King. Sir John Falstaff, Justice Shallow, Bardolph, and Pistol had pushed their way to the front of the crowded line, and travel-stained and dusty, were standing in eager expectancy to give a greeting to their old companion in revelry.

"God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!" roared Falstaff, when the King appeared.

"The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame," said Pistol in his most swaggering tones.

The King started, and said something to the Lord Chief Justice who marched near him. But Falstaff was not daunted. Pushing his way to the King he said: My King! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!"

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The King halted, and a silence like death fell upon the crowd. Every eye was turned upon the huge figure of Falstaff. When King Henry spoke, his words went like a dagger to the heart of the knight :

"I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester !
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane ;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest :
Presume not that I am the thing I was ;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,

The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil :
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenour of our word.
Set on."

The procession, interrupted for the moment by this incident, again swept through the cheering crowds, leaving Falstaff, Shallow, and Pistol amazed and overwhelmed by the words of the King. Falstaff knew, so far as the old relationship was concerned, that his intercourse with the King was broken for ever, but he put a bold face on the matter, and tried to comfort the disappointed Justice. He invited him to dinner, and said that the King's sternness was only a pretence. The evening would prove it to be so, for he knew that Harry would send for him and all would be right. The knight had not yet appreciated the significance of the fact that the Lord Chief Justice was now entrusted with the management of his relations with the King.

He was soon to understand what this meant, and in the most unpleasant fashion. The Prince of Lancaster and the Chief Justice returned to the place where the group had listened to the King's words. Officers accompanied them. They were ordered to arrest Sir John Falstaff and all his company and convey them forthwith to the Fleet prison. Falstaff tried to speak

but was silenced by a curt speech from the Chief Justice. "I will hear you soon. Take them away." Poor old Justice Shallow was too amazed to say anything, Pistol muttered a tag of Latin philosophy, and Falstaff accompanied the officers with something like despair in his heart, for he now found himself in a position from which his natural ability and craft could not extricate him, and the knowledge of his helplessness was bitter as wormwood. He plodded along through the busy streets, crowded with the rejoicing citizens, but when the heavy gate of the Fleet closed behind him it was significant of that heavier portal which had now closed upon his life, and not the least bitter to the heart of Sir John was the reflection that the subtle and brilliant cleverness of one of the ablest of men could be contemptuously thrown aside and committed to the dust of a prison-yard; that the ready wit and joviality of a prince of good companions could be easily and profitably dispensed with, because that in life there are greater things than a splendid unworthiness, and roads upon which the feet of true and honourable men alone may tread.

Seen IV
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King Henry the Fifth

N the year 1360 King John of France and King
Edward III. of England had concluded a very

I

important treaty which was known by the

name of the Treaty of Bretigny. In it the English possessions in France were stated to be Gascony, Guienne, Poitou, and the town of Calais. But by the time of the death of Edward, the whole of the territory had been lost, with the exception of Bayonne, Bordeaux, a portion of Picardy around Cressy, and Calais. Edward had never given up his pretensions to the sovereignty of Guienne and Gascony, although the growing power of the French kingdom had made it impossible for him to enforce his claims. Normandy had been lost, with the exception of the Channel Islands. Thus the great possessions of the Norman and Angevin Kings of England had almost entirely passed out of the hands of their

successors.

But King Edward had also maintained that he was the rightful heir to the French crown, on the ground that though the Salic Law, which governed the succession in France, excluded females, it did not exclude their male descendants. He claimed to be the heir through his mother Isabel, who was the daughter of Philip IV.; but the succession had passed to the younger brother of Philip, and when Henry V. ascended the throne of England, King Charles VI. of Valois was ruling as

King of France. Now Henry Bolingbroke had married Joan of Navarre, who was a direct descendant of Philip IV., and in this way two branches of the children of this monarch were united in the person of Henry of Monmouth.

Despite the fact that neither his father nor himself was the true heir to the English throne by lineal right, Henry determined to revive the old claim of Edward III., and to assert the rights which were supposed to have come to him through Joan of Navarre. France at this time, on account of the occasional madness of Charles VI., was being disturbed by factions, and fierce quarrels had arisen among the French princes. On one side were the Dauphin, the Duke of Orleans, and the southern lords, and on the other John the Fearless of Burgundy, whose cause was supported by Paris and other great towns. There seemed to be a favourable opportunity for a powerful King of England to enforce any claims he might have. The mind of Henry was turned that way, and it only required a little impetus to launch him against the French. This came from two directions. In the English Parliament which met at Leicester in the second year of his reign, 1414, a Bill had been introduced in which it was proposed to place under the King's charge all the landed property in England which belonged to foreign ecclesiastics and monasteries over seas. It was felt that English wealth derived from English lands might be used against England if the control of it were in alien hands.

Naturally, the proposed Act caused much disquiet among ecclesiastics, and many important conferences were held. The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking to the Bishop of Ely, thus expressed his mind upon the matter: