he could have sene soudenly by miracle, the dyfference betwene divers colours, yet coulde he not by the syght so sodenly tell the names of all these colours, but if he had knowen them before, no more than the names of al the men that he should sodenly se."

(3) SCENE III.—Enter, on one side, Horner, &c.] The stage direction of "The Contention" is amusing:-"Enter at one doore the Armourer and his neighbours, drinking to him so much that he is drunken, and he enters with a drum before him, and his staffe with a sand-bag fastened to it, and at the other doore, his Man with a drum and sand-bagge, and Prentises drinking to him."

(4) SCENE III.-Peter strikes down his master.] In our illustration of the trial by battle between the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk ("Richard the Second," Act I. Sc. 3), the combat represented in this play was especially referred to. In the former instance the duello takes place between noblemen of the first rank, in the present betwixt two persons of the lowest degree, but in both the parties are each other's equals, and in both the combat springs from an accusation of treason, which, with the appeal of murder, was always submitted to be a valid cause for permitting the Wager of Battle. The cases in question were thus far parallel, and even in the ceremonial proper to each, though widely different in the scene of action, and the habits and weapons of the combatants, there was a marked degree of similarity. The event here introduced took place early in December, 1446, and was the second appeal of treason made in that year, for which the Trial by Battle was appointed. The Prior of Kilmaine had appeached the Earl of Ormond, and "for trial thereof," says Fabian, "the place of battaill was assigned in Smithfield, and the barriers for the same there readie pight. In which meane tvme a Doctour of Divinitie, named Master Gilbert Worthington, Parsone of Saint Andrews in Holborne, and other good menne, made soche labour to the kynges counsaill, that when the daie of battaill approched, the quarell was taken into the kynges hande and there ended." The same author also records the Appeal of Treason represented in the present drama; and he, in all probability, as Mr. Douce conjectured, was Shakespeare's authority for the incident. In his Chronicle there is a blank space left for the name of the armourer, which is supplied by Holinshed. "The real names of these combatants," Mr. Douce observes, "were John Daveys and William Catour, as appears from the original precept to the sheriffs, still remaining in the Exchequer, commanding them to prepare the barriers in Smithfield for combat. The names of the sheriffs were Godfrey Boloyne and Robert Horne; and the latter, which occurs on the page of Fabian's Chronicle that records the duel, might have suggested the name of Horner to Shakespeare." The fol

lowing is Fabian's narrative, by which it will be seen that the poet has historical authority for exhibiting the armourer as overcome by intoxication, though he appears to have deviated from it in making him "confess treason:' -"In this yere an armurer named. . . . was appeched of treason by a servaunte of his owne : for triall whereof a daie to them was given to fight in Smithfield. At which daie of battaill the saied armurer was overcomen and slain, and that by the misguiding of himself: for upon the morowe when he should come to the fielde, his neighbours came to him, and gave unto him so moche wine and good ale, that he was therewithe distempered, that he reeled as he went, and so was slaine without gilt. But that false servaunt lived not longe unpunished, for he was after hanged for felony at Tiburne." In the volume of "Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Antient Times in England," published by Nichols, will be found the Exchequer record of the items and charges for erecting the barriers and preparing the field for this duello, amounting to £10 18s. 9d. These works occupied about a week; the barriers were brought in nine carts from Westminster, and the ground was cleared of snow, and strewed with rushes and 168 loads of sand and gravel. The account is closed with some items partly disallowed by the Barons of the Exchequer, showing that however innocent the vanquished armourer really might have been, his body was treated as that of a traitor:-"Paid to Officeres for watching of ye ded man in Smythfelde, yo same daye and ye nyghte aftyr that the bataill was doon; and for hors hyre for the Officeres at the execution doying; and for the hangmans labour,-11s. 6d. Also paid for ye cloth yat lay upon ye ded man in Smythfelde -8d. Also paid for 1 pole and nayllis and setting up of ye manny's hed on London bridge-8d."

