76666 
 
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 irinivcveit\> of ipenns^lvania 
 
 SERIES IN 
 
 Philology and Literature 
 
 VOLUME XI. 
 
 THE HECTOR OF GERMANIE 
 
 OK riiK 
 
 PALSGRAVE PRIME ELECTOR 
 
 WRII'TRN ItY 
 
 WENTVVORTH SMITH 
 
 REPRINTED FROM IHE QUARIO OF KUS 
 
 AN'D EDITED WITH IN'rRODUCFR)N AND NOTES 
 
 EEONIDAS WARREN PA\ NE, Jr. 
 
 Sometime Harrison Fello- In Eiiirlisli, University of Pennsylvania 
 
 Published for the L'nii'nsn \ 
 
 PHILADEl-PHI A 
 
 190(i 
 
 ■|ii. [mii-, I'. WiNMDN' C.i.., S.-Uiiir A).M-iits. 
 iM , ! IMiiluMrlphiu. I'a.

 
 publications 
 
 OF THE 
 
 IDlniversit^ of ipenns^^lvania 
 
 SERIES IN 
 
 Philology and Literature 
 
 VOLUME XI. 
 
 THE HECTOR OF GERMANIE 
 
 OR THE 
 
 PALSGRAVE PRIME ELECTOR 
 
 WRITTEN BY 
 
 WENTWORTH SMITH 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE QUARTO OF 1615 
 AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
 
 LEONIDAS WARREN PAYNE, Jr. 
 
 Sometime Harrison Fellow in English, University of Pennsylvania 
 
 Publishid for thu University 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1906 
 
 The John C. Winston Co., Selling ABents, 
 1006-16 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
 
 THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO. 
 
 1006-1016 Ahcm STRtrT 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The play which is here reprinted for the first time from 
 an original of the rare quarto of 1615 illustrates a type of 
 drama little studied because of the rarity of surviving exam- 
 ples or accessible reprints. It is what we may term an 
 occasional play of the journalistic type, being written and 
 produced to satisfy a demand on the part of the public 
 for a presentation on the stage, even if in enforced his- 
 torical disguise, of persons who were at the moment the 
 central figures of an interesting public event. The play 
 is in itself a popular expression of the gratification and 
 satisfaction of the citizen class on the occasion of the 
 marriage, February 14, 161 3, of King James's daughter, 
 the beautiful young princess Elizabeth, known as the 
 "Queen of hearts," to Frederick V., Elector of the Rhenish 
 Palatinate. 
 
 In the reprint care has been taken to follow in the 
 minutest detail the text of the quarto. The list of i^ersons 
 in the play and the division into acts and scenes are my 
 own. Texual emendations or readings of a typographical 
 nature are given at the bottom of the pages, and a limited 
 number of notes has been appended at the end of the play. 
 
 I here take occasion to express my thanks to Professor 
 Felix E. Schelling for his kindly assistance and sympathetic 
 guidance throughout my university course, and to Dr. 
 Josiah H. Penniman, Dr. Clarence G. Child, and Dr. E. P. 
 Cheyney for suggestions and aid on the present piece of 
 work. 
 
 (3)
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 (5)
 
 The first question which presents itself to the student of 
 the play before us is whether the initial in the signature of the 
 author on the title pages and at the end of the play stands for 
 Wentworth or William. We have contemporary evidence of 
 Wentworth Smith as a prolific playwright working about 
 1 60 1 and later, but of William Smith absolutely nothing in 
 the way of dramatic work of which we can be positive. The 
 former is mentioned three times under his full name in 
 Henslowe's accounts with the Admiral's men^ and numer- 
 ous times as "Mr Smith." His name occurs as collaborator 
 with Day, Houghton, Chettle, Munday, Hathway, Hey- 
 wood, Dekker, Webster, and once he is credited as sole 
 author of a play. The most important entry in Henslowe 
 regarding Smith is the receipt for money paid in advance 
 on a play. In the body of this receipt Smith's full name 
 occurs, and at the end of it his signature in his own hand- 
 writing is affixed.^ This signature is exactly the same as 
 that found at the end of the play before us. This is a 
 significant fact and one which goes a long way toward 
 proving the identity of the author, since it is in such 
 connexions that he was most likely to put his usual signature. 
 Outside of Henslowe's Diary there seems to be no further 
 record of Wentworth Smith that can be positively identified. 
 
 The only possible bit of contemporary evidence of a play- 
 wright William Smith comes through Warburton's list of 
 the manuscript plays destroyed by his servant. In this list, 
 
 'Collier, Henslowe's Diary, pp. 202, 203, 213. 
 
 *See p. 13, where this receipt is reprinted in full, and compare Collier, 
 Annals of the Stage, III. 99, where Smith's signature is reproduced. 
 
 (7)
 
 8 Tl%€ Palsgraue. 
 
 made some time after 1720, occurs the entry, "St George 
 for Englmid by Will. Smithe."^ This list was made, let it 
 be remembered, from memory and quite a number of years 
 after Phillips, Winstanley, Langbaine, and Jacob had re- 
 corded William Smith as the author of The Hector of 
 Germany. The "Will." recorded by Warburton is in all 
 probability his own expansion for the simple initial in the 
 manuscript which he claims to have possessed. 
 
 Turning now to the various books on the lives of the 
 dramatic poets, we find the account of Smith so inadequate 
 and faulty that we must conclude the compilers had very 
 little or no information further than the evidence contained 
 in the title page and dedicatory letter of the play before us. 
 Edward Phillips, in his Theatrum Poetartini (1675), enters 
 William Smith as the author of "a tragedy entitled Hier- 
 onymo; so also the Hector of Germany."^ William Win- 
 stanley copied this verbatim in The Lives of the Most 
 Famous English Poets (1687). Gerard Langbaine, in An 
 Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691) improved 
 upon the foregoing by omitting the erroneous entry regard- 
 ing Hieronymo (perhaps identical with Kyd's The Spanish 
 Tragedy) and by mentioning The Freeman's Honour; but 
 he made the mistake of attributing to the dramatist a share 
 with W. Webbe in The Description of the County Palatine 
 of Chester.^ An anonymous book, Lives and Characters 
 of the English Dramatic Poets (1698), follows Langbaine. 
 Giles Jacob, in The Poetical Register (1719), also based on 
 Langbaine, avoids the errors of all those who had preceded 
 him by limiting his notice to The Hector of Germany. We 
 next come to Biographia Dramatica (1812), begun by 
 D. E. Baker in 1764, continued by Isaac Reed to 1782, and 
 brought down to 181 1 by Stephen Jones, and here we still 
 
 'See Steevens and Reed, Shakespeare's Works (1803), II, 371. 
 *Cf. Sir E. Brydges's reprint of Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorutn 
 (1824), II. IS. 
 "See below, p. 10.
 
