Henry V. and War Times.
This fifteenth century—in no chink of which, as would seem, could any brave or sweet English poem find root-hold, was not a bald one in British annals. There were great men of war in it: Henry V. and Bedford[61] and Warwick and Talbot and Richard III. all wrote bloody legends with their swords across French plains, or across English meadows.
Normandy, which had slipped out of British hands—as you remember—under King John, was won again by the masterly blows Henry V. struck at Agincourt and otherwheres. Shakespeare has given an historic picture of this campaign, which will be apt to outlive any contemporary chronicle. Falstaff disappears from sight, and his old crony the dissolute Prince Hal comes upon the scene as the conquering and steady-going King.
Through all the drama—from the “proud hoofs” of the war-horses, prancing in the prologue, to the last chorus, the lurid blaze of battle is threatening or shining. Never were the pomp and circumstance of war so contained within the pages of a play. For ever so little space—in gaps of the reading—between the vulgar wit of Nym, and the Welsh jargon of Fluellen, you hear the crack of artillery, and see shivered spears and tossing plumes. In the mid scenes, vast ranks of men sweep under your vision, and crash against opposing ranks, and break, and dissolve away in the hot swirl of battle. And by way of artistic contrast to all this, comes at last, in the closing pages, that piquant, homely, strange coquettish love-scene, which—historically true in its main details—joined the fortunes of England and of France in the persons of King Henry and Katharine of Valois. You will not be sorry to have a glimpse of this Shakespearean and historic love-making: The decisive battle has been fought: the French King is prisoner: Henry has the game in his own hands. It is a condition of peace that he and the fair Katharine—daughter of France—shall join hands in marriage; and Henry in his blunt war way sets about his wooing:—
“O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?”
Kate. Pardonnez moi; I cannot tell vat is—like me.
King. [Explosively and deliciously.] An angel is like you, Kate; and you are like an angel: faith, I’m glad thou can’st speak no better English: for if thou could’st thou would’st find me such a plain King, that thou would’st think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. If you would put me to verses, or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me. I speak plain soldier. If thou can’st love me for this—take me: if not—to say to thee that I shall die, is true: but—for thy love—by the Lord, no. Yet I love thee too. And whil’st thou livest, Kate, take a fellow of a plain uncoined constancy: a straight-back will stoop; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes. If thou would’st have such a one, take me!
Kate. Is it possible dat I should love de enemy of France?
King. No, it’s not possible, Kate: but in loving me you would love the friend of France, for I love France so well, that I will not part with a village of it: I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine, and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English—Can’st thou love me?
Kate. I cannot tell.
King. Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate?
Kate. I do not know dat.
King. By mine honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honor, I dare not swear thou lovest me: yet my blood begins to flatter me, that thou dost. Wilt thou have me Kate?
Kate. That is as it shall please le roy mon Père.
King. Nay it will please him well, Kate. It shall please him, Kate, and upon that, I kiss your hand and call you “my Queen.”
Kate. Dat is not de fashion pour les ladies of France—to kiss before marriage.
King. O Kate, [loftily] nice customs courtesy to great Kings:—here comes your father.
And these two did marry; the Queen being—as Shakespeare represents—in a large sense, the spoil of war. Out of this union sprung the next King, Henry VI., crowned when an infant. But this does not close the story of Katharine: three years after the King’s death, she married a Welsh knight—named Sir Owen Tudor. (He, poor man, lost his head, some years after, for his temerity in marrying a King’s widow.) But from the second marriage of Katharine, was born a son who became the father of that Henry VII., who sixty years later conquered Richard III. on Bosworth field—brought to an end the wars of York and Lancaster, and gave his own surname of Tudor to his son Henry VIII., to the great Elizabeth and to bloody Mary.
Seeing thus how the name of Tudor came into the royal family, through that Katharine of Valois, whose courtship is written in the play of Henry V., I will try on the same page to fasten in mind the cause of the great civil wars of York and Lancaster, or of the white and red roses, which desolated England in the heart of the fifteenth century.[62]
You will recall my having spoken of Chaucer as a favorite in the household of John of Gaunt, and as an inmate also in the household of John’s older brother, Lionel. You will remember, too, that Henry IV., son of John of Gaunt, succeeded the hapless and handsome Richard II. on the throne; but his right was disputed, and with a great deal of reason, by the heirs of the older brother, Lionel (who had title of Duke of Clarence). There was not however power and courage enough to contest the claim, until the kingship of young Henry VI.—crowned when an infant—offered opportunity. Thereafter and thereby came the broils, the apprehensions, the doubts, the conspiracies, the battles, which made England one of the worst of places to live in: all this bitterness between York and Lancaster growing out of the rival claims of the heirs of our old acquaintances Lionel and John of Gaunt, whom we met in the days of Chaucer.