CONSTANCE.

VOLUMNIA.Pray be counsell'd:I have a heart as little apt as yours,But yet a brain that leads my use of angerTo better vantage.MENENIUS.Well said, noble woman:Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but thatThe violent fit o' the time craves it as physicFor the whole state, I would put mine armour on,Which I can scarcely bear.CORIOLANUS.What must I do?MENENIUS.Return to the tribunes.CORIOLANUS.Well.What then? what then?MENENIUS.Repent what you have spoke.CORIOLANUS.For them? I cannot do it to the gods;Must I then do't to them?VOLUMNIA.You are too absolute,Though therein you can never be too noble,But when extremities speak.I pr'ythee now, my son,Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand;And thus far having stretch'd it, (here be with them)Thy knee bussing the stones, (for in such businessAction is eloquent, and the eyes of the ignorantMore learned than the ears,) waving thy head,Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heartNow humble, as the ripest mulberry,That will not hold the handling. Or, say to them,Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broilsHast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frameThyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so farAs thou hast power and person.MENENIUS.This but done,Even as she speaks, why all their hearts were yoursFor they have pardons, being asked, as freeAs words to little purpose.VOLUMNIA.Pr'ythee now,Go, and be rul'd: although I know thou hadst ratherFollow thine enemy in a fiery gulfThan flatter him in a bower.MENENIUS.Only fair speech.COMINIUS.I think 'twill serve, if heCan thereto frame his spirit.VOLUMNIA.He must, and will:Pr'ythee, now say you will, and go about it.CORIOLANUS.Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must IWith my base tongue give to my noble heartA lie, that it must bear? Well, I will do't;Yet were there but this single plot to lose,This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,And throw it against the wind. To the market-placeYou have put me now to such a part, which neverI shall discharge to the life.VOLUMNIA.I pr'ythee now, sweet son, as thou hast said,My praises made thee first a soldier, soTo have my praise for this, perform a partThou hast not done before.CORIOLANUS.Well, I must do't:Away, my disposition, and possess meSome harlot's spirit!* * * *I will not do't:Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth,And by my body's action, teach my mindA most inherent baseness.VOLUMNIA.At thy choice, then:To beg of thee, it is my more dishonor,Than thou of them. Come all to ruin: letThy mother rather feel thy pride, than fearThy dangerous stoutness: for I mock at deathWith as big heart as thou. Do as thou list—Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from meBut owe thy pride thyself.CORIOLANUS.Pray be content;Mother, I am going to the market place—Chide me no more.

VOLUMNIA.

Pray be counsell'd:I have a heart as little apt as yours,But yet a brain that leads my use of angerTo better vantage.

MENENIUS.

Well said, noble woman:Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but thatThe violent fit o' the time craves it as physicFor the whole state, I would put mine armour on,Which I can scarcely bear.

CORIOLANUS.

What must I do?

MENENIUS.

Return to the tribunes.

CORIOLANUS.

Well.What then? what then?

MENENIUS.

Repent what you have spoke.

CORIOLANUS.

For them? I cannot do it to the gods;Must I then do't to them?

VOLUMNIA.

You are too absolute,Though therein you can never be too noble,But when extremities speak.

I pr'ythee now, my son,Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand;And thus far having stretch'd it, (here be with them)Thy knee bussing the stones, (for in such businessAction is eloquent, and the eyes of the ignorantMore learned than the ears,) waving thy head,Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heartNow humble, as the ripest mulberry,That will not hold the handling. Or, say to them,Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broilsHast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frameThyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so farAs thou hast power and person.

MENENIUS.

This but done,Even as she speaks, why all their hearts were yoursFor they have pardons, being asked, as freeAs words to little purpose.

VOLUMNIA.

Pr'ythee now,Go, and be rul'd: although I know thou hadst ratherFollow thine enemy in a fiery gulfThan flatter him in a bower.

MENENIUS.

Only fair speech.

COMINIUS.

I think 'twill serve, if heCan thereto frame his spirit.

VOLUMNIA.

He must, and will:Pr'ythee, now say you will, and go about it.

