He solemnly had sworn, that, what he spoke,
My chaplain to no creature living, but

To me, should utter, with demure confidence

This pausingly ensu'd,-Neither the king, nor his heirs,

(Tell you the duke) shall prosper: bid him strive To gain the love of the commonalty; the duke Shall govern England.

Q. KATH. If I know you well, You were the duke's surveyor, and lost your office On the complaint o' the tenants: Take good heed, You charge not in your spleen a noble person, And spoil your nobler soul! I say, take heed; Yes, heartily beseech you.

K. HEN. Go forward.

SURV.

Let him on :

On my soul, I'll speak but truth. I told my lord the duke, By the devil's illusions

seal? That is a question, I dare say, none of our diligent editors asked themselves. The text must be restored, as I have corrected it; and honest Holinshed, [p. 863,] from whom our author took the substance of this passage, may be called in as a testimony." The duke in talk told the monk, that he had done very well to bind his chaplain, John de la Court, under the seal of confession, to keep secret such matter." THEobald.

• To gain the love-] The old copy reads-To the love.

STEEVENS.

For the insertion of the word gain I am answerable. From the corresponding passage in Holinshed, it appears evidently to have been omitted through the carelessness of the compositor: "The said monke told to De la Court, neither the king nor his heirs should prosper, and that I should endeavour to purchase the good wills of the commonalty of England."

Since I wrote the above, I find this correction had been made by the editor of the fourth folio. MALONE.

It had been adopted by Mr. Rowe, and all subsequent editors.

STEEVENS.

The monk might be deceiv'd; and that 'twas dang'rous for him,7

To ruminate on this so far, until

It forg'd him some design, which, being believ'd,
It was much like to do: He answer'd, Tush!
It can do me no damage: adding further,
That, had the king in his last sickness fail'd,
The cardinal's and sir Thomas Lovell's heads
Should have gone off.

Being at Greenwich,

SURV.

After your highness had reprov'd the duke
About sir William Blomer,-

K. HEN.

I remember,

Of such a time :-Being my servant sworn, 9
The duke retain'd him his.-

hence?

But on; What

SURV. If, quoth he, I for this had been committed,

As, to the Tower, I thought,—I would have play'd The part my father meant to act upon

7 for him,] Old copy-for this. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

8

so rank?] Rank weeds, are weeds grown up to great height and strength. What, says the King, was he advanced to this pitch? JOHNSON.

9 ·Being my servant sworn, &c.] Sir William Blomer, (Holinshed calls him Bulmer,) was reprimanded by the King in the star-chamber, for that, being his sworn servant, he had left the King's service for the duke of Buckingham's.

Edwards's MSS. STEEVENS.

The usurper Richard: who, being at Salisbury, Made suit to come in his presence; which if granted, As he made semblance of his duty, would

Have put his knife into him.'

K. HEN.

A giant traitor!

WOL. Now, madam, may his highness live in freedom,

And this man out of prison?

Q. KATH.

God mend all!

K. HEN. There's something more would out of thee; What say'st?

SURV. After the duke his father, with the knife,

1 Have put his knife into him.] The accuracy of Holinshed, if from him Shakspeare took his account of the accusations and punishment, together with the qualities of the Duke of Buckingham, is proved in the most authentick manner by a very curious report of his case in East. Term, 13 Henry VIII. in the year books published by authority, fol. 11 and 12, edit. 1597. After, in the most exact manner, setting forth the arrangement of the Lord High Steward, the Peers, the arraignment, and other forms and ceremonies, it says: "Et issint fuit arreine Edward Duc de Buckingham, le derrain jour de Terme le xij jour de May, le Duc de Norfolk donques estant Grand seneschal : la cause fuit, pur ceo que il avoit entend l' mort de nostre Snr. le Roy. Car premierment un Moine del' Abbey de Henton in le countie de Somerset dit a lui que il sera Roy command' luy de obtenir le benevolence del' communalte, & sur ceo il dona certaines robbes a cest entent. A que il dit que le moine ne onques dit ainsi a lui, & que il ne dona ceux dones a cest intent. Donques auterfoits il dit, si le Roy morust sans issue male, il voul' estre Roy: & auxi que il disoit, si le Roy avoit lui commis al' prison, donques il voul' lui occire ove son dagger. Mes touts ceux matters il denia in effect, mes fuit trove coulp: Et pur ceo il avoit jugement comme traitre, et fuit decolle le Vendredy devant le Feste del Pentecost que fuit le xiij jour de May avant dit. Dieu à sa ame grant mercy-car il fuit tres noble prince & prudent, et mirror de tout courtesie." VAILLANT.

He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger,
Another spread on his breast, mounting his eyes,
He did discharge a horrible oath; whose tenour
Was,-Were he eyil us'd, he would out-go
His father, by as much as a performance
Does an irresolute purpose.

K. HEN.

To sheath his knife in us.

There's his period,
He is attach'd;

Call him to present trial: if he may

Find mercy in the law, 'tis his; if none,
Let him not seek't of us: By day and night,"
He's traitor to the height.

2

[Exeunt.

-By day and night,] This, I believe, was a phrase anciently signifying-at all times, every way, completely. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff, at the end of his letter to Mrs. Ford, styles himself:

"Thine own true knight,

"By day or nighte," &c.

Again, (I must repeat a quotation I have elsewhere employed,) in the third Book of Gower, De Confessione Amantis:

"The sonne cleped was Machayre,

"The daughter eke Canace hight,

By daie bothe and eke by night."

The King's words, however, by some criticks, have been considered as an adjuration. I do not pretend to have determined the exact force of them. STEEVENS.

SCENE III.

A Room in the Palace.

Enter the Lord Chamberlain,3 and Lord SANDS.*

CHAM. Is it possible, the spells of France should juggle

Men into such strange mysteries ?5

3-Lord Chamberlain-] Shakspeare has placed this scene in 1521. Charles Earl of Worcester was then Lord Chamberlain; but when the King in fact went in masquerade to Cardinal Wolsey's house, Lord Sands, who is here introduced as going thither with the Chamberlain, himself possessed that office.

MALONE.

Lord Chamberlain-] Charles Somerset, created Earl of Worcester 5 Henry VIII. He was Lord Chamberlain both to Henry VII. and Henry VIII. and continued in the office until his death, 1526. REED.

Lord Sands.] Sir William Sands, of the Vine, near Basingstoke, in Hants, was created a peer 1524. He became Lord Chamberlain upon the death of the Earl of Worcester in 1526. REED.

Is it possible, the spells of France should juggle

Men into such strange mysteries?] Mysteries were allegorical shows, which the mummers of those times exhibited in odd fantastick habits. Mysteries are used, by an easy figure, for those that exhibited mysteries; and the sense is only, that the travelled Englishmen were metamorphosed, by foreign fashions, into such an uncouth appearance, that they looked like mummers in a mystery. JOHNSON.

That mysteries is the genuine reading, [Dr. Warburton would read-mockeries] and that it is used in a different sense from the one here given, will appear in the following instance from Drayton's Shepherd's Garland:

66 -even so it fareth now with thee,

"And with these wisards of thy mysterie."

The context of which shows, that by wisards are meant poets, and by mysterie their poetick skill, which was before called