BOOK THE SECOND, 1381.
I. HOW MR. JOHN FALSTAFF CAME INTO HIS PROPERTY, AND WAS KNIGHTED
BY KING RICHARD THE SECOND.
THERE is nothing in the latter and more publicly known portion of Sir John Falstaff’s career to make it surprising that he should have approached the middle period of life without having acquired greater nominal celebrity than that afforded by the registers of retail traders. Such greatness as he afterwards attained to, having for its foundation a profound knowledge of mankind, must needs absorb the study of a long life to develop its Aloetie splendours.
Therefore, having clearly established my hero’s antecedents, and seen him launched on the sea of life, I might fairly take leave of him for many years to come, as of an adventurous emigrant crossing the ocean, with the perils of whose long voyage we have nothing to do, and who will only claim more attention when he shall have cleared his forest and founded his colony on the other side of the world.
But it must not be forgotten that we are treating of a knight and a gentleman of the olden time. There are two events in the life of such a person which, injustice to chivalry and noble birth, the historian may not pass over: these are,
1. His accession to the inheritance of his ancestors.
2. The time and manner of his receiving the dignity of knighthood.