CORIOLANUS.

Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must IWith my base tongue give to my noble heartA lie, that it must bear? Well, I will do't;Yet were there but this single plot to lose,This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,And throw it against the wind. To the market-placeYou have put me now to such a part, which neverI shall discharge to the life.

VOLUMNIA.

I pr'ythee now, sweet son, as thou hast said,My praises made thee first a soldier, soTo have my praise for this, perform a partThou hast not done before.

CORIOLANUS.

Well, I must do't:Away, my disposition, and possess meSome harlot's spirit!

* * * *

I will not do't:Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth,And by my body's action, teach my mindA most inherent baseness.

VOLUMNIA.

At thy choice, then:To beg of thee, it is my more dishonor,Than thou of them. Come all to ruin: letThy mother rather feel thy pride, than fearThy dangerous stoutness: for I mock at deathWith as big heart as thou. Do as thou list—Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from meBut owe thy pride thyself.

CORIOLANUS.

Pray be content;Mother, I am going to the market place—Chide me no more.

When the spirit of the mother and the son are brought into immediate collision, he yields before her; the warrior who stemmed alone the whole city of Corioli, who was ready to face "the steep Tarpeian death, or at wild horses' heels,—vagabond exile—flaying," rather than abate one jot of his proud will—shrinks at her rebuke. The haughty, fiery, overbearing temperament of Coriolanus, is drawn in such forcible and striking colors, that nothing can more impress us with the real grandeur and power of Volumnia's character, than his boundless submission to her will—his more than filial tenderness and respect.

You gods! I prate,And the most noble mother of the worldLeave unsaluted. Sink my knee i' the earth—Of thy deep duty more impression showThan that of common sons!

When his mother appears before him as a suppliant, he exclaims,—

My mother bows;As if Olympus to a molehill shouldIn supplication nod.

Here the expression of reverence, and the magnificent image in which it is clothed, are equally characteristic both of the mother and the son.

Her aristocratic haughtiness is a strong trait in Volumnia's manner and character, and her supreme contempt for the plebeians, whether they are to be defied or cajoled, is very like what I have heard expressed by some high-born and high-bred women of our own day.

I muse my motherDoes not approve me further, who was wontTo call them woollen vassals; things createdTo buy and sell with groats; to show bare headsIn congregations; to yawn, be still, and wonderWhen one but of my ordinance stood upTo speak of peace or war.

And Volumnia reproaching the tribunes,—

'Twas you incensed the rabble—Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth,As I can of those mysteries which HeavenWill not have earth to know.

There is all the Roman spirit in her exultation when the trumpets sound the return of Coriolanus.

Hark! the trumpets!These are the ushers of Marcius: before himHe carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.

And in her speech to the gentle Virgilia, who is weeping her husband's banishment—

Leave this faint puling! and lament as I doIn anger—Juno-like!

But the triumph of Volumnia's character, the full display of all her grandeur of soul, her patriotism, her strong affections, and her sublime eloquence, are reserved for her last scene, in which she pleads for the safety of Rome, and wins from her angry son that peace which all the swords of Italy and her confederate arms could not have purchased. The strict and even literal adherence to the truth of history is an additional beauty.

Her famous speech, beginning "Should we be silent and not speak," is nearly word for word from Plutarch, with some additional graces of expression, and the charm of metre superadded. I shall give the last lines of this address, as illustrating that noble and irresistible eloquence which was the crowning ornament of the character. One exquisite touch of nature, which is distinguished by italics, was beyond the rhetorician and historian, and belongs only to the poet.

