* Fits of splenetic economy of this description were by nomeans of unfrequent occurrence with good Mrs. Quickly. Forthe original of the document here alluded to, (the discoveryof any answer to which has hitherto baffled the researchesof antiquarians,)videthe Potter MSS. vol. viii. p. 397a.
With such pressing claims upon his purse (or rather upon the purses of other people at his disposal), as those above alluded to, it would have been unreasonable to suppose that the king would put himself—or even any one else—out of the way to meet his pecuniary engagements with a disgraced favourite. Sir John Falstaff at once understood that he had little to hope from the royal bounty or good faith. With his usual philosophy he determined to make the best of his position. Having nothing to live on but the king’s promise he determined to live upon that—and appears to have succeeded in doing so pretty comfortably. For we find him in the autumn of 1414, with a goodly retinue of followers and a stud of horses, “sitting at ten pounds a week” at the Garter Inn, Windsor—a liberal scale of accommodation for which Sir John’s assumed “expectations” were doubtless accepted as permanent security.
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Much idle dissertation has been wasted in Sir John Falstaff’s probable motives for making Windsor his residence at this juncture of his career. The motives live on the surface. The court was in London. The atmosphere of a kingly residence was, as has been shown, indispensable to Sir John Falstaff. The neighbourhood of Windsor Castle was the most convenient locality of that description—beyond the prescribed limits of his banishment from the royal person. Moreover, your true knight errant must be ever wandering in search of new fields for adventure. The resources of Oxford, Coventry, and other country districts our knight had doubtless long since exhausted. Windsor was virgin soil to him. Here he was unknown, and—as we have seen—trusted.
There was an additional inducement for Sir John to visit Windsor. It must not be supposed that he had relinquished all hope of restoration to court favour—what deposed favourite ever did? To the end of his days he was constantly occupied in diplomatic schemes for the recovery of his forfeited position. He left no stone unturned in the fruitless endeavour to regain the royal ear. He deluged his courtly acquaintances with unavailing letters on the subject. He intrigued with secretaries, grooms-in-waiting, pages, lacqueys, and even the lords of the bedchamber and equerries. I am afraid he was rapidly becoming a nuisance.
It is to be regretted that the preserved fragments of the Falstaff correspondence, in connection with this most interesting phase of our knight’s fortunes, are confined to two specimens.* These, however, consisting of a letter and its answer, it would be difficult to estimate at their adequate value. Their transference to these pages will sufficiently explain the motive for Sir John’s visit to Windsor last alluded to.
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“Ned, and be hanged in thine own garter or drowned in thine own bath, according as thou needest most trussing or washing.
“They told me in London thou hadst grown great at Windsor, and I hastened hither post to witness the marvel with mine own eyes—mistrusting other testimony. Lo, I am convinced! I saw thee this morning strutting on Wykeham’s Tower—marshalling the workmen with thy wand of office, and noted that thou hadst become fat. At length, then, I may greet thee as an equal—the more, as it would seem I myself have so dwindled to thy former proportions that thou didst not know me; but when I sought to catch thine eye, twirledst thy chain and soughtest quarrel with a knave who was miscarrying a hod of mortar. Since, then, thou art so puffed up and I so crushed and flattened—what should be the difference between us? If there be any, I pri’ thee, lessen it. If at length thou hast grown to outweigh me, slice thyself down and throw me the parings. I but claim to compound a debt. I will cry quits for the wit I have lent thee if thou wilt give me the superabundance of favour and dignity which in truth thou seemest still somewhat too spindle-shanked of spirit to carry with grace. Nay, I will throw thee a good thing into the bargain. Thou lackest humility—a commodity whereof more than I know what to do with hath been of late forced upon me. Thou shalt have it all.
“Indite me to dinner at the Castle by ten o’clock to-morrow. Till then I will be tongue-tied. If thou failest to send for me and to prove over many a pottle-pot that thou hast still the memory of old times and that thou hast but assumed the guise of a strutting feathered jackdaw as formerly thou didst that of a very owl of wisdom—on grounds of policy to be forgiven—then will I make it known by the town-crier of Windsor what an ass thou really art and ever will be. ‘Tis a secret worth hushing and known to none better than thine, forgivingly,
“John Falstaff.
“[In sober earnest, dear Ned, thou mayest serve me near him thou wottest of. I pri’ thee forget not old friends and comrades. Thou couldst not know me this morning—for reasons I guess at. But see me and it shall bring thee to no harm. J. F.]
“At the Garter Inn, Friday, 1414. 2. H. V.”
To Sir John Falstaff, Knight, be this deliverred.
“Sir Edward Poins grieves that his many duties as a humble but diligent servant of King Henry (whom Heaven preserve!) may not permit him to enjoy the pleasure of Sir John Falstaff’s company at Windsor Castle, whereof his Most Gracious Majesty hath been pleased to appoint Sir Edward for a time custodian. It is not, however, in Sir Edward’s nature to refuse a service to any one. If Sir John Falstaff is anxious for himself or friends to obtain the privilege of viewing the improvements in progress as well as the tapestries and pictures of the palace, Sir Edward will give instructions to the wardens and porters of the building to admit Sir John and friends to the same (within the hours allotted to the admission of the public) with the assurance that Sir John and friends will be treated with right due courtesy.
