We may notice, before proceeding7, the curious carelessness in the great dramatist which makes the Prince strike the Chief Justice “about Bardolph.” Bardolph is one of the boon8 companions of Falstaff. The Prince never expresses anything but contempt for him.
A few lines from the famous scene may be quoted. The King, then newly seated on the throne, asks the Chief Justice, who has come to offer his homage9,
“How might a prince of my great hopes forget So great indignities10 you laid upon me? What! rate, rebuke11, and roughly send to prison The immediate12 heir of England!”
And then, after hearing the defence, he goes on:
“You are right, justice, and you weigh this well; Therefore still bear the balance and the sword: And I do wish your honours may increase, Till you do live to see a son of mine Offend you and obey you, as I did. So shall I live to speak my father’s words: Happy am I, that have a man so bold, That dares do justice on my proper son; And not less happy, having such a son, That would deliver up his greatness so Into the hands of justice.”
No more picturesque13 incident, it must be allowed, has ever been used to “point a moral or adorn14 a tale.” We cannot wonder that it has become one of the commonplaces24 of history, or of what passes as history. What, then, is the foundation of the story; or, if it has no foundation, what is its origin?
It appears for the first time in The Boke named the Governour of Sir Thomas Elyot, a philosophico-political treatise15, published in 1531. The story as he tells it runs thus:
“The most renowned16 Prince, King Henry the Fifth, late King of England, during the life of his father was noted17 to be fierce and of wanton courage. It happened that one of his servants whom he well favoured, for felony by him committed, was arraigned18 at the King’s Bench; whereof he being advertised, and incensed19 by light persons about him, in furious rage came hastily to the bar, where his servant stood as a prisoner, and commanded him to be ungyved and set at liberty, whereat all men were abashed20, except the Chief Justice, who humbly21 exhorted22 the Prince to be contented23 that his servant might be ordered according to the ancient laws of the realm, or if he would have him saved from the rigour of the laws, that he should obtain, if he might, of the King, his father, his gracious pardon; whereby no law or justice should be derogate24. With which answer the Prince nothing appeased25, but rather more inflamed26, endeavoured himself to take away his servant. The judge, considering the perilous27 example and inconvenience that might thereby28 ensue, with a valiant29 spirit and courage commanded the Prince upon his allegiance to leave the prisoner and depart his way. With which commandment the Prince, being set all in a fury, all chafed30, and in a terrible manner, came up to the place of judgment31—men thinking that he would have slain32 the judge, or have done to him some damage; but the judge sitting still, without moving, declaring the majesty33 of the King’s place of judgment, and with an assured and bold countenance34 made to the Prince these words following:—‘Sir, remember yourself; I keep here the place of the King, your sovereign lord and father, to whom ye owe double obedience35, wherefore, eftsoons in his25 name, I charge you desist of your wilfulness36 and unlawful entry here, and from henceforth give good example to those which hereafter shall be your proper subjects. And now for your contempt and disobedience go you to the prison of the King’s Bench, whereunto I commit you; and remain ye there prisoner until the pleasure of the King, your father, be further known.’ With which words being abashed, and also wondering at the marvellous gravity of that worshipful Justice, the noble Prince, laying his weapon apart, doing reverence37, departed and went to the King’s Bench, as he was commanded. Whereat his servants disdaining38, came and showed to the King all the whole affair. Whereat he awhile studying, after as a man all ravished with gladness, holding his eyes and hands up towards heaven, abraided, saying with a loud voice, ‘O merciful God, how much am I, above all other men, bound to your infinite goodness; specially39 for that ye have given me a judge who feareth not to minister justice, and also a son who can suffer semblably and obey justice?’”
This narrative40 is circumstantial enough, though it gives no note of time. On what foundation, then, does it rest, for we can hardly suppose it to be a pure invention? There certainly appears to have been a tradition which attributes some such misconduct to the Prince. Some few years after the appearance of Sir Thomas Elyot’s book, one Robert Redman or Redmayne wrote a book which he entitled Historia Henrici Quinti. He thus expresses himself:
“He was removed from the Council (Senatus), and access to the Court was forbidden to him. His reputation was checked in mid-course, because he struck the Chief Justice, whose function it was to solve suits and decide causes, when the said Justice had committed to prison one from whose companionship Henry derived41 a singular pleasure.”
Here the offence is the same, but the punishment is26 different. Of the alleged42 removal of the Prince from the Council it will be more convenient to speak hereafter.
Of Richard Redman we know nothing beyond what may be learnt from the internal evidence of his chronicle, and this amounts to little more than that he was a scholar well versed43 in Latin literature; that he was inclined to the Reformed opinions; and that he wrote somewhat earlier than the middle of the sixteenth century. It seems, however, that there was a Redman who was present at the battle of Agincourt, and who on one occasion was joined in a commission with Gascoigne, the hero of the story. It has been suggested that this Redman was an ancestor of the chronicler, and that he derived his story from a tradition current in his family. Of this we can only say that it is not impossible, not forgetting, however, that such a tradition may indeed have existed and yet not have been true.
Finally, Thomas Hardyng tells us that the punishment of removal from the Council was inflicted44 upon the Prince by the King, but does not mention the offence which was thus visited. Hardyng was a contemporary; indeed, as he was born 1378, he was very nearly of the same age as Henry. So far his testimony45 is valuable, though his account of the incident seems to have been written quite late in life. But, as the Prince’s offence is not specified47, it has but a very indirect bearing on the question.
