But the glory of the place is its association with <g>Henry V.</g>, son of Henry of Bolingbroke, who was born here,[313] and whose name and renown are so familiar to every reader of our national history and the drama. His dissipated habits while Prince of Wales, and his glorious achievements in the conquest of France, have been so inimitably portrayed by Shakspeare, that he still seems to live in our own age--in the country which his worth and valour adorned--and to be as agreeably associated with our familiar recollections as the most illustrious characters of our own day. His good-humoured dissipation and pleasantry in youth, became the foil to his subsequent greatness; and was probably as much the origin of that strong admiration with which he is still regarded, as his general talents, or the splendour of those victories, to which his personal courage and address so mainly contributed. At the time, as the reader may recollect, when the French realm was torn asunder by the opposing factions of the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, Henry took the favourable moment for reviving the claims of his predecessors upon France. Placing himself at the head of his army, he landed at Harfleur, and with only fifteen thousand men, opposed to upwards of fifty thousand, won the battle of Agincourt, and returned to England covered with renown. Apart from the splendour, however, which attended the campaign, it has been justly remarked that his reign was more brilliant than beneficial; for whilst his triumph entailed great misery on France, it “did more harm than good” to the true interests of England.[314] But his life was short--too short for maturing the plans he had in view for consolidating the fruits of a brief but eventful career; and while his greatest projects seemed to be advancing to a successful issue, <g>Henry</g> of Monmouth was suddenly cut off at the age of thirty-four. The connection of this gallant prince and sovereign with Monmouth, invests it with a lasting claim to veneration on the part of those tourists who judge of the soil by the character of its products. In the words of Fluellen, “All the water in <g>Wye</g> cannot wash your Majesty’s Welsh plood out of your pody;” nor, we may add, weaken a single link of that chain which connects the hero of Agincourt with the history of Monmouth. <g>The Bridge</g>, of which a cut is here introduced, was erected by Edward the First in 1272. Surmounting the Saxon gateway is a room, used as a guard-room or a magazine; and immediately above the arch are three loopholes, made by the authorities of the place, when, at a very recent period, they apprehended a sudden irruption of Chartists from Newport. [Illustration]