Sir John Falstaff lifted up his hands, and exclaimed—
“Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down, and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour take the sin upon their own heads. I’ll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive and would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.”
Prince John of Lancaster continued to whistle, and implied that the story was, to say the least,—singular. It was evident he was inclined to attach more credit to the representations of Sir John Falstaff than to those of his elder brother. You see, they had been, at school together. No man is a hero in the eyes of the valet who takes off his boots when he is not in a condition to remove them himself; or in those of the little brother whom he has fleeced, fagged, and bullied at a public college.
Appearances were certainly against the Prince of Wales, and he was, at any rate, philosopher enough to make the best of the difficulty. For once, the conqueror of Agincourt—Englishman and warrior as he was—knew and confessed himself beaten. He felt that in this particular contest Sir John Falstaff had got decidedly the best of him, and morally yielded his sword with princely grace.
He contented himself with remarking to the Prince of Lancaster, “this is the strangest fellow, brother John.”
And then, addressing Falstaff,
“Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back.
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.”
At this juncture a retreat was sounded, proving that the fortune of war had decided in favour of the Royalist faction. The two princes hastened to their father’s tent, Sir John Falstaff following, with the body of Hotspur on his back, soliloquising as follows:
“I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, Heaven reward him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.”
The above is the Shakspearian account, and—as I have already stated—in consistency I am bound to adopt it. But what I want to know is this,—why, if the Prince of Wales really killed Hotspur, the paid chroniclers of the period have not reported it? I admit I can come to no definite conclusion upon the subject, and will confine myself to the expression of an opinion that the death of Hotspur is still an open question,—with the supplementary reminder that Sir John Falstaff, being only a private gentleman of limited means, could not hope for the historic recognition of an honour disputed with him by the heir-apparent of England. And—to come to the point at once—I really believe that Sir John Falstaff did kill Hotspur, and that his royal patron bore him a grudge on that account to his dying day. It is the only logical explanation of Henry the Fifth’s notorious ingratitude to his former boon companion, whom it would have been so easy and natural for him to load with honours.