selected as one of the illustrations of our history in the House of
Lords. Frequent allusion is made to it in the play. Falstaff's page says
to his master, on seeing the Chief Justice:

"Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for
striking him about Bardolph."

And Falstaff in the same scene thus addresses Gascoigne:

"For the box of the ear that the prince gave you,--he gave it
like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
checked him for it, and the young lion repents."

And Gascoigne, when Henry refers to the incident in these words:

"How might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
The immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?"

thus justifies himself to the king:

"I then did use the person of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me:
And in the administration of his law,
Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
Your highness pleased to forget my place,--
The majesty and power of law and justice,
The image of the king whom I presented,--