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Let Sir John Falstaff speak for himself on the occasion:—
“Zounds! I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise?”
Quite possible! Sir John knew very little of the defunct Percy’s character. How was he to divine that Hotspur had but been distinguished by the worser part of valour—brute courage? For aught he knew, the young Northumbrian might have been as sensible a man as himself. But let us not interrupt the knight’s soliloquy.
“I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure; yea, and swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me.”
(This episode of the civil war may be supposed to have taken place in a sheltered ravine of the plain of Shrewsbury, then intersected by the numerous branches of a stream, the source of which—on the hill of Haughmond—is now dried up.)
“Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.”
Saying these words, Sir John Falstaff inflicted a gash upon the still warm body of Percy, which he proceeded to hoist on his shoulders. Not an easy task, considering our knight’s bulk; but he was born to face and conquer difficulties!
The native impetuosity of the Prince of Wales’s character cannot be better illustrated than by his impatience to procure a witness of some kind or another to his recent achievement. In the absence of a better, he pounced upon his little brother John, Prince of Lancaster, and possibly the most uninteresting character in English history. He dragged that mild prince to the scene of action, which they reached just in time to meet Sir John Falstaff bearing off the mortal remains of the illustrious Percy.
Bewilderment and utter confusion of the distinguished visitors—especially Prince Henry.