Third fon to the third Edward king of England; Spring crestless yeomen 5 from fo deep a root? PLAN. He bears him on the place's privilege," Or durft not, for his craven heart, fay thus. SOM. By him that made me, I'll maintain my words On any plot of ground in Chriftendom: PLAN. My father was attached, not attainted; Condemn'd to die for treafon, but no traitor; And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset, • Spring creftlefs yeomen] i. e. those who have no right to WARBURTON. arms. • He bears him on the place's privilege,] The Temple, being a religious house, was an afylum, a place of exemption, from violence, revenge, and bloodfhed. JOHNSON. It does not appear that the Temple had any peculiar privilege at this time, being then, as it is at prefent, the refidence of lawftudents. The author might, indeed, imagine it to have derived fome fuch privilege from its former inhabitants, the Knights Templars, or Knights Hofpitalers, both religious orders: or blows might have been prohibited by the regulations of the Society: or what is equally probable, he might have neither known nor cared any thing about the matter. RITSON. 7 For treafon executed in our late king's days?] This unmetrical line may be fomewhat harmonized by adopting a practice common to our author, and reading-execute inftead of executed. Thus, in King Henry V. we have create inftead of created, and contaminate instead of contaminated. STEEVENS. 8 Corrupted, and exempt-] Exempt for excluded. WARBURTON. Were growing time once ripen'd9 to my will. SOM. Ay, thou fhalt find us ready for thee ftill: And know us, by thefe colours, for thy foes; For thefe my friends, in fpite of thee, fhall wear. PLAN. And, by my foul, this pale and angry rofe, As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,+ Σ 66 time once ripen'd-] So, in The Merchant of Venice: ftay the very riping of the time." STEEVENS. For your partaker Poole,] Partaker in ancient language, fignifies one who takes part with another, an accomplice, a confederate. So, in Pfalm 1: "When thou faweft a thief thou didft confent unto him, and hast been partaker with the adulterers.' Again, in Marlow's tranflation of the first Book of Lucan, 1600: "Each fide had great partakers; Cæfar's caufe "The Gods abetted-;" Again, in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Lib. II: "his obfequies being no more folemnized by the teares of his partahers, than the bloud of his enemies." STEEVENS. 2 I'll note you in my book of memory,] So, in Hamlet: Again: 3 - fhall live "Within the book and volume of brain." STEEVENS. To fcourge you for this apprehenfion:] Though this word poffeffes all the copies, I am perfuaded it did not come from the author. I have ventured to read-reprehenfion: and Plantagenet means, that Somerset had reprehended or reproached him with his father the Earl of Cambridge's treafon. THEOBALD. Apprehenfion, i. e. opinion. WARBurton. So, in Much Ado about Nothing : how long have you profefs'd apprehension ?" this pale and angry rofe, STEEVENS. As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,] So, in Romeo and Juliet: Will I for ever, and my faction, wear; SUF. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambi tion! And fo farewell, until I meet thee next. [Exit. SOM. Have with thee, Poole.-Farewell, ambi tious Richard. [Exit. PLAN. HOW I am brav'd, and must perforce en dure it! WAR. This blot, that they object against your house, Shall be wip'd out 5 in the next parliament, PLAN. Good master Vernon, I am bound to you, That you on my behalf would pluck a flower. "Either my eye-fight fails, or thou look'ft pale.- A badge is called a cognisance à cognofcendo, because by it fuch perfons as do wear it upon their fleeves, their shoulders, or in their hats, are manifeftly known whofe fervants they are. In heraldry the cognisance is feated upon the most eminent part of the helmet. TOLLET. 5 Shall be wip'd out-] Old copy-whip't. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. VER. In your behalf still will I wear the fame. LAW. And fo will I. PLAN. Thanks, gentle fir.6 Come, let us four to dinner: I dare fay, This quarrel will drink blood another day. [Exeunt. SCENE V. The fame. A Room in the Tower. Enter MORTIMER," brought in a Chair by Two Keepers. MOR. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age, · gentle fir.] The latter word, which yet does not complete the metre, was added by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. Perhaps the line had originally this conclufion : 7 Thanks, gentle fir; thanks both." STEEVENs. Enter Mortimer,] Mr. Edwards, in his MS. notes, obferves, that Shakspeare has varied from the truth of hiftory, to introduce this fcene between Mortimer and Richard Plantagenet. Edmund Mortimer ferved under Henry V. in 1422, and died unconfined in Ireland in 1424. Holinfhed fays, that Mortimer was one of mourners at the funeral of Henry V. the His uncle, Sir John Mortimer, was indeed prifoner in the Tower, and was executed not long before the Earl of March's death, being charged with an attempt to make his escape in order to ftir up an infurrection in Wales. STEEVENS. A Remarker on this note [the author of the next] feems to think that he has totally overturned it, by quoting the following paffage from Hall's Chronicle: "During whiche parliament held in the third year of Henry VI. 1425,] came to London Peter Duke of Quimber, whiche of the Duke of Exeter, &c. was highly fefted-. During whych feafon Edmond Mortymer, the laft Erle of Marche of that name, (whiche long tyme had Let dying Mortimer here reft himself."— bene reftrayned from hys liberty and finally waxed lame,) difceased without yffue, whofe inheritance defcended to Lord Richard Plantagenet," &c. as if a circumstance which Hall mentioned to mark the time of Mortimer's death, neceffarily explained the place where it happened alfo. The fact is, that this Edmund Mortimer did not die in London, but at Trim in Ireland. He did not however die in confinement (as Sandford has erroneously afferted in his Genealogical Hiftory. See King Henry IV. P. I. Vol. XI. p. 225, n. 5.); and whether he ever was confined, (except by Owen Glendower,) may be doubted, notwithstanding the affertion of Hall. Hardyng, who lived at the time, fays he was treated with the greatest kindness and care both by Henry IV. (to whom he was a ward,) and by his fon Henry V. See his Chronicle, 1453, fol. 229. He was certainly at liberty in the year 1415, having a few days before King Henry failed from Southampton, divulged to him in that town the traiterous intentions of his brother-in-law Richard Earl of Cambridge, by which he probably conciliated the friendship of the young king. He at that time received a general pardon from Henry, and was employed by him in a naval enterprize. At the coronation of Queen Katharine he attended and held the feeptre. Soon after the acceffion of King Henry VI. he was constituted by the English Regency chief governor of Ireland, an office which he executed by a deputy of his own appointment. In the latter end of the year 1424, he went himself to that country, to protect the great inheritance which he derived from his grandmother Philippa, (daughter to Lionel Duke of Clarence,) from the incurfions of fome Irish chieftains, who were aided by a body of Scottish rovers; but foon after his arrival died of the plague in his castle at Trim, in January 1424-5. This Edmond Mortimer was, I believe, confounded by the author of this play, and by the old hiftorians, with his kinsman, who was perhaps about thirty years old at his death. Edmond Mortimer at the time of his death could not have been above thirty years old; for fuppofing that his grandmother Philippa was married at fifteen, in 1376, his father Roger could not have been born till 1377; and if he married at the early age of fixteen, Edmond was born in 1394. This family had great poffeffions in Ireland, in confequence of the marriage of Lionel Duke of Clarence with the daughter of the Earl of Ulfter, in 1360, and were long connected with that country. Lionel was for fome time Viceroy of Ireland, and was created by his father Edward III. Duke of Clarence, in confe |