Your highness pleased to forget my place,—
The majesty and power of law and justice,
The image of the king whom I presented,—
And, struck me in my very seat of judgment;
Whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority,
And did commit you."
Now this is a relation that we are well content, although unsupported by contemporaneous authority, to receive on tradition; because in the nature of the circumstances we cannot expect to find any authentic evidence of the occurrence. But we should never think of citing these passages as fixing the fact of the blow, as chronicled by Hall, in opposition to the milder representation of the story as told by Sir Thomas Elliott in "The Governour." The bard makes that selection between the two versions which best suits the scene he is depicting.
We cannot, however, be so easily satisfied with the second fact,—the reappointment of Gascoigne,—thus asserted by Shakspeare when making Henry say: