ways. As Prince of Wales, he had induced the House of Lords to reject the Commons' spoliation bill, and had pointedly associated himself with his father's 'hæretico comburendo' policy by presiding at the execution of Badby for heresy. As king, he allowed Lord Cobham himself to be executed on a similar charge at least when he showed signs of uniting rebellion with heresy.

28 Consideration. "As paradise," Johnson explains, "when Eve and Adam were driven out by the angel, became the habitation of celestial spirits, so the king's heart, when reflection has driven out its follies, is now the receptacle of wisdom and of virtue."

33 In a flood. Like the waters of the Peneus brought by Hercules to cleanse the Augean stables.

36 His seat and all at once. 'Lost its possession so soon, and so completely in a moment.' Cp. the account which S. Walker quotes from the Merry Devil of Edmonton, of a ruined knight— "His seat is weak; thus each thing rightly scanned, You'll see a flight, wife, shortly of his land." Perhaps, however, Hanmer's reading, “Fall at once," may be right.

38 Reason in divinity. It has been thought that this panegyric on Henry was meant to be applied to James of Scotland, the heir-apparent to Elizabeth's throne. But James' predilection for peace was so marked and well known, that to speak of him as deep in military affairs would have seemed like a satire. At any rate, the praise of being a good divine suits Henry V., of whom Walsingham says, "Repente mutatus est in virum alterum; cujus mores omni conditioni, tam religiosorum quam laicorum, in exemplo fuere."

44 Rendered you in music. Expressed by the music of his eloquence.

48 A chartered libertine. The air is stilled to listen, in spite of its established right or charter to be for ever moving.'

51 Practic part. So that it would seem that this perfection in theory could only have been gained by a life spent in practical affairs.

57 And never noted. 'And there was never noted in him any retirement for purposes of study.'

60 The strawberry. That is, the wild strawberry.

62 Fruit of baser quality. "Because the hardier trees shelter those which are better and more delicate," says Delius.

63 Obscured his contemplation. Concealed his thoughtfulness.' 66 Unseen, yet crescive. Increasing most rapidly just when its growth is least seen.

74 The exhibiters. "Those who exhibit or propose bills against us.' By 'indifferent' is meant 'impartial."

76 Upon our.. ... convocation. 'An offer on the part of Convocation, and in regard of matters now in hand with regard to France. Besides a subsidy from the clergy, the archbishop had offered the king a surrender of the English abbeys dependent upon them in Normandy, and of the Peter's pence' already collected, as long as it was uncertain to which of the rival popes it should be sent. Shakspere, following the chronicler Hall, states without hesitation that the clergy pressed on the war with France, in order to divert farther attention from themselves and their property; indeed, the cordial encouragement given by the fifteen bishops present at Henry's Westminster meeting makes it tolerably clear that this was one of their chief motives. Henry IV. had also warned his son not to allow peace to continue too long for the security of his dynasty.

86 Severals and unhidden passages. If the text is genuine here, the meaning must be, the particulars and clear lines of succession' on which Henry's title to the crown of France is founded.

87 Some certain dukedoms. Aquitaine, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, which, with Burgundy and some others, made up the 'almost kingly dukedoms' mentioned in 2, 227.

SCENE 2.

II The law Salique. By this term is properly meant the customs of the Franks who lived near the mouths of the Rhine; and its most probable derivation is from the Old German 'sala,' meaning a house,' with the small domain surrounding it. The Salian law provided, naturally enough, that these should not be inherited by a woman, who would by marriage become the mistress of another house. Its application to French politics was first made in the fourteenth century, when, on the death of Louis X., it was alleged as a reason for giving the crown to Philippe le Long, instead of to a daughter of the deceased king. This, as M. Michelet remarks, was calculated to shake the power of the great feudal nobles, as heiresses might succeed to their states, and merge them by marriage in those of the Crown, as in the case of Anne of Bretagne. Thus the king would always be taking, never giving. The States General which established this law held that the crown of France was too noble a thing to fall to the distaff," a notion which was also whimsically expressed at the time by the words of the text, "The lilies [of France] spin not." Of course, when the kings of England began to claim the crown of France on the female line, the reasons for insisting on the Salique law became stronger still; for it was then the great safeguard of French nationality against foreign princes, who might claim through their mothers.

14 Bow your reading. 'Distort the knowledge you have gained by reading.' By the next words is meant, or refine upon what you know to be true by alleging fictitious titles.' "Your reverence " in line 20 = 'reverence for you.'

But

21 Impawn our person. "An allusion to the game of chess, and the dispositions of the pawns," says a commentator. the meaning is, 'pledge our person;' 'pawn' and 'impawn' being from the Latin pignus; whereas the 'pawn' in chess is from 'pedone,' 'a foot-soldier.'

28 Such waste in brief mortality. 'In human life, which is short enough without it.'

29 Under this conjuration. Subject to this conjuration.'

37 From Pharamond. This whole argument, with its Latin quotation, is taken straight from Hall or Holinshed. The fabulous law of Pharamond is ridiculed by Voltaire, who says that authors might well state "that it was written by Pharamond's almoner on the back of Constantine's Donation (which never existed) with a pen made from a feather of the two-headed eagle.'

45 Of Sala and of Elbe. The archbishop's arguments are: 1. The Salique law necessarily applies only to the land near the river Saal, in Saxony, which had nothing to do with France for centuries after Pharamond. 2. All the great dynastic changes in France were made more or less in the right of women; thus the Carolingian race claimed through Blithild, a Merovingian princess; the Capet dynasty through Lingare, a great-granddaughter of Charlemagne ; moreover, S. Louis, or Louis IX. (see the note on line 77) took pains to prove his own right to the throne by a second female descent from Charlemagne through Ermengare.