Speak to me, son;Thou hast affected the fine strains of honor,To imitate the graces of the gods;To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,And yet to charge thy sulphur with a boltThat should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?Think'st thou it honorable for a noblemanStill to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy;Perhaps thy childishness may move him moreThan can our reasons. There is no man in the worldMore bound to his mother; yet here he lets me prateLike one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy lifeShow'd thy dear mother any courtesy;When she, (poor hen!) fond of no second brood,Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home,Laden with honor.Say my request's unjust,And spurn me back: but, if it be not so,Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague theeThat thou restrain'st from me the duty whichTo a mother's part belongs. He turns away:Down, ladies: let us shame him with our knees.To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride,Than pity to our prayers; down, and end;This is the last; so will we home to Rome,And die among our neighbors. Nay, behold us;This boy, that cannot tell what he would have,But kneels, and holds up hands, for fellowship,Does reason our petition with more strengthThan thou hast to deny't.[81]

It is an instance of Shakspeare's fine judgment, that after this magnificent and touching piece of eloquence, which saved Rome, Volumnia should speak no more, for she could say nothing that would not deteriorate from the effect thus left on the imagination. She is at last dismissed from our admiring gaze amid the thunder of grateful acclamations—

Behold, our patroness,—the life of Rome.

We have seen that in the mother of Coriolanus, the principal qualities are exceeding pride, self-will, strong maternal affection, great power of imagination, and energy of temper. Precisely the same qualities enter into the mind of Constance of Bretagne: but in her these qualities are so differently modified by circumstances and education, that not even in fancy do we think of instituting a comparison between the Gothic grandeur of Constance, and the more severe and classical dignity of the Roman matron.

The scenes and circumstances with which Shakspeare has surrounded Constance, are strictly faithful to the old chronicles, and are as vividly as they are accurately represented. On the other hand, the hints on which the character has been constructed,are few and vague; but the portrait harmonizes so wonderfully with its historic background, and with all that later researches have discovered relative to the personal adventures of Constance, that I have not the slightest doubt of its individual truth. The result of a life of strange vicissitude; the picture of a tameless will, and high passions, forever struggling in vain against a superior power: and the real situation of women in those chivalrous times, are placed before us in a few noble scenes. The manner in which Shakspeare has applied the scattered hints of history to the formation of the character, reminds us of that magician who collected the mangled limbs which had been dispersed up and down, reunited them into the human form, and reanimated them with the breathing and conscious spirit of life.

Constance of Bretagne was the only daughter and heiress of Conan IV., Duke of Bretagne; her mother was Margaret of Scotland, the eldest daughter of Malcolm IV.: but little mention is made of this princess in the old histories; but she appears to have inherited some portion of the talent and spirit of her father, and to have transmitted them to her daughter. The misfortunes of Constance may be said to have commenced before her birth, and took their rise in the misconduct of one of her female ancestors. Her great-grandmother Matilda, the wife of Conan III., was distinguished by her beauty and imperious temper, and not less by her gallantries. Her husband, not thinkingproper to repudiate her during his lifetime, contented himself with disinheriting her son Hoel, whom he declared illegitimate; and bequeathed his dukedom to his daughter Bertha, and her husband Allan the Black, Earl of Richmond, who were proclaimed and acknowledged Duke and Duchess of Bretagne.

Prince Hoel, so far from acquiescing in his father's will, immediately levied an army to maintain his rights, and a civil war ensued between the brother and sister, which lasted for twelve or fourteen years. Bertha, whose reputation was not much fairer than that of her mother Matilda, was succeeded by her son Conan IV.; he was young, and of a feeble, vacillating temper, and after struggling for a few years against the increasing power of his uncle Hoel, and his own rebellious barons, he called in the aid of that politic and ambitious monarch, Henry II. of England. This fatal step decided the fate of his crown and his posterity; from the moment the English set foot in Bretagne, that miserable country became a scene of horrors and crimes—oppression and perfidy on the one hand, unavailing struggles on the other. Ten years of civil discord ensued, during which the greatest part of Bretagne was desolated, and nearly a third of the population carried off by famine and pestilence. In the end, Conan was secured in the possession of his throne by the assistance of the English king, who, equally subtle and ambitious, contrived in the course of this warfare to stripConan of most of his provinces by successive treaties; alienate the Breton nobles from their lawful sovereign, and at length render the Duke himself the mere vassal of his power.

