Falstaff

by Robert Nye

  Item, I will and require that it be known to all people present and for to come that where before this time while I dwelt and exercised in the wars in France, Normandy, Anjou, and Maine, as in Guinne, having under the King, my sovereign Lord, offices and governances of countries and places, as of castles, fortresses, cities and towns, for thirty years and more continued, by reason of which offices … … … many seals of my arms graven with my name written about … … … officers being in divers such places occupied under me, the seals and signets to seal safe-conducts and billets of safeguard, and other writings of justice belonging to such offices of war … … … and I believing that some of the foresaid seals of arms and signets on monuments, charters, deeds, letters patent, blank charters in parchment or paper, or other evidence forged and contrived without my knowledge or assent, might so be sealed against all conscience and truth and rightwiseness; and for these causes, and for fear of any inconvenience that might fall by this my writing, I certify for truth and affirm on my soul, I swear and protest that since I came last out of France and Normandy, nineteen years past, I never sealed writing of charge, use, or grant with any other seal of arms or signet than with this same seal of arms and signet affixed (to this my present will and my last testament). Wherefore I require all Christian people to give no faith nor credence to any private writing not openly declared nor proven in my lifetime, nor to blank charters sealed in my … … … whereof I remember well that one John Winter, Esquire, late my servant, had in keeping a blank letter in parchment ensealed under my seal, and never delivered it me again, but said he had lost it at his confession, as writing under his own hand makes mention or he did.

  Item, I will and ordain that my household be held and kept with my servants for the space of at least one half year after my death, so as they will be true to me (and obedient to my executor) and their wages for that time paid, and that in the meantime they purvey themselves for other service as they like best … … …; but if any servant be not well behaved and holds against my … … … (or against my executor) to break my good disposition, I will that he shall be removed, and that he abide no longer among the fel … … … truly avoided without any reward from me (or from my executor).

  Item, I will and ordain that amongst other lords, friends, and kinsmen that I desire, for the discharge of my conscience, be put in remembrance of prayers for the good affection I had towards them, and therefore to be prayed for, is the soul of that sweet prince (great King) my royal Hal (his Majesty King Henry V); also the souls of John Farewell, Squire, my stepfather; Dame Ophelia, my sweet stepsister; Dom William Fastolf, of my consanguinity, professed in the order of St Benedict in Ireland; Francis Pickbone, Esquire; George Barnes (Esquire); John Doit; John Sack (?), merchant of Black Paris, my trusty friend and servant; and of those yet living … … … (chiefly my well-beloved and right trusty stepson, Stephen Scrope, as aforesaid my sole executor in this world).

  Item, I will, ordain and straitly charge that no one shall sell, or cause to be sold, any part of my lands and tenements, jewels of gold or silver or of other kind, or any chattels, or any vessels, or any vestments of silk, linen, or woollen (or velvet), or any other utensil, to my person or to my household pertaining, nor any other goods of mine, movable or immovable, quick or dead, generally or specially, without … … … (the knowledge, pleasure, and assent of my singular executor, before named).

  Item, I will, I ordain, and I heartily desire, seeing that every mortal creature is subject to the limits or marks of mutability and changeableness, and any man’s life and living is a story of sins known only to God, therefore on the behalf of Almighty God, and by the way of an entire charity, I exhort, I beseech, and I pray all my (sole) executors, in the virtue of our Lord Jesu Christ, and in the virtue of the aspersion of His holy blood, shed out graciously for the salvation of all mankind, that for the more hasty deliverance of my soul from the painful flames of the fire of Purgatory, that in the following manner, in the year of my burying, after all my other bequests and endowments have been effected, they (he) divide(s) the sum of £14,066. 6s. 7d. (£140) into as many portions as there have been years of my life, and that the portions be taken into the streets of the City of London, and upon London Bridge, and given … … … (at the discretion and mercy of my sole executor, Stephen Scrope, Esquire).

  These are the articles, twenty-two in all, concerning the intent and purpose of my last will, now put into the hands of my executors, and which I pray, beseech, and charge them (him) entirely, faithfully, and straightly to execute, as they (he) will have help of God and of his holy Gospel. And so I require them (him) as wisdom, justice, and conscience to do for me as they (he) would I should do for them (him) in like case. In token and witness whereof, to this my last will, I, Sir John Fastolf, above … … …

  PS: and 2d for bread for the ducks on Thrigby Pond.