 Introduction. 9 
 
 find our play, together with The Freeman's Honour and 
 St. George for England, assigned to WilHam Smith.^ But 
 just above this entry Went worth Smith is recorded as the 
 author of The Three Brothers, and mention is made of the 
 fact that he was "accustomed to write dramatic pieces in 
 conjunction with others as Albeke Gallas, with Thomas 
 Hey wood." 
 
 From this time on writers on the dramatic poets are con- 
 tinually confusing Wentworth Smith and William Smith. 
 Hazlitt'^ and Collier^ seem inclined to ascribe The Hector 
 of Germany to Wentworth Smith. Fleay** attempts to make 
 out a case for two separate authors, but admits that he is 
 still in doubt. Ward^° hedges by saying that nothing written 
 independently by Smith has been preserved "unless a fair 
 case can be held to be made out for this prolific dramatist's 
 authorship of the still extant Honourable Hystorie, or The 
 Hector of Germany." E. Irving Carlyle, in the Dictionary 
 of National Biography assigns the play to Wentworth 
 Smith, and concludes his article with the statement, "All 
 the plays assigned to W. Smith in the early seventeenth 
 century are in all probability from the pen of Wentworth 
 Smith." 
 
 There were two other writers of the late sixteenth and 
 early seventeenth centuries whose names were William 
 Smith. One of these was the author of the book of sonnets 
 called Chloris, or the Complaint of the Passionate Despised 
 Shepheard (1596), and of several other fugitive poems 
 signed "W. S." or "W. S., Gent." in The Pha:nix Nest 
 (1595), England's Helicon (1600) and elsewhere, beside 
 the lost manuscript A Nezv Yeares Guifte, or a Posie nmde 
 upon certen Flowers. The other was William Smith the 
 
 •II. 677. 
 
 ^Manual for the Collector of Old English Plays, p. loi. 
 
 'Annals of the Stage, III. 272. 
 
 'Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, II. 251. 
 
 ^"History of English Dramatic Literature, II. 607.
 
 lO The Palsgraue. 
 
 herald, author of twenty or more unpublished manuscripts 
 on heraldric and historical subjects, besides a book pub- 
 lished in 1656, The Vale Roy all of England, or County 
 Palatine of Chester, written in conjunction with W. Webbe, 
 and The Particular Description of England published in 
 1879. There is no evidence that either of these men ever 
 wrote plays. Nothing can be more certain, it seems to me, 
 than that the William Smith who wrote the book of sonnets 
 in 1596 did not write The Hector of Germany in 161 3. The 
 other William Smith, the herald, was born about 1550, 
 proceeded B.A. at Oxford in 1567, traveled in Germany 
 in 1579, and for some years lived in Nuremberg, where 
 he married a German wife. He returned to England and 
 in 1597 was created rouge dragon pursuivant at arms, in 
 which office he remained until his death in 16 18. It is very 
 improbable that as an old man he should have turned to the 
 writing of plays. Both these men signed their names "W. 
 Smith." It is very likely that the expansion of the initial 
 on the title page of our play into William by the compilers 
 of the lives of the dramatists was done on the basis of the 
 common practise of the time, and is without warrant in fact. 
 
 It should be remarked also that there are two entries in 
 Henslowe's account-book which seem to refer to an actor 
 by the name of William Smith. In a note^^ made out by 
 Henslowe to his nephew, Francis Henslowe, June i, 1596, 
 "Wm Smyght, player" signs as witness, and in a list of 
 house rentals for 1602^^ "Wm Smythe" is charged with 
 two pounds and ten shillings. These references lead us to 
 no conclusion. 
 
 With the evidence before us we are led to the conclusion 
 that the W. Smith of our play is Wentworth Smith. 
 
 ^Henslowe's Diary, p. 8. 
 ''Ibid., p. 265.
 
 Introduction. ii 
 
 II. 
 
 Practically all that is positively known about Wentworth 
 Smith is recorded in Hensloiue's Diary} He flourished 
 between 1601 and 1603, and was during these years in the 
 employ of Henslowe writing for the Admiral's men at the 
 Rose. His name seldom occurs as the sole producer of a 
 play; but between April 4, 1601, and March 12, 1603, there 
 are fifteen plays in which he is mentioned alone or in part- 
 nership with various other poets in Henslow^e's employ. It 
 is doubtful whether a single scrap of any of these plays is 
 now extant, but it shall be our present task to sum up what 
 is contained in the Diary concerning each one of them and 
 to make such comment as shall seem worth while, reserving 
 for a later section the discussion of possible fragments which 
 have been thought to have survived. 
 
 I. The Conquest of the West Indies, Day, Houghton, 
 Smith. 1601, Apr. 4, 11; May 2, 21; Aug. 5, 11, 
 16; Sept. I, 31; Oct. 10; 1602, Jan. 21. Mention 
 of this play is likewise made in The Alleyn Papers,'^ 
 April 4, 1 601, pp. 23, 24. 
 
 The first entry of a play in which Smith is given a part 
 is dated April 4, 1601, and refers to The Conquest of the 
 West Indies, by Day, Houghton, and Smith, but Smith's 
 name is not included until the entry of April 11, where he 
 is called "Mr Smith," and this is the only time his name 
 is mentioned in connection with the play. Of the five pounds 
 fifteen shillings paid for the play one pound is recorded 
 as paid to Smith and Houghton, so that the former's share 
 seems to have been small. This is perhaps the first connec- 
 tion Smith had with the Admiral's men, and in all prob- 
 ability his earliest effort at dramatic comix)sition was some 
 minor part in this piece. John Day must have written the 
 
 'Ed. by Collier for the Shakspeare Society, 1845. 
 'Ed. by Collier for the Shakspeare Society, 1843.
 
