[5. Pembroke] note): John, who in his prosperous days made almost a parade of disbelief in William's loyalty, and delighted in straining it to the uttermost by saying and doing everything he could think of to insult and provoke William, nevertheless knew well that in moments of peril William was the one counsellor to whose disinterestedness he could safely trust, the one follower on whom he could count unreservedly, the one friend whom he could not do without. 7. Salisbury] STEEVENS: Son to King Henry II. by Rosamund Clifford.— WRIGHT: If the play were historical, Salisbury would be William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, son of Henry II. and Fair Rosamund. But in the old Play he is called 'Thomas Plantaginet, Earle of Salisburie.' Thomas Plantagenet was, however, not Earl of Salisbury; he was simply entitled Thomas of Lancaster.FRENCH (p. 8): [William Long-sword's half-brother, Richard I,] had bestowed upon him the hand of a great heiress, Ela, daughter of William de Evereux, Earl of Salisbury, to which title Long-sword succeeded at the death of his father-in-law. In the beginning of John's reign he was Sheriff of Wilts., and Warden of the Welch Marches, and he was one of the King's securities for the observance of Magna Charta. With other peers Salisbury joined the army of the Dauphin, but on the accession of Henry III. returned to his allegiance. He afterwards served with distinction in the Holy Land, and died on his return thence in 1226. Sir Walter Scott, in his delightful Tale of the Crusaders, The Talisman, introduces William Long-sword as one of the companions of Cœur-de-Lion in Palestine.—[In a review of French's volume in the Herald and Geneologist, July, 1870, the anonymous reviewer remarks: 'Mr. French is not quite accurate. . . . Ela's father was not surnamed de Evereux, nor was it until after her father's death that she was bestowed with her earldom upon William Longespee.'-This is, however, a point of historic interest only, as the wife of Salisbury is not included among the characters in the present play. ED.]—H. T. HALL (p. 152): [As portrayed by Shakespeare] Salisbury is a purely natural man, strong in love, a true friend, an excellent neighbour, but no politician. Lacking politics, Salisbury does not attract much attention until the close of the history. He is a man of feeling, not of reasoning powers, and by his feelings he is mostly actuated and directed.—KREYSSIG (i, 395): In contrast to the two kings, to the Dauphin and to the Legate, this upright, honourable soul stands like Nature in comparison to a degenerate painting, Nature in her purity, but certainly also with her narrowness. The difference between the ideal, inviolable king and the chance unworthy possessor of the sublime position is too delicate for him. His righteous anger at the murder of an innocent child recognises in the voice of fate the inclination of the heart, and persuades him that, under the banner of France, he is following not the destroyer of his country, but the avenger of innocence wronged. But this cosmopolitan virtue finds no favor in the eyes of the English poet. No bitter, painful consequence of his action, as beautifully human as politically blamable, will be spared Salisbury, that the spectator may learn that, fundamentally, the purest humanity becomes an empty phrase if it be not founded upon positive love of country. [See V, ii, 11-42.] 8. Hubert] COURTENAY (i, 26): We now regard Hubert de Burgh as the very essence of nobility; but, although at a later period of his life he was an eminent member of the aristocracy, he was, I believe, the artificer of his own fortune, and had not at this time attained the dignity of the peerage, though he had held important offices under the King. According to Dugdale (Bar., i, 693) he was nephew [8. Hubert] to William Fitz Adelm, a favorite and servant of Henry II, and ancestor to the Earls of Clanricarde. He was himself created Earl of Kent by Henry III. in the 13th year of his reign; and in that reign, though sometimes in much favour with the king, he was repeatedly charged, both by king and nobles, with crimes of all sorts, political and personal. These occurrences may have been the original foundation for the jealousy and contempt of Hubert, which the play ascribes to the peers.