« PreviousContinue »
IV, being set forth in a play, and in that play there being set forth the killing of the king upon a stage; the Friday before, Sir Gilly Merick and some others of the earl's train having an humour to see a play, they must needs have The Play of HENRY IV. The players told them that was stale; they should get nothing by playing that; but no play else would serve and Sir Gilly Merick gives forty shillings to Philips the player to play this, besides whatsoever he could get.”
Augustine Philippes was one of the patentees of the Globe playhouse with Shakspeare, in 1603; but the play here described was certainly not Shakspeare's HENRY IV, as that commences above a year after the death of Richard. Tyrwhitt.
This play of Shakspeare was first entered at Stationers' Hall by Andrew Wise, Aug. 29, 1597. Steevens.
It was written, I imagine, in the same year. Malone.
King Richard the Second.
Edmund of Langley, duke of York; uncles to the king. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster;
Henry, surnamed Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford, son to John of Gaunt; afterwards king Henry IV.
Duke of Aumerle,1 son to the duke of York.
Mowbray, duke of Norfolk.
Duke of Surrey.
Earl of Salisbury. Earl Berkley.2
Lord Willoughby. Lord Fitzwater.
Bishop of Carlisle. Abbot of Westminster.
Lord marshal; and another lord.
Lords, heralds, officers, soldiers, two gardeners, keeper, messenger, groom, and other attendants.
Dispersedly in England and Wales.
1 Duke of Aumerle,] Aumerle, or Aumale, is the French for what we now call Albemarle, which is a town in Normandy. The old historians generally use the French title. Steevens.
2 Earl Berkley.] It ought to be Lord Berkley. There was no Earl Berkley till some ages after. Steevens.
3 Lord Ross.] Now spelt Roos, one of the Duke of Rutland's titles. Steevens.
LIFE AND DEATH
KING RICHARD II.
ACT I.....SCENE I.
London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter King RICHARD, attended; JOHN of GAUNT, and other Nobles, with him.
K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,4 Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son; Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? Gaunt. I have, my liege.
K. Rich. Tell me moreover, hast thou sounded him, If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;
Or worthily, as a good subject should,
On some known ground of treachery in him?
4 thy oath and band,] When these public challenges were accepted, each combatant found a pledge for his appearance at the time and place appointed. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. IV, c. iii, st 3:
"The day was set, that all might understand, "And pledges pawn'd the same to keep aright." The old copies read band instead of bond. The former is right. So, in The Comedy of Errors:
"My master is arrested on a band." Steevens.
Band and Bond were formerly synonymous. See note on The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, sc. ii. Malone.
Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that argu
On some apparent danger seen in him,
Aim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice.
K. Rich. Then call them to our presence; face to face,
Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and NORFOLK.
K. kich. We thank you both: yet one but flatters us, As well appeareth by the cause you come;
Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.
Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
Come I appellant to this princely presence.-
What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword may
Nor. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:
right-drawn —] Drawn in a right or just cause.
'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
I do defy him, and I spit at him;
Call him-a slanderous coward, and a villain:
Bolling. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my
Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except:
inhabitable,] That is, not habitable, uninhabitable.
Ben Jonson uses the word in the same sense in his Catiline: "And pour'd on some inhabitable place." Again, in Taylor the water-poet's Short Relation of a long fourney, &c. ". - there stands a strong castle, but the town is all spoil'd, and almost inhabitable by the late lamentable troubles." Steevens.
So also, Braithwaite, in his Survey of Histories, 1614: "Others, in imitation of some valiant knights, have frequented desarts and inhabited provinces." Malone.