Page 1, line 2, Mistris Anne Fitton, Mayde of Honour to ... Queene
Elizabeth.]--A _Mary_ Fitton, daughter to Sir Edward Fitton, of
Gawsworth, and _maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth_, is mentioned by
Ormerod, _Hist. of Cheshire_, iii. 293; and "_Mrs._ Fitton" is noticed
as holding that office in several letters of Rowland Whyte, printed
among the _Sydney Papers_. It seems unlikely that the Queen should have
had two maids of honour called Fitton; and yet we can hardly suppose
that Kemp mistook the Christian name of his patroness. I may add, that
an examination of Sir E. Fitton's will in the Prerogative Court has
proved to me that his daughter was named _Mary_.
P. 1, l. 6, sort.]--set, band.
P. 1, l. 11, Kery, mery, Buffe.]--Compare Nash's _Haue with you to
Saffron-walden_, 1596, "Yea, without _kerry merry buffe_ be it spoken,"
&c. Sig. F. 4; and Middleton's _Blurt Master Constable_, "Tricks,
tricks; _kerry merry buff_." Act i. sc. 1; _Works_, i. 235, ed. Dyce.
P. 1, l. 14. Trenchmore.]--a boisterous sort of dance to a lively tune
in triple time.
P. 2, l. 2, Jigges.]--See Introduction.
P. 2, l. 8, I could flye to Rome (at least hop to Rome, as the olde
Proverb is) with a morter on my head.]--So in Fletcher's _Fair Maid of
the Inn_, "He did measure the stars with a false yard, and may now
_travel to Rome with a mortar on 's head_, to see if he can recover his
money that way," Act v. sc. 2, _Works_, ix. 498, ed. Weber; and in
Middleton and Rowley's _Spanish Gipsy_, "A cousin of mine in _Rome,
I['ll] go to him with a mortar_," Act ii. sc. 2, Middleton's _Works_,
iv. 135, ed. Dyce.
P. 2, l. 11, huntsup.]--a tune played to rouse the sportsmen in a
morning.
P. 3, l. 10, Thomas Slye.]--A relation, probably, of William Slye,
the actor.
P. 3, l. 15, bel-shangles.]--A cant term, which is also used by Nash:
"Canonizing euerie _Bel-shangles_ the water-bearer for a Saint."--_Haue
with you to Saffron-walden_, 1596, Sig. I.
P. 4, l. 18, Bauines.]--small faggots.
P. 4, l. 30, hey-de-gaies.]--a kind of rural dance: the word is
variously written.
P. 6, l. 9, dy-doppers.]--didappers, dabchicks.
P. 6, l. 13, a noted Cut-purse, such a one as we tye to a poast on our
stage, for all people to wonder at, when at a play they are taken
pilfring.]--Mr. Collier, who has cited the present passage, observes,
that this method of treating cutpurses, when detected at theatres, is no
where else adverted to by any writer.--_Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet._ iii.
413.
P. 6, l. 18, Trenchmore.]--See note, p. 25.
P. 6, l. 22, companions.]--scurvy fellows--a play on the word.
P. 7, l. 7, Sir Thomas Mildmay, standing at his Parke pale.]--Sir
Thomas Mildmay, Knt., of Moulsham-hall. He married the Lady Frances,
only daughter, by his second wife, of Henry Ratcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter
and Earl of Sussex; from which marriage his descendants derived their
title and claim to the Barony of Fitzwalter. He died in 1608.--Morant's
_Hist. of Essex_, ii. 2; Dugdale's _Baron._ ii. 288.
P. 7, l. 9, points.]--tagged laces.
P. 7, l. 9, being my ordinary marchandize, that I put out to venter
for performance of my merry voyage.]--This "marchandize" was instead of
a deposit in money: but we learn from a passage towards the end of the
tract (p. 19), that our Morrice-dancer had also "put out some money to
have threefold gain at his return,"--it being then a common custom for
those who undertook expeditions to put out sums of money on condition of
receiving them back trebled, quadrupled, or quintupled, at the
completion of the voyages or journies. Kemp (_ibid._) complains that the
greater number of those with whom he had deposited money would not
"willingly be found:" compare _A Kicksey Winsey, or, A Lerry
Come-twang; Wherein John Taylor hath Satyrically suted seuen hundred and
fifty of his bad debtors, that will not pay him for his returne of his
iourney from Scotland_. Taylor the Water-poet's _Workes_, 1630, p. 36.
P. 7, l. 26, bels.]--"The number of bells round each leg of the
morris-dancers amounted from twenty to forty. They had various
appellations, as the fore-bell, the second bell, the treble, the tenor,
the base, and the double-bell. Sometimes they used trebles only; but
these refinements were of later times. The bells were occasionally
jingled by the hands, or placed on the arms or wrists of the
parties."--Douce's _Illust. of Shakespeare_, ii. 475. The same writer
mentions that in the time of Henry the Eighth the Morris-dancers had
"garters to which bells were attached," 473.
P. 7, l. 26, the olde fashion, with napking on her armes.]--"The
handkerchiefs, or napkins, as they are sometimes called, were held in
the hand, or tied to the shoulders." Douce, _ubi supra_, 475.
P. 8, l. 8, The hobby-horse quite forgotten.]--When the present tract
was written, the Puritans, by their preachings and invectives, had
succeeded in banishing this prominent personage from the Morris-dance,
as an impious and pagan superstition. The expression in our text seems
to have been almost proverbial; besides the well-known line cited in
Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, Act iii. sc. 2, (and in his _Love's Labours
Lost_, Act iii. sc. 1.)