In the midst of these scenes of turbulence and bloodshed was Constance born, in the year 1164. The English king consummated his perfidious scheme of policy, by seizing on the person of the infant princess, before she was three years old, as a hostage for her father. Afterwards, by contracting her in marriage to his third son, Geoffrey Plantagenet, he ensured, as he thought, the possession of the duchy of Bretagne to his own posterity.

From this time we hear no more of the weak, unhappy Conan, who, retiring from a fruitless contest, hid himself in some obscure retreat: even the date of his death is unknown. Meanwhile Henry openly claimed the duchy in behalf of his son Geoffrey and the Lady Constance; and their claims not being immediately acknowledged, he invaded Bretagne with a large army, laid waste the country, bribed or forced some of the barons into submission, murdered or imprisoned others, and, by the most treacherous and barbarous policy, contrived to keep possession of the country he had thus seized. However, in order to satisfy the Bretons, who were attached to the race of their ancient sovereigns, and to give some color to his usurpation, he caused Geoffrey and Constance to be solemnly crowned at Rennes, as Duke and Duchess of Bretagne. This was in the year 1169when Constance was five, and Prince Geoffrey about eight, years old. His father, Henry, continued to rule, or rather to ravage and oppress, the country in their name for about fourteen years, during which period we do not hear of Constance. She appears to have been kept in a species of constraint as a hostage rather than a sovereign; while her husband Geoffrey, as he grew up to manhood, was too much engaged in keeping the Bretons in order, and disputing his rights with his father, to think about the completion of his union with Constance, although his sole title to the dukedom was properly and legally in right of his wife. At length, in 1182, the nuptials were formally celebrated, Constance being then in her nineteenth year. At the same time, she was recognized as Duchess of Bretagnede son chef, (that is, in her own right,) by two acts of legislation, which are still preserved among the records of Bretagne, and bear her own seal and signature.

Those domestic feuds which embittered the whole life of Henry II., and at length broke his heart, are well known. Of all his sons, who were in continual rebellion against him, Geoffrey was the most undutiful, and the most formidable: he had all the pride of the Plantagenets,—all the warlike accomplishments of his two elder brothers, Henry and Richard; and was the only one who could compete with his father in talent, eloquence, and dissimulation. No sooner was he the husband of Constance, and in possession of the throne ofBretagne, than he openly opposed his father; in other words, he maintained the honor and interests of his wife and her unhappy country against the cruelties and oppression of the English plunderers.[82]About three years after his marriage, he was invited to Paris for the purpose of concluding a league, offensive and defensive, with the French king: in this journey he was accompanied by the Duchess Constance, and they were received and entertained with royal magnificence. Geoffrey, who excelled in all chivalrous accomplishments, distinguished himself in the tournaments which were celebrated on the occasion; but unfortunately, after an encounter with a French knight, celebrated for his prowess, he was accidentally flung from his horse, and trampled to death in the lists before he could be extricated.

Constance, being now left a widow, returned to Bretagne, where her barons rallied round her, and acknowledged her as their sovereign. The Salique law did not prevail in Bretagne, and it appears that in those times the power of a female to possess and transmit the rights of sovereignty had been recognized in several instances; but Constance is the first woman who exercised those rights in her own person. She had one daughter, Elinor, born in the second year of her marriage, and a few months after her husband's death she gave birth to a son. The States of Bretagne were filled with exultation; they required that the infant prince should not bearthe name of his father,—a name which Constance, in fond remembrance of her husband, would have bestowed on him—still less that of his grandfather Henry; but that of Arthur, the redoubted hero of their country, whose memory was worshipped by the populace. Though the Arthur of romantic and fairy legends—the Arthur of the round table, had been dead for six centuries, they still looked for his second appearance among them, according to the prophecy of Merlin; and now, with fond and short-sighted enthusiasm, fixed their hopes on the young Arthur as one destined to redeem the glory and independence of their oppressed and miserable country. But in the very midst of the rejoicings which succeeded the birth of the prince, his grandfather, Henry II., demanded to have the possession and guardianship of his person; and on the spirited refusal of Constance to yield her son into his power, he invaded Bretagne with a large army, plundering, burning, devastating the country as he advanced. He seized Rennes, the capital, and having by the basest treachery obtained possession of the persons both of the young duchess and her children, he married Constance forcibly to one of his own favorite adherents, Randal de Blondeville, Earl of Chester, and conferred on him the duchy of Bretagne, to be held as a fief of the English crown.