— FRENCH (p. 9): There is nothing in the play to denote the proper rank of this celebrated person, who was of lofty lineage, and a noble of distinguished ability and great power. He was descended from Charlemagne . . . and his more immediate ancestor was Robert, Earl of Montaigne and Cornwall. . . . By King John he was made Lord Chamberlain, Warden of the Welch Marches, Sheriff of five counties, Seneschal of Poitou, and Governor of several castles. He sided with John in his contest with the Barons, and was one of his securities to the Great Charter, and on the day that it was signed at Runny-mead he was made justiciary of England, afterwards loaded with many honours and important posts, among them having the custody of Dover Castle. This key to the kingdom was defended by Hubert de Burgh with only 140 soldiers for four months against all the efforts of the French to take it, and when the Poet makes Faulconbridge say, 'All Kent hath yielded, nothing there holds out But Dover Castle,' [IV, i, 33], it should be borne in mind who was the castellan by whom it was so well guarded. [The Hubert de Burgh of history was undoubtedly the intrepid defender of Dover Castle, but the Hubert of Shakespeare's creation was occupied far otherwise as messenger between King John and the disaffected peers during those important military operations. (See IV, ii, iii.).—ED.]—ANON. (Herald and Genealogist, July, 1870, p. 316): In Hubert, the compassionate jailor of the lovely Prince Arthur, we have evidently a name derived from the great justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent. In the Dramatis Persona Hubert is classed, accordingly, among the Lords of the English court; but the fact that Shakespeare himself regarded him very differently is proved by the altercation in IV, iii, 86-92, where Hubert tells the Earl of Salisbury that he was provoked by the Earl's behaviour to forget 'Your worth, your greatness, and nobility'; and the Lord Bigot, a by-stander, exclaims 'Out, dunghill! darest thou brave a nobleman?' Now, admitting that Hubert is identical with Hubert de Burgh, there could not be a stronger example of Shakespeare's deficiency in genealogical lore, inasmuch as Hubert de Burgh was descended in the male line from the Emperor Charlemagne, and his own marriages were with royal houses, whilst he was justiciary of England in the reign of John, and Earl of Kent in the next reign.OECHELHAÜSER (Einführungen, etc., i, 12): The character of Hubert seems at first misanthropic, and capable of the commission of a gruesome deed. . He interprets at once John's murderous hints and goes with determined mien upon his dreadful errand. At the same time he should not be represented as a typical villain since otherwise the sudden change to softer and more humane impulses will seem unnatural, but he should be shown rather as an embittered man, one who sees himself, on account of a repulsive exterior, misjudged by the world. In such men a misanthropic, cruel disposition is easily developed, which incites them to sinful deeds in order that they may thus be revenged upon mankind. On the other hand, such natures are quite as strongly influenced if one approaches them in a friendly, kindly manner. Thus Hubert's temptation is facilitated by the hypocritical, fulsome flatteries of King John, while later the innocent, touching appeals of Arthur Faulconbridge, Bastard-Son to Richard the First. 10. Faulconbridge...First] Pope,+, Var. '78, '85. Philip, his bastard Brother, begotten by K. Richard. Cap. Philip Faulcombridge, his half-brother. Coll. Falconbridge...First Dyce, Hal. Huds. ii, Words. Philip, the bastard, 10 his half-brother Cam.+. Philip Faulconbridge, his half-brother...First. Mal. et cet. 10. ...the First.] ...the First; afterwards knighted by the name of Sir Richard Plantaganet. Han. lead him the more easily to the path of humanity, wherein from that point on he remains. In his whole development I cannot detect any psychological inconsistency; although Hubert protests too much in saying: 'Within this bosom, never entered yet The dreadful motion of a murderous thought.'-[IV, ii, 265]. The blinding of Arthur was even worse than murder, granting that the implied intention be taken for the actual deed. He wished actually to commit a crime, but he could not. A better nature lived concealed in him beneath a repulsive exterior, as he himself tells the king. To portray his conversion, and its accompanying inward struggle, in Act IV, Scene i, as well as his grief over Arthur's death demands a capital actor, wherefore this rôle should be entrusted only to a character-actor of the first rank. Hubert should be represented as a man between fifty and sixty, of plebeian bearing, with dark, baleful features and hoarse, rough voice. His innermost thoughts must be reflected in his looks. 