  * This document is printed from the original draft in William Worcester’s hand. Passages within brackets have been added by Stephen Scrope. Words and letters have been crossed out by Stephen Scrope. Dotted spaces represent mutilations in the manuscript.

  Chapter Ninety-Nine

  Sir John Fastolf’s confession to Friar Brackley*

  All Hallows’ Eve

  Bless me, father, for I have sinned.

  I confess to God almighty, to blessed Mary, ever-Virgin, to all the Saints, and to you, father, that I have sinned very much in thought, word, deed and omission, by my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault. Especially since my last confession, which was last Good Friday …

  I made up a fanciful account of my begetting and my birth, to the dishonour of my mother and my father. This was a sin of pride, father. I always delighted to imagine myself a giant. In fact, I am only a fat man.

  I told certain lies to my man Worcester, about the extent of my relations with two ladies of Windsor, out of lewd imagination, and out of boastfulness, and to excite him and impress him. On that same occasion, I insulted you, father, with a lewd joke, and by going on with the story of my imaginary excesses even when I knew you had come into the room and would be offended by the recital.

  I made up stories about my ancestors, again out of pride, and to prove to myself my own glory.

  I constructed a false mysticism upon the number seven.

  I have been many many times drunk.

  I have sometimes prayed carelessly.

  I have seven times broken the Church’s rule of fasting before receiving the Blessed Sacrament.

  I have used oaths, and taken God’s holy name in vain.

  I have sometimes used the practices of devotion out of ostentation.

  In my lifetime, I have failed to give alms according to my means. I do not and cannot justify this by mentioning that it is in my will and testament just made to leave Caister Castle and a good revenue of all my estates to Holy Mother Church. I have all my life found it easier to give to the dead than to the living, unless it was in moments of drunkenness and abandonment. Father, I have all my life found it easier to sin than to be good. I failed to keep resolutions which I had made, I disobeyed those in authority over me, I was discourteous to my servants, I found fault unfairly with those set under me, I have used abusive language to them and to others.

  Father, I struck my servant John Bussard in anger.

  Father, I have borne malice, and been sometimes spiteful in these memoirs I have written of my life. But mostly my sin in these has been again to consider myself a giant, a hero, when really I am only a fat old man, who was once a young man, and as self-indulgent then as now. I have been quarrelsome and refused to be reconciled with others. I have taken delight in hearing evil spoken of others. I have spoken evil myself, and made my secretaries write it down.

  I owe Mr Mumford for those three venison pasties. I was not going to pay him.

  Father, I unlawfully as you know, and for some time past, have felt carnal attraction towards my niece … But also, father, I have lied and made waking dreams about the same soul, to n
o harm to her person, no violation, but to the wicked excitement of those I made to believe the stories, and to write them down. All my life, father, all my long life, I have found lust easy, and love difficult. You know of my relations with my wife. It was because I loved her – so far as I can tell, before you, father, and before God, and before our Blessed Lady – that my necessary lust for her was not what she might well have wished it to be. I could waste my flesh on my whores in London, and there was one whore that I loved. But always, where love came into my dealings with women, there was a temptation for me to put them on a pedestal and to lose them. I cannot explain this. I do not wish to explain it. I am confessing to the sin of impure thoughts and impure deeds with myself alone, and in my imagination. Some of these impurities were cruel and perverse also.

  **** That time in Yarmouth …

  XXX Twice in this very castle.

  **** On the shore. The swans. By the Hundred River.

  **** Lies about my whole life. But try & explain: some true lies?

  Father …

  self-willed & obstinate …

  only myself sometimes, father – my great failing …

  Hal: ingratitude rankled. But my fault was …

  These are past sins, and already confessed and forgiven, glory be to our Lord Jesus Christ, but I mention them again, in this confession, since I have revisited in my imagination in these past one hundred days the times when those sins were committed.

  Father, I am a vain man, and conceited, and all through these memoirs I have sought, however curiously, the admiration of my secretaries and whoever should one day cast his eye upon them. These tricks were mostly through fictitious immodesties. I always cared to picture myself as a great man. I was only ever a fat man, father.

  I boasted that my member and my other parts were … But I am only the same as any other man – no more, no less. The same.

  I have been too fond of money …

  O father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son …

  make me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

  HAVE MERCY UPON ME, O LORD, FOR I AM WEAK.

