| The 4th Earl of Douglas is represented in William Shakespeare‘s Henry IV, Part 1 from the defeat at Homildon to his release following the Battle of Shrewsbury. Douglas also appears as a character in Edith Pargeter‘s 1972 novel A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury from his defeat and capture at Homildon through his participation at Shrewsbury on the rebels’ side.
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Archibald, Earl of Douglas is a creation that adds wonderful force to the scene, and aids in giving dignity and relief both to the king and to Hotspur. There is somewhat barbarous and uncivilized in his traits that speaks of a nation remoter from refinement than Northumberland. He asserts and dwells upon his own boldness with as little delicacy as he imputes fear and cold heart to Worcester, and is more petulant and inconsiderate in urging on the battle prematurely than Hotspur himself.
Brave and most efficient he is as a soldier even to excite the enthusiastic admiration of his ally, but when he finds himself overmatched he runs away without hesitation, though it be to look for an opponent he can better cope with, and in the rout he is captured by most undignified catastrophe: “upon the foot of fear fled with the rest,”the hero who professed that the word fear was unknown in Scotland: “ And falling from a hill he was so bruised This accident is historical, like his military renown, and in the seeming incongruity Shakespeare found the key of the character. The Douglas of this play always reminds me of the Ares of the Iliad — a coarse exponent of the mere animal propensity to pugnacity, delighting in the circumstances, of homicide, but when pierced by the spear of Diomed, hastily flying from the conflict and bellowing aloud.— LLOYD, Critical Essay |
