Henry V. and War Times.

“Beauty enough to make a world to doat,And when she walkèd had a little thrawUnder the sweet grene bowis bent,Her fair freshe face, as white as any snawShe turnèd has, and forth her way is went;But then begun my achès and tormentTo see her part, and follow I na might;Methought the day was turnèd into night.”

“Beauty enough to make a world to doat,

And when she walkèd had a little thraw

Under the sweet grene bowis bent,

Her fair freshe face, as white as any snaw

She turnèd has, and forth her way is went;

But then begun my achès and torment

To see her part, and follow I na might;

Methought the day was turnèd into night.”

There is a royal touch in that, and it comes from a royal hand—that of Prince James of Scotland, who, taken prisoner by Henry IV., was held fast for sixteen years in the keep of Windsor Castle. Mr.Irving has made him the subject of a very pleasant paper in the Sketch-book. Though a prince, he was a poet by nature, and from the window of his prison did see the fair lady whose graces were garnered in the verse I have cited; and oddly enough, he did come to marry the subject of this very poem (who was related to the royal house of England, being grand-daughter of John of Gaunt) and thereafter did come to be King of Scotland and—what was a commoner fate—to be assassinated. That queen of his, of whom the wooing had been so romantic and left its record in theKing’s Quair—made a tender and devoted wife—threw herself at last between him and the assassins—receiving grievous wounds thereby, but all vainly—and the poor poet-king was murdered in her presence at Perth, in the year 1437.

These three poets I have named all plumed their wings to make that great flight by which Chaucer had swept into the Empyrean of Song: but not one of them was equal to it: nor, thenceforward all down through the century, did any man sing as Chaucer had sung. There were poetasters; there were rhyming chroniclers; and toward the end ofthe century there appeared a poet of more pretension, but with few of the graces we find in the author of the Canterbury Tales.

John Skelton[60]was his name: he too a priest living in Norfolk. His rhymes, as he tells us himself, were “ragged and jagged:” but worse than this, they were often ribald and rabid—attacking with fierceness Cardinal Wolsey—attacking his fellow-priests too—so that he was compelled to leave his living: but he somehow won a place afterward in the royal household as tutor; and even the great Erasmus (who had come over from the Low Countries, and was one while teaching Greek at Cambridge) congratulates some prince of the royal family upon the great advantage they have in the services of such a “special light and ornament of British literature.” He is capricious, homely, never weak, often coarse, always quaint. From out his curious trick-track of verse, I pluck this little musical canzonet:—

“Merry MargaretAs midsummer flower;Gentle as falconOr hawk of the tower:With solace and gladnessMuch mirth and no madness,All good and no badness,So joyously,So maidenly,So womanlyHer demeaningIn everythingFar, far passingThat I can inditeOr suffice to writeOf merry MargaretAs midsummer flowerGentle as falconOr hawk of the tower:Stedfast of thoughtWell-made well-wrought;Far may be soughtEre you can findSo courteous—so kindAs merry MargaretThis midsummer flower.”

“Merry Margaret

As midsummer flower;

Gentle as falcon

Or hawk of the tower:

With solace and gladness

Much mirth and no madness,

All good and no badness,

So joyously,

So maidenly,

So womanly

Her demeaning

In everything

Far, far passing

That I can indite

Or suffice to write

Of merry Margaret

As midsummer flower

Gentle as falcon

Or hawk of the tower:

Stedfast of thought

Well-made well-wrought;

Far may be sought

Ere you can find

So courteous—so kind

As merry Margaret

This midsummer flower.”

There is a pretty poetic perfume in this—a merry musical jingle; but it gives no echo even of the tendernesses which wrapped all round and round the story of the Sad Griselda.

This fifteenth century—in no chink of which, as would seem, could any brave or sweet English poem find root-hold, was not a bald one in British annals. There were great men of war in it: Henry V. and Bedford[61]and Warwick and Talbot and Richard III. all wrote bloody legends with their swords across French plains, or across English meadows.

Normandy, which had slipped out of British hands—as you remember—under King John, was won again by the masterly blows Henry V. struck at Agincourt and otherwheres. Shakespeare has given an historic picture of this campaign, which will be apt to outlive any contemporary chronicle. Falstaff disappears from sight, and his old crony the dissolute Prince Hal comes upon the scene as the conquering and steady-going King.

