hardly have been thought by Shakespeare to have told the news of the engagement. He may have misunderstood Holinshed's expression that with violence of the English shot they were quite vanquished and put to flight.'

59. them was changed by Pope to it,' because 'news' had been already used as a singular in lines 51 and 58. But Shakespeare was indifferent to such niceties. In Richard II, iii. 4. 74, 82, he has 'this news,' and immediately after, 1. 100, 'these news.'

60. pride of their contention, when their strife was at its height. So in Macbeth, ii. 4. 12:

A falcon, towering in her pride of place.'

63. Sir Walter Blunt, who fell at Shrewsbury, 'Semblably furnish'd like the King himself,' was an ardent supporter of Henry, and one of the executors of the will of John of Gaunt, who left him a legacy of a hundred marks. The news of the battle of Humbleton hill was however brought to the King not by Sir Walter Blunt but by Nicholas Merbury, who received as his reward a pension of £40 a year, and afterwards fought at Agincourt. See Rymer's Foedera, ix. 25.

69. Balk'd, lying in balks or ridges. In Sherwood's Eng.-Fr. Dictionary (appended to Cotgrave's second edition) we have, 'A Balke (or ridge betweene two furrowes.) Seillon.'

71. Mordake the Earl of Fife was Murdach Stewart, eldest son of Robert Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland. Shakespeare follows the list given by Holinshed (iii. p. 520): 'Mordacke earle of Fife, son to the gouernour Archembald earle Dowglas, which in the fight lost one of his eies, Thomas erle of Murrey, Robert earle of Angus, and (as some writers haue) the earles of Atholl & Menteith.' The omission of a comma after 'gouernour' led to the mistake in the text, by which the Earl of Fife is made the son of Douglas. Theobald supposed that a line was lost after 'son'; but what we have in the text is no doubt what Shakespeare wrote, for the error is repeated in i. 3. 261.

72. the Earl of Athol, It is doubtful whether there was any Earl of Athol at this time. The title had been resigned to the crown in 1341, and was not revived till 1408. There was however an Earl of Athol and Caithness in 1404, who had a safe-conduct to enable him to visit the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket.

73. Murray, Thomas Dunbar, second Earl of Moray.

Ib. Angus, George Douglas, only son of William first Earl of Douglas. His mother, Margaret Stewart, was Countess of Angus in her own right.

Ib. Menteith was one of the titles of Murdach Earl of Fife, whose mother, Margaret Graham, was Countess of Menteith in her own right (French, Shakespeareana Genealogica, p. 73).

75-77. A gallant... of. Arranged as by Steevens (1793). In the quartos and folios the words 'In faith, it is' are put at the end of the King's speech.

83. minion, favourite. See i. 2. 21.

87. some night-tripping fairy. It was once part of the popular belief that children were changed at birth by fairies, and the belief is perhaps not yet quite extinct. That Shakespeare held it because he made use of it in A Midsummer Night's Dream cannot be reasonably inferred. In such matters his creed was no doubt that of all sensible

men.

In fact

88. In cradle-clothes. The Hotspur of history was born 20 May 1364, and was therefore more than twenty years older than the Prince of Wales, and nearly three years older than the King himself. he and Henry IV were both knighted on St. George's Day, 1377. 91. let him [go] from my thoughts. So in Cymbeline, iv. 4. 1: 'Gui. The noise is round about us.

Bel.

Let us from it.'

92. the prisoners. By the law of arms, according to Tollet, 'every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly for himself, to acquit or ransom, at his pleasure.' Steevens adds that the Earl of Fife being of the blood royal, the King might justly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative. Percy therefore was acting strictly in accordance with his rights.

96. Worcester. Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, a younger brother of the Earl of Northumberland. He was steward of the household under Richard II, but when his brother was proclaimed traitor he broke his staff of office and joined Bolingbroke at Ravenspurgh. See Richard II, ii. 2. 58-60; ii. 3. 21-34 It is not clear what caused Worcester's disaffection to Henry, but he is described by Holinshed as 'the procuror and setter foorth of all this mischeefe,' and he states his grievances himself in v. I. 30-71.

