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 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 whose servants 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 same. LAW. And fo will I. PLAN. Thanks, gentle fir." 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,7 brought in a Chair by Two Keepers. 6 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 second folio. Perhaps the line had originally this conclufion : MALONE. Thanks, gentle fir; thanks both." STEEVENS. "Enter Mortimer,] Mr. Edwards, in his MS. notes, obferves, that Shakspeare has varied from the truth of history, to introduce this scene between Mortimer and Richard Plantagenet. Edmund Mortimer served under Henry V. in 1422, and died unconfined in Ireland in 1424. Holinfhed fays, that Mortimer was one of the mourners at the funeral of Henry V. 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] seems 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 season Edmond Mortymer, the laft Erle of Marche of that name, (whiche long tyme had Let dying Mortimer here reft himself.8 bene reftrayned from hys liberty and finally waxed lame,) difceafed without yffue, whofe inheritance defcended to Lord Richard Plantagenet," &c. as if a circumftance 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 History. 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, says 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 fceptre. 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 protec 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 kinfman, 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 Even like a man new haled from the rack, quence of poffeffing the honour of Clare, in the county of Thomond. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who married Philippa the duke's only daughter, fucceeded him in the government of Ireland, and died in his office, at St. Dominick's Abbey, near Cork, in December 1381. His fon, Roger Mortimer, was twice Vicegerent of Ireland, and was flain at a place called Kenles, in Offory, in 1398. Edmund his fon, the Mortimer of this play, was, as has been already mentioned, Chief Governor of Ireland, in the years 1423, and 1424, and died there in 1425. His nephew and heir, Richard Duke of York, (the Plantagenet of this play,) was in 1449 conftituted Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for ten years, with extraordinary powers; and his fon George Duke of Clarence (who was afterwards murdered in the Tower) was born in the Castle of Dublin, in 1450. This prince filled the fame office which fo many of his ancestors had poffeffed, being conftituted Chief Governor of Ireland for life, by his brother King Edward IV. in the third year of his reign. Since this note was written, I have more precisely ascertained the age of Edmond Mortimer, Earl of March, uncle to the Richard Plantagenet of this play. He was born in December 1392, and confequently was thirty-two years old when he died. His ancestor, Lionel Duke of Clarence, was married to the daughter of the Earl of Ulfter, but not in 1360, as I have said, but about the year 1353. He probably did not take his title of Clarence from his great Irish poffeffions, (as I have fuggested) but rather from his wife's mother, Elizabeth le Clare, third daughter of Gilbert de Clare Earl of Glofter, and fister to Gilbert de Clare, the last (of that name) Earl of Glofter, who founded Clare Hall in Cambridge. The error concerning Edmund Mortimer, brother-in-law to Richard Earl of Cambridge, having been "kept in captivity untill he died," seems to have arifen from the legend of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Yorke, in The Mirrour for Magiftrates, 1575, where the following lines are found: "His curfed fon enfued his cruel path, "And kept my guiltless coufin ftrait in durance, So fare my limbs with long imprisonment: "For when king Henry, of that name the fift, "He, from Sir Edmund all the blame to shift, MALONE. It is objected that Shakspeare has varied from the truth of hiftory, to introduce this fcene between Mortimer and Richard Plantagenet; as the former served under Henry V. in 1422, and died unconfined in Ireland, in 1424. In the third year of Henry the Sixth, 1425, and during the time that Peter Duke of Coimbra was entertained in London," Edmonde Mortimer (fays Hall) the laft erle of Marche of that name (which longe tyme had bene reftrayned from hys liberty, and fynally waxed lame,) disceased without yffue, whofe inheritance difcended to lord Richard Plantagenet," &c. Holinfhed has the fame words; and thefe authorities, though the fact be otherwise, are fufficient to prove that Shakspeare, or whoever was the author of the play, did not intentionally vary from the truth of history to introduce the present fcene. The hiftorian does not, indeed, exprefsly fay that the Earl of March died in the Tower; but one cannot reasonably fuppofe that he meant to relate an event which he knew had happened to a free man in Ireland, as happening to a prisoner during the time that a particular perfon was in London. But, whereever he meant to lay the fcene of Mortimer's death, it is clear that the author of this play understood him as representing it to have happened in a London prison; an idea, if indeed his words will bear any other conftruction, a preceding paffage may serve to corroborate: "The erle of March (he has obferved) was ever kepte in the courte under fuch a keper that he could nether doo or attempte any thyng agaynfte the kyng wythout his knowledge, and dyed without iffue." I am aware, and could easily fhow, that fome of the most interesting events, not only in the Chronicles of Hall and Holinfhed, but in the Hiftories of Rapin, Hume, and Smollet, are perfectly fabulous and unfounded, which are nevertheless constantly cited and regarded as incontrovertible facts. But, if modern writers, ftanding, as it were, upon the fhoulders of their predeceffors, and poffeffing innumerable other advantages, are not always to be depended on, what allowances ought we not to make for those who had neither Rymer, nor Dugdale, nor Sandford to confult, who could have |