"Westm. Pleaseth your grace to answer them di

rectly,

How far-forth you do like their articles?

"P. John. I like them all, and do allow them well;

And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
My father's purposes have been mistook;
And some about him have too lavishly
Wrested his meaning and authority.—

My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redressed;
Upon my soul they shall. If this may please you,
Discharge your powers into their several counties,
As we will ours; and here, between the armies,
Let's drink together friendly, and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear these tokens home
Of our restored love and amity."

Probably, no man ever read the remainder of this scene without disgust at the perfidy and equivocation of the prince, who, having kept up his own force while the other was dispersed, arrested the rebel leaders, alleging that he had engaged to redress their grievances, but not to respect their persons.

Shakspeare has been blamed by "the great moralist" for not expressing his "indignation at this horrid violation of faith."* Malone observes truly that he merely followed the historians, and surely this is a justification, though the commentator thinks it not so, because "it is the duty of a

* Johnson, in Bosw., 164.

poet always to take the side of virtue." It was not Shakspeare's business to make moral reflections, nor was there a person in the drama to whom he could have assigned them; he might, perhaps, have put a more energetic and indignant remonstrance in the mouth of the injured prelate.

In another version of the story,* the king's generals persuade the rebel leaders to surrender unconditionally, thereupon their troops disperse themselves.

Nothing seems clear but that the archbishop, Mowbray, and the others, fell into the hands of the king without any action fought, and that they were put to death; not, however, as Shakspeare says, by the authority of Prince John, but by that of one of the king's judges. The Chief Justice Gascoyne, it is said, refused to condemn a bishop; but one Fulthorpe, or Fulford,§ was made a judge for the occasion, and condemned

* Otterb., 255. Hol. refers also to this.

+ Act iv. Sc. 4.

June 8, 1405. Clement, at Maidstone, in Anglia Sacra, i. 369; Tyler, i. 209.

§ Clement calls him Fulthorpe; but Godwin (p. 690), though he writes on Clement's authority, gives the name Fulford; and I know that the amiable family of Great Fulford, in Devonshire, considers the questionable honour as belonging to that ancient house, (Burke's Commoners, iii. 158). But I believe, with Lysons (Devon. p. 171), that this is mistake. No judge of either name was summoned in his reign. Thomas Fulthorpe was summoned in 13 Hen.

Scrope, who was beheaded without a trial,* protesting loudly that he had intended no evil against the king. His admirers have not failed to describe the miracles which followed his death.

Shakspeare makes a scenet of the surrender of Coleville of the Dale, one of the rebel leaders, to Sir John Falstaff. Holinshed says that Coleville, with Lord Hastings, was convicted and beheaded; I know not how Shakspeare got hold of the fact, which is recorded, of his being made prisoner after the dispersion of the rebel force.

At the same time with the report of the archbishop's execution, the Henry of the play receives information that

"The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,

With a great power of English and of Scots,
Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown."

VI.-Dugd. 426. It is said that, when the Pope took up the cause of Scrope, as a son of the church, Henry sent the prelate's armour to Rome, asking "whether that was his son's coat?"

When the

*There was a sort of trial after his death. king, in parliament, desired the temporal peers to declare the archbishop and the earl traitors, they replied that, according to the representation given by Prince John, their offence seemed to be treason; but, in order that there might be no error, they desired that the case should be submitted to another parliament, to which all peers should be summoned. See Lingard, iv. 305; and Rolls, iii. 606.

† Act iv. Sc. 3.

But, in fact, these two northern peers, as Shakspeare might have known from Holinshed,* did not come into actual contact with the king's forces until three years afterwards. In the interval, they were in Wales, France, and Flanders, and latterly in Scotland, from whence they invaded England, and were defeated at Bramham Moor, in March 1408, by the Rokeby of whom we have heard. Northumberland was slain in the fight, and Bardolph died of his wounds. Shakspeare commits a double anachronism in assigning the discomfiture and death of Scrope and of Northumberland to the same year, and in placing both events at the close of Henry's life, which, in fact, the latter of them preceded by five years.†

Though his dates are wrong, and, consequently, Henry's reflections in the following lines are misplaced

'Will Fortune never come with both hands full,

But write her fair words still in foulest letters ?
She either gives a stomach and no food—
Such are the poor, in health; or else, a feast,

P. 44. Hard., 364. Wals., 377. Otterb., 261. † I do not know why the dramatist selected Harcourt as the bearer of the news of Rokeby's success. The Harcourts were considerable persons in this reign, and I apprehend that Shakspeare took the name at random. I cannot identify any particular member of the family as the person intended. See Collins, iv. 435. The Harcourts are now represented in the female line by the Vernons.

And takes away the stomach-such are the rich
That have abundance and enjoy it not :”-

such enjoyment as his throne, now unassailed by rebels, could give to Henry, he continued to possess for five years, before he was seized with the 'apoplex" which terminated his life.

66

The prodigies which preceded the king's death

Clarence. The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between," are not imagined by Shakspeare; for Holinshed writes

"In this year (1412), and upon the 12th day of October, were three floods in the Thames, the one following upon the other, and no ebbing between, which thing no man living could remember the like to be seen."*

This is probable, but Shakspeare adds, I know not upon what authority-+

"And the old folk, time's doting chronicles,

Say it did so a little time before

That our great grandsire Edward sick'd and died."

I now return to the Prince of Wales. In a former scene, Falstaff's page, on the appearance of the chief justice, observes—

'Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph."

✦ There is nothing of this tide in Hall or Stow.

Act i. Sc. 2.