Through all the drama—from the “proud hoofs”of the war-horses, prancing in the prologue, to the last chorus, the lurid blaze of battle is threatening or shining. Never were the pomp and circumstance of war so contained within the pages of a play. For ever so little space—in gaps of the reading—between the vulgar wit of Nym, and the Welsh jargon of Fluellen, you hear the crack of artillery, and see shivered spears and tossing plumes. In the mid scenes, vast ranks of men sweep under your vision, and crash against opposing ranks, and break, and dissolve away in the hot swirl of battle. And by way of artistic contrast to all this, comes at last, in the closing pages, that piquant, homely, strange coquettish love-scene, which—historically true in its main details—joined the fortunes of England and of France in the persons of King Henry and Katharine of Valois. You will not be sorry to have a glimpse of this Shakespearean and historic love-making: The decisive battle has been fought: the French King is prisoner: Henry has the game in his own hands. It is a condition of peace that he and the fair Katharine—daughter of France—shall join hands in marriage; and Henry in his blunt war way sets about his wooing:—

“O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?”Kate.Pardonnez moi; I cannot tell vat is—like me.King.[Explosively and deliciously.] An angel is like you, Kate; and you are like an angel: faith, I’m glad thou can’st speak no better English: for if thou could’st thou would’st find me such a plain King, that thou would’st think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. If you would put me to verses, or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me. I speak plain soldier. If thou can’st love me for this—take me: if not—to say to thee that I shall die, is true: but—for thy love—by the Lord, no. Yet I love thee too. And whil’st thou livest, Kate, take a fellow of a plain uncoined constancy: a straight-back will stoop; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes. If thou would’st have such a one, take me!Kate.Is it possible dat I should love de enemy of France?King.No, it’s not possible, Kate: but in loving me you would love the friend of France, for I love France so well, that I will not part with a village of it: I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine, and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English—Can’st thou love me?Kate.I cannot tell.King.Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate?Kate.I do not know dat.King.By mine honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honor, I dare not swear thou lovest me:yet my blood begins to flatter me, that thou dost. Wilt thou have me Kate?Kate.That is as it shall pleasele roy mon Père.King.Nay it will please him well, Kate. Itshallplease him, Kate, and upon that, I kiss your hand and call you “my Queen.”Kate.Dat is not de fashionpour les ladiesof France—to kiss before marriage.King.O Kate, [loftily]nice customs courtesy to great Kings:—here comes your father.

“O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?”

Kate.Pardonnez moi; I cannot tell vat is—like me.

King.[Explosively and deliciously.] An angel is like you, Kate; and you are like an angel: faith, I’m glad thou can’st speak no better English: for if thou could’st thou would’st find me such a plain King, that thou would’st think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. If you would put me to verses, or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me. I speak plain soldier. If thou can’st love me for this—take me: if not—to say to thee that I shall die, is true: but—for thy love—by the Lord, no. Yet I love thee too. And whil’st thou livest, Kate, take a fellow of a plain uncoined constancy: a straight-back will stoop; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes. If thou would’st have such a one, take me!

Kate.Is it possible dat I should love de enemy of France?

King.No, it’s not possible, Kate: but in loving me you would love the friend of France, for I love France so well, that I will not part with a village of it: I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine, and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English—Can’st thou love me?

Kate.I cannot tell.

King.Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate?

Kate.I do not know dat.

King.By mine honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honor, I dare not swear thou lovest me:yet my blood begins to flatter me, that thou dost. Wilt thou have me Kate?

Kate.That is as it shall pleasele roy mon Père.

King.Nay it will please him well, Kate. Itshallplease him, Kate, and upon that, I kiss your hand and call you “my Queen.”

Kate.Dat is not de fashionpour les ladiesof France—to kiss before marriage.

King.O Kate, [loftily]nice customs courtesy to great Kings:—here comes your father.

And these twodidmarry; the Queen being—as Shakespeare represents—in a large sense, the spoil of war. Out of this union sprung the next King, Henry VI., crowned when an infant. But this does not close the story of Katharine: three years after the King’s death, she married a Welsh knight—named Sir Owen Tudor. (He, poor man, lost his head, some years after, for his temerity in marrying a King’s widow.) But from the second marriage of Katharine, was born a son who became the father of that Henry VII., who sixty years later conquered Richard III. on Bosworth field—brought to an end the wars of York and Lancaster, and gave his own surname of Tudor to his son Henry VIII., to the great Elizabeth and to bloody Mary.

Seeing thus how the name of Tudor cameinto the royal family, through that Katharine of Valois, whose courtship is written in the play of Henry V., I will try on the same page to fasten in mind the cause of the great civil wars of York and Lancaster, or of the white and red roses, which desolated England in the heart of the fifteenth century.[62]

You will recall my having spoken of Chaucer as a favorite in the household of John of Gaunt, and as an inmate also in the household of John’s older brother, Lionel. You will remember, too, that Henry IV., son of John of Gaunt, succeeded the hapless and handsome Richard II. on the throne; but his right was disputed, and with a great deal of reason, by the heirs of the older brother, Lionel (who had title of Duke of Clarence). There was not however power and courage enough to contest the claim, until the kingship of young Henry VI.—crowned when an infant—offered opportunity. Thereafter and thereby came the broils, the apprehensions, the doubts, the conspiracies, the battles, which made England one of the worst of places tolive in: all this bitterness between York and Lancaster growing out of the rival claims of the heirs of our old acquaintances Lionel and John of Gaunt, whom we met in the days of Chaucer.