The Earl of Chester, though a brave knight and one of the greatest barons of England, had no pretensions to so high an alliance; nor did he possessany qualities or personal accomplishments which might have reconciled Constance to him as a husband. He was a man of diminutive stature and mean appearance, but of haughty and ferocious manners, and unbounded ambition.[83]In a conference between this Earl of Chester and the Earl of Perche, in Lincoln cathedral, the latter taunted Randal with his insignificant person, and called him contemptuously "Dwarf." "Sayst thou so!" replied Randal; "I vow to God and our Lady, whose church this is, that ere long I will seem to thee high as that steeple!" He was as good as his word, when, on ascending the throne of Brittany, the Earl of Perche became his vassal.

We cannot know what measures were used to force this degradation on the reluctant and high-spirited Constance; it is only certain that she never considered her marriage in the light of a sacred obligation, and that she took the first opportunity of legally breaking from a chain which could scarcely be considered as legally binding. For about a year she was obliged to allow this detested husband the title of Duke of Bretagne, and he administered the government without the slightest reference to her will, even in form, till 1189, when Henry II. died, execrating himself and his undutiful children. Whatever great and good qualities this monarch may have possessed, his conduct in Bretagne was uniformly detestable. Even the unfilial behavior of his sons may be extenuated; for while he spenthis life, and sacrificed his peace, and violated every principle of honor and humanity to compass their political aggrandizement, he was guilty of atrocious injustice towards them, and set them a bad example in his own person.

The tidings of Henry's death had no sooner reached Bretagne than the barons of that country rose with one accord against his government, banished or massacred his officers, and, sanctioned by the Duchess Constance, drove Randal de Blondeville and his followers from Bretagne; he retired to his earldom of Chester, there to brood over his injuries, and meditate vengeance.

In the mean time, Richard I. ascended the English throne. Soon afterwards he embarked on his celebrated expedition to the Holy Land, having previously declared Prince Arthur, the only son of Constance, heir to all his dominions.[84]

His absence, and that of many of her own turbulent barons and encroaching neighbors, left to Constance and her harassed dominions a short interval of profound peace. The historians of that period, occupied by the warlike exploits of the French and English kings in Palestine, make but little mention of the domestic events of Europe during their absence; but it is no slight encomium on the character of Constance, that Bretagne flourished under her government, and began to recover from the effects of twenty years of desolating war. The seven years during which she ruled as anindependent sovereign, were not marked by any events of importance; but in the year 1196 she caused her son Arthur, then nine years of age, to be acknowledged Duke of Bretagne by the States, and associated him with herself in all the acts of government.

There was more of maternal fondness than policy in this measure, and it cost her dear. Richard, that royal firebrand, had now returned to England: by the intrigues and representations of Earl Randal, his attention was turned to Bretagne. He expressed extreme indignation that Constance should have proclaimed her son Duke of Bretagne, and her partner in power, without his consent, he being the feudal lord and natural guardian of the young prince. After some excuses and representations on the part of Constance, he affected to be pacified, and a friendly interview was appointed at Pontorson, on the frontiers of Normandy.

We can hardly reconcile the cruel and perfidious scenes which follow with those romantic and chivalrous associations which illustrate the memory of Cœur-de-Lion—the friend of Blondel, and the antagonist of Saladin. Constance, perfectly unsuspicious of the meditated treason, accepted the invitation of her brother-in-law, and set out from Rennes with a small but magnificent retinue to join him at Pontorson. On the road, and within sight of the town, the Earl of Chester was posted with a troop of Richard's soldiery, and while the Duchess prepared to enter the gates, where she expected tobe received with honor and welcome, he suddenly rushed from his ambuscade, fell upon her and her suite, put the latter to flight, and carried off Constance to the strong Castle of St. Jaques de Beuvron, where he detained her a prisoner for eighteen months. The chronicle does not tell us how Randal treated his unfortunate wife during this long imprisonment. She was absolutely in his power; none of her own people were suffered to approach her, and whatever might have been his behavior towards her, one thing alone is certain, that so far from softening her feelings towardshim, it seems to have added tenfold bitterness to her abhorrence and her scorn.