It is not so easy to ascertain the source whence Shake. speare derived the costume of these combatants, as it was in the case of the important personages who fought in "Richard the Second." No one of the Chronicles notices the "staff with a sand-bag fastened to it," with which Horner and Peter were to settle their differences. The weapons proper to civil persons under the rank of gentlemen, and in a case of felony, were batons of an ell in length, tipped with horn at each end, but without any iron; and square targets covered with leather. The sandbags appear to have been attached to the batons only when the combat was assigned on a Writ of Right; which became, as Blackstone regards it, a species of cudgelplaying, the end of which was not the death of either party, but only a manifest superiority of skill. Any nico distinction as to the peculiar weapons appointed by the legal character of appeal was not to be expected in Shakespeare, especially as such disputes commonly related to questions of property, and not to criminal accusations.

ACT

(1) SCENE I.-Caper upright like a wild Morisco.] There can be little doubt that upon the first introduction of the Moorish dance, or as it soon became corrupted Morris dance, the performers endeavoured, by the wildness of their gestures, by colouring their faces, and by assuming a costume which resembled that of Africa, to imitate as nearly as they could the actions and appearance of the native dancers. One peculiarity which has been already noticed (see Illustrative Comments to "All's Well that Ends Well," p. 55), and which lasted in this country as long as the Morris dance itself, was that of the dancers hanging bells about their knees, and sometimes their arms also; hence the allusion in the text to the shaking his bells. From some passages in our old writers, it is evident also, that in imitation of the original dancers, they were once in the habit of bearing swords, which they shook and probably clashed with vehemence, as they became ex

III.

cited by the motion, the noise they made, and by the plaudits of the spectators :-"There are other actions of dancing used, as of those who are represented with weapons in their hands going round in a ring capering skilfully, shaking their weapons after the manner of the Morris, with divers actions of meeting."-HAYDOCKE'S Translation of Lomazzo, on Painting, 1598.

(2) SCENE II.-Enter certain Murderers, hastily.] The stage direction in the folio 1623 is :-"Enter two or three, running over the stage, from the murder of Duke Humphrey ;" but from that in the earlier version of the play,

The Contention," it is evident the murder was represented to the audience in dumb show:-" Then the Curtaines being drawne, Duke Humphrey is discovered in his bed, and two men lying on his brest, and smothering him in his bed. And then enter the Duke of Suffolke to them."

(3) SCENE II.—

It cannot be but he was murder'd here;
The least of all these signs were probable.]

It is instructive and interesting also to observe the care with which this terrible picture was elaborated from what we believe to have been Shakespeare's first rough design of it in "The Contention :"

"WAR. Oft have I seene a timely parted ghost,

Of ashie semblance, pale and bloodlesse,

But loe the blood is setled in his face,

More better coloured then when he liv'd,

His well proportioned beard made rough and sterne,
His fingers spred abroad as one that graspt for life,
Yet was by strength surprisde, the least of these are pro-
bable,

It cannot chuse but he was murthered."

An eminent medical authority makes the following observation upon the poet's description of Gloucester's death:

My readers will smile, perhaps, to see me quoting Shakespeare among physicians and theologists; but not one of all their tribe, populous though it be, could describe so exquisitely the marks of apoplexy, conspiring with the struggles for life, and the agonies of suffocation, to deform the countenance of the dead: so curiously does our poet present to our conceptions all the signs from which it might be inferred that the good duke Humfrey had died a violent death."-BELL'S Principles of Surgery, 1815. ii. 557.

(4) SCENE III.—

Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;
And let us all to meditation.]

Every circumstance connected with a scene so universally admired as this commands attention, and no apology therefore need be offered for the introduction here of Shakespeare's original version of it as it stands in the old "Contention," or of the passage from the Chronicles on which it appears to have been based :

"Enter King and Salsbury, and then the Curtaines be drawne, and the Cardinall is discovered in his bed, raving and staring as if he were madde.