9. Bigot] FRENCH (p. 9): This baron has almost always been incorrectly called Robert Bigot, but history does not record any Earl of Norfolk, of the family, who bore that Christian name. The first of this family, Roger Bigot, came over with the Conqueror, and was rewarded with numerous lordships in Essex and Suffolk. His son, Hugh Bigot, was steward to King Stephan, who gave him the Earldom of Norfolk, which was confirmed to him by Henry II. He died in the Holy Land in 1177, leaving by his wife, Juliana, daughter of Alberic de Vere, his eldest son, Roger Bigot, second Earl of Norfolk, the personage in this play. He enjoyed the favour of Richard I, but was one of the twenty-five Barons against King John. 10. Faulconbridge] STEEVENS: Though Shakespeare adopted this character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play [The Troublesome Raigne] it is not improper to mention that it is compounded of two distinct personages. Matthew Paris says: 'Sub illius temporis curriculo, Falcasius de Brente, Neusteriensis, et spurius ex parte matris, atque Bastardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam descenderat,' &c., [ed. Luard, iii, 88]. Paris, in his History of the Monks of St Albans, calls him Falce, but in his General History, Falcasius de Brente, as above. Holinshed says that 'Richard I. had a natural son named Philip, who, in the year following, killed the viscount de Limoges to revenge the death of his father.' [This assertion by Steevens, that Shakespeare's Faulconbridge is compounded of two distinct characters mentioned in widely separated passages by two chroniclers, has been accepted heretofore without question. Steevens was doubtless influenced only by the slight similarity in the two names; nevertheless, even at the risk of being accused of presumption, I must say that I regard any such deduction as open to grave objection. Falcasius de Breauté, not de Brente, as Steevens gives it, was a man of evil reputation during the reigns of John and Henry III. 'He was a man of great courage but of savage and cruel nature, and was chosen by King John to be Warden of the Welch Marches. On one occa [10. Faulconbridge] sion he pillaged the town of St. Albans and exacted a large sum of money from the Abbot; later he was employed by John in his raid upon the Barons, and, having taken Bedford Castle, John, through fear of him, gave it over to Falcasius. His name was among those proscribed for banishment in Magna Charta. In the reign of Henry, for various offences, he was besieged in Bedford Castle by the outraged barons in 1224; it was taken and, though he escaped, the castle was razed to the ground. His delayed sentence of banishment was put into effect and three years later, in 1227, he died in exile. The passage quoted by Steevens is an addition by Matthew Paris to Roger of Wendover's account of the siege of Bedford Castle, and the King therein referred to is Henry III, not John; Giles translates it thus: 'About this time there was one Faulkes de Breaute, a native of Normandy, a bastard by his mother's side, who had lately come on a scurvy horse, with a pad on his back, to enter the King's service' (vol. ii, p. 454). As far as can be determined by an examination of the various passages in which Falcasius is mentioned in Wendover and in Paris, this is the only one wherein he is called Falcasius de Brente, and Luard, in his careful edition of Paris's Chronica Majora, prepared for the Rolls Series of English Chronicles, uniformly gives the name throughout his Index as Fawkes de Breauté. It is reasonable to conjecture that as he was illegitimate he received this name from the district in Normandy whence he came, and this is slightly corroborated by the fact that there is a small town, Bréauté, in the district of Caux. This is, however, a minor point and is pure surmise on my part; that which is more important is, whence arose the changes in his name from Brenté, as given by Paris; Brenté, as it appears in the quotation by Steevens; and Breauté, as given by Luard? At first sight the simplest solution would seem to lie in a confusion of the written n and u; but curiously enough Fuller, in his Worthies, among those of Middlesex says: 'Falcatius, or Falke de Brent, was a Middlesex-man by his nativity, whose family so flourished therein in former ages (remaining in a meaner condition to this day) that an antiquary [Norden] will have the rivulet Brent, which denominateth Brentford, so named from them; which is preposterous in my opinion, believing them rather named from the rivulet' (ed. Nuttall, vol. ii, p. 321). Fuller then gives the history of Falcasius as related by Paris; in another passage (vol. i, p. 137) he calls him Falco or Falkerius de Breantee, and again the confusion between n and u confronts us-Breauté, Breantee (the é of the French name will account for the ee). We seem to have wandered far from Shakespeare and Faulconbridge in this discussion, but the question is not as irrelevant as, at first sight, it appears, and I should not have gone so fully into the mere spelling of the name were it not that both LLOYD, in his Critical Essay on King John, and FRENCH, in his Shakspeareana Genealogica, have adopted Steevens's suggestion that Falcasius de Brente was the prototype of Faulconbridge; neither, be it said, referring to Steevens as their authority. I fear that Lloyd has, however, read both Wendover and Paris to but little advantage—he admits that his examination has been cursory-when he says of Falcasius that 'he was a great figure for good or ill, but ever for energy as servant of King John.' Both historians are singularly reticent as to any good actions, and equally in agreement as to his evil deeds. 