If truth and upright innocency fail me, Enter King HENRY V. Ch. Just. Good morrow; and heaven save your majesty! King. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty, Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear; But Harry Harry:5 Yet be sad, good brothers, That I will deeply put the fashion on, And wear it in my heart. Why then, be sad: For me, by heaven, I bid you be assur'd, I'll be your father and your brother too; Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares. 4 not the Turkish court;] Not the court where the prince that mounts the throne puts his brothers to death. Johnson. 5 Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, But Harry Harry:] Amurath the Third (the sixth Emperor of the Turks) died on January the 18th, 1595-6. The peoplebeing generally disaffected to Mahomet, his eldest son, and inclined to Amurath, one of his younger children, the Emperor's death was concealed for ten days by the Janizaries, till Mahomet came from Amasia to Constantinople. On his arrival he was saluted Emperor, by the great Bassas, and others his favourers; “which done, (says Knolles) he presently after caused all his brethren to be invited to a solemn feast in the court; whereunto they, yet ignorant of their father's death, came chearfully, as men fearing no harm: but, being come, were there all most miserably strangled." It is highly probable that Shakspeare here alludes to this transaction; which was pointed out to me by Dr. Farmer. This circumstance, therefore, may fix the date of this play subsequently to the beginning of the year 1596; and perhaps it was written while this fact was yet recent. Malone. By number, into hours of happiness. P. John, &c. We hope no other from your majesty. King. You all look strangely on me:-and you most; [To the Ch. Just. You are, I think, assur'd I love you not. Ch. Just. I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly, How might a prince of my great hopes forget What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your father; 6 was this easy!] That is, was this not grievous? Shakspeare has easy in this sense elsewhere. Johnson. Thus, perhaps, in King Henry VI, Part II, Act III, sc. i: "And easy sighes, such as folkes draw in love." Steevens. 7 And struck me in my very seat of judgment;] I do not recollect that any of the editors of our author have thought this remarkable passage worthy of a note. The Chief Justice, in this play, was Sir William Gascoigne, of whom the following memoir may be as acceptable as necessary: While at the bar, Henry of Bolingbroke had been his client; and upon the decease of John of Gaunt, by the above Henry, his heir, then in banishment, he was appointed his attorney, to sue in the Court of Wards the livery of the estates descended to him. Richard II revoked the letters patent for this purpose, and defeated the intent of them, and thereby furnished a ground for the invasion of his kingdom by the heir of Gaunt; who becoming afterwards Henry IV, appointed Gascoigne Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the first year of his reign. In that station Gascoigne acquired the character of a learned, an upright, a wise, and an intrepid judge. The story so frequently alluded to of his committing the prince for an insult on his person, and the Whereon, as an offender to your father, court wherein he presided, is thus related by Sir Thomas Elyot, in his book entitled The Governour: "The moste renouned prince king Henry the fyfte, late kynge of Englande, durynge the lyfe of his father, was noted to be fiers and of wanton courage: it hapned, that one of his seruauntes, whom he fauoured well, was for felony by him committed, arrained at the kynges benche: whereof the prince being aduertised, and incensed by lyghte persones about him, in furious rage came hastily to the barre where his seruante stode as a prisoner, and commaunded him to be vngyued and set at libertie: whereat all men were abashed, reserved the chiefe Justice, who humbly exhorted the prince, to be contented, that his seruaunt mought be ordred, accordynge to the aunciente lawes of this realme: or if he wolde haue hym saued from the rigour of the lawes, that he shulde obteyne, if he moughte, of the kynge his father, his gratious pardon, whereby no lawe or justyce shulde be derogate. With whiche answere the prince nothynge appeased, but rather more inflamed, endeuored hym selfe to take away his seruant. The iuge considering the perillous example, and inconuenience that mought therby ensue, with a valy ant spirite and courage, commanded the prince vpon his alegeance, to leave the prisoner, and depart his way. With which commandment the prince being set all in a fury, all chafed and in a terrible maner, came vp to the place of iudgement, men thynking that he wold haue slayne the iuge, or haue done to hym some damage: but the iuge sittynge styll without mouing, declaring the maiestie of the kynges place of iugement, and with an assured and bolde countenaunce, had to the prince, these wordes followyng. "Syr, remembre yourselfe, I kepe here the place of the kyng your soueraine lorde and father, to whom ye owe double obedience: wherfore eftsoones in his name, I charge you desyste of your wylfulnes and vnlawfull enterprise, & from hensforth giue good example to those, whych hereafter shall be your propre subjectes. And nowe, for your contempte and disobedience, go you to the prysone of the kynges bench, wherevnto I commytte you, and remayne ye there prysoner vntill the pleasure of the kynge your father be further knowen." "With whiche wordes being abashed, and also wondrynge at meruaylous gravitie of that worshypfulle justyce, the noble prince layinge his weapon aparte, doying reuerence, departed, and wente to the kynges benche, as he was commanded. Wherat his servauntes disdaynynge, came and shewed to the kynge all the hole affaire. Wherat he awhyles studyenge, after as a man all rauyshed with gladnes, holdynge his eien and handes vp towarde heuen, abraided, saying with a loude voice, 'O mercifull God, howe moche am I, aboue all other men, bounde to your infinite goodnes, specially for that ye haue gyuen me a iuge, who feareth nat to minister iustyce, and also a sonne, who can suffre semblably, and obeye iustyce!"" I gave bold way to my authority, And did commit you. If the deed were ill, And here it may be noted, that Shakspeare has deviated from history in bringing the Chief Justice and Henry V together, for it is expressly said by Fuller, in his Worthies of Yorkshire, and that on the best authority, that Gascoigne died in the life-time of his father, viz. on the first day of November, 14 Henry IV. See Dugd. Origines Furidic. in the Chronica Series, fol. 54, 56. Neither is it to be presumed but that this laboured defence of his conduct is a fiction of the poet: and it may justly be inferred from the character of this very able lawyer, whose name frequently occurs in the year-book of his time, that, having had spirit and resolution to vindicate the authority of the law, in the punishment of the prince, he disdained a formal apology for an act that is recorded to his honour. Sir J. Hawkins. In the foregoing account of this transaction, there is no mention of the Prince's having struck Gascoigne, the Chief Justice. Holinshed, however, whom our author copied, speaking of the "wanton pastime" in which Prince Henry passed his youth, says, that "where on a time hee stroke the chiefe justice on the face with his fiste, for emprisoning one of his mates, he was not only committed to straighte prison himselfe by the sayde chief justice, but also of his father put out of the privie counsell and banished the courte." Holinshed has here followed Hall. Our author (as an anonymous writer has observed) [Mr. Ritson] might have found the same circumstance in the old play of King Henry V. With respect to the anachronism, Sir William Gascoigne certainly died before the accession of Henry V to the throne, as appears from the inscription which was once legible on his tombstone, in Harwood church, in Yorkshire, and was as follows: "Hic jacet Wil❜mus Gascoigne, nuper capit. justic. de banco, Hen. nuper regis Angliæ quarti, qui quidem Wil'mus ob. die domi'ca 17.a die Decembris. an dom. 1412, 14.to Henrici quarti. factus index, 1401." See Gent. Magazine, Vol. LI, p. 624. Shakspeare, however, might have been misled on the authority of Stowe, who in a marginal note, 1 Henry V, erroneously asserts that "William Gascoigne was chief justice of the Kings Bench from the sixt of Henry IV, to the third of Henry the Fift:" or, (which is full as probable) Shakspeare might have been careless about the matter. Malone. 8 To trip the course of law,] To defeat the process of justice; a metaphor taken from the act of tripping a runner. Johnson. So, in Hamlet: "Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven." Steevens, That guards the peace and safety of your person: Hear your own dignity so much profan'd, King. You are right, justice, and you weigh this well; Till you do live to see a son of mine So shall live to speak my father's words;— Into the hands of justice.-You did commit me:3 The unstained sword that you have us❜d to bear; 9 And mock your workings in a second body.] To treat with con, tempt your acts executed by a representative. Johnson. 11 and propose a son:] i. e. image to yourself a son, contrive for a moment to think you have one. So, in Titus Andro nicus: 2 66 — a thousand deaths I could propose." Steevens. in your state,] In your regal character and office, not with the passion of a man interested, but with the impartiality of a legislator. Johnson. 3 You did commit me: &c.] So, in the play on this subject, antecedent to that of Shakspeare: 4 "You sent me to the Fleet; and for revengement, "Over my realm." Steevens. remembrance,] That is, admonition. Johnson. |