vered their opinions, he told them, he esteemed nothing so worthy to be preserved in it as Homer's Iliad. THEOBALD. "The Parliament-house." - Act III. Sc. 1. This parliament was held in 1426, at Leicester, though the author of this play has represented it to have been held in London. King Henry was now in the fifth year of his age. In the first parliament which was held in London, shortly after his father's death, his mother Queen Katherine brought the young king from Windsor to the metropolis, and sat on the throne of the parliament-house with the infant in her lap. MALONE. KING HENRY VI. (PART II.) . "Margery Jourdain."-Act I. Sc. 2. It appears from Rymer, that in the tenth year of Henry VI. Margery Jourdemayn, John Virley, clerk, and friar John Ashwell, were, on the 9th of May, 1433, brought from Windsor by the constable of the castle, to which they had been committed for sorcery, before the council at Westminster, and afterwards, by an order of council, delivered into the custody of the lord chancellor. The same day it was ordered by the lords of council, that whenever the said Virley and Ashwell should find security for their good behaviour, they should be set at liberty; and, in like manner, that Jourdemayn should be discharged, on her husband's finding security. This woman was afterwards burned in Smithfield. "A sand bag."-Act II. Sc. 3. DOUCE. As, according to the old laws of duel, knights were to fight with the lance and sword, so those of an inferior rank fought with an ebon staff or battoon, to the farther end of which was fixed a bag crammed hard with sand. - WARBURTON. "A cup of charneco."-Act II. Sc. 3. "Some drinking the neat wine of Orleance, some the Gascony, some the Bordeaux. There wanted neither sherry, sack, nor charneco, maligo, nor amber-coloured candy, nor liquorish ipocras, brown beloved bastard, fat Alicant, or any quick-spirited liquor."-THE BLACK DOG OF NEWGATE, 1612. "This knave's tongue begins to double." Act II. Sc. 3. Holinshed's account of this combat between the armourer and his man is curious:-" In the same yeare also, a certeine armourer was appeached of treason by a servant of his owne. For proofe whereof a daie was giuen them to fight in Smithfield, insomuch that in conflict the said armourer was overcome and slaine; but yet by misgouerning of himself. For on the morrow when he should have come to the field fresh and fasting, his neighbours came to him, and gaue him wine and strong drinke in such excessive sort, that he was therewith distempered, and reeled as he went; and so was slaine without guilte. As for the false servant, he liued not long." The original exchequer record of expenses attending the combat has been preserved, from whence it appears, that the armourer was not killed by his opponent, but conquered, and immediately afterwards hanged. The following is the last article in the account, and was struck off by the barons of the exchequer, because it contained charges unauthorised by the sheriffs :"Also paid to officers for watching of ye ded man in Smith-felde ye same day and ye nyght after yt ye battail was doon, and for hors hyre for ye officers at ye execution doying, and for ye hangman's labour xjs. vid. "Also paid for ye cloth yat lay upon ye ded man in Smyth-felde, viijd. Also paid for 1 pole and nayllis, and for settyng up of ye said mannys hedon London Brigge,vd.". 8. d. Sum, xij. vii. The sum total of expence incurred on this occasion was 101. 18s. 9d. - STEEVENS. "Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan." Act III. Sc. 2. Bulleine, in his Bulwarke of Defence against Sicknesse, speaking of mandragora, says, "They doe affyrme that this herbe cometh of the seede of some convicted dead men, and also without the death of some lyvinge thinge it cannot be drawne out of the earthe to man's use. Therefore they did tye some dogge or other lyvinge beaste unto the roote thereof with a corde, and digged the earthe in compasse round about, and in the meane tyme stopped their own eares for feare of the terreble shriek and cry of this mandrack. In whych cry it dothe not only dye itselfe, but the feare thereof kylleth the dogge or beast whych pullyth it out of the earth."-REED. "If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's treusure."-Act III. Sc. 3. In Hall's Chronicle, Beaufort's last moments are thus described :-" During these doyngs, Henry Beauford, byshop of Winchester, and called the riche cardynall, departed out of this worlde. This man was haut in stomach and hygh in countenance, ryche above measure of all men and to fewe liberal; disdaynful to his kynne, and dreadful to his lovers. His covetous insaciable and hope of long lyfe made him bothe to forgete God, his prynce, and himselfe, in his latter dayes; for Doctor John Baker his privie counsailer and his chapellayn wrote, that lying on his death-bed he said these words:-'Why should I dye, having so muche ryches? If the whole realme would save my lyfe, I am abell either by policie to get it, or by ryches to buy it. Fye, will not death be hired, nor will monye