The True Prince (27 page)

“Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Filling the beaks of sparrow and
finch
with false reports …”

The line Shakespeare wrote was “Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.” My change altered the rhythm, and Master Will would not be pleased. For the rest of the speech I made my hands talk, sketching “present danger” in the air as I flew across the stage in a fluttering of tongues.

“
Now
(pointing west) the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learned of me.
Now
from Rumor's tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true
wrongs.”

The audience held perfectly still as I whirled off, then erupted in applause. “Well spoke, Richard,” remarked John Heminges in passing. Master Shakespeare was adjusting his nightcap before his entrance as the ailing Earl of Northumberland; he lifted a finger and an eyebrow to indicate we must have a serious talk later. “Later” suited me—at the moment I would have been hard pressed to explain my rewriting the text. I only hoped it had done its work.

In a few moments, still wet from a hasty scrubbing, I slipped out the west door of the tiring room. The autumn breeze gilded my cheek like cold silver. Shivering in my cloak, I looked about but saw only a few beggars waiting patiently for the play to be done so they could work the theater crowd. A Yeoman Guard, in his red and yellow livery and steel helmet, paced slowly in my direction while peeling an orange. I glanced toward the river, where watermen had docked their
boats on the Paris Stairs. My chest was tightening with despair when Bartholomew Finch spoke behind me. “Well, what is it?”

I spun around to face the Yeoman, who had removed his helmet and was fanning himself with it, blowing the lock of red hair that had escaped from his leather hood.

“Thank God you came!” I gasped in relief.

“Small wonder, that. You were as broad as Cheapside. From the way you pointed I expected a whole flock of sparrows and finches to join me in my exodus.”

I was thanking God that he'd come to the theater that day; a dozen reasons might have kept him from it, though he was as eager as anyone to learn what Falstaff was up to. “Why are you dressed so?”

“I've been enlisted to guard the Lord Chamberlain's son.”

“Henry Brooke is here?”

“Aye,” he said patiently, “else I could not be guarding him here. I've been excused to relieve myself, but if you don't get on with it, he'll suspect I've fallen in.”

“It's about Kit Glover. Do you know he's accused of murder?”

“Aye,” he said, most carefully.

“Do you know who brought the accusation?”

He chewed and swallowed about a quarter of the orange.

“I did not come out to answer questions. Suppose you tell
me
somewhat.”

“All right.” I took a breath, knowing that what I was about
to say would make me his ally. “You must call off the constable somehow. Kit didn't do it. I know because I was with him when it happened.”

His only betrayal of surprise was that the waving helmet came to a halt and his eyes shifted, as though to make sure we were alone. “Speak fast and low.”

In few words, I told him of my walk to Cheapside with Kit, of Davy's appearance, of the chase he led, and how we found him at the bottom of the stairs.

Bartlemy nodded. “A vagrant found the body two days later. Witnesses swore they saw a boy in motley being chased by a tall pale fellow they recognized from the stage—just one fellow, so far as I've heard, not two.”

“There was a constable here earlier, asking questions about Kit's attack on the boy last spring. Is it possible he's being set up?”

“‘Set up'?” he repeated, with a sly inflection. “By whom?”

“Well … It's a long tale.”

“It always is.” He popped the last of the orange into his mouth and spoke around it. “I will talk my way free and meet you directly after the play. Where can we be private?”

My mind raced over possible places to meet. “I know— under the stage. No one will be there for this performance. If you come around to the back right corner, you may slip under it without being seen. But I can't stay long.”

“Ten minutes, no more,” said he, replacing his helmet. “And be prepared to tell me all.”

With that, he turned and strolled back toward the public entrance. Though his last words fell with an ominous ring, he left me in a more settled state, now that I had done something. True, it might turn out to be something I would regret, but at least half the weight was off my shoulders, and I could think about my part as Lady Percy. As I slipped back into the tiring room, Thomas Pope hitched up his stuffed belly and marched upon the stage with little Lawrence Bates in tow. The roar that greeted Sir John Falstaff's first appearance felt as solid as a clap on the back.

