Again when Shakespeare treats of the history of England from thefourteenth to the sixteenth centuries,it is wonderful how carefulhe is to have his facts perfectly right -indeed he followsHolinshed with curious fidelity.The incessant wars between Franceand England are described with extraordinary accuracy down to thenames of the besieged towns,the ports of landing and embarkation,the sites and dates of the battles,the titles of the commanders oneach side,and the lists of the killed and wounded.And as regardsthe Civil Wars of the Roses we have many elaborate genealogies ofthe seven sons of Edward the Third;the claims of the rival Housesof York and Lancaster to the throne are discussed at length;and ifthe English aristocracy will not read Shakespeare as a poet,theyshould certainly read him as a sort of early Peerage.There ishardly a single title in the Upper House,with the exception ofcourse of the uninteresting titles assumed by the law lords,whichdoes not appear in Shakespeare along with many details of familyhistory,creditable and discreditable.Indeed if it be reallynecessary that the School Board children should know all about theWars of the Roses,they could learn their lessons just as well outof Shakespeare as out of shilling primers,and learn them,I neednot say,far more pleasurably.Even in Shakespeare's own day thisuse of his plays was recognised.'The historical plays teachhistory to those who cannot read it in the chronicles,'saysHeywood in a tract about the stage,and yet I am sure thatsixteenth-century chronicles were much more delightful reading thannineteenth-century primers are.
Of course the aesthetic value of Shakespeare's plays does not,inthe slightest degree,depend on their facts,but on their Truth,and Truth is independent of facts always,inventing or selectingthem at pleasure.But still Shakespeare's use of facts is a mostinteresting part of his method of work,and shows us his attitudetowards the stage,and his relations to the great art of illusion.
Indeed he would have been very much surprised at any one classinghis plays with 'fairy tales,'as Lord Lytton does;for one of hisaims was to create for England a national historical drama,whichshould deal with incidents with which the public was wellacquainted,and with heroes that lived in the memory of a people.
Patriotism,I need hardly say,is not a necessary quality of art;but it means,for the artist,the substitution of a universal foran individual feeling,and for the public the presentation of awork of art in a most attractive and popular form.It is worthnoticing that Shakespeare's first and last successes were bothhistorical plays.
It may be asked,what has this to do with Shakespeare's attitudetowards costume?I answer that a dramatist who laid such stress onhistorical accuracy of fact would have welcomed historical accuracyof costume as a most important adjunct to his illusionist method.
And I have no hesitation in saying that he did so.The referenceto helmets of the period in the prologue to HENRY THE FIFTH may beconsidered fanciful,though Shakespeare must have often seenThe very casque.
That did affright the air at Agincourt,where it still hangs in the dusky gloom of Westminster Abbey,alongwith the saddle of that 'imp of fame,'and the dinted shield withits torn blue velvet lining and its tarnished lilies of gold;butthe use of military tabards in HENRY THE SIXTH is a bit of purearchaeology,as they were not worn in the sixteenth century;andthe King's own tabard,I may mention,was still suspended over histomb in St.George's Chapel,Windsor,in Shakespeare's day.For,up to the time of the unfortunate triumph of the Philistines in1645,the chapels and cathedrals of England were the great nationalmuseums of archaeology,and in them were kept the armour and attireof the heroes of English history.A good deal was of coursepreserved in the Tower,and even in Elizabeth's day tourists werebrought there to see such curious relics of the past as CharlesBrandon's huge lance,which is still,I believe,the admiration ofour country visitors;but the cathedrals and churches were,as arule,selected as the most suitable shrines for the reception ofthe historic antiquities.Canterbury can still show us the helm ofthe Black Prince,Westminster the robes of our kings,and in oldSt.Paul's the very banner that had waved on Bosworth field washung up by Richmond himself.
