SCENE III. London. Hill before the Tower. Enter, at the Gates, the Duke of GLOSTER, with his Serving-men in blue coats. GLO. I am come to furvey the Tower this day; Since Henry's death, I fear, there is convey ance. Where be these warders, that they wait not here? Open the gates, it is Glofter that calls. [Servants knock. 1. WARD. [Within.] Who is there that knocks fo imperiously? 1. SERV. It is the noble duke of Glofter. 2. WARD. [Within.] Whoe'er he be, you may not be let in. 1. SERV. Villains, anfwer you fo the lord protector? 1. WARD. [Within.] The Lord protect him! fo we answer him: We do no otherwise than we are will'd. GLO. Who willed you? or whofe will stands, but mine? There's none protector of the realm, but I.- 9 there is conveyance.] Conveyance means theft. HANMER. So Piftol, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Convey the wife it call: Steal! foh; a fico for the phrafe." STEEVENS. 2 Break up the gates,] I fuppofe to break up the gate is to force up the portcullis, or by the application of petards to blow up the gates themselves. STEEVENS. Servants rush at the Tower gates. Enter, to the gates, WOODVILLE, the Lieutenant. WOOD. [Within.] What noife is this? what traitors have we here? GLO. Lieutenant, is it you, whofe voice I hear? Open the gates; here's Glofter, that would enter. WOOD. [Within.] Have patience, noble duke; I may not open; The cardinal of Winchester forbids: From him I have express commandement, Arrogant Winchester? that haughty prelate, Whom Henry, our late fovereign, ne'er could brook? Thou art no friend to God, or to the king: I. SERV. Open the gates unto the lord protector; Or we'll burnt them open, if that you come not quickly. To break up in Shakspeare's age was the fame as to break open. Thus in our tranflation of the Bible: " They have broken up, "and have paffed through the gate." Micah, ii. 13. So again, in St. Matthew, xxiv. 43: " He would have watched, and would not have fuffered his house to be broken up." WHALLEY. Some one has proposed to read Break ope the gates, but the old copy is right. So Hall, HENRY VI. folio 78, b. "The lufty Kentifhmen hopyng on more friends, brake up the gaytes of the King's Bench and Marshalfea," &c. MALONE. Enter WINCHESTER, attended by a train of Servants in tawny coats." WIN. How now, ambitious Humphry? what means this? 7 GLO. Piel'd prieft,& doft thou command me to be fhut out? 6 tawny coats.] It appears from the following paffage in a comedy called, A Maidenhead well Loft, 1634, that a tawny coat was the drefs of a fummoner, i. e. an apparitor, an officer whose bufiness it was to fummon offenders to an ecclefiaftical court: "Tho I was never a tawny-coat, I have play'd the summoner's part." 66 These are the proper attendants therefore on the Bishop of Winchefter. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 822, and by the way the bishop of London met him, attended on by a goodly com pany of gentlemen in tawny-coats," &c. Tawny was likewife a colour worn for mourning, as well as black; and was therefore the fuitable and sober habit of any perfon employed in an ecclefiaftical court: "A croune of bayes fhall that man weare "That triumphs over me; "For blacke and tawnie will I weare, "Whiche mournyng colours be." The Complaint of a Lover wearyng blacke and tawnie; by E. O. [i. e. the Earl of Oxford.] Paradife of Dainty Devifes, 1576. STEEVENS. 7 How now, ambitious Humphrey? what means this?] The firft folio has it-umpheir. The traces of the letters, and the word being printed in italicks, convince me, that the duke's christian name lurk'd under this corruption. THEOBALD. Piel'd prieft,] Alluding to his fhaven crown. POPE. In Skinner (to whofe Dictionary I was directed by Mr. Edwards) I find that it means more: Pill'd or peel'd garlick, cui pellis, vel pili omnes ex morbo aliquo, præfertim è lue venerea, defluxerunt. In Ben Jonfon's Bartholomew Fair, the following inftance occurs: "I'll fee them p-'d first, and pil'd and double pil'd.” STEEVENS. In Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 364, Robert Baldocke, bishop of London, is called a peel'd prieft, pilide clerk, feemingly in alVOL. IX. M m WIN. I do, thou moft ufurping proditor, And not protector of the king or realm. GLO. Stand back, thou manifeft confpirator; Thou, that contriv'dft to murder our dead lord; Thou, that giv'ft whores indulgences to fin:" I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat," If thou proceed in this thy insolence. lufion to his fhaven crown alone. So, bald-head was a term of fcorn and mockery. TOLLET. The old copy has-piel'd prieft. Piel'd and pil'd were only the old spelling of peel'd. So, in our poet's Rape of Lucrece, 4to. 1594: "His leaves will wither, and his fap decay, "So muft my foul, her bark being pil'd away." See alfo Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: " Pelare. To pill or pluck, as they do the feathers of fowle; to pull off the hair or fkin." MALONE. Thou, that giv'ft whores indulgences to fin:] The public stews were formerly under the diftrict of the bishop of Winchester. РОРЕ. There is now extant an old manufcript (formerly the office-book of the court-leet held under the jurifdiction of the bishop of Winchefter in Southwark) in which are mentioned the feveral fees arifing from the brothel-houfes allowed to be kept in the bishop's manor, with the customs and regulations of them. One of the articles is, "De his, qui cuftodiunt mulieres habentes nefandam infirmitatem." "Item. That no ftewholder keep any woman within his house, that hath any fickness of brenning, but that the be put out upon pain of making a fyne unto the lord of C fhillings." UPTON. 2 I'll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,] This means, I believe-I'll tumble thee into thy great hat, and shake thee, as bran and meal are fhaken in a fieve. So, fir W. D'Avenant, in The Cruel Brother, 1630: "Ill fift and winnow him in an old hat." To canvas was anciently used for to fift. So, in Hans Beerpot's Invifible Comedy, 1618: We'll canvas him. -I am too big. 66 Again, in the Epiftle Dedicatory to Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596: canvaze him and his angell brother Gabriell, in ten sheets of paper," &c. STEEVENS. WIN. Nay, ftand thou back, I will not budge a foot; This be Damafcus, be thou curfed Cain,3 To flay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt. GLO. I will not flay thee, but I'll drive thee back: Thy scarlet robes, as a child's bearing-cloth WIN. Do what thou dar'ft; I beard thee to thy face. GLO.What? am I dar'd, and bearded to my face?Draw, men, for all this privileged place; Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Prieft, beware your beard; [Glofter and his men attack the Bishop. I mean to tug it, and to cuff you foundly: Under my feet I ftamp thy cardinal's hat; In fpite of pope, or dignities of church, Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down. Again, in the Second Part of King Henry IV. Doll Tearsheet fays to Falstaff“ If thou doft, I'll canvas thee between a pair of fheets." M. MASON. Probably from the materials of which the bottom of a fieve is made. Perhaps, however, in the paffage before us Glofter means, that he will tofs the cardinal in a fheet, even while he was invested with the peculiar badge of his ecclefiaftical dignity.—Coarfe fheets were formerly termed canvass fheets. See p. 96, n. 8. MALONE. 3 This be Damafcus, be thou curfed Cain,] About four miles. from Damafcus is a high hill, reported to be the fame on which Cain flew his brother Abel. Maundrel's Travels, p. 131. POPE. Sir John Maundeville fays, " And in that place where Damafcus was founded, Kaym floughe Abel his brother." Maundeville's Travels, edit. 1725, p. 148. REED. "Damafcus is as moche to faye as fhedynge of blood. For there Chaym flowe Abell, and hydde hym in the fonde." Polychronicon, fo. xii. RITSON. |