 12 The Palsgraue. 
 
 larger part of the play, as he seems to have received the lion's 
 share of the money. The property entries show that the 
 cost of the staging was the extraordinary sum of fifteen 
 pounds. In the reference cited above to the Alleyn 
 Papers is a note signed by Samuel Rowley, which informs 
 Henslowe that he had heard five sheets of this play "and 
 I dow not doute but it will be a verye good playe: thare- 
 fore, I praye ye del3^ver them fortye shyllynges In earneste 
 of it, and take the papers into Yr one hands, and on easter 
 eve thaye promyse to make an ende of all the reste." 
 
 2. The Rising of Cardinal IVolsey, Chettle, Drayton, Mun- 
 day, Smith. 1601, Aug. 24; Sept. 31; Oct. 10; 
 Nov. 6, 9, 12; and doubtful references dated 1602, 
 May 15, 18, 27, 29; June 2. 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey's Life by Chettle was first put on the 
 boards some time about Aug. 13, 1601.^ It must have been 
 very successful, for on August 24, 1601, we find a note in 
 the Diary* which shows that a second play was demanded 
 on the same subject within ten days after the appearance 
 of Chettle's play. The material for the new piece was evi- 
 dently drawn from the earlier incidents of Wolsey's life, 
 hence Henslowe calls it "j pt of cornall Wollsey," or "the 
 Rissenge of cornowlle Wolsey," but as it was written sub- 
 sequently to Chettle's play it is also sometimes referred to 
 as the second part, and much confusion has resulted. Ap- 
 parently Smith was connected only with The Rising. With 
 Munday and Drayton he was employed to assist Chettle in 
 order to hasten the appearance of the new play. Evidences 
 of this haste are indicated in the fact that the play was 
 licensed piecemeal.^ The only time Smith's name occurs 
 is in the entry of three pounds in full payment of the "firste 
 pt of cornowll Wollsey." 
 
 *Henslowe's Diary, p. 197. 
 *Ibid., p. 198. 
 'Ibid., p. 200.
 
 Introduction. 13 
 
 3 and 4. The Six Clothiers, Part One, Hathway, Smith, 
 Houghton. 1 60 1, Oct. 12, 22. Part Two, Hath- 
 way, Smith, Houghton. 1601, between Nov. 3 and 
 8, two entries. 
 
 ColHer makes no reference to The Six Clothiers in the 
 index to his edition of Henslowe, but under the item "Six 
 Yeomen of the West" he puts down Houghton, Hathway, 
 and Smith as authors of both parts. There seems to have 
 been but one part of the Six Yeomen, and Haughton and 
 Day are recorded as the authors of this. Full payment for 
 this play is dated June 8, 1601, and the first payment for The 
 Six Clothiers "in earneste" is dated October 12, 1601. The 
 amount paid the three poets for the two parts of the latter 
 play is, as I make it out, only seven pounds. This is much 
 less than was usually paid for two plays,. and for this reason 
 it may be conjectured that the old play was expanded into 
 two parts and the name changed to attract patronage as to 
 a new play. There seems to be no good reason for be- 
 lieving that all the entries refer to the same play, but 
 that the subject was the same we may be sure from a popular 
 contemporary prose romance by Thomas Deloney, Thomas 
 of Reading, or the Six Worthy Yeomen of the West,^ which 
 relates the adventures of six cloth merchants of western 
 England. 
 
 In connection with the second part of The Six Clothiers 
 we have a very important receipt signed in his own name 
 by "W. Smyth." It reads, 
 
 Receaved by us, Ri. Hathway, Wentworth 
 Smyth, and William Houghton, of Mr. Hinslye, 
 the summe of forty shillings, in earneste of the 
 play called the second pte of the sixe clothyers — 
 
 Rr. Hathway 
 W. Smyth 
 
 'Reprinted by Thonis in Early English Prose Romances, I. 57.
 
 14 The Palsgrauc. 
 
 There is no date, but preceding and succeeding entries 
 show that it must have fallen between November 3 and 
 November 8, 1601."^ Houghton was probably absent at the 
 time the note was drawn and it was expected that he would 
 add his name later. The evidence of this note would seem 
 to prove that Wentworth Smith's usual signature was "W. 
 Smyth," and we may assume that he signed his name thus 
 on the last page of The Hector of Germany where it is 
 printed exactly in this form. On the two title pages and 
 in the dedicatory letter it is "W. Smith." 
 
 5. Too Good to he True, or The Northern Man, Chettle, 
 
 Hath way, Smith. 1601, Nov. 14; 1602, Jan. 6, 7. 
 Mentioned also in The Alleyn Papers, p. 25. 
 
 Collier'' notes that the story of Too Good to be True, or 
 The Northern Man, is doubtless the same as The King and 
 the Poor Northern Man, or Too Good to he True, an old 
 ballad reprinted by the Percy Society, 1841. A note in 
 regard to the last payment on the play, signed by Robt. 
 Shaa [Shaw], is found in The Alleyn Papers. 
 
 6. Love Parts Friendship, Chettle, Smith. 1602, May 4, 
 
 31- 
 
 For this play the usual amount of six pounds is made in 
 one payment to "harye Chetell and Mr Smyth." 
 
 7. Albert Galles, Heywood, Smith. 1602, Sept. 3 and 4 
 
 (two entries). 
 
 In another place, the probable relation of Albert e Galles 
 to Nobody and Somebody is treated, and the possible 
 connection of the entry dated September 3, 1602,^ with 
 
 ''Henslowe's Diary, p. 213. 
 
 "Ibid., p. 204. 
 
 "Quoted in full below, p. 48.
 
 Introduction. 1 5 
 
 Hey wood's The foiire Prentiscs of London is also discussed 
 in that section. 
 
 8. Marshal Osrick, Smith, Heywood. 1602, Sept, 20, 30; 
 
 Nov. 3. 
 
 The discussion of Marshal Osrick in relation to its pos- 
 sible connection with Heywood's Royall King and Loyall 
 Subject will be taken up below. 
 