CAR, Oh death, if thou wilt let me live but one whole yeare,
Ile give thee as much gold as will purchase such another
iland.

KING. Oh see my Lord of Salsbury how he is troubled.
Lord Cardinall, remember Christ must save thy soule.

CAR. Why died he not in his bed?

What would you have me to do then?

Can I make men live whether they will or no?

Sirra, go fetch me the strong poison which the Pothicary

sent me.

Oh see where Duke Humphreys ghoast doth stand,
And stares me in the face. Looke, looke, coame downe
his haire,

So now hees gone againe: Oh, oh, oh.

SAL. See how the panges of death doth gripe his heart. KING. Lord Cardinall, if thou diest assured of heavenly blisse, Hold up thy hand and make some signe to us. [The Cardinall dies. Oh see he dies, and makes no signe at all.

Oh God forgive his soule.

SALE. So bad an ende did never none behold,
But as his death, so was his life in all.

KING. Forbeare to iudge, good Salsbury forbeare,
For God will iudge us all.

Go take him hence, and see his funerals be performde.
[Exet omnes.

The account in Hall, which in all probability suggested the scene, is as follows:-"During these doynges, Henry Beaufford, byshop of Wynchester, and called the ryche Cardynall, departed out of this worlde, and was buried at Wynchester. This man was sonne to Ihon of Gaunte, duke of Lancaster, discended of an honorable lignage, but borne in Baste, more noble of bloud, then notable in learnyng, haut in stomacke, and hygh in countenaunce, ryche above measure of all men, and to fewe liberal, disdaynfull to his kynne, and dreadfull to his lovers, preferrynge money before friendshippe, many thinges begynning, and nothing perfourmyng. His covetous insaciable, and hope of long lyfe, made hym bothe to forget God, his prynce, and hym selfe, in his latter daies: for Doctor Ihon Baker, his pryvie counsailer, and bys chappellayn, wrote, that he lyeng on his death bed, said these wordes: Why should I dye, having so muche ryches, if the whole realme would save my lyfe, I am able either by pollicie to get it or by ryches to bye it. Fye, will not death be hyered, nor will money do nothyng? when my nephew of Bedford died, I thought myselfe halfe up the whele, but when I sawe myne other nephew of Gloucester disceased, then I thought myself able to be equale with kinges, and so thought to encrease my treasure in hoope to have worne a tryple Croune. But I se nowe the worlde faileth me, and so I am deceyved, praiyng you all to pray for me."

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to add that there is no historical foundation for charging Cardinal Beaufort with complicity in the murder of Gloucester. Long before that time he had retired from public affairs, applying himself sedulously to the duties of his diocese, and distinguishing himself by many acts of munificence and charity.

(1) SCENE I-So will the queen, that living held him dear.] The circumstances attending the capture and murder of the Duke of Suffolk are thus briefly narrated by Hall :"But fortune wold not that this flagitious person shoulde so escape; for when he shipped in Suffolke, entendynge to be transported into Fraunce, he was encontered with a shippe of warre appertainyng to the duke of Excester, the constable of the towre of London, called the Nicholas of the Towro. The capitayne of the same barke with small fighte entered into the duke's shyppe, and perceyving his person present, brought hym to Dover rode, and there on the one syde of a cocke bote, caused his head to be stryken of, and left his body with the heade upon the sandes of Dover, which corse was there founde by a chapelayne of his, and conveyed to Wingfelde College in Suffolke, and there buried. This ende had William de la Pole, first duke

of Suffolke, as men judge by God's punyshment for above all thinges he was noted to be the very organ, engine, and diviser of the destruccion of Humfrey the good duke of Gloucester, and so the bloudde of the innocente man was with his dolorous death, recompensed and punished."

(2) SCENE II.

Cade. What is thy name?
Clerk. Emanuel.

Dick. They use to write it on the top of letters.]