I knew the outcome, but as usual with a new play, the first performance was like seeing it for the first time. And see it I could; my main contribution was already over, and Lady Percy appeared only once. At the end I would help swell the cheering crowds of London, but between times lay a rare stretch of leisure for me to sit at the back of the musicians' gallery and watch the play.

Part Two begins much like the first. Though crippled by Hotspur's death, the rebellion is not yet put down. The king still frets over his son's wild ways, in spite of Hal's courage and loyalty on Shrewsbury Field. Falstaff has received a reward for “slaying” Hotspur and swaggers about London with his new clothes and his little page, chiseling money out of anyone foolish enough to lend to him.

He soon runs afoul of the Chief Justice of London, who wants to question him about the robbery on Gad's Hill. To make matters worse, Mistress Quickly has brought suit against him for money he owes. True to form, Sir John not only squirms out of the suit, but also cozens another ten pounds out of the lady. The justice likewise finds himself no match for Falstaff in a battle of wits, and so leaves the knight's correction to God. But he adds a judgment of his own: “Thou art a great fool.” (Boos and hisses followed the worthy gentleman off the stage.)

Prince Hal, meanwhile, is restless and troubled. The old reputation sheds harder than he thought, and the old ways still appeal to him. He resigns himself to the hope that events will prove him true: “Let the end try the man.” But when Poins suggests another trick to play on Falstaff, the prince goes along with it willingly enough.

He and Poins disguise themselves as ale servers to eavesdrop on a flirtation between Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, a lady of very common goods. (Gregory played much of this scene on Thomas Pope's lap and complained of having to pretend to kiss him behind a fan: “It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't eat boiled eels for breakfast.”) An old soldier named Pistol appears, whose heroic poses and bombastic speeches sound like a broad, comic echo of the late Hotspur—and since Will Sly was given this part, the comparison may have been intended.

But by now it was evident that Part Two had taken a
different tone than the first. It lacked a hero: Hotspur was slain, King Henry dying, Falstaff moaning to Doll, “I am old, I am old.”

“Rouse yourself then, you ton of flesh!” came a cry from the groundlings. As if in reply, Sir John was soon up to his old tricks.

Commissioned to raise a company of soldiers, he travels through the countryside drafting able-bodied farmhands— who promptly pay him off so they won't have to serve. Those who can't pay are the lame, the halt, and the unemployed; scarecrows so thin “they present no mark to the enemy.” While making his rounds, Sir John stops at the home of a friend from his school days, a country justice named Shallow. True to his name, this gentleman is a doddering old fool who thinks no deeper than his ale glass and whose favorite subject of conversation is his wild youth: “What days we have seen!”

“We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow,” Falstaff agrees—secretly plotting to milk this useful friend for every penny.

Meanwhile, King Henry feels death creeping upon him and fears for the kingdom once it falls into Hal's frivolous hands. While meeting with his advisors, the king falls into a swoon and must be carried to bed. Hal arrives to find his father in such a deep sleep that he appears to be dead. The prince carefully lifts the crown from a nearby pillow and sets it on his own head….

And for the first time I understood what both parts of this play were about: not loyalty to the crown, or glory in battle, or outwitting the law—it is about how a prince becomes a king, or how a boy becomes a man. And the hero of
Henry IV
is not King Henry IV or the lovable rogue Falstaff or the gallant, reckless Hotspur: it is Hal.

The king revives, but only long enough to make peace with his son and pronounce his blessing. Wild Prince Hal is now King Henry V.

But what sort of king? Everyone, from his brothers to his disgraceful companions, expect that the royal court will now be turned into the Boar's Head Tavern, with Mistress Quickly pouring sack at council meetings and Falstaff merrily hanging the Chief Justice. When word of the old king's death speeds to Justice Shallow's country house, Sir John believes his fortune is made. Hurrying back to London, he arrives just after the coronation at Westminster, in time to greet the new king's procession.

