In this glowing page of Shakspeare is preserved one of those exquisite, fascinating illusions which are scattered up and down throughout his never-dying remains, and which, arresting us everywhere, hold the willing imagination spell-bound, till, after reflection, Truth rises upon the mind, and with one gleam of her soft but omnipotent light varies the charm, and contrasts the satisfaction of reality with the pleasures of fiction. The poet's imagery paints to our mind's eye Harry Hotspur and Harry of Monmouth lying each in his "cradle-clothes" on some one and the same night, when the powers of Fairy-land might have exchanged the boys, and called Percy, Plantagenet. To effect such a change, however, of the first-born sons of Northumberland and Bolinbroke, an extent of power and skill must have been in requisition far beyond what their warmest advocates are wont to assign to those "night-tripping" personages. Hotspur was at least one-and-twenty years old when Henry of Monmouth "lay in his cradle-clothes." The pencil also of the painter has lent its aid to confirm and propagate the same delusion as to the relative ages of these two warriors. In the representation (for example) of the Battle-field of Shrewsbury, Hotspur and Henry, the heroes in the fore-ground, are models of two gallant youths, equal in age, struggling for the mastery: and in the chamber-scene, whilst Henry is represented in all the freshness of a beardless youth, his father shows the worn-out veteran; his brow and cheeks deeply furrowed, his whole frame borne down towards the grave by length of days as much as by infirmities, though when he died his age did not exceed his forty-seventh year.
The time of Hotspur's birth has generally been considered matter only for conjecture; but whether we draw our inferences from undisputed facts, and the clearest deductions of sound argument, or rest only on the direct evidence now for the first time, it is presumed, brought forward, we cannot regard Hotspur at the very lowest calculation as a single year younger than Henry of Monmouth's father, the very Bolinbroke whom the poet makes to utter such a lamentation and such a wish. Bolinbroke's birth-day cannot be assigned (as we have seen) to an earlier date than April 6, 1366; and the Annals of the Peerage[317] refer Hotspur's birth to May 20, 1364.[318] The Author, however, is disposed to think that the Annals have antedated his birth by more than a year at least. In the Scrope and Grosvenor controversy,[319] the record of which supplied us with the ages of Glyndowr and his brother, the commissioners examined both Hotspur and his father. The father, usually called the "aged Earl," gave his testimony on the 19th November 1386, as "the Earl of Northumberland, of the age of forty-five years, having borne arms thirty years." Hotspur, who was examined on the 30th of the preceding October, that is, in the year before Henry of Monmouth was born, gave his testimony as "Sir Henry Percy, of the age of twenty years." Hotspur must, therefore, have been born between the end of October 1365 and the end of October 1366. And if the annalists are right in fixing upon the day of the year on which he was born, his birth-day was in the month next following the birth-day of Bolinbroke. On the most probable calculation, he might have been five months older than Bolinbroke; he could not have been seven months younger. It is a curious and interesting circumstance, that, instead of specifying the number of years through which he had borne arms, Hotspur referred the commissioners to the first occasion of his having seen and shared the real service of battle: "First armed when the castle of Berwick was taken by the Scots, and when the rescue was made." The surprise of Berwick by the Scots took place on the Thursday before St. Andrew's day in the year 1378, (which fell on November 25,) so that Hotspur passed his noviciate in the field of battle when he was only just past his twelfth year, and almost nine years before Henry of Monmouth was born. In 1388, when Henry was only one year old, Hotspur was taken prisoner by the Scots. His eldest son, whom Henry with so much generosity restored to his honours and estates, was born February 3, 1393.[320]
Though these facts prove that Shakspeare has spread through the world a most erroneous opinion of the relative ages and circumstances of Bolinbroke, Hotspur, and Henry of Monmouth,—a circumstance, indeed, in itself of no great importance,—the question on which we are engaged will be more immediately and strongly affected if it can be shown precisely, that at the very time when (according to the poet's representation) Henry IV. uttered this lamentation, expressive of deep present sorrow at the reckless misdoings of his son, and of anticipations of worse, that very son was doing his duty valiantly and mercifully in Wales.
On the lowest calculation, a full month before Mortimer's capture, the young royal warrior had scoured the whole country of Glyndwrdy in person, and had burnt two of Owyn's mansions; whilst the strong probability is, that he had headed his troops on that expedition more than a year before.
It is very remarkable (though Shakspeare doubtless never became acquainted with the circumstance) that the identical Percy whom he makes Henry IV. desire to have been his son, instead of his own Henry, bears ample testimony, at least a full year previously, to the valour and kind-heartedness of him on whose brow the poet makes his father lament "the stain of riot and dishonour."