If we look for any literary illumination of this period, we shall scarce find it, except we go again to the historic plays of Shakespeare: The career of Henry VI. supplies to him the groundwork for three dramas: the first, dealing with the English armies in France, which, after Henry V.’s death are beaten back and forth by French forces, waked to new bravery under the strange enthusiasm and heroic leadership of Joan of Arc. Of course she comes in for her picture in Shakespeare’s story: but he gives us an ignoble one (though not so bad as Voltaire’s in the ribald poem ofLa Pucelle).

No Englishman of that day, or of Shakespeare’s day, could do justice to the fiery, Gallic courage, the self-devotion, the religious ennoblement of that earnest, gallant soul who was called the Maid of Orleans. A far better notion of her presence andpower than Shakespeare gave is brought to mind by that recent French painting of Bastien-Lepage—so well known by engraving—which aims to set forth the vision and the voices that came to her amid the forest silence and shadows. Amid those shadows she stands—startled: a strong, sweet figure of a peasant maiden; stoutly clad and simply; capable of harvest-work with the strongest of her sisterhood; yet not coarse; redeemed through every fibre of body and soul by a light that shines in her eye, looking dreamily upward; seeing things others see not; hoping things others hope not, and with clenched hand putting emphasis to the purpose—which the hope and the vision kindle; pitying her poor France, and nerved to help her—as she did—all the weary and the troublesome days through, till the shameful sacrifice at English hands, on the market-place of Rouen, closed her life and her story.

The two closing portions of the Henry VI. dramas relate to home concerns. There is much blood in them and tedium too (if one dare say this), and flashes of wit—a crazy tangle of white and red roses in that English garden—cleared up at last in Shakespeare’sown way, when Richard III.[63]comes, in drama of his own, and crookedness, and Satanry of his own, and laughs his mocking laugh over the corpses he makes of kings and queens and princes; and at last in Bosworth field, upon the borders of Warwickshire and near to the old Roman Watling Street, the wicked hunchback, fighting like a demon, goes down under the sword-thrust of that Henry (VII.) of Richmond, who, as I have said, was grandson to Katharine of Valois, of the coquettish courtship.

No chronicler of them all, commonplace or painstaking as he might be, has so planted the image of the crooked Richard III. in men’s minds as Shakespeare: though it is to be feared that he used somewhat too much blood in the coloring; and doubtful if the hump-backed king was quite the monster which Garrick, Booth, and Macready have made of him.

In the midst of those draggling, dreary, dismal war-times, when no poet lifted his voice in song, when no chronicler who has a worthy name wrote any story of the years, there came into vogue in Europe and in England, a trade—which in its issues had more to do with the life and spread of good literature, than any poet, or any ten poets could accomplish. You will guess at once what the trade was; it was the trade of Printing.

Bosworth field dates in 1485: in the middle of the century (or 1444) John Gutenberg began the printing of a Bible; and a little after, Faust began to dispose of wonderful copies of books, which the royal buyers thought to be manuscripts: and Faust did not perhaps undeceive them: yet copies were so wonderfully alike—one to the other—that book lovers were puzzled, and pushed inquiry, and so the truth of the method came out.

In 1477 William Caxton set up the first English printing press—in an old building, close upon Westminster Abbey—a building, which, if tradition is to be trusted, was standing down to near the middleof the present century; and on its demolition in 1846 its timbers were converted into snuff-boxes and the like, as mementos of the first printer. It was in 1477 that William Caxton issued the first book, printed with a date, in England.[64]

This Caxton was a man worth knowing about on many counts: he was a typical Englishman, born in Kent; was apprenticed to a well-to-do mercer in the Old Jewry, London, at a time when, he says, many poor were a-hungered for bread made of fern roots;—he went over (while yet apprentice) to the low countries of Flanders, perhaps to represent his master’s interests; abode there; throve there; came to be Governor of the Company of English merchant adventurers, in the ancient town of Bruges: knew the great, rich Flemings[65]who werepatrons of letters;—became friend and protégé of that English Princess Margaret who married Charles Duke of Burgundy; did work in translating old books for that great lady; studied the new printing art, which had crept into Bruges, and finally, after thirty odd years of life in the busy Flemish city sailed away for London, and set up a press which he had brought with him, under the shadow of Westminster towers. Fifteen years and more he wrought on there, at his printer’s craft—counting up a hundred issues of books; making much of his own copy, both translation and original, and dying over seventy in 1492. A good tag to tie to this date is—the Discovery of America; Columbus being over seas on that early voyage of his, while the first English printer lay dying.

And what were the books, pray, which Master Caxton—who, for a wonder, was a shrewd business man, as well as inclined to literary ways—thought it worth his while to set before the world? Among them we findA Sequell of the Historie of Troie—The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers—a history of Jason, theGame and Plays of Chesse, Mallory’s King Arthur (to which I have previously alluded),aBook of Courtesie, translations from Ovid, Virgil and Cicero—also the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer (of whom he was great admirer)—coupling with these latter, poems by Lydgate and Gower; many people in those days seeming to rank these men on a level with Chaucer—just as we yoke writers together now in newspaper mention, who will most certainly be unyoked in the days that are to come.