 9. The Three Brothers, Smith. 1602, Oct. i, 11, 15, two 
 
 undated property entries, 22, 23 (two entries) ; 
 Nov. 12. 
 
 The Three Brothers is the first and in fact the only play 
 recorded by Henslowe on which Smith seems to have 
 worked alone. The name of the play is evidently The Three 
 Brothers,^^ though all the entries regarding the book of the 
 play have ''ij" in the title. The last three property entries 
 call the play the "iij" brothers" and we may infer that the 
 scribe first learned of his mistake at the time the play was 
 being staged. These entries give us some idea of the con- 
 tents of the play. Devils' suits, a witch's gown, spirits' 
 suits, and boards and nails "for to macke a tabell and 
 coffen" are mentioned. The last entry of all is especially 
 interesting. It reads, "Pd. at the apoyntment of John Lowen, 
 the 12 of Novmbr 1602, unto Mr. Smyth, the some of x s." 
 There is no definite reason assigned as to why this ten 
 shillings was paid to Smith, but from the proximity to the 
 other entries on The Three Brothers it may be conjectured 
 that the extra sum was given to the author after the suc- 
 cessful appearance of the play. There are several other 
 instances in which Henslowe paid ten shillings as a bonus 
 after particularly successful first performances. On one 
 
 "Rowley, Day, and Wilkins wrote a play called The Travels of the 
 Three English Brothers, but it was not the same in subject.
 
 1 6 The Palsgraue. 
 
 occasion it is noted that Dekker received ten shillings "over 
 and above his price of his boocke called medysen for a 
 cnrste wiffe."" 
 
 The dates of the first three entries would seem to indi- 
 cate that the play was written in fifteen days. Comparing 
 these dates with those of the payments on MarsJial Osrick, 
 September 20, 30, and those on Lady Jane Grey, October 
 15, 21, etc., we are comparatively safe in saying that Smith 
 and Heywoood put their play together in ten days, and 
 that Smith finished his Three Brothers in fifteen days. 
 If my conjecture on the payment of the ten shillings to 
 Smith as a bonus be correct, The Three Brothers was writ- 
 ten, appointed, learned by the actors, and played in just a 
 little more than one month. 
 
 10. Lady Jane Grey, Part One, Chettle, Dekker, Hey wood, 
 Smith, Webster. 1602, Oct. 15, 21, 27. 
 
 Fleay^^ prints parts one and two of Lady Jane as by 
 Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, Smith, and Webster, but these 
 poets were concerned only in the first part. The entry of 
 October 27th states that Henslowe lent John Duke five 
 shillings to give Dekker in earnest of the second part, but 
 whether he ever wrote it is a matter of doubt. Henslowe 
 does not mention it again, and Dekker was immediately 
 employed in another play with Heywood, Webster, and 
 Chettle. Perhaps the plan of presenting a second part had 
 to be abandoned on account of interference from the au- 
 thorities. The succession to Henry's throne was a subject 
 that might easily incur opposition from the court. Fleay^' 
 says the parts of i and 2 Lady Jane contributed by Dekker 
 and Webster were published in 1607 as The Famous History 
 of Sir Thomas Wyatt. He gives no argument or proof for 
 the conjecture.*^ 
 
 ^^Henslo'cve's Diary, p. 240. 
 
 ^^Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, II. 250. 
 
 ''Ibid.. I. 130. 
 
 "For Smith's possible connection with Sir Thomas Wyatt, see p. 51.
 
 Introduction. 17 
 
 11. As Merry as May be. Day, Smith, Hathway. 1602, 
 
 Nov. 8, 17. 
 
 This play was written for presentation at court, and on 
 this account the authors of it were paid the unusual sum of 
 nine pounds. 
 
 12. The Black Dog of Nezvgate, Part One, Day, Hathway, 
 
 Smith, and 'the other poet.' 1602, Nov. 24, 26; 
 Dec. 20; 1603, Jan. 10, 16. 
 
 13. The Unfortunate General, French History, Hathway, 
 
 Smith, Day, and 'the other poet.' 1603, Jan. 7, 10, 
 16, 19, 24. 
 
 14. The Black Dog of Nezvgate, Part Two, Hathway, 
 
 Smith, Day, and 'the other poet.' 1603, Jan. 29; 
 Feb. 3, 15, 21, 24, 26. 
 
 Fleay^^ conjectures that Houghton was 'the other poet'^' 
 who assisted Day, Hathway, and Smith in the two parts 
 of The Black Dog of Nezvgate and The Unfortunate Gen- 
 eral He adds, however, "perhaps Webster, but still more 
 probably Chettle." At best it is a mere guess. The fourth 
 poet was probably some new man who wished his identity 
 concealed from the manager, or whose name Henslowe 
 could not recall. The property entries show that the title 
 is not metaphorical. "Lame skenes" [lamb skins] were 
 bought for making up the dog, and an expensive suit of 
 black satin was called for in the second part. In an inven- 
 tory of the property of the Lord Admiral's men taken at an 
 earlier date'"^ is an item of "j black dogge." 
 
 ^Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 270. 
 
 ^'Ibid., I. 270. 
 
 "March 10, 1598. Henslotue's Diary, p. 274. Cf. also a reference in 
 the Witch of Edmonton, Dekker's Works, IV. 406, where the clown, 
 speaking of the black dog-devil in that play, says, "Neither is this the 
 black dog of Newgate."
 
 1 8 The Palsgraue. 
 
 The Unfortunate General on some subject from French 
 history was produced by the same poets between the first 
 and second parts of The Black Dog of Nczifgate. The last 
 three entries^^ record two pounds paid to the four poets for 
 additions to the second part of The Black Dog. ColHer^' 
 notes that eight pounds had already been paid for this part, 
 but the records show only seven. 
 