  For these, and for all my past sins of drunkenness, and adultery, and lewdness, and theft, and above all my unconquerable pride (that demon, that deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins) – he bestrid my life – my Pride was like my belly – for these and for all my other sins which I cannot now remember, I am very sorry, firmly resolve not to sin again, and humbly ask pardon of God – and of you, father, penance and absolution … etc.

  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

  Amen.

  * This exists in the following notes in Fastolf’s own hand. It is not suggested that Fr Brackley broke the seal of the confessional.

  Chapter One Hundred

  About the death of Sir John Fastolf

  (7th Note by Stephen Scrope)

  All Saints’ Day

  He is dead!

  I told him what I had done.

  It killed him.

  The Devil is at long last dead.

  He talked a lot before he died.

  It made no sense.

  He said that he was someone called Arthur, and then he said something about a little girl in a linen basket. All stuff and nonsense.

  He is dead.

  ‘This world is a place of exile,’ he said.

  I asked him what he thought of my betrayal – of my refusal to write down the filth of his life.

  He gave me some answer that had nothing to do with what I had said.

  ‘Madam, my mother,’ he said, ‘forgive your son.’

  (His mother has of course been dead for more than half a century. I mention this rigmarole to demonstrate the way his wits wandered at the end.)

  I told him what I had done to the will only when I heard the death rattle begin, and knew that he could do nothing to prevent or alter it now.

  He cried out for water.

  Water! Him!!

  He cried out that he didn’t intend to be damned for any King’s son in Christendom.

  (I report the more amusing nonsense.)

  It was just between twelve and one, even at the turning of the tide.

  I watched him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers.

  (There were no flowers. I mean, he thought that he was playing with flowers.)

  He spoke of a plume of butterflies over his shoulder, and of running through cornfields, and suchlike sentimentalities.

  It was when I saw him smile upon his fingers’ ends, that I knew that it was safe to tell him, to kill him, to destroy him.

  ‘Stepfather,’ I said, ‘your sybil got it wrong.’

  And then I told him.

  His nose was as sharp as a pen.

  He begged me to wash him in wine.

  Of course, I did not.

  Then he cried out for his uncle to carry him along the shore.

  I told him that his uncle was long since clay.

  Then he babbled of green fields.

  Then he called out in a great voice:

  ‘Kyrie eleison.’

  Then he cried out:

  ‘Benedicite.’

  I told him that he blasphemed.

  He farted!

  (In the same breath that he cried out to God, he farted!)

  (Thus I knew he was a devil. But not the Devil. That was my mistake. He is a mortal devil. He can die. He is now dead.)

  He spoke of sun and moon and showers and dew and fire and heat and dews and frosts and ice and snow and light and darkness and seas and floods and whales and fowls and beasts and cattle and priests.

  Then, he pulled himself up on the bell-ropes that hang by his bedside, and he shouted out his own name. But the name choked in his throat and it sounded like:

  ‘Faust off!’

  He fell back in his pillows.

  I told him he owed God a death.

  He looked at me.

  I am sure that he could not see me. He has been blind for months. But he kept on staring at me.

  I told him that I had killed his rat.

  Then he said:

  ‘The fields are green. The woods are green.’

  Proving that he was mad, for it is winter, and All Saints Day.

  Then he said:

  ‘I can hear the chimes at midnight!’

  (But it was past midnight, as I tell you, and nearer to one o’clock.)

  He asked me to lay more clothes on his feet.

  I did not.

  Then he said nothing more, after that.

  And after a while I put my hand into the bed and felt his feet, and his feet were as cold as any stone.

  And then I felt to his knees, and his knees were as cold as any stone.

  And so upward and upward, and it was all as cold as any stone.

  I turned away.

  He was dead.

  I am sure, that he was dead.

  I, Scrope, write facts.

  I, Scrope, tell you the Truth.

  I, Scrope, say that it is a lie that I heard a voice like his, and that voice saying:

  ‘Remember me.’

  By Robert Nye

  The Late Mr Shakespeare

  Falstaff

  About the Author

  ROBERT NYE was born in London in 1939. His novels include Merlin, The Memoirs of Lord Byron, Mrs Shakespeare, and the award-winning Falstaff. A poet, journalist, and critic, he lives near Cork, in Ireland.

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  13 Charlotte Mews

  London W1T 4EJ

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2001.

  This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2012.

  Copyright © 1976 by ROBERT NYE

  The moral right the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in t
his publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1225–0