The editions of the first English books ranged at about two hundred copies: the type was what we call black letter, of which four varieties were used on the Caxton press, and the punctuation—if any—was of the crudest. An occasional sample of his work appears from time to time on the market even now; but not at prices which are inviting to the most of us. Thus in 1862, there was sold in England, a little Latin tractate printed by Caxton—of only ten leaves quarto, with twenty-four lines to the page, for £200; and I observe upon the catalogue of a recent date of Mr. Quaritch (the London bibliopole) a copy ofGodefroi de Bouloyne, of the Caxton imprint, offered at the modest price of £1,000.

Very shortly after the planting of this first press at Westminster, others were established at Oxfordand also at the great monastery of St. Albans. Among the early books printed at this latter place—say within ten years after Caxton’s first—was a booklet written by a certain Dame Juliana Barnes;[66]it is the first work we have encountered written by a woman; and what do you think may have been its subject? Religion—poesy—love—embroidery? Not one of these; but some twenty odd pages of crude verse “upon the maner of huntyng for all maner of bestys” (men—not being included); and she writes with the gusto and particularity of a man proud of his falcons and his dogs. Warton says blandly: “The barbarism of the times strongly appears in the indelicate expressions which she often uses; and which are equally incompatible with her sex and profession.” The allusion to her “profession” has reference to her supposed position as prioress of a convent; this, however, is matter of grave doubt.

But this is not the only utterance of a female voice which we hear from out those years of barrenness and moil. In 1787 there appeared in England a book made up of what were called Paston Letters[67]—published and vouched for by an antiquarian of Norfolk, who had the originals in his possession—and which were in fact familiar letters that had passed between the members and friends of a well-to-do Norfolk family in the very years of the War of the Roses, of Caxton, of King Richard, and of Wynkyn de Worde.

Among the parties to these old letters, there is a John Paston senior and a Sir John Paston, and a John Paston the younger and a good Margery Paston; there is a Sir John Fastolf too—as luck would have it. Was this the prototype[68]of Shakespeare’sman of humors? Probably not: nor can we say of a certainty that he was the runaway warrior who was of so bad repute for a time in the army of the Duke of Bedford: but we do know from these musty papers that he had a “Jacket of red velvet, bound round the bottom with red leather,” and “Another jacket of russet velvet lyned with blanket clothe;” also “Two jackets of deer’s leather, with a collar of black velvet,” and so on.

We do not however care so much about this Fastolf inventory, as for what good Margaret Paston may have to say: and as we read her letters we seem to go back on her quaint language and her good wifely fondness to the very days when they were written—in the great country-house of Norfolk, near upon the city of Norwich, with the gentle east wind from the German Ocean, blowing over the Norfolk fens, and over the forests, and over the orchards, and over the barns, and into the hall-windows, and lifting the very sheets of paper on which the good dame Margery is writing. And what does she say?

“Ryte worshipful husband, I recommend me unto you”—she begins; and thereafter goes on to speak of a son who has been doing unwise things, and been punished therefor as would seem:—

“As for his demeaning, syn you departed, in good faith, it hath been ryt good, I hope he will be well demeaned to please you hereafterward; and I beseche you hartily that you would vouchsafe to be hys good fader, for I hope he is chastyzèd, and will be worthier. As for all oder tyngges at home, I hope that I, and oder shall do our part therein, as wel as we may; but as for mony it cometh in slowly, and God hav you in his keeping, and sen you good speed in all yr matters.”

Again, in another note, she addresses her husband,—

“Myn oune sweethert [a good many years after marriage too!] in my most humble wyse I recommend me to you; desiring hertly to her of your welfare, the which I beseche Almighty God preserve and kepe.”

And a son writes to this same worthy Margaret:—

“Ryght worshipful and my moste kynde and tender moder, I recommend me to you, thanking you of the great coste, and of the grete chere that ye dyd me, and myn, at my last being with you.Item: As for the books that weer Sir James [would] it like you that I may have them? I am not able to buy them; but somewhat wolde I give, and theremnant with a good devout hert, by my truthe, I will pray for his soule.“Also, moder, I herd while in London ther was a goodly young woman to marry whyche was daughter to one Seff, a mercer, and she will have 200 pounds in money to her marriage, and 20 £ by year after the dysesse of a stepmoder of hers, whiche is upon 50 yeeres of age: and fore I departed out o’ Lunnon, I spak with some of the mayd’s friends, and hav gotten their good wille to hav her married to my broder Edmond. Master Pykenham too is another that must be consulted—so he says: Wherefore, Moder, we must beseeche you to helpe us forward with a lettyr to Master Pykenham, for to remember him for to handyl this matter, now, this Lent.”