53 Meisen. Meissen, near Dresden, now the seat of the Government works for Dresden china.

77 Louis the Tenth. Shakspere here follows an error in his copy of Holinshed, corrected in subsequent editions. The tenderness of conscience which was anxious about its right to the crown is a trait natural to S. Louis, who was Louis IX.; less so to Louis Hutin, tenth of the name.

93 To hide them in a net seems to mean 'to have recourse to an argument which hopelessly entangles them.'

94 Amply to imbar. Qq read embrace' or 'imbrace,' which seems to have no sense. The true reading is probably 'simply to embar;' that is, simply and abruptly to cut off;' as we have to'embar a tale,' for to cut it short.'

98 The book of Numbers. What is referred to is the great 'leading case' of Zelophehad's daughters. (Num. xxxvi. 2.) The Bible was much quoted through these transactions, Henry proposing to deal with the men of Harfleur as the Israelites

were ordered in Deuteronomy to treat Canaanite cities, and exhorting the French king "not to act like the herdsmen of Lot, who quarrelled with those of Abraham."

103 Your great-grandsire's tomb. That is, the tomb of Edward III., who was buried in Westminster Abbey, close by which the conference upon the French invasion was held by Henry. 114 Cold for action. 'Cold as regards action.' "The earl of Northampton and others," says Holinshed in his account of Crécy, "sent to the king where he stood aloft on a windmill hill. The king demanded if his son were slain, hurt, or felled to the ground. 'No,' said the knight who brought him the message; "but he is sore matched.' 'Well,' said the king, 'return and saie to them that they send no more to me for any adventure that falleth, so long as my son is alive; for I will that the journeye be his, with the honour thereof.""'

125 Your grace hath cause. Warburton proposes 'Your race had cause,' &c., as giving better sense to the following words, which, however, may simply mean 'They know that you have means, and, indeed, you have them most fully.'

137 Lay down our proportions. 'Settle the quota of our forces,' as in v. 2, 304, “Let our proportions for these wars be soon collected."

139 With all advantages. 'Wherever he can find an advantage.' 140 They of those marches. Lord Bacon, in his paper on the Jurisdiction of the Welsh Marches, gives a definition of the term, as including "such lordships as by reason of the incursions and infestations of the Welsh in ancient time were not under the constant possession of either dominion, but like the bateable ground where the war played." In the same paper he speaks of the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland as having belonged to the Scottish Marches till the accession of James I. Over such districts the Wardens of the Marches exercised, what Burke calls (Speech ii. on Conciliation with America), "a form of government of a very singular kind, a strange heterogeneous monster, something between hostility and government.'

144 The main intendment. attack with all their forces.' 145 Giddy. Unsteady.' 151 The gleaned land.

"The resolution of the Scots to

'The denuded land.'

153 That England. So that England.' ('So' is frequently omitted in this play.)

156 Exampled by herself. Hear how she may be taught and encouraged by her own example.'

160 As a stray. 'As a stray animal would be.' The King of Scots mentioned was David Bruce, captured by Philippa in 1348, at the battle of Neville's Cross, just when Edward was

fighting at Crécy, and when the Scots thought that none but "cowardly clerks and mean mechanics" stood between them and a march to London.

166 But there's a saying. Westmoreland, as a neighbour of the Scots, thinks it would be well to begin by putting them down. See below, as showing his cautious character, the notes on i. 2, 3, and iv. 3, 17.

6

169 In prey. Searching for prey.' 172 Playing the mouse.

Behaving as the mouse does;' but the words 'tear and havoc more than she can eat' refer to the weasel, not the mouse.

175 A crush'd necessity. If this reading is right, the sense must be 'a forced necessity.' Many changes of the text have been proposed, as 'crazed,' 'shrewd,' 'crude,' &c. But as the old editions all read either 'crush'd' or 'curst,' it seems likely that 'curbed' was the original word, 'a curbed necessity,' meaning a crooked conclusion,' as we have in North's Plutarch "curbed and crooked,' ," "curb' being the French 'courber,'

and the Latin 'curvo.'

180 Through high and low and lower. It seems plain that we should read thus, instead of "though high and low and lower,' as Mr. Keightley has proposed; the metaphor being from a threepart harmony with alto, tenor, bass.

183 Therefore doth heaven divide. 'Yes, and that is the reason why heaven divides,' &c. This passage, like many others in Shakspere, is adapted from Lyly's Euphues (see the note on Romeo and Juliet, i. 5, 49); but its original is the speech of Henry VII.'s chancellor at the opening of the parliament of 1485: "Sicut finis, tam principis quam subditorum omnium apum est operari et educere mel et ceram, ceram ad cultum et obsequium divinum, mel in humanum proficuum et utilitatem, ita

...

Parliamentum versari debet solum circa ea quae ad Dei et ecclesiae laudem et communitatis utilitatem conferre valeant."

185 Setting endeavour. 'Making each man work constantly according to his office, with obedience for the common mark at which all aim alike.'

188 By a rule in nature. By a form of government plainly ordained by nature.' By the 'act of order' is meant the working of order;' and by 'where some,' 'under which constitution some.'

194 Make boot. 'Plunder.' (Beute.)

197 In his majesty. So Virgil makes the queen-bee a male in Georgics, iv.

"Rege incolumi mens omnibus una est."