Of HENRY V., Holinshed says, "This kyng, this man, was he whiche,
(accordyng to the old proverbe) declared and shewed that honour ought to
change maners: for incontinent after that he was stalled in the siege
royall, and had received the crowne and sceptre of this famous and
fortunate region, [he] determined with hymself to put on the shape of a
new man, and to use another sorte of livyng, turning insolence and
wildnesse into gravitie and sobernes, and wavering vice into constant
virtue." It was this prince, our readers will recollect, who, while "the
immediate heir of England," was committed into custody by the Lord Chief
Justice, for disturbing the court in which he sat as judge, and who
afterwards, when king, so nobly commended that officer's conduct.
Shakspeare has a similar train of thought with the old chronicler.
----"Princes all, believe me, I beseech you,
My father is gone wild into his grave;
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectations of the world,
To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
Rotten opinion, which hath writ me down
After my seeming. Though my tide of blood
Hath proudly flowed in vanity till now;
Now doth it turn and ebb unto the sea,
Where it shall mingle with the state of flood,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty[100]."
Fabian gives a splendid account of the coronation of Katherine, the
queen of Henry V. "upon whose ryght hande satte at the ende of the same
table the archebyshop of Cauntorbury, and Henrye, surnamed the ryche
cardynall of Wynchester. And vppon the lefte hande of the quene satte
the Kynge of Scottes in hys estate, the wyche was served wythe covered
messe, like vnto the forenamed byshoppes, but after them." "And ye shall
vnderstande, that this feaste was al of _fyshe_." Each course had its
"sotyltye," however, embodying the wit of other parts of the creation;
as "a pellycane syttyng on his nest with her byrdes, and an ymage of
saynte Katheryne holdyng a boke and disputyng with the doctoures,
holdyng a reason in her ryghte hande, saiynge: 'Madame le roigne' and
the pellycan as an answere, 'Ce est la signe et du roy, partenir joy, et
a tout sa gent, elle mete sa entent,'--a sotyltye named a panter with an
ymage of saynte Katheryne with a whele in her hande, and a rolle wyth a
reason in that other hande, sayeng: 'La royne ma file, in ceste ile, per
bon reson, aves renoun.'" &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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