An exemplification of Dick's remark is found in the following letter from John Speed, the historian, to Sir Robert Cotton, written about 1609 or 1610, and published

by the Camden Society in "Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men," 1843:

"EMANUELI.

Worshipfull Sir, my thoughts runnyng upon the well performance of this worke, and fearfull to comitt any thing disagreeing from the truth, I have sent you a coppy of some part of that which you have alredy sene, because you left in writing at the Printers that with a fast eye you had overune it, and your leasure better affording that busines in the contrey then here you had; this therefore hath caused me to send you as much as my Printer can espare, beseiching your Worshipe to read it more attentyvly, to place the Coynes, and what adicssions you will before you returne it; and I pray you to past a paper where you doe adde. and not to intirline the coppy, for somewhere we cannot read your Notes because the place geves your pene not rome to exprese your mynd. I have sent such Coynes as are cutt, and will weekly supply the same; so much therefore as you shall perfect I praye you send againe with as much speed as you can; but where you do want the Coynes, kepe that coppy still with you, untill I send them: for I shall not be sattisfied with your other directions or Mr. Coles helpe. Good Sir, afford me herein your assistance as you have begune, and remember my suit to my L. privy-seall, wherein you shall binde me in all dutifull service and affection to your Worship's command. So beseiking the Almighty to prosper our indevours I humbly take my leave, and leave your Worship to the Lordes protection. Your Worships to comand in all dutifuli service, JoH. SPEED."

It is somewhat surprising that modern editors of Shakespeare, to whose research we owe so much, should have been unable to furnish a single example of the use of this prefix to letters. Warburton speaks of it as adopted only in "letters missive and such like publick acts," and Mr. Collier echoes him. This is a curious mistake. In addition to the instance cited above, we can refer to one MS. alone in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 19,400) which contains no less than fourteen private epistles headed "Emanewell," or "Jesus Immanuel." See folios 40, 47, 100, 116, 137, 142, 145, 150, 155, 163, 165, 168, 185, and 204.

(3) SCENE II. Hang him with his pen-and-inkhorn about his neck.] A horn, to contain pens and ink, or a pencase and an inkhorn attached together by a cord, used formerly to be carried about by professional people, such as schoolmasters, lawyers, notaries, &c., who are always represented in ancient illuminations, pictures, and tombs, with these useful appendages hanging from their girdles. A good ideal representative of the Clerk of Chatham will be found in Waller's "Series of Monumental Brasses," from a monument, temp. Edward IV., in the church of St. Mary Tower, Ipswich. As more intimately connected, however, with the present drama, it is interesting to know that the identical pen-and-ink case formerly belonging to king Henry VI. still exists. It is made of leather, ornamented with the arms of England, and the rose of the House of Lancaster, surmounted by the crown. Inside are three cells, one to receive the inkstand, the other two to hold pens, &c. This curious relic is engraved in Shaw's "Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages."

(4) SCENE VIII.-Up Fish-street! Down Saint Magnus' corner!] The insurrection of Jack Cade, with all its concomitant circumstances, is told with great spirit by the old chroniclers, but at too great length to be transcribed entire we subjoin, therefore, Holinshed's account of the fight at London-bridge :

The Maior and other the Magistrates of London, perceyving themselves neyther to bee sure of goodes, nor of life well warranted, determined to repulse and keepe out of their citie such a mischievous caitife and his wicked company. And to be the better able so to do, they made the forde Scales and that renowned captaine Matthew Goughe privye both of their intent and enterprise, beseeching them of their helpe and furtherance therein. The Lord Scales promised them his aide with shooting off the artillerie in the tower, and Matthew Gough was by hym appointed to assiste the Maior and Londoners, in all that he might, and so he and other captaines, appointed for defense of the citie,