“Also, moder, I herd while in London ther was a goodly young woman to marry whyche was daughter to one Seff, a mercer, and she will have 200 pounds in money to her marriage, and 20 £ by year after the dysesse of a stepmoder of hers, whiche is upon 50 yeeres of age: and fore I departed out o’ Lunnon, I spak with some of the mayd’s friends, and hav gotten their good wille to hav her married to my broder Edmond. Master Pykenham too is another that must be consulted—so he says: Wherefore, Moder, we must beseeche you to helpe us forward with a lettyr to Master Pykenham, for to remember him for to handyl this matter, now, this Lent.”

A younger son writes:—

“I beseeche you humbly of your blessing: also, modyr, I beseeche you that ther may be purveyed some meane that I myth have sent me home by the same messenger that shall bring my Aunt Poynings answer—two paire hose—1 payr blak and another russet, whyche be redy for me at the hosers with the crooked back next to the Blk Friars gate, within Ludgate. John Pampyng knoweth him well eno’. And if the blk hose be paid for, he will send me the russet ones unpaid for. I beseeche you that this geer be not forgot, for I have not an whole hose to do on. I pray you visit the Rood of St. Pauls, and St. Savior at Barmonsey whyls ye abide in London, and let my sister Margery go with you to pray to them that she may have a good husband ere she come home again. Written at Norwich on holyrood day, by yr“Son and lowly Servant“Jno: Paston the Youngest.”

“Son and lowly Servant

“Jno: Paston the Youngest.”

This sounds as home-like as if it were written yesterday, and about one of us—even to the sending of two pair of hose if one was paid for. And yet this familiar, boy-like letter was written in the year 1465: six years before Caxton had set up his press in Westminster—twenty-seven before Columbus had landed on San Salvador, and at a time when Louis XI. and barber Oliver (whose characters are set forth in Scott’s story of Quentin Durward) were hanging men who angered them on the branches of the trees which grew around the dismal palace of Plessis-les-Tours, in France.

I have brought my readers through a waste literary country to-day; but we cannot reach the oases of bloom without going across the desert spaces. In looking back upon this moil and turmoil—this fret and wear and barrenness of the fifteenth century, in which we have welcomed talk about Caxton’s sorry translations, and the wheezing of his press; and have given an ear to the hunting discourse of Dame Juliana, for want of better things; and have dwelt with a certain gleesomeness on thehomely Paston Letters, let us not forget that there has been all the while, and running through all the years of stagnation, a bright thread of balladry, with glitter and with gayety of color. This ballad music—whose first burst we can no more pin to a date than we can the first singing of the birds—had lightened, in that early century, the walk of the wayfarer on all the paths of England; it had spun its tales by bivouac fires in France; it had caught—as in silken meshes—all the young foragers on the ways of Romance. To this epoch, of which we have talked, belongs most likely that brave ballad of Chevy Chase, which keeps alive the memory of Otterbourne, and of that woful hunting which

“Once there did, in Chevy Chase befal.“To drive the deare with hounde and horneErle Percy took his way;The child may rue, that is unbornThe hunting of that day.”

“Once there did, in Chevy Chase befal.

“To drive the deare with hounde and horneErle Percy took his way;The child may rue, that is unbornThe hunting of that day.”

“To drive the deare with hounde and horne

Erle Percy took his way;

The child may rue, that is unborn

The hunting of that day.”

Hereabout, too, belongs in all probability the early English shaping of the jingling history of the brave deeds of Sir Guy of Warwick; and some of the tales of Robin Hood and his “pretty men all,” which had been sung in wild and crude carols fora century or more, now seem to have taken on a more regular ballad garniture, and certainly became fixtures in type. This is specially averred of “Robin Hood and the Monk,” beginning:—

“In summer when the shawes be sheyneAnd levès be large and long,Hit is full merry, in feyre forést,To here the foulé’s song;To see the dere draw to the dale,And leve the hillés hee,And shadow them in the levés green,Under the grenwode tree.”

“In summer when the shawes be sheyne

And levès be large and long,

Hit is full merry, in feyre forést,

To here the foulé’s song;

To see the dere draw to the dale,

And leve the hillés hee,

And shadow them in the levés green,

Under the grenwode tree.”

But was Robin Hood a myth? Was he a real yeoman—was he the Earl of Huntington? We cannot tell; we know no one who can. We know only that this hero of the folk-songs made the common people’s ideal of a good fellow—brave, lusty—a capital bowman, a wondrous wrestler, a lover of good cheer, a hater of pompous churchmen, a spoiler of the rich, a helper of the poor, with such advices as these for Little John:—

“Loke ye do no housbande harmeThat tylleth with his plough;No more ye shall no good yemanThat walketh by grenewode shawe,Ne no knyght, ne no squyèr,That wolde be a good felawe.”

“Loke ye do no housbande harme

That tylleth with his plough;

No more ye shall no good yeman

That walketh by grenewode shawe,

Ne no knyght, ne no squyèr,

That wolde be a good felawe.”