“P.S. It is entreated that no largesse or drink money shall be given to any of the Castle servitors—the same subjecting such servitors to immediate dismissal.”
That Sir Edward Poins—always a faithful imitator, to the best of his ability, of King Henry the Fifth—should have thus behaved towards his early friend and patron will surprise no student of human nature. This coolness and ingratitude, however, of a supposed friend had no other effect than to induce Sir John Falstaff during his residence in the neighbourhood to choose his associates exclusively from the middle classes—the lesser landowners, clergy, and even small traders of extra-palatial Windsor. In such unassuming society Sir John passed his time for the most part agreeably enough, and not altogether unprofitably—though with many serious drawbacks to his comfort, dignity, and finances.
On the whole, I confess, I feel no temptation whatever to expatiate upon this portion of my hero’s rapidly closing career. The Windsor adventures of Sir John Falstaff, forming as they do the basis of one of the most admirably faithful and picturesque of Shakspeare’s historical studies, present, after all, but an exceptional and, in my opinion, most painful episode in the knight’s history. They show us the harrowing spectacle of a great man in his decline. Many thoughtless commentators have pronounced the portrait of Sir John Falstaff, as drawn in the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” to be wanting in verisimilitude, and have therefore called its authenticity into question. No discerning mind can mistake the likeness. It is the same man whom we have so often seen drawn by the same master-hand under more favourable circumstances—but how changed, how fallen! The features are all unmistakeably there; but the expression, bearing, and complexion, how sadly deteriorated! Age, disappointment, and suffering have done their work. Sir John can no longer hold his ground against the most contemptible adversary. The victor is vanquished—the biter bitten. The more than match for the keen-witted Harry Monmouth—the conqueror of Gascoigne and the terror of Poins—becomes the easy dupe of a couple of practical-joking Berkshire housewives. It is distressing to contemplate a man—whom we have seen cross swords with Douglas; capture Colevile of the Grange; and who, after all (as hath been demonstrated), there is strong reason to believe, was the actual slayer of the terrible Henry Percy—sunk so low as to receive without resentment a sound cudgelling administered, in a fit of insensate jealousy, by abourgeoisinhabitant of Peascod Street, Windsor—who, for aught I can discover to the contrary, may have been a retired grocer. * It may be urged that Sir John Falstaff, in justice to his knightly standing, could not challenge an ignoble curmudgeon like Ford to mortal combat; and that he acted becomingly in preferring the more appropriate vengeance of keeping that citizen’s money—intrusted to him for an avowedly immoral purpose. This was all very well in its way, but did not wipe out the original outrage. That shameful business of the buck-basket, also, was an indignity to which Sir John in the heyday of his powers could never have submitted. “Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at him” with a vengeance, at this time, and the meanest are permitted to do so with impunity. His very retainers turn against him (always excepting the faithful Bardolph, who relieves his master, when under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, of the cost of his maintenance, by turning tapster and waiting on the knight at another person’s expense). He is even braved by Pistol; and that “drawling, affecting rogue,” Nym, refuses to carry his messages. He is cajoled, hoaxed, bamboozled. He suffers himself to be “made an ass” in Windsor Park, where he exposes himself in a tom-fool disguise, and gets pinched by all the charity boys and girls in the parish, believing them to be avenging fairies. He is bound to admit that his wit has been “made a Jack a Lent of.” A Cambrian parson, even, dares to laugh at him; and he is “not able to answer the Welsh flannel.” It is a sad business.
I repeat that I have no heart to dwell upon these painful details. Shakspeare has not scrupled to particularise them, and the curious are referred to his able but pitiless pages. My good friend GEORGE CRUIKSHANK also—an amiable man in the social relations of life, but who when there is a stern truth to be recorded pictorially, has no more feeling than the sun peering through a photographic lens—has added his testimony to the principal features of the case. Letmyfeelings be spared—for I sympathise with poor Sir Jack, and, with all his faults, love him.
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There is this excuse to be urged for Sir John Falstaff’s submitting to all kinds of temporary inconvenience and degradation at the hands of the contemptible citizens of Windsor. His mind was occupied with more exalted subjects. He still contemplated the possibility of his restoration to Court favour. He was sixty-three, it is true, and prematurely broken in constitution. But a courtier and statesman must be very old and shaken indeed to renounce his hopes of power and advancement. Sir John watched his opportunity, and was willing to abide his time. You will be willing to abide your time, reader, at the age of a hundred (Heaven send you may live to it!) and never suspect for a moment that your “time” will be out in the early part of next autumn.
* For the events here referred to, see the Merry Wives ofWindsor.
