King Henry the Fifth Part 22

[Footnote V.12: _----take a good fellow of plain and +uncoined+ constancy;_] _Uncoined_ constancy signifies _real_ and _true_ constancy, _unrefined_ and _unadorned_.]

[Footnote V.13: _----a good leg will fall,_] i.e., shrink--fall away.]

[Footnote V.14: _----shall go to Constantinople_] Shakespeare has here committed an anachronism. The Turks were not possessed of Constantinople before the year 1463, when Henry the Fifth had been dead thirty-one years.]

[Footnote V.15: _----my +condition+ is not smooth;_] i.e., manners, appearance.]

THE END.

HISTORICAL NOTES TO ACT FIFTH.

(A) _Enter_ KING HENRY,] At this interview, which is described as taking place in the Church of Notre Dame, at Troyes, King Henry was attired in his armour, and accompanied by sixteen hundred warriors. Henry is related to have placed a ring of "inestimable value" on the finger of Katharine, "supposed to be the same worn by our English queen-consorts at their coronation," at the moment when he received the promise of the princess.

(B) _The PRINCESS KATHARINE_,] Katharine of Valois was the youngest child of Charles VI., King of France, and his Queen, Isabella of Bavaria. She was born in Paris, October 27th, 1401. Monstrelet relates, that on Trinity Sunday, June 3rd, the King of England wedded the lady Katharine in the church at Troyes, and that great pomp and magnificence were displayed by him and his princess, as if he had been king of the whole world. Katharine was crowned Queen of England February 24, 1421; and shortly after the death of her heroic husband, which event took place August 31st, 1422, the queen married a Welch gentleman of the name of Owen Tudor, by whom she had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son, Edmund, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of the house of Somerset. His half-brother, Henry VI., created him Earl of Richmond. He died before he reached twenty years of age, leaving an infant son, afterwards Henry VII., the first king of the Tudor line. Katharine died January 3rd, 1437, in the thirty-sixth year of her age, and was buried at Westminster Abbey.

(C) _----may our oaths well kept and prosp'rous be;_] The princ.i.p.al articles of the treaty were, that Henry should espouse the Princess Catherine: That King Charles, during his life time, should enjoy the t.i.tle and dignity of King of France: That Henry should be declared and acknowledged heir of the monarchy, and be entrusted with the present administration of the government: That that kingdom should pa.s.s to his heirs general: That France and England should for ever be united under one king; but should still retain their several usages, customs, and privileges: That all the princes, peers, va.s.sals, and communities of France, should swear, that they would both adhere to the future succession of Henry, and pay him present obedience as regent: That this prince should unite his arms to those of King Charles and the Duke of Burgundy, in order to subdue the adherents of Charles, the pretended dauphin; and that these three princes should make no peace or truce with him but by common consent and agreement. Such was the tenour of this famous treaty; a treaty which, as nothing but the most violent animosity could dictate it, so nothing but the power of the sword could carry it into execution. It is hard to say whether its consequences, had it taken effect, would have proved more pernicious to England or France. It must have reduced the former kingdom to the rank of a province: It would have entirely disjointed the succession of the latter, and have brought on the destruction of the royal family; as the houses of Orleans, Anjou, Alencon, Britanny, Bourbon, and of Burgundy itself, whose t.i.tles were preferable to that of the English princes, would, on that account, have been exposed to perpetual jealousy and persecution from the sovereign.

There was even a palpable deficiency in Henry's claim, which no art could palliate. For, besides the insuperable objections to which Edward the Third's pretensions were exposed, _he_ was not heir to that monarch: If female succession were admitted, the right had devolved on the house of Mortimer: Allowing that Richard the Second was a tyrant, and that Henry the Fourth's merits in deposing him were so great towards the English, as to justify that nation in placing him on the throne, Richard had nowise offended France, and his rival had merited nothing of that kingdom: It could not possibly be pretended that the crown of France was become an appendage to that of England; and that a prince who by any means got possession of the latter, was, without farther question, ent.i.tled to the former. So that, on the whole, it must be allowed that Henry's claim to France was, if possible, still more unintelligible than the t.i.tle by which his father had mounted the throne of England.

--_Hume's History of England._