 15, An Italiati Tragedy, Smith, Day(?). 1600, Jan. 10 
 (Day), 1603, March 7, 12 (Smith). 
 Collier ^*^ states in a note that Malone^^ erroneously says 
 John Day was concerned in the authorship of An Italian 
 Tragedy; but Collier probably overlooked the entry dated 
 much earlier, January 10, 1600, in which the record is made 
 of forty shillings paid to Day in earnest of his book called 
 The Italian Tragedy. Smith alone seems to have received 
 for An Italian Tragedy the usual amount paid for a new 
 play. Perhaps he was commissioned by Henslowe to finish 
 up the play begun by Day several years before. Fleay^- sug- 
 gests in several places that this play may have been the 
 same as The Orphans Tragedy, but he gives no reason for 
 the supposition. Day, Houghton, and Chettle are men- 
 tioned in connection with the last named play, and the 
 references are dated November 27, 1599, and September 
 24, 1 601. This is a wide range of dates, but they do not 
 accord with those in which An ItaUan Tragedy is men- 
 tioned, and I see no reason for assuming the plays to be 
 identical. 
 
 In addition to the information in Henslowe's Diary re- 
 garding the fifteen entries preceding, the following plays 
 have been ascribed to Smith : 
 
 "See entry 14 above. 
 
 "Henshzve's Diary, p. 249. 
 
 *'Ibid., p. 250. 
 
 "^^Shakespeare's Works, III, 328. 
 
 "Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 106, II. 286.
 
 Introduction. 19 
 
 16. The Freeman's Honour, "acted by the Novv-seruants of 
 
 the King's Maiestie, to dignifie the worthy Companie 
 of the Marchantaylors."^^ 
 
 Fleay^^ thinks this is the play performed January 4, 16 14, 
 at the Merchant Taylors' Hall at the marriage of the Earl 
 of Somerset.^^ 
 
 17. The Hector of Germany, or the Palsgrave, Prime Elec- 
 
 tor. Written 161 3, printed in quarto, 161 5. 
 
 18. Saint George for England, a manuscript destroyed by 
 
 Warburton's cook and ascribed in Warburton's list 
 to William Smith. 
 
 19. The Fair Foul One, or the Baiting of a Jealous Knight. 
 
 Licensed by Herbert Nov. 28. 1623, "for a strange 
 company at the Red Bull, written by Smith." 
 
 Fleay^° prints the entry and inserts William in brackets. 
 There is no authority beyond his opinion for the insertion. 
 
 HI. 
 
 The Hector of Germany was entered on the Stationers' 
 books April 24, 161 5, being presented by Josias Harrison, 
 the publisher, and it passed "under the hands of Sir George 
 Bucke and both the wardens."^ The author's name is not 
 mentioned. After the title of the play come four words 
 "is a harmless thing," but these are scored through by a later 
 hand. This was probably the expression of Sir George 
 Buc's satisfaction as to the contents of the play and an 
 
 ^'See the dedicatory letter to The Hector of Germany, p. 67. 
 ^Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, II. 251. 
 "See Nichols, Progresses of King James, II. 732. 
 **History of the London Stage, p. 303. 
 
 ^Stationers' Company. Transcript of the Registers, ed. by Arber, III. 
 260 b.
 
 20 The Pahgrmie. 
 
 indication of his permission for the manuscript to procede 
 to the press without excision. 
 
 The copy of the play owned by the Library of the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania has two title pages. The two copies 
 of the play in the British Museum have only the first title 
 page, while the copy in the Boston Public Library has only 
 the second. Whether there were two editions called for 
 within one year or whether the extra title page was struck 
 off as a kind of broadside or outside covering for advertising 
 purposes it is impossible to decide. There is no evidence of 
 a second impression except in the existence of these two title 
 pages. The text is identical in all the copies I have men- 
 tioned above. 
 
 The most interesting item on the title page is the an- 
 nouncement that the play was "acted at the Red Bull, and 
 at the Curtaine" (probably not more than once or twice at 
 each of the theaters named) by a company of young men 
 of the city — apprentices no doubt. 
 
 The dedicatory letter to Sir John Swinnerton was, in all 
 probability, written in 1615, near the time of the publica- 
 tion of the play. Sir John Swinnerton retired from the 
 mayoralty toward the end of the year 161 3, and the address 
 to him as "sometimes Lord Mayor" clearly indicates that 
 the dedication was written later than the play itself. This 
 Lord Mayor was a merchant and a man of great wealth. 
 When he was Sheriff in 1603 he went with the Mayor of 
 London and the principal citizens to meet King James on 
 his journey from Theobolds to London. He was knighted 
 with other aldermen at Whitehall in July following. In 
 1612 he accused the farmers of the customs of defrauding 
 the king of more than 70,000 pounds a year, "but upon 
 ripping up the matter they went away acquitted, and he 
 commended for his good meaning to the king's service." 
 During his mayoralty the jurisdiction over the Thames and 
 Medway as enjoyed by the mayor of London was finally 
 settled; and on Michaelmas day, 1613, he attended, with
 
 Introduction. 21 
 
 Sir Thomas Middleton, that day elected Mayor for the 
 ensuing year, at the opening of the New River head.^ 
 Dekker's Mask or Triumph in honor of the installation of 
 Sir John Sminnerton, Knight, October 29, 1612, was cele- 
 brated in the presence of Frederick V, Count Palatine of 
 the Rhine. The dedicatory letter of this Mask is very 
 similar to that prefixed to The Hector of Germany. It was 
 a very costly and elaborate pageant and the gild of the mer- 
 chants, of whom Sir John Swinnerton was an honored mem- 
 ber and at one time master, defrayed the cost of production. 
 The song of welcome at the close of the fourth triumph is 
 one of Dekker's characteristic lyrical productions, and the 
 last stanza, though not one of the best of the poem, seems 
 worth quoting in this connection : 
 
 Goe on nobly, may thy name, 
 Be as old and good as fame, 
 Ever be remembered here 
 Whilst a blessing or a tear 
 
 Is in store 
 
 With the pore, 
 So shall Swinnerton nere dye 
 But his virtues upward flye, 
 
 And still spring 
 
 Whilst we sing 
 In a chorus ceasing never 
 He is hving, living ever. 
 
 The view of the Lord Mayor expressed here and in 
 Smith's dedication appears from the play of Robert Tailor 
 entitled The Hog hath lost his Pearle (1614)^ not to have 
 been universally held by the citizen apprentices or memberst 
 of the quality. In this extremely vulgar and artificial 
 the prologue to the play. In the latter we meet such expres- 
 
 *Delaune, Present Slate of London (1681). 
 
 'Reprinted in Hazlitt-Dodsley, Old Eng. Plays, XI. 425.
 
