hich took place in the fifteenth century, and which was, its
consequences as well as its course considered, the greatest civil
war that has ever afflicted Christendom. The movement that led to the
elevation of Henry of Holingbroke to the throne, though not precisely
a palace-revolution, resembles a revolution of that kind more than
anything else with which it can be compared; and it was as emphatic
a departure from the principle of hereditary right as can be found in
history. So much was this the case, that liberals in polities 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 king