On the other hand, an examination of the records of the Court of the King’s Bench shows that there is no entry to be found in them of any committal of the Prince. It has been pointed2 out that the summary committal to prison of an offender48, as described by Elyot,27 was not the course of proceeding at the time. This, however, may be waived49. The Prince may have been tried by a jury impanelled on the spot, and sent to prison when found guilty by them; and for this course of proceeding a more dramatically effective committal by the presiding judge may have been substituted. But the incident must, one would think, have been recorded in one way or another, and the absolute silence of the rolls and year-books of the Court affords a strong presumption50 that nothing of the kind ever occurred.
But on looking back to the records of an earlier time, we find that on one occasion a Prince of Wales had been guilty of contempt of Court and had been punished for it by his father. In the thirty-fourth year of Edward the First, one William de Breora, having had judgment pronounced against him by Roger de Hegham, one of the Barons51 of the Exchequer52, “climbed in contemptuous fashion upon the bar, and with grave and bitter words found fault with the said judgment and also insulted the said Roger as he was leaving the Court.” The Court proceeded to punish him for this offence, and rested its action on what had recently been done in a similar case.
“Such acts,” it says, “namely, contempt and disobedience done to the servants of our Lord King, as to the King himself and his Court, are exceedingly odious53. This was lately manifested when the said King removed his eldest54 and dearly beloved son, Edward, Prince of Wales, from his house for nearly the space of half-a-year, because he had spoken gross and bitter words to a servant of the King; nor would he suffer him to come into his presence till he had satisfied the aforesaid servant of the King in the matter of his offence.”
There can, I think, be little doubt that we have here28 the germs of the story which Shakespeare afterwards so effectively used. It has been acutely pointed out that several phrases in Elyot’s narrative have the appearance of having been translated from the Latin; and the theory is that some chronicler compounded the various incidents as they had occurred or were supposed to have occurred, and combined them with the story which is told in the Governour, and which has been immortalised by Shakespeare. It should, perhaps, be added that Gascoigne had shown in a very striking way his independence of spirit. After the suppression of the northern insurrection in 1405, the King directed him to pronounce sentence of death on the two leaders, Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, and Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshall, who had been captured and probably tried and condemned55 by some kind of court-martial. Gascoigne, who was Chief Justice (he had been appointed to the office in November 1400), refused to do so. He declared that as to the Archbishop, neither the King nor any of the King’s subjects could lawfully56 put him to death; as to the Earl Marshall, he had the right to be tried by his peers. Independence in a judge has always been especially dear to Englishmen. To a monkish57 historian—and almost all the historians of the time were monks—such independence could not show itself in a more praiseworthy fashion than in asserting the exemption58 of ecclesiastical persons from the jurisdiction59 of lay courts. Gascoigne, then, would be a genuine hero, and, as with other genuine heroes, a great amount of myth may well have grown up about his true story.
It only remains60 to examine the conclusion of the legend, as Shakespeare tells it. The young King is there29 represented as assuring him of his favour, and promising61 to continue him in office.
We find him acting62 as a judge in Hilary term 1413 (January and February). Henry the Fourth died on March 20th. His successor summoned a new Parliament by writ46 bearing date the 23rd day of that month, and among the persons summoned was William Gascoigne. But on March 29th William Hankford, a puisne judge of the Common Pleas, was appointed to Gascoigne’s office. On July 7th of the same year there is recorded a payment made to him, as late Chief Justice, on account of salary and annuity63. It is quite possible that he voluntarily resigned his office. We do not exactly know his age, but he must have been advanced in years. He had been practising as an advocate as early as the year 1374, which may well throw back his birth as far as 1340. In this case he would be seventy-three at Henry’s accession, and seventy-three meant much more then than it does now. He died in 1419. It may be mentioned that in 1414 a royal warrant gave him for life four bucks64 and four does out of the forest of Pontefract. On the whole, the evidence in the matter has an absolutely neutral effect. It disproves, indeed, anything like a display of magnanimity on Henry’s part; but then there does not seem to have been any occasion for such magnanimity. Gascoigne may have been removed from his office, a common enough practice in the days when such offices were held at the royal pleasure, or he may have resigned. That he was continued in his office by the young King is certainly a fiction. There can be little doubt that the same may be said of the whole story.
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1
lieutenancy
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| n.中尉之职，代理官员 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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8
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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arraigned
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| v.告发( arraign的过去式和过去分词 )；控告；传讯；指责 | |
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19
incensed
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| 盛怒的 | |
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abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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exhorted
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| v.劝告，劝说( exhort的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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derogate
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| v.贬低，诽谤 | |
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appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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26
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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30
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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wilfulness
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| 任性；倔强 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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38
disdaining
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| 鄙视( disdain的现在分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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44
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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48
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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49
waived
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| v.宣布放弃( waive的过去式和过去分词 )；搁置；推迟；放弃（权利、要求等） | |
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50
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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51
barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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52
exchequer
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| n.财政部；国库 | |
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53
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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54
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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55
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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56
lawfully
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| adv.守法地，合法地；合理地 | |
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57
monkish
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| adj.僧侣的，修道士的，禁欲的 | |
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58
exemption
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| n.豁免，免税额，免除 | |
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59
jurisdiction
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| n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权 | |
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60
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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61
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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62
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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63
annuity
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| n.年金；养老金 | |
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64
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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