The barons of Bretagne sent the Bishop of Rennes to complain of this violation of faith and justice, and to demand the restitution of the Duchess. Richard meanly evaded and temporized: he engaged to restore Constance to liberty on certain conditions; but this was merely to gain time. When the stipulated terms were complied with, and the hostages delivered, the Bretons sent a herald to the English king, to require him to fulfil his part of the treaty, and restore their beloved Constance. Richard replied with insolent defiance, refused to deliver up either the hostages or Constance, and marched his army into the heart of the country.

All that Bretagne had suffered previously was as nothing compared to this terrible invasion; and all that the humane and peaceful government of Constancehad effected during seven years was at once annihilated. The English barons and their savage and mercenary followers spread themselves through the country, which they wasted with fire and sword. The castles of those who ventured to defend themselves were razed to the ground; the towns and villages plundered and burnt, and the wretched inhabitants fled to the caves and forests; but not even there could they find an asylum; by the orders, and in the presence of Richard, the woods were set on fire, and hundreds either perished in the flames, or were suffocated in the smoke.

Constance, meanwhile, could only weep in her captivity over the miseries of her country, and tremble with all a mother's fears for the safety of her son. She had placed Arthur under the care of William Desroches, the seneschal of her palace, a man of mature age, of approved valor, and devotedly attached to her family. This faithful servant threw himself, with his young charge, into the fortress of Brest, where he for some time defied the power of the English king.

But notwithstanding the brave resistance of the nobles and people of Bretagne, they were obliged to submit to the conditions imposed by Richard. By a treaty concluded in 1198, of which the terms are not exactly known, Constance was delivered from her captivity, though not from her husband; but in the following year, when the death of Richard had restored her to some degree of independence,the first use she made of it was todivorce herselffrom Randal. She took this step with her usual precipitancy, not waiting for the sanction of the Pope, as was the custom in those days; and soon afterwards she gave her hand to Guy, Count de Thouars, a man of courage and integrity, who for some time maintained the cause of his wife and her son against the power of England. Arthur was now fourteen, and the legitimate heir of all the dominions of his uncle Richard. Constance placed him under the guardianship of the king of France, who knighted the young prince with his own hand, and solemnly swore to defend his rights against his usurping uncle John.

It is at this moment that the play of King John opens; and history is followed as closely as the dramatic form would allow, to the death of John. The real fate of poor Arthur, after he had been abandoned by the French, and had fallen into the hands of his uncle, is now ascertained; but according to the chronicle from which Shakspeare drew his materials, he was killed in attempting to escape from the castle of Falaise. Constance did not live to witness this consummation of her calamities; within a few months after Arthur was taken prisoner, in 1201, she died suddenly, before she had attained her thirty-ninth year; but the cause of her death is not specified.

Her eldest daughter Elinor, the legitimate heiress of England, Normandy, and Bretagne, died in captivity; having been kept a prisoner in BristolCastle from the age of fifteen. She was at that time so beautiful, that she was called proverbially, "La belle Bretonne," and by the English the "Fair Maid of Brittany." She, like her brother Arthur, was sacrificed to the ambition of her uncles.

Of the two daughters of Constance by Guy de Thouars, the eldest, Alice, became Duchess of Bretagne, and married the Count de Dreux, of the royal blood of France. The sovereignty of Bretagne was transmitted through her descendants in an uninterrupted line, till, by the marriage of the celebrated Anne de Bretagne with Charles VIII. of France, her dominions were forever united with the French monarchy.

In considering the real history of Constance, three things must strike us as chiefly remarkable.