Sir John’s opportunity (as he imagined) at length arrived. King Henry the Fifth prepared for his memorable invasion of France, by demanding, from the French king, the hand of the Princess Katherine, and a concession of territory sufficiently unreasonable to ensure the refusal desired by the English crown. The Dauphin Louis answered the application by his memorable present of a cask of tennis balls, which he assured King Henry “were fitter playthings for him, according to his former course of life, than the provinces demanded.” * The British cabinet was nonplussed, there being nobody in office capable of replying to a joke. This was Sir John Falstaffs opportunity.
Sir John, who had, of course, his agents posted about the Court, heard of the dilemma. He despatched the following private note to His Majesty, having securely arranged for its certain delivery into the royal hands:—
“King Hal: thou hast forgotten me, but not I thee. Thou wilt not relieve me from my difficulty. Lo! I relieve thee of thine.
“Write back to the French fellow, thus:—
“‘These balls shall be struck back with such aracketas shall force open Paris gates.’
“The thought is thine, for I give it to thee. Pay me for it by remembrance that I still live and can bear armour, or not, as thou listest.
“John Falstaff.
“Note.—Observe well the clench uponracket***, which meaneth both hurly-burly noise and tennis bat.
“At the Garter, Windsor,
“30 March, 1415, 3 H. V.”
*Hollinshed. VidealsoWhite Kennet’s History; and aninedited MS. in the British Museum, first published in SirH. Nicolas’sHistory of the Battle of Agincourt.** In the Potter MSS.*** Caxton has recorded this pun.
In the course of a few days Sir John learnt that his witticism (unacknowledged) had been made use of as a rejoinder to the insolent message of the dauphin. He accepted this as a recognition of renewed friendly dispositions towards him on the king’s part. He hastily raised such funds as his powers of persuasion could induce his Windsor acquaintances to supply him with, and struck his tent. In defiance of the royal edict he presented himself at the Court of Westminster in the thick of the active preparations for the coming French campaign and solicited a command.
The speaker was Mrs. Pistol, late Quickly. Her husband was disputing about nothing particular with Corporal Nym. The heart that had been killed by the king (dear Mrs. Quickly! she always spoke truly upon vital questions) was that of Sir John Falstaff. He had presented himself, clad in all the panoply of war, at the palace of Westminster, just as the galleys for the French invasion were getting under weigh. The king had refused him an audience. The Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, acting ostensibly under the directions of the Dowager Queen Regent Joanna, had threatened him with constables. Sir John came home to his old quarters, the Old Boar’s Head in Eastcheap—to die!
And Sir John Falstaff died on the 5th of August, 1415, at the Old Boar’s Head Tavern, Eastcheap. His eyes were closed by poor Dame Quickly, and the only mourners round his death bed were the blackguards whom he had fed, and who were humanised and softened by his death. Pistol and Nym forgot their quarrel about nothing, sheathed their unmeaning swords and glared blood-shot condolence one at the other. Bardolph had come up from Windsor, resigning his tapstership to attend on the master whom he had loved and served consistently—long ere he knew how to speak. Our rubicund friend never acquired the art of speech to anything like perfection; but when he learnt that Falstaff was dead he somehow managed to give utterance to a poem.
“Would I were with him, wheresom’er he is, either in heaven, or in hell!”
I cannot describe Sir John Falstaff’s death half as well as it has been described by Mrs. Quickly. Take her words:—
“He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. ‘A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; ‘a parted even just between twelve and one, e’en at turning of the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with the flowers, and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and ‘a babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John? quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So ‘a cried out, God, God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him, ‘a should not think of God; I hoped, there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet: so a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.”
I will not comment upon this. I bow my head as one at a dear friend’s funeral and hold my tongue—loving and thanking those whom I hear weeping and sobbing around me.
Sir John Falstaff was buried in the church of St. Michael Paternoster in the Royal, at the expense of Sir Richard Whittington, founder of that edifice, and Sir John’s faithful friend throughout his eventful life—more than ever towards its close. It is recorded that Sir Richard wept bitterly the loss of his ever dear but often estranged friend, and was given to chide severely those who spoke slightingly of Sir John Falstaff’s memory—saying that none knew Sir John Falstaff but himself; and that the waste of such a heart and brain as Sir John’s to humanity was a loss deplorable. All who had been kind or faithful to Sir John in his lifetime were well cared for by Sir Richard. He subsidised Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. But it was destined they should not prosper. They were bound for the French wars. They wasted Sir Richard’s bounty before starting. Nym and Bardolph were hanged for the pettiest larceny on the field of Agincourt. Heaven knows what became of Pistol, and Earth does not care.
Sir Richard erected a simple tomb over the remains of Sir John Falstaff in the crypt of St. Michael Paternoster. King Henry the Fifth, on his return from France, in a remorseful fit, took his fair bride to see his old friend’s last resting-place. It is whispered that he left the church with reddened eyes. It is certain that he caused to be inlaid, at his own expense, on the marble tomb, the following inscription in brass:—
This might have been seen up to the year 1666, when the church of St. Michael Paternoster was burnt to the ground—and the last material traces of Sir John Falstaff’s existence faded from the memory of man, even as fades the recollection of having read a foolish book.
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