 22 The Palsgraue. 
 
 production, interesting though it is, the Lord Mayor is 
 represented as Hog, a usurer and miser absokitely devoid 
 of all human feeling. He becomes the dupe of Haddit and 
 Lightfoot, by whom he is robbed of his daughter and de- 
 frauded of his hoarded wealth. In the last act the chief 
 character is so suddenly and unaccountably transformed 
 from his avaricious and miserly nature into a generous and 
 forgiving father that one wonders how it could have been 
 effected without the intervention of a detis ex nmcJiina. 
 That the Lord Mayor and perhaps some of the other officers 
 associated with him are satirized in this play is certain from 
 Sir Henry Wotton's letter to Sir Edmund Bacon'* and from 
 sions as, "The long time rumour'd Hog. . . .still deceiving 
 men's expectations. .. .at length got loose. Leaving his 
 servile yoke-stick to the goose. Hath a Knight's license. . . . 
 Our Swine is not grunting at state affairs, or invecting 
 much at our city vices .... Thinking we liv'd 'mongst Jews 
 that loved no Swine's flesh, etc." 
 
 The prologue of The Hector of Germany gives the clew 
 to the probable date of the writing and acting of the play. 
 The author disclaims any intention of bringing upon the 
 stage while he lived 
 
 That Prince which in this Kingdome late, 
 Marryed the Mayden-glory of our state. 
 
 The date of the marriage was February 14, 1613, and 
 we may judge from the nature of the play that within a few 
 weeks after this event or simultaneously with the court 
 festivities subsequent to the marriage the citizen company 
 presented the play to a citizen audience. It seemed neces- 
 sary for the prologue to offer some excuse for the unusual 
 appearance of men of trade on the stage and to disavow 
 
 *Reliquae Woitonianae (1672), p. 402. Quoted in Hazlitt-Dodsley, 
 Old Eng. Plays, II. 425, introduction to The Hog hath lost his Pearle.
 
 Introduction. 23 
 
 any intent of emulating or coming into competition with 
 the regular actors. 
 
 The play opens with Robert the Palsgrave, Palatine of 
 the Rhine, represented as on a bed of sickness just at the 
 time when the Bastard, Henry of Trastomare, half-brother 
 to Peter, the king of Spain, had come into Germany aspiring- 
 to the Emperor's crown. The English King (Edward III) 
 had sent the Prime Elector or Palsgrave a letter asking- 
 that the Duke of Savoy be placed on the imperial throne, 
 and this Duke, with the King of Bohemia and the Marquis 
 of Brandenburg, is represented as regretting the misfortune 
 of the Palsgrave's sickness, since without the Palsgrave 
 Savoy would have a poor chance of obtaining the crown. 
 The Bishop of Cullen (Cologne) is also of this party, and 
 the opposing party is made up of the Bastard (Henry of 
 Trastomare), the Duke of Saxony, the Bishop of Mentz 
 (Mainz), and the Bishop of Trier. Open hostilities break 
 out, and the Palsgrave has to be removed to a castle lower 
 down the river. The Duke of Saxony desires to rule the 
 empire by proxy, since he is barred the throne, according 
 to the play,^ so he purposes to put the Bastard in power and 
 direct affairs through him. In the first altercation between 
 the Palsgrave's and Saxon's party. Savoy, Bohemia, and 
 Brandenburg are taken prisoners, and the castle from which 
 the Palsgrave had just been removed is destroyed. In the 
 presence of the prisoners the Bastard is crowned ^^ex Ro- 
 manorum. King Peter (Pedro the Cruel) in the disguise 
 of a hermit suddenly arrives from Spain to ask aid of the 
 Palsgrave against his enemy, the Bastard, who, curiously 
 enough, is already in Germany in the midst of the broils 
 over the succession to the emperorship. Cullen comes in 
 from the field and announces one disaster after another, 
 the effect being that the Palsgrave is roused from his sick- 
 ness by the bad news, though he is forced to fall back on 
 
 *See below, p. 74.
 
 ?4 The Palsgraue. 
 
 lis bed when the excitement of the moment has passed, 
 Peter determines to use his medical skill to cure the Pals- 
 grave. 
 
 The scene now shifts to England, where we have the story 
 of young Fitzwaters, who is in love with Floramel the 
 daughter of Lord Clinton. The elder Fitzwaters w^anted to 
 marry this girl and had secretly arranged the match with 
 her father. The young lovers after being once betrayed 
 into the hands of the angry parents, succeed in escaping to 
 sea w^iile the elder Fitzwaters proceeds to church to marry 
 a page dressed in Floramel's clothes. The King of England 
 happens upon them during the turmoil which succeeds the 
 discovery of the ruse and effects an immediate reconciliation 
 between Lord Clinton and the elder Fitzwaters, who were 
 now in a desperate quarrel. A messenger then enters with 
 a letter from Robert the Palsgrave. From this letter we 
 learn that after defeating Savoy and his party, the Bastard, 
 now made emperor, has shipped for Spain, where the Pals- 
 grave, lately recovered, thanks to King Peter's skill, will 
 follow him. 
 
 We now pass to Spain, where, on the field of Ma- 
 zieres, the Palsgrave defeats and captures the Bastard, 
 who. however, escapes from his guardians, Peter and Cullen, 
 by the help of Saxon. After their discomfiture on the field 
 of battle Saxon and the Bastard quarrel and fight a duel, 
 but neither is hurt and they become reconciled. They then 
 decide to go to solicit aid from King John of France to 
 counterbalance the move of the Palsgrave who had gone to 
 England to draw King Edward to his side. The Bastard 
 dispatches two Spanish villains, Vandome and Mendozze, to 
 attempt the death of King Edward and the Palsgrave in 
 England, but their plot fails, and they retire to the lodging 
 of Robert of Artoise. a disgruntled French courtier, now 
 in England. The French King receives the Bastard's party 
 favorably and sends an embassy to King Edward, advising 
 him not to aid the Palssfrave.
 