That very charming ballad of the Nut-Brown Maid must also have been well known to contemporaries of Caxton: She is daughter of a Baron, and her love has been won by a wayfarer, who says he is “an outlaw,” and a banished man, a squire of low degree. He tries her faith and constancy, as poor Griselda’s was tried in Chaucer’s story—in Boccaccio’s tale, and as men have tried and teased women from the beginning of time. He sets before her all the dangers and the taunts that will come to her; she must forswear her friends; she must go to the forest with him; she must not be jealous of any other maiden lyingperduethere; she must dare all, and brave all,—

“Or else—I to the greenwood goAlone, a banished man.”

“Or else—I to the greenwood go

Alone, a banished man.”

At last, having tormented her sufficiently, he confesses—that he is not an outlaw—not a banished man, but one who will give her wealth, and rank, and name and fame. And I will close out our present talk with a verselet or two from this rich old ballad.

The wooer says—

“I counsel you, remember howeIt is no maydens lawNothing to doubt, but to ren outTo wed with an outlaw:For ye must there, in your hand bereA bowe ready to draw,And as a thefe, thus must you liveEver in drede and aweWhereby to you grete harme might growe;Yet had I lever thanThat I had to the grenewode goAlone, a banished man.”She:“I think not nay, but as ye sayIt is no maiden’s loreBut love may make me, for your sakeAs I have say’d before,To come on fote, to hunt and shoteTo get us mete in store;For so that I, your companyMay have, I ask no more,From which to part, it maketh my hartAs cold as any stone;For in my minde, of all mankindeI love but you alone.”He:“A baron’s child, to be beguiledIt were a cursèd dede!To be felawe with an outlaweAlmighty God forbid!Yt better were, the poor SquyèreAlone to forest yede,Than ye shold say, another dayThat by my cursed dedeYe were betrayed; wherefore good maidThe best rede that I canIs that I to the grenewode goAlone, a banished man.”She:“Whatever befal, I never shallOf this thing you upraid;But if ye go, and leve me soThen have ye me betrayed;Remember you wele, how that ye deleFor if ye, as ye saidBe so unkynde to leave behindeYour love the Nut Brown MaydTrust me truly, that I shall dieSoon after ye be gone;For in my minde, of all mankindeI love but you alone.”He:“My own deare love, I see thee proveThat ye be kynde and true:Of mayd and wife, in all my lifeThe best that ever I kneweBe merry and glad; be no more sadThe case is chaunged neweFor it were ruthe, that for your trutheYe should have cause to rue;Be not dismayed, whatever I saidTo you when I began;I will not to the grenewode goI am no banished man.”And she, with delight and fear—“These tidings be more glad to meThan to be made a quene;If I were sure they shold endureBut it is often seeneWhen men wyl break promise, they speakThe wordes on the splene:Ye shape some wyle, me to beguileAnd stele from me I wene;Then were the case, worse than it wasAnd I more woebegone,For in my minde, of all mankyndeI love but you alone.”Then he—at last,—“Ye shall not nede, further to dredeI will not disparàgeYou (God defend!) syth ye descendOf so grate a linèage;Now understand—to WestmorelandWhich is mine heritàgeI wyl you bring, and with a ryngBy way of marriàgeI wyl you take, and lady makeAs shortely as I can:Thus have you won an Erly’s sonAnd not a banished man.”

“I counsel you, remember howe

It is no maydens law

Nothing to doubt, but to ren out

To wed with an outlaw:

For ye must there, in your hand bere

A bowe ready to draw,

And as a thefe, thus must you live

Ever in drede and awe

Whereby to you grete harme might growe;

Yet had I lever than

That I had to the grenewode go

Alone, a banished man.”

She:“I think not nay, but as ye sayIt is no maiden’s loreBut love may make me, for your sakeAs I have say’d before,To come on fote, to hunt and shoteTo get us mete in store;For so that I, your companyMay have, I ask no more,From which to part, it maketh my hartAs cold as any stone;For in my minde, of all mankindeI love but you alone.”

She:

“I think not nay, but as ye say

It is no maiden’s lore

But love may make me, for your sake

As I have say’d before,

To come on fote, to hunt and shote

To get us mete in store;

For so that I, your company

May have, I ask no more,

From which to part, it maketh my hart

As cold as any stone;

For in my minde, of all mankinde

I love but you alone.”

He:“A baron’s child, to be beguiledIt were a cursèd dede!To be felawe with an outlaweAlmighty God forbid!Yt better were, the poor SquyèreAlone to forest yede,Than ye shold say, another dayThat by my cursed dedeYe were betrayed; wherefore good maidThe best rede that I canIs that I to the grenewode goAlone, a banished man.”

He:

“A baron’s child, to be beguiled

It were a cursèd dede!

To be felawe with an outlawe

Almighty God forbid!

