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IV WARLIKE STRATEGY OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF:
HOW THE KNIGHT ASSISTED THE YORKSHIRE REBELS AGAINST THE KING’S FORCES.—REAPPEARANCE OF MASTER ROBERT SHALLOW.
COMPARISONS have already been made between the hero of these pages and Julius Cæsar, Henry Percy, the great Earl of Warwick, the First Napoleon, and other heroes of ancient, mediæval, and modern history. The resemblance to all or any of them would be incomplete could we not prove that on some one occasion, at least, our hero suffered a sense of personal wrong or interest to withdraw him from a cause whereunto he had sworn allegiance, and induce him to throw the vast weight of his valour and influence into the opposite scale. This is as common and natural a proceeding with the rulers of kingdoms and armies, as it is with vulgar persons to withdraw their custom from a shop, when they have been offended or ill-served—in favour of another where they expect greater civility or better bargains. It is true that the lives of thousands, and the welfare of entire communities, may be sacrificed by such conduct on the part of great leaders. But these commodities, to such people, are merely what shillings and pence are to the retail purchasers—the base counters by which the value of their connection is to be estimated.
Sir John Falstaff, as I have shown, had been slighted by the King, outraged by the King’s Chief Justiciary, and trifled with by the King’s son, (I have not thought fit to call attention to His Highness’s last practical joke attempted on our hero, on the occasion of the supper alluded to at the close of the last chapter; in which, by consulting the chronicle, it will be seen the Prince came off no better than usual in such matches). And in the face of this treatment, it was expected that Sir John would, at a moment’s notice and without a word of apology, come forward with his original loyalty unshaken to annihilate the King’s enemies—now assembled in large numbers in Yorkshire under the leadership of the Earl of Northumberland, the Archbishop of York, and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham and Lord Marshal of England—(son and successor to Sir John’s old lord and tutor—many years since exiled and cut to pieces by Saracen scimitars, in default of the privilege of having his ribs poked, his skull cleft, or his neck severed, comfortably, in his native land—the natural destiny and laudable ambition of every English nobleman of the period!) Briefly, Sir John resolved that he would do nothing of the kind.