Shakespeare's Kings (43 page)

1.
Prince John was only thirteen at the time of the battle of Shrewsbury. There is no historical record of his having been present. Shakespeare presumably introduces him here, rather than his elder brother Thomas of Clarence, because of his importance in the Gaultree Forest scene (IV.i)
of Henry IV Part II.

I saw young Harry with his beaver on,

His cushes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,

Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,

And vaulted with such ease into his seat

As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

Finally Vernon - who seems to take considerable pleasure in the delivery of bad news - reveals that Glendower and his men cannot be there for another fourteen days. This last report puts paid to Hotspur's optimism: his courage is undiminished, but he knows his cause is lost. 'Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily' - and, he suggests, the sooner the better. He even wants to launch the attack that same night, and Douglas and the rest are still trying to persuade him to wait till the morrow when Sir Walter Blunt - rather than the Abbot of Shrewsbury - arrives from the King in the hopes of negotiating a peace. He is sent back with a promise that Worcester will bring Henry terms in the morning; but that interview,
¹
despite the King's offer to take no punitive action if the rebels will disband their forces, is no more successful than the first. 'To save the blood on either side', the Prince offers to meet Hotspur in single combat (a challenge for which there is no evidence anywhere in the chronicles), but Worcester ignores it. He returns to the rebel camp, having resolved not even to report the King's generous terms, which he does not for a moment believe;
²
and the two armies prepare for battle. Only old Falstaff confesses what all of them are feeling:

I would 'twere bed-time, Hal, and all well.

Shakespeare's version of the battle of Shrewsbury begins with the killing by the Earl of Douglas of Sir Walter Blunt, one of the four knights who were, according to Holinshed, 'apparelled in the kings

'
sute'
-
deliberate
decoys,
who
by
wearing
the
royal
arms
hoped
to reduce
the
danger
to
Henry
himself.
Another
of
these
seems
to
have been
Lord
Stafford,
who
has
already
been
dispatched
by
Douglas
before the
scene
opens;
in
both
cases
the
latter
believes
that
he
has
killed
the King.
When
Hotspur
identifies
the
dead
man
as
Blunt,
remarking
as he
does
so
that
'the
King
hath
many
marching
in
his
coats',
he
receives the
furious
reply,
‘I’l
l
murder
all
his
wardrobe,
piece
by
piece';
and Douglas
does
indeed
shortly
afterwards
find
himself
face
to
face
with Henry.
As
they
engage
in
a
furious
hand-to-hand
struggle
the
King
is forced
to
his
knees,
and
saved
only
in
the
nick
of
time
by
the
arrival
of the
Prince
of
Wales,
who
puts
his
assailant
somewhat
ignominiously
to flight.
¹
Oddly
enough,
Douglas
reappears
a
few
moments
later,
during the
fight
between
the
Prince
and
Hotspur,
when
he
silently
attacks
-of
all
people
-
Falstaff,
before
disappearing
from
the
play
for
good.

Not
surprisingly,
in
his
account
of
the
battle,
Shakespeare
takes
a few
liberties
in
the
interests
of
his
drama.
Holinshed
suggests
that
Henry met
Douglas
at
an
early
stage
of
the
three-hour
battle,
after
which
the Prince
was
withdrawn
from
that
side
of
the
field,
while
Blunt
and Stafford
—
and
probably
a
third
knight,
Sir
Hugh
Shirley
—
remained, only
to
be
slaughtered
shortly
afterwards.
(There
can,
however,
be
no doubt
that
the
King
-
who,
it
must
be
remembered,
was
still
only thirty-six
—
fought
with
exemplary
courage
throughout.)
Did
the
Prince really
save
his
father's
life?
There
is
some
evidence,
but
not
much. Holinshed
goes
no
further
than
to
say
that
the
Prince
'holpe
his
father like
a
lustie
yoong
gendeman';
Samuel
Daniel
asserts
that
he
did
indeed save
the
King;
but
Daniel
was
writing
an
epic,
and
was
probably
no more
conscientiously
accurate
than
Shakespeare
himself.

Did
Prince
Hal
kill
Harry
Percy?
Possibly,
yes.
Most
historians
are sceptical;
it
has
been
pointed
out
that
the
true
Hotspur
-
as
opposed
to the
Shakespearean
ideal
-
was
twenty-three
years
older
than
the
Prince, a
seasoned
general
for
whom
Hal
had
a
deep
respect
and
who,
on
those early
Welsh
campaigns,
had
taught
him
all
he
knew.
This
is
undoubtedly true
as
far
as
it
goes;
but
Percy
was
now
a
dangerous
and
desperate rebel,
and
nothing
that
we
read
of
either
of
them
suggests
that
in
such

a situation either would have hesitated to kill the other. There is also an admittedly ambiguous passage in Holinshed - one of the many that makes us wish that he had written just one degree better than he did -which reads: 'the other on his part . . . fought valiantlie, and slue the lord Persie'; we are given no indication of who 'the other' may be, but in the previous sentence the chronicler is certainly speaking of the King, and the Prince surely seems a likelier candidate than anyone else.

Whoever may have been responsible for it, the death of Harry Hotspur ends not only the battie of Shrewsbury but, effectively, Shakespeare's play. Prince Hal makes his noble speech

When that this body did contain a spirit,

A kingdom for it was too small a bound;

But now two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead

Bears not alive so stout a gendeman

during which he covers the dead man's face with the plumes from his own helmet; there follows a short comic interlude in which Falstaff scrambles to his feet - he has feigned death to escape Douglas — and boasts unwittingly to Hal that he has killed Hotspur himself; and we then move on to the final, even shorter, scene in which the King condemns Worcester and Vernon to death, while the Prince orders Douglas to be freed as a tribute to his valour. Henry's closing speech points the way to the play's sequel, and the curtain falls.