Yt better were, the poor Squyère

Alone to forest yede,

Than ye shold say, another day

That by my cursed dede

Ye were betrayed; wherefore good maid

The best rede that I can

Is that I to the grenewode go

Alone, a banished man.”

She:“Whatever befal, I never shallOf this thing you upraid;But if ye go, and leve me soThen have ye me betrayed;Remember you wele, how that ye deleFor if ye, as ye saidBe so unkynde to leave behindeYour love the Nut Brown MaydTrust me truly, that I shall dieSoon after ye be gone;For in my minde, of all mankindeI love but you alone.”

She:

“Whatever befal, I never shall

Of this thing you upraid;

But if ye go, and leve me so

Then have ye me betrayed;

Remember you wele, how that ye dele

For if ye, as ye said

Be so unkynde to leave behinde

Your love the Nut Brown Mayd

Trust me truly, that I shall die

Soon after ye be gone;

For in my minde, of all mankinde

I love but you alone.”

He:“My own deare love, I see thee proveThat ye be kynde and true:Of mayd and wife, in all my lifeThe best that ever I kneweBe merry and glad; be no more sadThe case is chaunged neweFor it were ruthe, that for your trutheYe should have cause to rue;Be not dismayed, whatever I saidTo you when I began;I will not to the grenewode goI am no banished man.”

He:

“My own deare love, I see thee prove

That ye be kynde and true:

Of mayd and wife, in all my life

The best that ever I knewe

Be merry and glad; be no more sad

The case is chaunged newe

For it were ruthe, that for your truthe

Ye should have cause to rue;

Be not dismayed, whatever I said

To you when I began;

I will not to the grenewode go

I am no banished man.”

And she, with delight and fear—“These tidings be more glad to meThan to be made a quene;If I were sure they shold endureBut it is often seeneWhen men wyl break promise, they speakThe wordes on the splene:Ye shape some wyle, me to beguileAnd stele from me I wene;Then were the case, worse than it wasAnd I more woebegone,For in my minde, of all mankyndeI love but you alone.”

And she, with delight and fear—

“These tidings be more glad to me

Than to be made a quene;

If I were sure they shold endure

But it is often seene

When men wyl break promise, they speak

The wordes on the splene:

Ye shape some wyle, me to beguile

And stele from me I wene;

Then were the case, worse than it was

And I more woebegone,

For in my minde, of all mankynde

I love but you alone.”

Then he—at last,—“Ye shall not nede, further to dredeI will not disparàgeYou (God defend!) syth ye descendOf so grate a linèage;Now understand—to WestmorelandWhich is mine heritàgeI wyl you bring, and with a ryngBy way of marriàgeI wyl you take, and lady makeAs shortely as I can:Thus have you won an Erly’s sonAnd not a banished man.”

Then he—at last,—

“Ye shall not nede, further to drede

I will not disparàge

You (God defend!) syth ye descend

Of so grate a linèage;

Now understand—to Westmoreland

Which is mine heritàge

I wyl you bring, and with a ryng

By way of marriàge

I wyl you take, and lady make

As shortely as I can:

Thus have you won an Erly’s son

And not a banished man.”

In our next chapter we shall enter upon a different century, and encounter a different people. We shall find a statelier king, whose name is more familiar to you: In place of the fat knight and Prince Hal, we shall meet brilliant churchmen and hard-headed reformers; and in place of Otterbourne and its balladry, we shall see the smoke of Smithfield fires, and listen to the psalmody of Sternhold.

When we turned the leaf upon the Balladry of England, we were upon fifteenth century ground, which, you will remember, we found very barren of great writers. Gower and Froissart, whom we touched upon, slipped off the stage just as the century began—their names making two of those joined in that group of deaths to which I called attention, and which marked the meeting of two centuries. Next we had glimpse of Lydgate and of King James (of Scotland), who, at their best, only gave faint token of the poetic spirit which illuminated the far better verses of Chaucer.

We then passed over the period of the Henrys, and of the War of the Roses, with mention of Shakespeare’s Falstaff—of his Prince Hal—his Agincourt—his courtship of Katharine of Valois—his inadequate presentment of the Maid of Orleans—hiscrabbed and crooked Richard III.—all rounded out with the battle of Bosworth field, and the coming to power of Henry of Richmond.

We found the book-trade taking on a new phase with Caxton’s press: we gave a tinkling bit of Skelton’s “Merry Margaret;” we put a woman-writer—Dame Juliana Barnes—for the first time on our list; we lingered over the quaint time-stained Paston Letters, which smelled so strongly of old English home-life; and we summed up our talk with a little bugle-note of that Balladry which made fitful snatches of music all through the weariness of those hundred years.

To-day we front the sixteenth century. Great names and great deeds crop out over it as thickly as leaves grow in summer. At the very outset, three powerful monarchs came almost abreast upon the scene—Henry VIII. of England, Francis I. of France, and Charles V. of Spain, Germany, and the Low Countries.