 Introduction. 25 
 
 During this time King Edward has been entertaining the 
 Palsgrave in jousts, tournaments, and other festivities, and 
 has finally created him Knight of the Garter. The French 
 embassy is received and haughtily answered. Saxon, dis- 
 guised as a Frenchman, has accompanied the embassy, and 
 his hot temper causes him to betray himself. The Palsgrave 
 disgraces him by pulling off his wig in the presence of the 
 king, and a duel is arranged to be fought at some later time. 
 Robert of Artoise, who had been one of Edward's advisers, 
 is now out of favor, and is ready to enter into any sort of 
 plot against the English King. Saxon confers with him 
 and the two Spanish villains, and they determine to waylay 
 the English King in France, whither he, with the Pals- 
 grave, proposed to go to answer in force the peremptory 
 embassy of King John. 
 
 In the meantime the young lovers have been shipwrecked. 
 Floramel, having been cast on the French coast, is taken 
 up by the King of France, who, in spite of the fact that he 
 was married, falls desperately in love with the girl and 
 makes all sorts of proposals to her, so that the jealousy 
 of the French Queen is aroused. Young Fitzwaters is cast on 
 a rock in mid-seas, and is rescued later by Saxon and 
 Artoise. Saxon goes to join the court and Fitzwaters is 
 compelled to join Artoise and the two Spaniards in the plot 
 to murder the English King. By a skilful manipulation 
 Fitzwaters kills the three would-be murderers of his king 
 and then very conveniently falls into the good graces of the 
 French Queen, who, through love of him and on account of 
 her jealousy, betrays her husband and his friends into the 
 hands of the English at a masked dance. Floramel and 
 Fitzwaters experience a few moments of mutual doubt, but 
 are soon reassured, and after satisfying Lord Clinton and 
 Lord Fitzwaters, who arrive on the scene fresh from their 
 achievement of liberating Savoy and his friends from cap- 
 tivity, the young couple are happily married, or rather their 
 secret precontract is confirmed. Saxon and the Palsgrave
 
 26 The Palsgraue. 
 
 prepare for a mortal combat, in which, of course, the former 
 is killed. The Duke of Savoy is then recognized as Emperor 
 by all, and the victorious party departs for Germany, where 
 Savoy is to be crowned with ceremony. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let us turn now to the consideration of the historical 
 material upon which the incidents in the play are based. 
 
 After the death of Emperor Charles IV in 1378, Win- 
 ceslaus, or Wenzel, his eldest son, was elected to succeed 
 him. Wenzel was a notably corrupt and incapable ruler, 
 and the empire fell into decay under his weak control. The 
 twenty-two years extending from his election to 1400, when 
 he was deposed, were years of turmoil and contention not 
 unlike the period of the Thirty Years' War. At the deposi- 
 tion of Wenzel, Robert the Palsgrave of the Rhine (Ru- 
 precht III) w^as elected in his stead. This Palsgrave was 
 not the one intended to be portrayed in the present play, for 
 it was only in 1398 that he succeeded to the rule of the 
 Duchy, at the death in that year of his father, Robert, or 
 Ruprecht II. This last named Palsgrave is perhaps the 
 original of the Robert in the play, but I have been unable 
 to discover any source from which Smith may have acquired 
 information concerning him. There is absolutely no his- 
 toric basis for any of the achievements here attributed to 
 Robert. The only possible reference that I have found 
 which may have suggested the name is in Froissart's Chron- 
 icles,"^ where is recorded the deposing of Wenzel and the 
 election of Robert Duke of Heidelberg, who was crowned 
 at Cologne in 1400. He is spoken of as a valiant and 
 prudent man, but unable to carry out his promise of re- 
 storing unity to the church. Ruprecht, or Robert II, the 
 father of this emporer, was brave and active, and greatly 
 respected as a statesman and soldier. He was an ardent sui>- 
 
 ^ Froissart's Chronicles, tr. by Thomas Jones (1830), II. 710.
 
 Introduction. 27 
 
 porter of the emperor Charles IV, and did the empire valu- 
 able service in various capacities. In 1365 he joined in the 
 expedition against the English who had fallen upon Elsass, 
 and it is not improbable that in 1375 he took part in the 
 second expedition against these wandering bands of sol- 
 diers.^ There seems to be no basis for the line of the play 
 in which the Palsgrave is made to say, 
 
 That nation [England] my Grandfather did love, 
 
 and the friendship of this Palsgrave for the English people 
 seems to have been suggested to our author's mind by the 
 mere presence of Frederick V in England on the occasion 
 of his marriage to King James's daughter. 
 
 Turning now to the Spanish history with which the plot 
 is concerned, we learn from Froissart^ that Don Pedro IV, 
 King of Castile, surnamed the Cruel, had three bastard 
 brothers, children of the good Alphonsus and Eleanora de 
 Guzman, the eldest of whom was known as Henry of 
 Trastomare. Pedro hated them mortally and only awaited 
 the death of his father to bring them to disgrace. Alphonsus 
 during his lifetime had already given the county of Tras- 
 tomare to Henry, but on his accession Pedro had taken it 
 from him by force and was continually harrassing him in 
 every way possible. This Henry of Trastomare, known as 
 the Bastard, was a valiant and worthy soldier, and had been 
 for some time in France, and served under King John at 
 Poitiers. Pedro was a proud and cruel monarch, always 
 in trouble with his people, his neighbors or with the Pope 
 at Avignon. Pedro was excommunicated by Pope Urban 
 and the birth of Henry was legitimated by a papal decree 
 in order that the latter might lay claim to the throne of 
 Castile. Froissart gives an account of how the barons and 
 knights fell away from Peter in the struggle and how he had 
 
 *Cf. Allgemeine deiitsche Biographic, XXIX. 7^7^i. 
 *Froissart's Chronicles, tr. by Thomas Jones (1830), I. 340.
 