Sir Edmund Mortimer was taken by Glyndowr at Melienydd in Radnor, June 12th, 1402; and, as early as the 3rd of May 1401, Percy wrote from Caernarvon to the council that North Wales was obedient to the law, except the rebels of Conway and Rees Castles, who were in the mountains, whom he expresses his expectation that the Prince of Wales would subdue. "These will be right well chastened," said he, "if God please, by the force and governance which my lord the Prince has sent against them, as well of his council as of his retinue." In the same letter Hotspur informs the King's council that the commons of the counties of Caernarvon and Merioneth (who had come before him in the sessions which he was then holding as Chief Justice of North Wales) had humbly expressed their thanks to the Prince for the great pains of his kind good-will in endeavouring to obtain their pardon."[321] Henry Prince of Wales, whom the poet makes his father thus to disparage at the mere mention of Henry Percy's victory, would lose nothing in point of prowess, and generosity, and high-minded bearing, at this very early period of his youth, by a comparison either with Percy himself, or with any other of his contemporaries, whose names are recorded in history.
The next passage of our historical dramatist which requires to be examined, occurs in that very affecting interview between Henry and his father on the news of Percy's rebellion, and the resolution declared to take the field at Shrewsbury.[322]
"I know not whether God will have it so,
For some displeasing service I have done,
That, in his secret, doom out of my blood
He breeds revengement and a scourge for me.
But thou dost, in thy passages of life,
Make me believe that thou art only marked
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven,
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate and low desires,
Such barren, base, such lewd, such mean attempts,
Such barren pleasures, rude society,[323]
As thou art matched withal and grafted to,
Accompany the greatness of thy blood,
And hold their level with thy princely heart?
Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost,
Which by thy younger brother is supplied;
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court, and princes of my blood."
The battle of Shrewsbury was fought July 21, 1403. The tragedian represents Henry the Prince as at this period in the full career of his unbridled extravagances; his father bewailing his sad degeneracy, himself pleading nothing in excuse, praying for pardon, and promising amendment. It must appear passing strange to those who have drawn their estimate of those years of Prince Henry's youth from Shakspeare, to find the real truth to be this. Not only was he not then in London the profligate debauchee, the reckless madcap, the creature of "vassal fear and base inclination," "the nearest and dearest of his father's foes;" not only was he acting valiantly in defence of his father's throne; but that very father's own pen is the instrument to bear chief testimony to his valour and noble merits at that very hour. It is as though history were designed on set purpose, and by especial commission, to counteract the bewitching fictions of the poet. Henry IV. was on his road to assist Hotspur and the Earl of Northumberland, in utter ignorance of their rebellion. Arrived at Higham Ferrers, he wrote to his council, informing them that he had received, as well by his son Henry's own letters, as by the report of his messengers, most satisfactory accounts of this very dear and well-beloved son the Prince, which gave him very great pleasure.[324] He then directs them to send the Prince 1000l. to enable him to keep his forces together. This letter is dated July 10, 1403, just eleven days before the battle of Shrewsbury. The King heard of Hotspur's rebellion on his arrival at Burton on Trent, from which place he dates his proclamation. Henry of Monmouth was appointed Lieutenant of Wales on the 4th of March 1403; and he was with his men-at-arms and archers there, discharging the duties of a faithful son and valiant young warrior, when Hotspur revolted; and he left his charge in Wales, not to revel in London, but only to join his own to his father's forces, and fight for their kingdom on the field of Shrewsbury.
The extraordinary confusion of place and time, pervading the "Second Part of King Henry IV," is only equalled by the mistaken view which the writer gives of the character of Henry of Monmouth. News of the overthrow of Archbishop Scrope is brought to London on the very day on which Henry IV. sickens and dies; whereas that King was himself in person in the north, and insisted upon the execution of the Archbishop, just eight years before. The Archbishop was beheaded on Whitmonday (June 8) in the year 1405. Henry IV. died March 20, 1413. And instead of Henry, the Prince, being either at Windsor hunting, or in London "with Poins and other his continual followers," when his father was depressed and perplexed by the rebellion in the north, he was doing his duty well, gallantly, and to the entire satisfaction of his father. We have a letter, dated Berkhemstead, March 13, 1405, written by the King to his council, with a copy of his son Henry's letter announcing the victory over the Welsh rebels at Grosmont in Monmouthshire, which was won on Wednesday the 11th of that month. The King writes with great joy and exultation, bidding his council to convey the glad tidings to the mayor and citizens of London, that "they (he says) may rejoice with us, and join in praises to our Creator."