Before the first quarter of the century had passed, the monk Luther had pasted his ticket upon thedoors of the church at Wittenberg; and that other soldier-monk, Loyola, was astir with the beginnings of Jesuitism. America had been planted; the Cape of Good Hope was no longer the outpost of stormy wastes of water with no shores beyond. St. Peter’s church was a-building across the Tiber, and that brilliant, courteous, vicious, learned Leo X. was lording it in Rome. The Moors and their Saracen faith had been driven out of the pleasant countries that are watered by the Guadalquivir. Titian was alive and working; and so was Michael Angelo and Raphael, in the great art-centres of Italy: and Venice was in this time so rich, so grand, so beautiful, so abounding in princely houses, in pictures, in books, in learning, and in all social splendors, that to pass two winters in the City of the Lagoon, was equal to the half of a polite education; and I suppose that a Florentine or Venetian or Roman of that day, thought of a pilgrimage to the far-away, murky London, as Parisians think now of going to Chicago, or Omaha, or San Francisco—excellent places, with delightful people in them; but not the centres about which the literary and art world goes spinning, as a wheel goes spinning on its hub.

We have in the contemporary notes of a well-known Venetian chronicler, Marini Sanuto—who was secretary to the famous Council of Ten—evidence of the impression which was made on that far-off centre of business and of learning, by such an event as the accession of Henry VIII. to the throne of England. This Sanuto was a man of great dignity; and by virtue of his position in the Council, heard all the “relations” of the ambassadors of Venice; and hence his Diary is a great mine of material for contemporary history.

“News have come,” he says, “through Rome of the death of the King of England on April 20th [1509]. ’Twas known in Lucca on the 6th May, by letters from the bankers Bonvisi. The new King is nineteen years old, a worthy King, and hostile to France. He is the son-in-law of the King of Spain. His father was called Henry, and fifty odd years of age; he was a very greatmiser, but a man of vast ability, and had accumulated so much gold that he is supposed to have [had] more than wellnigh all the other Kings of Christendom. The King, his son, is liberal and handsome—the friend of Venice, and the enemy of France. This intelligence ismostsatisfactory.”

Certainly the new king was most liberal in his spending, and as certainly was abundantly provided for. And money counted in those days—as it doesmost whiles: no man in England could come to the dignity of Justice of the Peace—such office as our evergreen friend Justice Shallow holds in Shakespeare—except he had a rental of £20 per annum, equivalent to a thousand dollars of present money—measured by its purchasing power of wheat.[69]By the same standard the average Earl had a revenue of £20,000, and the richest of the peers is put down at a probable income of three times this amount.

What a special favorite of the crown could do in the way of expenditure is still made clear to us by those famous walks, gardens, and gorgeous saloons of Hampton Court, where the great Cardinal Wolsey set his armorial bearings upon the wall—still to be seen over the entrance of the Clock Court. If you go there—and every American visitor in London should be sure to find a way thither—you will see, may be, in the lower range of windows, that look upon the garden court—the pots of geranium and the tabby cats belonging to gentlewomen of rank, but of decayed fortune—humble pensioners of Victoria—whooccupy the sunny rooms from which, in the times we are talking of, the pampered servants of the great Cardinal looked out. And when the great man drove to court, or into the city, his retinue of outriders and lackeys, and his golden trappings, made a spectacle for all the street mongers.

Into that panorama, too, of the early days of Henry VIII., enters with slow step, and with sad speech, poor Katharine of Aragon—the first in order of this stalwart king’s wives. Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler used to read that queen’s speech with a pathos that brought all the sadnesses of that sad court to life again: Miss Cushman, too, you may possibly have heard giving utterance to the same moving story; but, I think, with a masculinity about her manner she could never wholly shake off, and which gave the impression that she could—if need were—give the stout king such a buffet on the ears as would put an end to all chaffer about divorce.

Shakespeare, writing that play of Henry VIII., probably during the lifetime of Elizabeth (though its precise date and full authenticity are matters of doubt), could not speak with very much freedom of the great queen’s father: She had too much of thatfather’s spirit in her to permit that; otherwise, I think the great dramatist would have given a blazing score to the cruelty andBluebeardismof Henry VIII.

I know that there be those acute historic inquirers who would persuade us to believe that the king’s much-marrying propensities were all in order, and legitimate, and agreeable to English constitutional sanction: but I know, too, that there is a strong British current of common-sense setting down all through the centuries which finds harbor in the old-fashioned belief—that the king who, with six successive wives of his own choice, divorced two, and cut off the heads of other two, must have had—vicious weaknesses. For my own part, I take a high moral delight—Froude to the contrary—in thinking of him as a clever, dishonest, good-natured, obstinate, selfish, ambitious, tempestuous, arrogant scoundrel. Yet, withal, he was a great favorite in his young days;—so tall, so trim, so stout, so rich, so free with his money. No wonder the stately and disconsolate Queen (of Aragon) said:—

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