By this time I was out of the gallery and on the stage as a member of the cheering crowd. Augustine Phillips, resplendent in a coronation robe, marched solemnly down one side of the stage and across the front, followed closely by Richard Burbage as the Chief Justice. Phillips was one of the tallest players in the Company, but he seemed a very tower in this scene, as though stretching to reach the height of his crown. The two trumpets in the gallery blew a mighty fanfare worthy
of ten, as the groundlings cheered and tossed their caps in the air, becoming players as well as audience. Slowly King Henry V turned at the corner of the stage, then paced up the opposite

side, where Falstaff was shouting, “God save thy grace, King Hal; my royal Hal!” and Pistol chimed in, “The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!”

Though told to be silent, Sir John cried all the more: “My king! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart—”

“I know thee
not
, old man.” The king's cold, hard voice fell like an ax, chopping off their friendship. The house fell silent as he went on to compare his past life—the wild escapades, the witty word wars, the carefree drunken nights—all to a dream. Now he was awake. His former companions could expect a decent allowance from him, but they must not come within ten miles of his royal person—“on pain of death.”

Trumpets blaring, the king then paced off the stage as Falstaff remained—speechless for once, and the groundlings stricken with him. My own sympathies were confused. Surely King Henry V, if he meant to rule justly, could not be advised by the Boar's Head crowd; in cutting them off, he had done only as he must. But did he have to do it so cruelly, exposing his friend to public ridicule? Then again, it was the friend who had exposed himself, blinded by his own vanity. For all his cleverness, his wit, his endless invention in borrowing money, Falstaff was as great a fool as the Chief Justice had said.

Though they may have understood this, the audience did
not like it. When officers arrived to bear Sir John and his companions to Fleet Prison—in payment at last for the Gad's Hill robbery—boos and catcalls followed them off the stage.

“And that,” remarked Will Shakespeare ironically, “is my cue.” He walked onto the empty stage with a parchment in hand, then made three bows: one to his left, where the wealthiest patrons sat, one to the top gallery on the right, and the lowest and most sweeping to the house as a whole, taking in all classes as the noise gradually died.

He began his epilogue with an apology for Monday's “dis- pleasing play”: no doubt a peace offering to Henry Brooke. Then he went on to pray their patience for Part Two—almost as if he expected some displeasure over Falstaff's comedown. He promised to write another play about Henry V and restore everyone's good humor with the further antics of Sir John (not in any way related to John Oldcastle, “who died a martyr”). His little speech won the fickle crowd; their shouts and cheers rang in my head as I made my way to the trap door at the back of the tiring room. With no one about, I let myself through it and dropped to the packed earth below.

The players' dance had begun; rhythmic steps thumped the boards overhead as I slouched toward the near corner of the stage. Bartlemy had placed himself just outside the only patch of light; I had to look hard to see him, cross-legged on the sawdust with his back against a trestle, his Yeoman's tunic and helmet laid aside.

He spoke first. “A sorry end.”

It took me a moment to understand he was talking about the play. “But that's how it must end. How else could Hal become a great king?”

“He's a great hypocrite. ‘Reply to me not with a fool-born jest,' says he to Falstaff. Those fool-born jests were his very meat in the old days.”

“A king must live up to his calling.”

“I've heard of plenty who don't. And these ‘nobles,' so called, I know them firsthand. At least Fat Jack and his crew go about their thieving honestly, but gentlemen of the court mew and fawn over Her Majesty and snipe at each other like pug dogs behind her back— But enough of that.” He wiped his sleeve across his nose.

I gestured to the Yeoman's tunic. “Why is Henry Brooke going about with a guard now? Does he fear another robbery?”

His long face stretched even longer with annoyance. “Never mind what he fears. I'm wasted in this office. Tell me this: do you know aught about an unsigned message regarding a certain gentleman at court named Tewkesbury?” This took me by surprise, and my face gave me away. He slammed his fist on the ground. “I
knew
it. I was working out a likely doctrine of the crimes when your warning arrived. And my master insisted that we pay heed to it, even though it shot holes in
my
theme, and Henry Brooke suggested that since we could not even agree on our path, I might better serve him as a guard until we did—”