Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

If not, to better men he’ll leave his sack,

And go, as ballast, in a collier back.

In concluding this section of my gossiping record, I will add that the supposition of Shakespeare having intended to represent Sir John Oldcastle under the title of Sir John Falstaff, is merely a supposition. It has never been satisfactorily made out. Far otherwise is the case with that gallant Welsh man-at-arms, Fluellin. The original of this character was a David Gam of Brecknock, who having killed a cousin with an unpronounceable name, in the High Street of Brecknock, avoided the possibly unpleasant consequences by joining the Lancastrian party. Gam was merely a nickname, having reference to an obliquity of vision in the doughty and disputative David. The real name was Llewellyn; and if Shakespeare disguised the appellation, it was from notions of delicacy, probably, as the descendants of the hero were well known and respected at the English court in Shakespeare’s time. Jones, in his “History of Brecknockshire,” identifies the personage in question in this way: “I have called Fluellin a burlesque character, because his pribbles and prabbles, which were generally out-heroded, sound ludicrously to an English as well as a Welsh ear; yet, after all, Llewellyn is a brave soldier and an honest fellow. He is admitted into a considerable degree of intimacy with the King, and stands high in his good opinion, which is a strong presumptive proof, notwithstanding Shakespeare, the better to conceal his object, describes the death of Sir David Gam, that he intended David Llewellyn by his portrait of the testy Welshman, for there was no other person of that country in the English army, who could have been supposed to be upon such terms of familiarity with the King.” It is singular that the descendants of the Welsh knight subsequently dropped the proud old name with more l’s in it than syllables, and adopted the monosyllabic soubriquet. Squinting David, who fought so well at Agincourt, would have knocked down any man who would have dared to address him personally as “Gam,” that is, “game,” or “cock-eyed.” His posterity proved less susceptible; and Mr. Jones says of them, in a burst of melancholy over fallen greatness: “At different periods between the years 1550 and 1700, I have seen the descendants of the hero of Agincourt (who lived like a wolf and died like a lion) in the possession of every acre of ground in the county of Brecon; at the commencement of the eighteenth century, I find one of them common bellman of the town of Brecknock, and before the conclusion, two others, supported by the inhabitants of the parish where they reside; and even the name of Gam is, in the legitimate line, extinct.” Mr. Jones might have comforted himself by remembering that as the Gams went out, the Kembles came in, and that the illustrious Sarah dignified by her birth the garret of that “Shoulder of Mutton” public-house, which stood in the street where chivalrous but squinting Davy had slain his cousin with the unpronounceable name.

John Kemble occasionally took some unwarrantable liberties with Shakespeare. When he produced the “Merry Wives of Windsor” at Covent Garden, in April, 1804 (in which he played Ford to Cooke’s Falstaff), he deprived Sir Hugh Evans of his knightly title, out of sheer ignorance, or culpable carelessness. Blanchard was announced for “Hugh Evans,” without the Sir. Hawkins, quoting Fuller, says that “anciently in England, there were more Sirs than Knights;” and as I have noticed in another page, the monosyllabic Sir was common to both clergymen and knights. To the first, however, only by courtesy, when they had attained their degree of B. A. In a “New Trick to cheat the Devil,” Anne says to her sire, “Nay, sir;” to which the father replies—

“Sir me no sirs! I am no knight nor churchman.”

But John Kemble was complimentary to Shakespeare, compared with poor Frederick Reynolds, who turned the “Merry Wives of Windsor” into an opera, in 1824; and although Dowton did not sing Falstaff, as Lablache subsequently did, the two wives, represented by Miss Stephens and Miss Cubitt, warbled, instead of being merry in prose, and gave popularity to “I know a bank.” At the best, Fenton is but an indifferent part, but Braham was made to render it one marked especially by nonsense. Greenwood had painted a scene representing Windsor under a glowing summer sky, under which Fenton (Braham) entered, and remarked, very like Shakespeare: “How I love this spot where dear Anne Page has often met me and confessed her love! Ha! I think the sky is overcast—the wind, too, blows like an approaching storm. Well, let it blow on! I am prepared to brave its fury.” Whereupon the orchestra commenced the symphony, and Mr. Braham took a turn up the stage, according to the then approved plan, before he commenced his famous air of “Blow, blow, thou winter wind!” And the fun-anent Falstaff and the Fords was kept waiting for nonsense like this!

While on the subject of the chivalrous originals of the mock knights of the Stage, I may be permitted to mention here, that Jonson’s Bobadil was popularly said to have been named after, if not founded upon, a knight in the army of the Duke of Alva, engaged in subduing the Netherlands beneath the despotism of Philip II. According to Strada, after the victory at Giesen, near Mons, in 1570, Alva sent Captain Bobadilla to Spain, to inform Philip of the triumph to his arms. “The ostentation of the message, and still more of the person who bore it, was the origin of the name being applied to any vain-glorious boaster.” The Bobadilla family was an illustrious one, and can hardly be supposed to have furnished a member who, in any wise, resembles Jonson’s swashbuckler. On the other hand, there was Boabdil, the last sultan of Granada, who had indeed borne himself lustily, in his early days, in the field, but who at last cried like a child at losing that Granada which he was not man enough to defend. But it would be injustice even to the son of Muley Abel Hassan, to imagine that Jonson only took his name to distinguish therewith the knight of huge words and weapons who lodged with Oliver Cob the Water-bearer.

The few other Stage Knights whom I have to name, I will introduce them to the reader in the next chapter.

STAGE KNIGHTS.

“The stage and actors are not so contemptful