"For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot,"
parallel passages are to be found in various other early dramas. As the
admirable scene in Sir Walter Scott's _Abbot_, I. ch. xiv. (_Wav.
Novels_, xx.) must be familiar to every reader, a description of the
hobby-horse is unnecessary.
P. 8, l. 23, plash.]--pool.
P. 10, l. 15, blee.]--complexion, countenance.
P. 10, l. 27, hey de gay.]--See note, p. 26.
P. 11, l. 25, the Lord Chiefe Justice.]--Sir John Popham: he was
appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1592.
P. 12, l. 13, Sir Edwin Rich.]--Third son of Robert Lord Rich, was
knighted at Cadiz in June 1596: see Account of the expedition to Cadiz
in Hakluyt's _Voyages_, I. 617. ed. 1599 (where, by mistake, he is
called Sir _Edmund_), and Stow's _Annales_, p. 775. ed. 1631. About
three years after, he purchased the manor of Mulbarton in Norfolk from
William Gresham, Esq. In 1604, when Sir Anthony Shirley went as
ambassador from the Emperor of Germany to the King of Morocco, in his
suite was Sir Edwin Rich, "whose behauiour was good, and well spoken of
in euery place where he came," &c. He married Honora, daughter of
Charles Worlick, Esq.; and died, and was buried (I know not in what
year) at Hartlepool. A monument is erected to his memory, and to that of
his sons, Robert and Sir Edwin, in Mulbarton church. Collins's _Baron._
III. P. ii. 592. ed. 1741; Le Neve's _Mon. Angl._ Suppl. 113; Purchas's
_Pilgrimes_, Sec. Part. p. 863. ed. 1625; Blomefield's _Hist. of Norf._
III. 52.
P. 13, l. 5, began withall this, blessing, &c.]--Old ed. "began with.
All this: blessing," &c.
P. 13, l. 26, He was a man, &c.]--Warton thinks that this description
of the Innkeeper at Rockland, "which could not be written by Kemp, was
most probably a contribution from his friend and fellow player
Shakespeare [?]. He may vie with our Host of the Tabard." _Hist. of Eng.
Poet._ IV. 63, ed. 4to.
P. 13, l. 28, Welcome.]--"coming," apud Warton (ubi supra, 64,) by
mistake.
P. 13, l. 31, What wonders once in Bullayne fell.]--At the siege of
Boulogne: on the 14th of Sept. 1544, it surrendered to Henry the Eighth,
who entered it in triumph on the 18th of the month.
P. 14, l. 1, Turwin and Turneys siedge were hot.]--After the Battle of
the Spurs, which took place August 16th, 1513, Terouenne surrendered to
Henry the Eighth on the 22nd of that month, and on the 27th its defences
were razed to the ground: Tournay surrendered to the English monarch on
the 29th of the ensuing September. Historians differ somewhat as to the
dates of these events: I have followed Lingard.
P. 14, l. 3, Kets field.]--The battle near Norwich, August 27th, 1549,
when the Earl of Warwick routed Ket and the Norfolk rebels.
P. 14, l. 3, Muscleborough fray.]--The battle of Pinkey, in which the
Protector Somerset defeated the Scots with great slaughter, September
10th, 1547.
P. 14, l. 10, poating sticke.]--Or _poking-stick_, an instrument for
setting the plaits of ruffs. Poting-sticks were originally made of wood
or bone; afterwards of steel, that they might be used hot.
P. 14, l. 11, Cutting Dicke.]--Is thus mentioned by Wither:
"Yet this is nothing; if they looke for fame,
And meane to haue an everlasting name
Amongst the Vulgar, let them seeke for gaine
With Ward the Pirat on the boisterous maine;
Or else well mounted keepe themselues on land,
And bid our wealthy trauellers to stand,
Emptying their full-cram'd bags; for that's a tricke
Which sometimes wan renoune to _Cutting Dicke_."
_Abvses Stript and Whipt_, Lib. II. Sat. 2. Sig. P. ed. 1613.
From the following entry by Henslowe we learn that this worthy figured
in a play: "Pd. unto Thomas Hewode, the 20th of september [1602], for
the new adycions of _Cutting Dick_, the some of xxs." Malone's
_Shakespeare_, (by Boswell,) III. 333.
P. 14, l. 12, 'tis a world.]--Equivalent to--it is a wonder.
P. 14, l. 27, Lack ye? what do you lack, Gentlemen?]--The usual
address of the London tradesmen to those who passed by their shops,
which were formerly open like booths or stalls at a fair.
P. 15, l. 2, sort.]--set, band.
P. 15, l. 15, let.]--hindrance.
P. 15, l. 23, Master Roger Wiler the Maior.]--An error, it would seem,
not of the author, but of the printer, for afterwards (p. 18), the name
is given more correctly, _Weild_. In the list of Mayors of Norwich
during Elizabeth's reign, drawn up by Blomefield, we find--
"1598, Francis Rugg, 2.
1599, _Roger Weld_.
1600, Alex. Thurston."
_Hist. of Norf._ ii. 252.
P. 17, l. 1, Wifflers.]--Persons who clear the way for a procession:
see Douce's _Ill. of Shakespeare_, I. 506. I may just notice that when
Grose compiled his _Prov. Gloss._, the word _whifflers_ had not become
obsolete in the city of which Kemp is now speaking.
P. 17, l. 4, preaze.]--press.
P. 17, l. 17, points.]--tagged laces.
P. 18, l. 2, my Jump, the measure of which is to be seene in the
Guild-hall at Norwich, &c.]--It is hardly necessary to inform the
reader that no memorial of Kemp is now extant in that building.
P. 18, l. 10, angels.]--Gold coins, worth about 10s. each.