First, that she is not accused of any vice, or any act of injustice or violence; and this praise, though poor and negative, should have its due weight, considering the scanty records that remain of her troubled life, and the period at which she lived—a period in which crimes of the darkest dye were familiar occurrences. Her father, Conan, was considered as a gentle and amiable prince—"gentle even to feebleness;" yet we are told that on one occasion he acted over again the tragedy of Ugolino and Ruggiero, when he shut up the Count de Dol, with his two sons and his nephew, in a dungeon, and deliberately starved them to death; an event recorded without any particular comment by the old chroniclers of Bretagne. It also appears that,during those intervals when Constance administered the government of her states with some degree of independence, the country prospered under her sway, and that she possessed at all times the love of her people and the respect of her nobles.

Secondly, no imputation whatever has been cast on the honor of Constance as a wife and as a woman. The old historians, who have treated in a very unceremonious style the levities of her great-grandmother Matilda, her grandmother Bertha, her godmother Constance, and her mother-in-law Elinor, treat the name and memory of our Lady Constance with uniform respect.

Her third marriage, with Guy de Thouars, has been censured as impolitic, but has also been defended; it can hardly, considering her age, and the circumstances in which she was placed, be a just subject of reproach. During her hated union with Randal de Blondeville, and the years passed in a species of widowhood, she conducted herself with propriety: at least I can find no reason to judge otherwise.

Lastly, we are struck by the fearless, determined spirit, amounting at times to rashness, which Constance displayed on several occasions, when left to the free exercise of her own power and will; yet we see how frequently, with all this resolution and pride of temper, she became a mere instrument in the hands of others, and a victim to the superior craft or power of her enemies. The inference is unavoidable; there must have existed in the mindof Constance, with all her noble and amiable qualities, a deficiency somewhere, a want of firmness, a want of judgment or wariness, and a total want of self-control.

In the play of King John, the three principal characters are the King, Falconbridge, and Lady Constance. The first is drawn forcibly and accurately from history: it reminds us of Titian's portrait of Cæsar Borgia, in which the hatefulness of the subject is redeemed by the masterly skill of the artist,—the truth, and power, and wonderful beauty of the execution. Falconbridge is the spirited creation of the poet.[85]Constance is certainly an historical personage; but the form which, when we meet it on the record of history, appears like a pale indistinct shadow, half melted into its obscure background, starts before us into a strange relief and palpable breathing reality upon the page of Shakspeare.

Whenever we think of Constance, it is in her maternal character. All the interest which she excites in the drama turns upon her situation as the mother of Arthur. Every circumstance inwhich she is placed, every sentiment she utters, has a reference to him, and she is represented through the whole of the scenes in which she is engaged, as alternately pleading for the rights, and trembling for the existence of her son.

The same may be said of the Merope. In the four tragedies of which her story forms the subject,[86]we see her but in one point of view, namely, as a mere impersonation of the maternal feeling. The poetry of the situation is every thing, the character nothing. Interesting as she is, take Merope out of the circumstances in which she is placed,—take away her son, for whom she trembles from the first scene to the last, and Merope in herself is nothing; she melts away into a name, to which we can fix no other characteristic by which to distinguish her. We recognize her no longer. Her position is that of an agonized mother; and we can no more fancy her under a different aspect, than we can imagine the statue of Niobe in a different attitude.

But while we contemplate the character of Constance, she assumes before us an individuality perfectly distinct from the circumstances around her. The action calls forth her maternal feelings, and places them in the most prominent point of view: but with Constance, as with a real human being,the maternal affections are a powerful instinct, modified by other faculties, sentiments, and impulses, making up the individual character. We think of her as a mother, because, as a mother distracted for the loss of her son, she is immediately presented before us, and calls forth our sympathy and our tears; but we infer the rest of her character from what we see, as certainly and as completely as if we had known her whole course of life.