'Wicked robber,' 'iniquitous thief,' 'traitor' are but a few of the epithets applied to Falcasius. The passage which Lloyd quotes from Paris refers to John's appointment of Fawkes to the Wardenship of the Welch Marches, and is—like that given by Steevens-an addition by Paris to Wendover's account of the year 1212. Later, [10. Faulconbridge] it is quite true, John made use of Fawkes in his expedition against the Barons, but Paris distinctly says that John through fear of Fawkes was quite under his domination. Few, I think, will agree with Lloyd that from Fawkes de Brente to Faulconbridge is an easy transition, yet, as has been said, this slight similarity in sound suggested this to Steevens and to Lloyd, coupled with the fact that Fawkes and Philip were bastards, and both on one occasion plundered an Abbey. On the other hand, there is not the slightest similarity in their characters. The pride of bearing and intense love of king and country shown both by the Philip of the older play and the Faulconbridge of Shakespeare are quite lacking in the reprehensible robber Fawkes de Breauté or de Brenté. This question of the exact spelling of the name is one which I must leave for some student of history to decide, and it is to be regretted that French, whose volume on the historical characters in Shakespeare's plays is such a valuable contribution to the subject, should not have thrown a little more light on this puzzling question. Foulke de Breante is the name which French assigns to the prototype of Faulconbridge, accepting without question the conclusions of Steevens and Lloyd. On the authority of Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, French says that Foulke de Breante was a baron by tenure, one of the managers and disposers in King John's will, and also one of the noble persons named in the first great charter of Henry III. But all this merely tells us more in regard to Falcasius or Foulke; it has not given us any more valid reasons for identifying him with Faulconbridge. We must have grounds more relative than any so far presented.-MOBERLY, in a note on the first appearance of the name in the text, says that it is 'the anglicized form of "Falkenberg," much as "Bridgwater" is a corruption of "Burgh Walter." The family is not the same as that of Lord Fauconberg, Cromwell's son-in-law, which belonged to the North Riding of Yorkshire, and had the family name of Bellasys.' Again he says (Introd., p. xi.): 'Of the Faulconbridges of that time [the thirteenth century], one is recorded as having lost his estates for rebellion against King John, but having been restored by Henry III. Another may perhaps be the "Falco" of whom we read as "ravening like a lion” during John's expedition to Yorkshire. . . . Dugdale has no record of the time when the family settled in England.'-I regret that I am unable to identify Moberly's reference to the Faulconbridge who lost his estates in the time of King John; that name does not appear in the pages of Wendover, Paris, or Holinshed, but―surgit amari aliquid—can it be that the arch-traitor, free-booter, and villain, Falcasius de Breauté, is once more obtruding his unwelcome presence in borrowed robes? There is, however, a Eustachius de Faulconbridge mentioned by Stow (Survay of London, ed. 1618, p. 904) in that part of his work treating of the Spiritual Government under the year 1221, and Stow quotes Paris as his authority for calling Faulconbridge Treasurer of the Exchequor; in 1223 he was elevated to the see of London and-here is a curious coincidence-Stow says that Falcatius de Brent was delivered to the custody of Faulconbridge in 1224. Does not this somewhat militate against the suggestion that the name Faulconbridge is one formed from Falco de Brente or, rather, that one name suggested the other? Camden (Remains, p. 174) also alludes to this preferment of Eustachius from Treasurer to Bishop, and the name, in the margin, is there printed 'de Fauconberge'a corroboration, if one be needed, of Moberly's derivation of the name.—The original note by Steevens has, I fear, been submerged beneath this sea of historical data; let us return, therefore, to that point. As regards his other quotation Steevens |