do nothing? When my nephew of Bedforde died, I thought myselfe half up the whele, but when I saw mine other nephew of Gloucester disceased, then I thought myselfe able to be equal with kinges, and so thought to increase my treasure, in hope to have worn a trypple croune. But I see now 'the worlde fayleth me, and so I am deceyved; praying you all to pray for me.' " MALONE. "The sea-shore near Dover." -Act IV. Sc. 1. "But fortune would not that this flagitious person (the duke of Suffolk) should so escape; for when he shipped into Suffolk, entendynge to be transported into France, he was encountered with a shippe of warre appertaining to the duke of Excester, the constable of the Towre of London, called the Nicholas of the Towre. The captain of the same bark, with small fight, entered into the duke's shyppe, and perceyving his person present, brought him to Dover rode, and there, on the one syde of a cockebote, caused his head to he stryken off, and left his body, with the head, upon the sandes of Dover; which corse was there found by a chapelayne of his, and conveyed to Wyngfielde college in Suffolke, and there buried." - HALL'S CHRONICLE. "The pissing-conduit run nothing but claret." Act IV. Sc. 6. This pissing-conduit was the standarde in Cheape, which, as Stowe relates, "John Wels, grocer, maior, 1430, caused to be made with a small cesterne for fresh water, having one cock continually running." RITSON. "Set London-bridge on fire."-Act IV. Sc. 6. At that time, London-bridge was made of wood. "After that," says Hall, "he entered London, and cut the ropes of the draw-bridge." In this rebellion, the houses on London-bridge were burnt, and many of the inhabitants perished.-MALONE. "This monument of the victory will I bear." Act IV. Sc. 5. "Kent. Iden's garden."-Act IV. Sc. 10. "Jack Cade, upon his victory against the Staf"A gentleman of Kent, named Alexander Eden, fords, apparelled himself in Sir Humphrey's brigan-awaited so his time, that he took the said Cade, in dine, set full of gilt nails, and so in some glory re- a garden in Sussex, so that there he was slaine at turned again towards London."-HOLINSHED. Hothfield." - HOLINSHED. KING HENRY VI. (PART III.) "Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas." Act I. Sc. 1. The person here meant was Thomas Nevil, bastard son to the Lord Faulconbridge; "aman," says Hall, " of no less corage than audacitie, who for his euel condicions was such an apte person, that a more meter could not be chosen to set all the worlde in a broyle, and to put the estate of the realme on an yl hazard." He was appointed by Warwick vice-admiral, and had in charge to keep the passage between Dover and Calais. On Warwick's death he fell into poverty, and robbed, both by sea and land, from friends and foes. He once brought his ships up the Thames, and made a spirited attack on the city. After a roving life, he ventured to land at Southampton, where he was taken and beheaded. RITSON. "Is he dead already? Or is it fear That makes him close his eyes." -Act I. Sc. 3. "Whilst this battail was fighting, a priest called Sir Robert Aspall, chappellaine and schole-master to the yonge erle of Rutlande, ii sone to the abovenamed duke of York, scarce of the age of xii yeres, a fair gentleman, and a maydenlike person, percyving that flyght was more safe-gard than tarrying both for hym and his master, secretly conveyed the "Putting a paper crown on his head."-Act I. Sc. 4. "Some write that the duke was taken alive, and, in derision, caused to stand upon a mole-hill; on whose head they put a garlande instead of a crowne, which they had fashioned and made of segges or bulrushes; and "having so crowned him with that garlande, they kneeled downe afore him, as the Jews did to Christe in scorne, saying to him, Hayle king without rule, hayle king without heritage, hayle duke and prince without people or posses sions.' And, at length, having thus scorned him with these and dyverse other the like despiteful woordes, they strooke off his head, which (as ya have heard) they presented to the queen." HOLINSHED "Off with his head, and set it on York gates; So York may overlook the town of York." Act I. Sc. 4. "Sir John Grey." -Act III. Sc. 2. Sir John Grey is here stated to have died fighting for the house of York, than which nothing can be This gallant prince fell by his own imprudence, mon more opposed to truth. He fell in the second battle in consequence of leading an army of only five of St. Albans, which was fought on Shrove-Tuesday, thousand men to engage with twenty thousand. He Feb. 17, 1460, fighting on the side of King Henry. and Cicely his wife, with his son Edmond, earl of In Richard III. the manner of his death is truly stated. MALONE. Rutland, were originally buried in the chancel of Foderingay church, and (as Peacham informs us in his Complete Gentleman, 1627,) "when the chancel, in that furie of knocking churches and sacred monuments in the head, was also felled to the ground," they were removed into the church-yard; and afterwards "lapped in lead; they were buried