mostly place their historical sympathies with the party of the Red Rose, for no other reason, that we have ever been able to see, than that the House of Lancaster’s possession of the throne testified to the triumph of revolutionary principles; for that House was jealous of its power and cruel in the exercise of it, and was so far from being friendly to the people, that it derived its main support from the aristocracy, and was the ally of the Church in the harsh work of exterminating the Lollards.  The House of York, on the other hand, while it had, to use modern words, the legitimate right to the throne, was a popular House, and represented and embodied whatever there was then existing in politics that could be identified with the idea of progress.

The character of the troubles that existed between Henry IV. and his eldest son and successor, Shakspeare’s Prince Hal, is involved in much obscurity.  It used to be taken for granted that the poet’s Prince was an historical character, but that is no longer the case,—­Falstaff’s royal associate being now regarded in the same light in which Falstaff himself is regarded.  The one is a poetic creation, and so is the other.  Prince Henry was neither a robber nor a rowdy, but from his early youth a much graver character than most men are in advanced life.  He had great faults, but they were not such as are made to appear in the pages of the player.  The hero of Agincourt was a mean fellow,—­a tyrant, a persecutor, a false friend and a cruel enemy, and the wager of most unjust wars; but he was not the “fast” youth that he has been generally drawn.  He had neither the good nor the bad qualities that belong to young gentlemen who do not live on terms with their papas.  He was of a grave and sad temperament, and much more of a Puritan than a Cavalier.  It is a little singular that Shakspeare should have given portraits so utterly false of the most unpopular of the kings of the York family, and of the most popular of the kings of the rival house,—­of Richard III., that is, and of the fifth Henry of Lancaster.  Neither portrait has any resemblance to the original, a point concerning which the poet probably never troubled himself, as his sole purpose was to make good acting plays.  Had it been necessary to that end to make Richard walk on three legs, or Henry on one leg, no doubt he would have done so,—­just as Monk Lewis said he would have made Lady Angela blue, in his “Castle Spectre,” if by such painting he could have made the play more effective.  Prince Henry was a very precocious youth, and had the management of great affairs when he was but a child, and when it would have been better for his soul’s and his body’s health, had he been engaged in acting as an esquire of some good knight, and subjected to rigid discipline.  The jealousy that his father felt was the natural consequence of the popularity of the Prince, who was young, and had highly distinguished himself in both field and council, was not a usurper,