certainly every excuse for the Moon. However, as she has quite enough scandals to answer for, let us hope that nobody saw her.

The stout person was of martial aspect, and clad in the terrible panoply of war. I will not say he was armed _cap-à-pie_. A full suit of armour to his measure would have had a terrible effect, not merely upon the wearer, but on the iron market of the period. But he bore weapons, offensive and defensive, sufficient to indicate the most desperate intentions. To add to the terror his presence was calculated to inspire, the warrior was under the influence of a passion which, though ridiculous in its influence on ordinary mortals, becomes sublime and awful when in possession of an heroic nature. I allude to Anger. Sir John Falstaff was in a towering rage. It is no stretch of poetical license to say that the earth shook beneath his angry tread (there had been a little rain in the night, and the soil was tremulous). Streams of perspiration poured from his massive brow. His breathing was short and thick. Several times he essayed to speak, but rage impeded his utterance. At length he cried, in a voice of thunder--

“Poins!”

It must be understood that the thunder of Sir John’s voice was rather of a muffled and distant character. Thunder, to be heard distinctly, requires a favourable wind--an advantage not enjoyed by Sir John Falstaff at this period of his existence.

Mr. Poins, against whom the culverin of Sir John’s wrath, primed and loaded to the muzzle, was especially directed, had withdrawn himself prudently from the range of that fearful ordnance, and returned no answer.

It was about four o’clock in the morning. The enemy, that is to say, the travellers, were momentarily expected to make their appearance. At this critical juncture, Mr. Poins had removed the knight’s horse, and tied the animal its owner knew not where. What is the knight at any time without his charger--especially when he labours under physical disadvantages which make “eight yards of uneven ground” a journey as terrible as “threescore and ten miles afoot?” This was the case with Sir John Falstaff. Here he was, burning with martial ardour; Victory, as it were, about to rush down hill into his arms; and the treachery of an inferior had placed him utterly _hors de combat!_ There is only one point of view from which the conduct of Poins appears at all excusable: it was an act of real humanity to the horse.

“Poins! and be hanged; Poins!” the knight repeated.

“Peace, you fat-kidneyed rascal!” said the Prince of Wales, from a neighbouring hedge. “What a brawling dost thou keep!”

“Where’s Poins, Hal?”

“He is walked up to the top of the hill: I’ll go seek him.”

And the Prince walked up the hill in an airy and unconcerned manner, _pretending to seek Poins_. Herein is exemplified the habitual duplicity and dissimulation of this young prince’s character. He knew as well that Poins was close behind him, grinning in a hollow tree, as that in their own hearts (much hollower than the tree, by the way, only not nearly so big) they were gloating over a scheme of malice and treachery, of which their unsuspecting senior was to be the victim. “A plague on’t,” as that moralist himself observed, a few seconds afterwards, “when thieves cannot be true to one another!”

Sir John himself was the soul of honour among----men of his own order.

“If I travel but four foot by the square further afoot, “said the knight, sitting on a fallen tree and chafing “like a caged lion--still more like a stranded whale, “I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a “fair death for all this, if I ‘scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have “forsworn his company, hourly, any time these two-and-twenty years; * “and yet I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not “given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged! it could not “be else. I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! a plague upon you both! “Bardolph! Peto! I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further.”

* Either this is an illustration of the hereditary Falstaff looseness as to dates and figures, or a proof of our hero’s marvellous insight into human character. Accepting the latter hypothesis, Sir John must have discovered Mr. Poins to have been a dangerous acquaintance in embryo, before that young gentleman had emerged from his cradle.

Sir John felt sick of rogues. In his wrath he even meditated the terrible vengeance of turning honest, and thus depriving his false-hearted comrades of the advantages of his counsels and alliance. But it had needed a more implacable nature than our hero’s to carry animosity to such a deadly pitch. Moreover, Sir John, for one, would not set the base example in the camp of sacrificing duty to private feeling. Besides, there was another weighty consideration--he was in want of money.

These and other reflections calmed our hero; so much so, that by the time Gadshill, their scout (evidently from his surname a native of Kent, son, perhaps grandson, of one of Jack’s deerstalking comrades in the days of yore; who knows?), arrived with tidings that there was money of the King’s coming down the hill and going to the King’s Exchequer, Sir John was himself again; forgetting fatigue, danger, and resentment, everything but that there was money of the King’s going to the King’s Exchequer.

“You lie, you rogue!” he said, “‘tis going to the King’s Tavern.”

“There’s enough to make us all,” said Gadshill.

“Be hanged,” put in Jack, in the highest spirits imaginable.

“Sirs,” said the Prince, “you four shall front them in a narrow lane. _Ned Poins and I will walk lower. If they ‘scape from your encounter, then they light on us_.”

And will any one make me believe that this man won the battle of Agincourt?--unless, indeed, by some parallel stratagem. There, as at Gadshill, I doubt not but he had his Falstaffs, Bardolphs *, and Petos to bear the first brunt of the battle, while he and his congenial fellows walked lower--reserving themselves to enjoy the fruits of victory. Never tell me what historians have said! I am an historian myself; and I know that there are some people of that profession who will write anything--provided they are properly paid for it.

* This unpremeditated association of the names of Bardolph and Agincourt causes the historian to drop a tear on his proof sheet, in anticipation of a painful event that inexorable duty will compel him to chronicle by and by.

“How many be there of them?” General Falstaff inquired, previous to arranging his plan of battle.

“Some eight or ten.”

A prospective difficulty, such as could not have been foreseen by any but a comprehensive mind capable of embracing all emergencies, presented itself to our hero, who exclaimed--

“Zounds! will they not rob us?”

“What, a coward, Sir John Paunch!” asked the Prince, mockingly.

“Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather” (a favourite play on words with our hero); “but yet no coward, Hal.”

“Well, we leave that to the proof.”

“Sirrah Jack!” said Poins, as he sneaked away to ‘walk lower’ with the Prince of Wales; “thy horse stands behind the hedge: when thou need’st him there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.”

“Now cannot I strike him if I should be hanged!” exclaimed the magnanimous John.

Footsteps sounded, lanterns glimmered on the summit of the hill.

“Now my masters,” said Jack, grasping his broadsword. “Happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.”

They withdrew into “the narrow lane.” This was a short cut, down which the travellers would probably walk, leaving their horses to be led round by the high road. Such proved to be the case. The travellers, four in number, were plebeians of the vulgarest description; shopmen, farmers, carriers, and the like,--people with large hands and coarse minds, such as in all cases have been reserved by destiny as the legitimate prey of the superior classes: the only observable variation of their treatment being in the manner of levying taxation.

Four terrible figures rushed out of the darkness, and four terrible voices cried:--

“Stand!”

The unfortunate travellers would have been most happy to do so, only they were too frightened. They fell on their knees instead, and roared.

As you may suppose, this was not the way to get rid of the assailants. The four terrible figures attacked the four terrified ones. The leader of the former, a man of colossal stature and intrepid behaviour, let fall in his fury some remarkable words--

“Strike! down with them, cut the villains’ throats! * * * Bacon-faced knaves! _they hate us youth_.”

Sir John Falstaff was the speaker. Who shall presume to count a great man’s life by years? Sir John, in the heat of action, was a mere boy again. Nay, in proof that his weight of flesh even sat no heavier on him than his weight of years, he exclaimed almost in the same breath:

“Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye _fat chuffs!_ I would your store were here. On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves; young men must live”