That which strikes us as the principal attribute of Constance ispower—power of imagination, of will, of passion, of affection, of pride: the moral energy, that faculty which is principally exercised in self-control, and gives consistency to the rest, is deficient; or rather, to speak more correctly, the extraordinary development of sensibility and imagination, which lends to the character its rich poetical coloring, leaves the other qualities comparatively subordinate. Hence it is that the whole complexion of the character, notwithstanding its amazing grandeur, is so exquisitely feminine. The weakness of the woman, who by the very consciousness of that weakness is worked up to desperation and defiance, the fluctuations of temper and the bursts of sublime passion, the terrors, the impatience, and the tears, are all most true to feminine nature. The energy of Constance not being based upon strength of character, rises and falls with the tide of passion. Her haughty spirit swells against resistance, and is excited into frenzy by sorrow and disappointment while neither from her towering pride, nor herstrength of intellect, can she borrow patience to submit, or fortitude to endure. It is, therefore, with perfect truth of nature, that Constance is first introduced as pleading for peace.

Stay for an answer to your embassy,Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood:My Lord Chatillon may from England bringThat right in peace, which here we urge in war;And then we shall repent each drop of blood,That hot, rash haste so indirectly shed.

And that the same woman, when all her passions are roused by the sense of injury, should afterwards exclaim,

War, war! No peace! peace is to me a war!

That she should be ambitious for her son, proud of his high birth and royal rights, and violent in defending them, is most natural; but I cannot agree with those who think that in the mind of Constance,ambition—that is, the love of dominion for its own sake—is either a strong motive or a strong feeling: it could hardly be so where the natural impulses and the ideal power predominate in so high a degree. The vehemence with which she asserts the just and legal rights of her son is that of a fond mother and a proud-spirited woman, stung with the sense of injury, and herself a reigning sovereign,—by birth and right, if not in fact: yet when bereaved of her son, grief not only "fills the room up of her absent child," but seems to absorb every other faculty and feeling—even pride and anger.It is true that she exults over him as one whom nature and fortune had destined to begreat, but in her distraction for his loss, she thinks of him only as her "Pretty Arthur."

O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure!

No other feeling can be traced through the whole of her frantic scene: it is grief only, a mother's heart-rending, soul-absorbing grief, and nothing else. Not even indignation, or the desire of revenge, interfere with its soleness and intensity. An ambitious woman would hardly have thus addressed the cold, wily Cardinal:—

And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say,That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:If that be true, I shall see my boy again:For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,To him that did but yesterday suspire,There was not such a gracious creature born.But now will canker eat my bud,And chase the native beauty from his cheek,And he will look as hollow as a ghost;As dim and merge as an ague's fit;And so he'll die; and rising so again,When I shall meet him in the court of heavenI shall not know him: therefore never, never.Must I behold my pretty Arthur more!

The bewildered pathos and poetry of this address could be natural in no woman, who did not unite, like Constance, the most passionate sensibility with the most vivid imagination.

It is true that Queen Elinor calls her on one occasion, "ambitious Constance;" but the epithet is rather the natural expression of Elinor's own fear and hatred than really applicable.[87]Elinor, in whom age had subdued all passions but ambition, dreaded the mother of Arthur as her rival in power, and for that reason only opposed the claims of the son: but I conceive, that in a woman yet in the prime of life, and endued with the peculiar disposition of Constance, the mere love of power would be too much modified by fancy and feeling to be called apassion.

In fact, it is not pride, nor temper, nor ambition, nor even maternal affection, which in Constance gives the prevailing tone to the whole character; it is the predominance of imagination. I do not mean in the conception of the dramatic portrait, but in the temperament of the woman herself. In the poetical, fanciful, excitable cast of her mind, in theexcessof the ideal power, tinging all her affections, exalting all her sentiments and thoughts, and animating the expression of both, Constance can only be compared to Juliet.

In the first place, it is through the power of imagination that when under the influence of excited temper, Constance is not a mere incensed woman; nor does she, in the style of Volumnia,"lament in anger, Juno-like," but rather like a sibyl in a fury. Her sarcasms come down like thunderbolts. In her famous address to Austria—

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