97. in all aspects, like a malignant planet. In the language of astrology 'aspect' denoted the position and influence of a planet. In Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 92, we read of the sun,

'Whose medicinable eye

Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil.'

The accent is on the last syllable.

98. prune himself, as a hawk dresses his feathers in readiness for action. The process is technically described in The Boke of St. Albans (quoted by Steevens): The hawk 'proynith when she fetchyth oyle with her beke ouer hir tayle and anoyntith her fetz and her federis.'

106, 7. For more... uttered. The King fears that under the in

H

fluence of anger he might say or do something which would not become his dignity. Johnson interprets his words as meaning 'More is to be said than anger will suffer me to say.'

Scene II.

The place of this scene has to be supplied by conjecture. It can hardly have been another room in the Palace, as Capell gives it. What is here adopted is sufficiently vague, and was first proposed by Theobald. Staunton has 'An apartment in a Tavern,' and Halliwell places the scene at 'The Painted Tavern in the Vintry,' because in Stow's Survey (ed. Thoms, p. 90) it is said that the Prince of Wales and his three brothers supped with the merchants of London in the Vintry at the house of Lewes John. Not a very sufficient reason. The Three Cranes in the Vintry was a tavern, and as it was painted, the lane in which it stood was called The Painted Tavern lane.

2. fat-witted. Sir Andrew Aguecheek feared he had done harm to his wit by being a great eater of beef (Twelfth Night, 3. 91), and Orleans speaks scornfully of Henry's 'fat-brained followers' with their great meals of beef (Henry V, iii. 7. 143).

4, 5. to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. Johnson says, 'The Prince's objection to the question seems to be, that Falstaff had asked in the night what was the time of the day.' There is nothing however to indicate that the scene took place at night, and when Poins enters he is greeted with 'Good morrow, Ned.' Besides, they were to be at Gadshill, thirty miles off, by four o'clock in the morning. The Prince means that Falstaff's pursuits during the day were such as to render it unnecessary for him to know how the time passed.

5. a devil, as in iv. 2. 48, short for 'in the devil's name.' See iii. I. 69.

8. so superfluous to demand. Compare i. 2. 196, and Richard III, iii. 2. 26:

'I wonder he is so fond

To trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers.'

9. you come near me, you touch me closely, hit me off to the life. 10. the seven stars were the Pleiades. See Lear, i. 5. 38, and Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.), Estoille Poussiniere. The seuen starres; called by some, the Henne and her Chickens.' Again, 'Pleïade: f. One of the seuen starres.' The term was also applied to the Great Bear. See note on ii. 1. 2.

11. Phœbus. Falstaff refers to The Knight of the Sun (El Donzel del Febo), as Steevens pointed out, who was known in Shakespeare's time from an English translation of the Spanish romance called The

Mirror of Knighthood, Espejo de Caballerias, one of the books found by the curate and the barber in Don Quixote's library. Possibly, as Steevens further suggests, the words 'that wandering knight so fair' are part of some ballad founded on the romance.

15. by my troth, by my faith (A.S. tréowð).

See v. 1. 70.

16. an egg and butter was to Falstaff the simplest meal and hardly worth a grace. See ii. 1. 54. In the Northumberland Household Book, edited by Thomas Percy (afterwards Bishop of Dromore) in 1770 (p. 78), 'a Dysch of Butter'd Eggs' appears as an alternative to salt fish at breakfast on Saturdays out of Lent.

17. roundly, straightforwardly, directly, without ceremony. Theobald inserted the necessary comma after 'come.'

19, 20. be called thieves of the day's beauty. The 'day's beauty' being the sun, the only meaning which can be attached to these words is, 'let us not be called thieves by the sun,' that is, in broad daylight. Falstaff wishes to be called anything but a highwayman. For the construction, see Coriolanus, ii. 3. 19: 'We have been called so of many.' Since this note was written I find that an anonymous writer in Halliwell's Shakespeare takes the same view. Theobald read booty,' for, says he, 'How could they be called thieves of the day's beauty? They robbed by moonshine; they could not steal the fair daylight.' True, adds Steevens, but I believe our poet by the expression, "thieves of the day's beauty, meant only, "let not us who are body squires to the night," i. e. adorn the night, "be called a disgrace to the day." To take away the beauty of the day, may probably mean, to disgrace it.' All which is very far-fetched. There is of course a pun on ' night' and 'knight,' and possibly on 'body' and 'beauty,' but too much sense must not be looked for in this skipping dialogue.'

20. Diana's foresters. Malone in illustration of this says, 'We learn from Hall, that certain persons who appeared as foresters in a pageant exhibited in the reign of King Henry VIII, were called Diana's knights.' Hall tells us nothing of the kind. The pageant was exhibited on Midsummer Day at the coronation of Henry, and eight knights who called themselves servants to Diana left their hunting to encounter the scholars or knights of Pallas. The foresters were part of their retinue, and the reference to Hall is no illustration of Falstaff's words.

21. minions. See i. 1. 83.

22. government, conduct, self-control. Queen Katharine is praised in Henry VIII, ii. 4. 138, for her 'wife-like government.'

24. we steal. Pope prints, perhaps rightly, 'we-steal,' as if Falstaff used the word with some hesitation, for indeed he seems to have been as sensitive as Pistol in regard to it.

25. holds well, is quite consistent.

30. Lay by must be equivalent to 'Stand' in 1. 97 below, whether it is a nautical phrase like Bring to' or not.

6

Ib. Spent with crying' Bring in' more wine.

35. the honey of Hybla. We have the Hybla bees' in Julius Caesar, V. I. 34. See the note on that passage in the Clarendon Press edition. Ib. my old lad of the castle. Steevens has shown by a quotation from Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation (1593), that this was a phrase of the time for a roysterer: And heere is a lusty ladd of the Castell, that will binde Beares, and ride golden Asses to death' (Harvey's Works, ed. Grosart, ii. 44). But the origin of the expression is not known. Farmer says it is the same as old lad of Castile, a Castilian,' but gives no reason. He quotes also from Gabriel Harvey [Foure Letters 1592; Works, ed. Grosart, i. 225], 'Old Lads of the Castell, [haue sported themselues] with their rappinge bable.' In the original form of the play Falstaff was called Oldcastle' from a character in the Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, Sir John Oldcastle, who has nothing to do with the Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, of history. The name may have been given to the character because of some meaning, now lost, which attached to the phrase 'old lad of the castle,' or the phrase may have acquired its meaning from being associated with the character. 36. a buff jerkin, which was the dress of a sheriff's officer. Such an official is called in The Comedy of Errors, iv. 2. 36, 'a fellow all in buff,' and 1. 33, a devil in an everlasting garment'; again, iv. 3. 23, 'he that went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather.' There is an obvious pun on its durable character and its connexion with imprisonment, in a most sweet robe of durance.' Compare The Comedy of Errors, iv. 3. 27: 'He, sir, that takes pity on decayed men and gives them suits of durance.' And Webster, Westward Ho, iii. 2: 'Where didst buy this buff? Let me not live, but I'll give thee a good suit of durance.' 'Durance' or ' Duretty' was the name of a stuff, as we find in Crouch's Book of Rates (1724). The sheriff's officer is the natural sequel to running in debt to my hostess of the tavern,' as Falstaff finds in 2 Henry IV, ii. 1.

37. quips. See Much Ado, ii. 3. 249.

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38. quiddities, subtle distinctions, equivocations. Compare Hamlet. v. I. 107: Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?'

48, 49. here apparent. . . heir apparent. There must have been a sufficient resemblance in the pronunciation of here' and 'heir' to justify this pun, and possibly the h was aspirated in 'heir,' as it appears to have been in The Comedy of Errors, iii. 2. 127.

6

51. resolution is to be interpreted here by the purse of gold most resolutely snatched' in line 28.