tooke upon them in the night to keepe the brydge, and would not suffer the Kentishmen once to approche. The rebelles which never soundly slept for feare of soddaine chaunces, hearing that the bridge was thus kept, ran with greate haste to open that passage, where betwene both parties was a fierce and cruell fight. Matthew Gough perceiving the rebels to stand to their tackling more manfullie than he thought they would have doone, advised his companie not to advance anie further toward Southwarke, till the daie appeared, that they might see where the place of jeopardie rested, and so to provide for the same; but this little availed. For the rebels with their multitude drave backe the citizens from the stoulps at the bridgefoot to the draw bridge, and began to set fire in diverse houses. Great ruth it was to behold the miserable state, wherein some desiring to eschew the fire died upon their enimies weapon; women with children in their armes lept for feare into the river, other in a deadlie care how to save themselves, between fire, water, and sword, were in their houses choked and smothered. Yet the captains not sparing, fought on the bridge all the night valiantlie: but in conclusion the rebels gat the draw bridge, and drouned many, and slew John Sutton, alderman, and Robert Heysand, a hardie citizen, with manie other, beside Matthew Gough, a man of great wit, and much experience in feates of chivalry, the which in continual warres had spent his time in service of the king and his father.

"This sore conflict endured in doubtfull wise on the bridge, till nine of the clocke in the morning; for sometime the Londoners were beaten backe to sainte Magnus corner; and suddenelie againe, the rebels were repulsed to the stoulpes in Southwarke, so that both parts beeing faint and wearie, agreed to leave off from fighting till the next day, uppon condition that neyther Londoners should passe into Southwarke, nor Kentishmen into London. Upon this abstinence, this rakehell capteine for making him more friends, brake up the gailes of the kings Bench and Marshalsie, and so were manie mates set at libertie verie meet for his matters in hand."-HOLINSHED, sub anno 1450.

(5) SCENE IX.

The duke of York is newly come from Ireland:
And with a puissant and a mighty power,
Of gallowglasses, and stout kerns,

Is marching hitherward in proud array.]

The only distinction between these formidable mercenaries, whose wild appearance and ferocious habits are specially depicted by English writers of the time of Elizabeth, was that the kerns were light, and the gallowglasses heavy, armed foot soldiers; the principal weapon of the former being a dart, which, an eye-witness of their prowess assures us, they wielded with such force as to pierce through both the chain and plate armour of their antagonists.* The gallowglass, chosen for his size and strength, was armed with a shirt of mail, a skull cap, and a gallowglass axe. Savage and merciless in warfare,

"the gallowglass, the kerne,

Yield or not yield, whomso they take they slay,"t they were a terror at home in times of peace. "The kerne," says Barnaby Riche in his Description of Ireland, 1610, p. 37, "are the very drosse and scum of the countrey, a generation of villaines not worthy to live; these be they that live by robbing and spoiling the poore countreyman, that maketh him many times to buy bread to give unto them, though he want for himselfe and his poore children. These are they, that are ready to run out with everic rebell, and these are the verie hags of hell, fit for nothing but the gallows."

(1) SCENE III.—

Sound drum and trumpets:-and to London all:
And more such days as these to us befal !]