in the church, by the commandment of Queen Elizabeth, and a mean monument of plaister, wrought with the trowel, erected over them, very homely, and far unfitting so noble princes. I remember," adds the same author, "master Creuse, a gentleman and my worthy friend, who dwelt in the college at the same time, told me, that their coffins being opened, their bodies appeared very plainly to be discerned, and withal, that the Duchess Cicely had about her necke, hanging in a silken ribbande, a pardon from Rome, which, penned in a very fine Roman hand, was as faire and freshe to be reade, as it had been written yesterday." MALONE. "Do I see three suns?" -Act II. Sc. 1. "At which tyme the son (as some write) appeared to the erle of Marche like three sonnes, and sodainely joyned altogither in one; upon whiche sight hee tooke such courage, that he, fiercely setting on his enemyes, put them to flight; and for this cause mene ymagined that he gave the son in his full brightnesse for his badge or cognisance." "I was not ignoble of descent."-Act IV. Sc. 1. Lady Elizabeth, Edward IV.'s queen, was the daughter of Sir Richard Widville, afterwards earl of Rivers; her mother was Jaqueline, duchess dowager of Bedford, who was daughter to Peter of Luxemburgh, earl of St. Paul, and widow of John, duke of Bedford, the brother of Henry V. MALONE. "This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss." Act IV. Sc. 6. When Richmond, whose future grandeur is here prophecied, became king, his gratitude to Henry VI. for this early presage in his favour, made him solicit Pope Julius to canonize him as a saint; but either Henry VII. would not pay the money demanded, or, as Bacon supposes, the pope refused, lest "as Henry was reputed in the world abroad but as a simple man, the estimation of that kind of honour might be diminished, if there were not a distance kept between innocents and saints." MALONE. During the contest between the houses of York and Lancaster, sixteen battles were fought, and upwards of ninety thousand persons were slain. This carnage, though considerable, sinks into insignificance when we remember the battles of Moskwa, HOLINSHED. Leipsic, and Waterloo. KING RICHARD III. "He hearkens after prophecies and dreams." Act I. Sc. 1. "Some have reported, that the cause of this nobleman's death (the duke of Clarence) rose of a foolish prophecie, which was, that after King Ed. ward should raigne one whose first letter of his name should be a G; wherewith the king and the queen were sore troubled, and began to conceive a grievous grudge against this duke, and could not be quiet till they had brought him to his end."-HOLINSHED. Some historians say, that when Clarence endeavoured to obtain in marriage Mary, the daughter and heiress of the duke of Burgundy, his brother, King Edward, was displeased, because he wished to anite that lady with Rivers, the queen's brother; and in this way the breach between the brothers has been explained.-MALONE. "See! dead Henry's wounds, Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh." It is a tradition very generally received, that the murdered body bleeds on the touch of the murderer. This was so much believed by Sir Kenelm Digby, that he has endeavoured to explain the cause. JOHNSON. "Pattern of thy butcheries."-Act I. Sc. 2. "The dead corps, on the Ascension even, was conveied with bills and glaives, pompouslie (if you will call that a funeral pompe) from the Tower to the church of Saint Paule, and there laid on a beire or coffin bare-faced; the same in the presence of the beholders, did bleed, where it rested the space of one whole daic. From thence he was carried to the Blackfriars, and bled there likewise." HOLINSHED. "Crosby-place." Act I. Sc. 2. Crosby-place is now Crosby-square, in Bishopsgatestreet; part of the house is yet remaining, and is a meeting-place for a presbyterian congregation. This magnificent mansion was built in the year 1466, by Sir John Crosby, grocer and woolman. Sir J. Crosby's tomb is in the neighbouring church of St. Helen the Great. - STEEVENS. "The Countess Richmond."-Act I. Sc. 3 Margaret, daughter to John Beaufort, first duke of Somerset, after the death of her first husband, Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, half-brother to King Henry VI., by whom she had only one son, afterwards King Henry VII.; she married next Sir [KING RICHARD III. Henry Stafford, uncle to Humphrey, duke of Buck- union terminated the long and bloody contest beingham. MALONE. tween the houses of York and Lancaster. - MALONE. KING HENRY VIII. "Wert thou not banished on pain of death?" Act I. Sc. 3. Margaret fled into France after the battle of Hexham, in 1464, and Edward thereupon issued a proclamation, prohibiting any of his subjects from aiding her to return, or harbouring her, should she revisit England. On the 14th of April, 1471, she landed at Weymouth. After the battle of Tewksbury, in the same year, she was confined in the Tower, where she continued till 1475, when she was ransomed by her father, Regnier, and removed to France, where she died in 1482. The present scene is in 1477, so that her appearance here is a mere poetical fiction.