The first battle of St. Alban's, fought on Thursday, 22nd May, 1455, is thus described by Holinshed. "The king enformed hereof, assembled lykewise a great host, and meaning to meet with the Duke, rather in the north parts than about London, where it was thought he had too many friends, with great speede, and small lucke, being accompanied with the Dukes of Somerset and Buckingham, the Erles of Pembroke, Stafford, Northumberland, Devonshire, Dorset, and Wiltshire, the Lords Clifford, Sudley, Berneis, Roos, and others, beeing in all above two thousande men of warre, departed from Westminster the twentith, or, as some have, the one and twentith of May, and lay the first night at Wadford. Of whose doings the duke of Yorke by espials having still advertisement, with all his power, being not past three thousande men (as some write), coasted the countrey, and came to the toune of Saint Albons, the third day next ensuing. The king there had pight his standerte in a place called Gosclowe, otherwise Sandiford, in Saint Peeters streete: the Lord Clifforde kept the barriers of the toune, to stop that the Duke, being assembled in Keye field, should not enter the toune. *The king, when first he heard of the Dukes approche, sent to him messengers, as the Duke of Buckingham and others, to understand what he meant by his comming, thus furnished after the manner of warre. The Duke of Buckingham, doing his message as hee had in commaundement, was answered by the Duke of Yorke and his complices, that they were all of them the king's faithfull liege subjects, and intended no harme to him at all but the cause of our comming (saie they) is not in meaning anie hurt to his person. But let that wicked and naughtie man the duke of Somerset be delivered unto us, who hath lost Normandie, and taken no regard to the preservation of Gascoigne; and furthermore hath brought the realme into this miserable estate: that where it was the floure of nations, and the princesse of provinces, now is it haled into desolation and spoile, not so dreadfull by malice of forren enimie, that indeed utterlie (as yee knowe) seeketh our ruine, as by the intollerable outrages of him that so long ago and even still appeares to have sworne the confusion of our king and realme. If it therefore please the king to deliver that bad man into our hands, we are readie without trouble or breach of peace, to returne into our countrie. But if the king be not minded so to do, because he cannot misse him; let him understand, that we will rather die in the field, than suffer such a mischeefe unredressed.

"The king, advertised of this aunswere, more wilfull than reasonable, chose rather to trie battell than deliver the duke of Somerset to his enimies. Whereof they ascer

tained made no longer staie, but straightway sounded the trumpet to battell, or rather as Hall hath, while King Henry sent forth his ambassadors to treate of peace at the one end of the toune, the Erle of Warwike, with his Marchmen, entred at the other end, and fiercely setting on the king's foreward, within a small tyme discomfited the same. The place where they first brake into the towne was about the middle of saint Peter's street. The fight for a time was ryghte sharp and cruell, for the Duke of Somerset, with the other lords, coming to the succours of their companions, that were put to the worse, did what they could to beate back the enimies, but the Duke of York sent ever fresh men to succour the wearie, and to supplie the places of them that were hurt, by which policie, the king's army was finally brought to confusion, and all the chiefetaines of the fielde slaine and beaten doune. For there dyed under the sign of the Castell, Edmund Duke of Somerset, who, as hath bin reported, was warned long before to avoid all castels: and beside hym laye Henry the second of that name Earle of Northumberland, Humfrey erle of Stafford, son to the Duke of Buckingham, John Lord Clifford, sir Barthram Antwisell knight, a Norman born (who forsaking his native countrie to continue in his loiall obedience to king Henrie, came over to dwell here in England when Normandie was lost), William Zouch, John Boutreux, Rafe Babthorp, with his sonne, William Corwin, William Cotton, Gilbert Faldinger, Reginald Griffon, John Dawes, Elice Wood, John Eith, Rafe Woodward, Gilbert Skarlock, and Rafe Willoughbie esquires, with many other, in all to the number of eight thousand, as Edward Hall saith in his chronicle: if there escaped not a fault in the impression, as 8000 for 800, sith hundreds in verie deed would better agree with the number of the kings whole power, which he brought with him to that battell, being not manie above two thousand, as by writers appeareth.

"Humfrey, duke of Buckingham, being wounded. and James Butler, Earle of Ormond and Wiltshire, and Thomas Thorpe lord cheefe baron of the escheker, seeing fortune thus to bee against them, left the king alone and with a number fledde away. Those that thus fled, made the best shift they could to get awaie through gardens and backesides, through shrubs, hedges, and woods, seeking places where to hide themselves, untill that dangerous tempest of the battell were overblowne. Diverse of the kings house also, that could better skill to plaie the courtiers than warriors, fled with the first; and those of the east parts of the realme were likewise noted of too much lacke of courage, for their speedie withdrawing themselves, and leaving the king in danger of his adversaries, who, perceyving hys men thus fledde from him, withdrewe into a poor mans house to save himselfe from the shot of arrowes, that flew about his eares as thicke as snowe."