-MALONE. "Your brother Gloster hates you."-Act I. Sc. 4. Gloster hated Clarence, because he would not share with him that moiety of the estate of the great earl of Warwick, to which Gloster was entitled on his marriage with the younger sister of the duchess of Clarence, Lady Ann Nevill, who had been betrothed to Edward, prince of Wales. This seems proved by a letter from Sir John Paston to his brother, dated Feb. 14, 1471:-" Yesterday, the king, the queene, my lords of Clarence and Gloster, went to Shene to pardon; men say, not all in charity. The king entreateth my lord of Clarence for my lord of Gloster; and as it is said, he answereth, that he may well have my lady his sister-in-law, but they shall part no livelihood, as he saith; so what will fall can I not say." - MALONE. "Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber." Act III. Sc. 1. London was anciently called Camera Regis. So, in Heywood's If you know not Me, you know Nobody, 1633:-"This city, our great chamber." POPE. "Enter Buckingham."-Act III. Sc. 2. The jesting remarks here given to Buckingham were really made by Sir Thomas Howard, afterwards introduced in this play as earl of Surry. "The same morning ere he (Hastings) were up from his bed, where Shore's wife lay with him all night, there came to him Sir Thomas Haward [Howard], sonne to the Lord Howard, as it were of courtesie, to accompaignie him to the counsaill; but forasmuche as he the Lord Hastings was not readie, he taried awhile for him, and hasted him away. This Sir Thomas, while the Lord Hastings stayed awhile communyng with a priest whom he met in the Tower strete, broke the lord's tale, saying to him merrily, 'What, my lord, I pray you come on, wherefore talke you so long with the priest? you have no nede of a priest yet; and laughed upon him, as though he would saye, you shall have nede of one soone." Continuation of HARDING'S CHRONICLE. "Bishop of Ely."-Act III. Sc. 4. Dr. John Morton, elected bishop of Ely in 1478, advanced to the see of Canterbury in 1486, appointed lord-chancellor in 1487, died in 1500. Не deserves the gratitude of posterity as having first suggested a narriage between Henry VII. and Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV., which "Put to death a citizen." -Act III. Sc. 5. This person was one Walker, a substantial citizen and grocer, at the Crown, in Cheapside.-GREY. "Baynard's castle."-Act III. Sc. 5. It was originally built by Baynard, a nobleman, who, according to Stowe, came in with the Conqueror. This edifice, which stood in Thames-street, has long been pulled down, though part of its strong foundations are still visible at low water. The site of it is now a timber-yard.-STEEVENS. "Doctor Shaw." -Act III. Sc. 5. Shaw and Penker were two popular preachers. Instead of a pamphlet being published to furnish the advocates of the administration with plausible arguments on great political measures, it was formerly usual to publish the court-creed from the pulpit at Saint Paul's cross. As Richard now employed Doctor Shaw to support his claim to the crown, so about fifteen years before, the great earl of Warwick employed his chaplain, Doctor Goddard, to convince the people that Henry VI. ought to be restored, and that Edward IV. was an usurper. MALONE. "The brats of Clarence." -Act III. Sc. 5. Edward, earl of Warwick, who, after the battle of Bosworth, was sent, by Richmond, to the Tower, without even the shadow of an allegation against him, and executed, with equal injustice, on Towerhill, Nov. 21, 1499; and Margaret, afterwards married to Sir Richard Pole, the last princess of the house of Lancaster, who was restored to her honours in the fifth year of Henry VIII. and in the thirtyfirst year of his reign (1540), at the age of 70, was put to death by that sanguinary tyrant. The immediate cause of Warwick's being put to death was, that the king of Spain would not marry his daughter Katherine to Arthur, prince of Wales, during his life-time. This murder (for it deserves no other name) made such an impression on Katherine, that when she was informed of Henry's intention to repudiate her, she exclaimed, "I have not offended, but it is a just judgment of God, for my first marriage was made in blood." - MALONE. "With his contract with Lady Lucy."-Act III. Sc.7. The king had been familiar with this lady before his marriage, to obstruct which, his mother alleged a precontract between them:-" Whereupon dame Elizabeth Lucy was sent for, and albeit she was by the kyng his mother, and many other, put in goode comfort to affirme that she was assured to the kynge, yet when she was solemnly sworn to saye the truth, she confessed she was never ensured. Howbeit, she sayd his grace spake such lovyinge wordes to her, that she verily hoped he woulde have married her, and that yf suche kinde wordes had not bene, she would never have shewed such kindnesse to hym to let hym so kyndely gette her with chylde." HALL'S CHRONICLE "O would to God, that the inclusice verge regicide, or any other egregious criminal, by placing a crown of iron, heated red hot, upon his head. MALONE. "The earldom of Hereford."-Act IV. Sc. 2. Shakspeare makes Richard refuse to grant the Hereford estate to Buckingham, and their quarrel is the consequence in the tragedy. This is contrary to the truth of history. Buckingham actually obtained from Richard III., when he usurped the throne, the earldom of Hereford, and the office of constable of England, which had long been annexed by inheritance to that earldom.-MALONE. "Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George, Be executed." Act V. Sc. 3. "The Lord Stanley lodged in the same town (Stafford), and hearing that the earle of Richmond was marching thitherward, gave to him place, dislodging him and his to avoide all suspicion, being afraide least being seen openly to be a factor or ayder to the earle, his son-in-law, before the day of battyle, that King Richard, which yet not utterly put him in diffidence and mistrust, would put to some evil death his son and heir-apparent.” HOLINSHED. "Butcher's cur." -Act I. Sc. 1. When the duke of Buckingham's death was reported to the Emperor of Charles V., he said, "The first buck of England was worried to death by a butcher's dog."-STEEVENS. "The duke being at the rose."-Act I. Sc. 2. This house was purchased about the year 1561, by Richard Hill, sometime master of the MerchantTailors' Company, and is now the Merchant-Tailors' School, in Suffolk-lane.-WHALLEY. "Leave these remnants Of fool, and feather." Act I. Sc. 3. "At that time (in the court of Henry VIII.) I was no common squire, no under-trodden torchbearer; I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop, my French doublet gelt in the belly, as though (like a pig readie to be spitted,) all my guts had been plucked out; a paire of side-paned hose that hung down like two scales filled with Holland cheeses; my long stock that sate close to my dock, my rapier pendent like a round sticke, &c.; my blacke cloake of black cloth, ouerspreading my backe, lyke a thornbacke on an elephant's eare; and in consummation of my curiositie, my handes without gloves, all a more French." NASHE'S LIFE OF JACKE WITTON, 1594. "Enter the King, and twelve others, as maskers." Act I. Sc. 4. "Before the king began to dance, they requested leave to accompany the ladies at mumchance. Leave being granted, then went the masquers and first saluted all the dames, and then returned to the most worthiest, and then opened the great cup of gold, filled with crownes and other pieces, to cast at. Thus perusing all the gentlewomen, of some they wonne, and to some they lost. And having viewed all the ladies, they returned to the cardinal with great reverence, pouring downe all their gold, which was above two hundred crowns. At all, quoth the cardinal, and casting the die, he won it; whereat was made great joy." CAVENDISH'S LIFE OF WOLSEY. "I were unmannerly to take you out, And not to kiss you." Act I. Sc. 4. A kiss was anciently the established fee of a lady's partner. So, in A Dialogue between Custom and Veritie, on the Use and Abuse of Dauncing and Minstrelsie, no date, "Imprinted at London, at the The king, on being discovered, and desired by Wolsey to take his place, said that he would "first go and shift him; and, thereupon, went into the cardinal's bed-chamber, where was a great fire prepared for him, and there he new appareled himself with riche and princelie garments. And in the king's absence the dishes of the banquet were cleane taken away, and the tables covered with new and perfumed clothes. Then the king took his seat under the cloath of estate, commanding every person to sit still as before; and then came in a new bar quet before his majestie of two hundred dishes, and so they passed the night in banqueting and dancing till morning." CAVENDISH'S LIFE OF WOLSEY. "Norfolk opens a folding door: the king is discovered sitting, and reading pensively." -Act II. Sc. 2. The stage direction in the old copy is a singular one. "Exit lord chamberlain, and the King draws the curtain, and sits reading pensively;" and it will enable us to ascertain precisely the state of the theatre in Shakspeare's time. When a person was to be discovered in a different apartment from that in which the original speakers in the scene are exhibited, the method was to place such person in the back part of the stage, behind the curtains which were, occasionally, suspended across it. These the person who was to be discovered (as Henry, in the present case) drew back just at the fit moment. Rowe, looking no further than the modern stage, changed the direction thus:-"The scene opens and discovers the king," &c., but besides the folly of introducing scenes when there were none, such an exhibition would be improper, for Norfolk has just said, "Let's in," and, therefore, should himself do some act in order to visit the king. This, indeed, in the simple state of the old stage, was not attended to; the king, very civilly, discovering himself." MALONE. 1 |