 28 The Pdsgraue. 
 
 to flee from Henry's invading army and shut himself up 
 in hiding in a castle in Corrunna in Galacia. Henry was 
 hailed as the deliverer of the people from the cruel and 
 wicked Pedro, and crowned king in his stead. He richly 
 rewarded the English and French knights who had aided 
 him, and prepared to make an inroad upon Grenada to add 
 fresh laurels to his recent successes. Don Pedro finally 
 sent to entreat the Prince of Wales for assistance. Prince 
 Edward, known as the Black Prince, was at this time at 
 Bordeaux, in his province of Aquitaine. Upon the advice 
 of his counsellors he decided to send an armed force to 
 Corrunna to bring Pedro to Bordeaux, so that they could 
 learn from him in person the condition of affairs. Pedro 
 had already left Corrunna, but fortunately he met Edward's 
 force at Bayonne and was conducted to Bordeaux. Prince 
 Edward made a compact with Pedro regarding the pay- 
 ment of the soldiers, and led a large force into Spain to 
 assist the deposed king. The battle of Navaretta was fought 
 April 3, 1367, between the towns of Najarra (sometimes 
 called Nazars) and Navaretta in Spain. Henry's army was 
 routed, and he barely escaped with his life. After the de- 
 feat Henry proceeded as best he could to Valencia, where 
 the King of Aragon resided. He decided to go on a visit 
 to the Duke of Anjou, at Montpellier, with the purpose of 
 gaining that Duke's assistance against Prince Edward and 
 King Pedro. Preparations were going on for an attack 
 on Edward's Duchy of Guienne, but the Prince made a 
 protest to the King of France and gained the promise from 
 him that no aid should be given the Bastard in French 
 territory. Henry had gone to Bagnieres, a town of the 
 province of Bigorre, in the Prince's dominions, and had 
 succeeded in taking it by storm. Here he remained in 
 garrison for some time. 
 
 The Black Prince was deceived by the King of Castile. 
 He found that Don Pedro would not keep his agreements, 
 and Prince Edward had been left to settle with his knights
 
 Introduction. 29 
 
 and soldiers as best he could. The Black Prince was forced 
 to break up his plate and have it coined for the men; but 
 even this was not enough, so the dissatisfied army, after 
 following Edward back to Bordeaux, was disbanded. 
 
 Henry retired from Bagnieres and returned to Aragon 
 as soon as he learned that Prince Edward had withdrawn 
 from Spain. Later he gathered an army, and, with the 
 assistance of the King of Aragon and Bertrand du Guesclin, 
 he made war upon Pedro, defeated him and took him 
 prisoner, and a few days afterwards killed him in a personal 
 encounter. Pedro was the stronger man and had the Bastard 
 down and would have infallibly killed him if one of Henry's 
 men had not pulled him over upon his back just as he was 
 about to strike. Henry was thus enabled to stab him to the 
 heart. This occurred in 1368. From this date on to his 
 death Henry remained in vmdisputed possession of the 
 throne of Castile. He was as much beloved by his people 
 as Pedro had been hated. 
 
 Holinshed^*^ gives a less detailed account based on Frois- 
 sart, but does not follow the events after Prince Edward's 
 withdrawal from Spain. Stow^^ condenses the whole of 
 this narrative into one short note. In the Abridgctncnf^^ 
 of Stow is the following statement: "Edward Prince of 
 Wales taking compassion upon Peter K. of Spaine, who 
 was driuen out of his kingdome by Henry his bastard 
 brother, entered Spaine wt a great puissance, & in a bactell 
 at Nazers, put to flight ye foresaid bastard, he restored ye 
 foresaid Peter to his former dignity; but not long after, 
 Henry the bastard, whiles K. Peter sate at a table, suddenly 
 thrust him through with a speare." This is taken, with the 
 omission of merely one or two details, directly from Stow's 
 Annalcs. The reference to Nazers as the battlefield was 
 
 ^"Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, II. 681 ff. 
 
 ^^ Annates. 
 
 "Edmund Howes, Abridgement of Stow (ed. 161 1), p. 137.
 
 30 The Palsgraue. 
 
 probably misread or misinterpreted as Mazieres by Smith. ^-"^ 
 There seems to have been no Mazieres in Spain, but there 
 was such a town in France, and the author must have 
 confused the two. 
 
 It will be seen from the above account, condensed from 
 Froissart, Holinshed, and Stow, how absolutely inaccurate 
 is every historic statement, character, or situation in the 
 play. Henry the Bastard is portrayed as an ambitious, 
 blood-thirsty and unscrupulous, though withal courageous, 
 soldier. He states that the Black Prince opposed him lately 
 at Mazieres, that his grandsire and great-grandsire had 
 both worn the imperial crown, and he himself is crowned 
 emperor in the play. The whole of his bold and romantic 
 military career in Germany, his return to Mazieres in Spain, 
 and his second defeat on the same field, this time at the 
 hands of the Palatine of the Rhine, together with the jour- 
 ney to France, where he is forced to resign the emperor's 
 crown to Savoy, are fictions made out of the whole cloth. 
 The only suggestion in the chronicles quoted above of a fact 
 which Smith might have grasped as a possible excuse for 
 his treatment of Henry's career is that after Henry's defeat 
 at the hands of the Black Prince at Navaretta in 1367 he 
 fled into France. There was only one year between this 
 event and the murder of Pedro by Henry, in 1368, and from 
 these facts one would be inclined to place the action of the 
 play betw^een these dates ; but the relation of certain events 
 which follow show how imperfectly such a date would 
 satisfy all the conditions of the plot. 
 
 The seven electors are all represented in the play, though 
 the author seems to have been entirely unacquainted with 
 the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV. The manner of 
 election, the formalities and prescribed duties and offices of 
 the various electors are, with one exception, ignored. This 
 exception is in the case of the Palatine of the Rhine, who 
 
 "See the play, 1. 73.
 
 Introduction. 31 
 
 is called the Prime (Prince?) Elector, and is represented 
 as temporarily filling the imperial office during the inter- 
 regnum. This was one of the duties imposed upon the 
 Palatine of the Rhine by the Golden BulL''-^ This may be 
 accounted for by the circulation of the reports of the official 
 rank of the Palatine Frederick V, who was at the time of the 
 writing of the play making such a stir in England. That 
 the author did not know anything about the duties and 
 privileges of the electors is continually evident. In one 
 place the Duke of Saxony is made to say that being an 
 elector he is "bard the onely throne." At no time was there 
 a provision that would have barred him from that doubtful 
 honor. 
 
 Let us turn for a moment to the movements of Peter. 
 We know what historical character is meant to be portrayed 
 under this name, but that is all. In the play he is repre- 
 sented as a hermit skilled in the knowledge of the healing 
 art, a mild-hearted religious devotee, a weak soldier, and a 
 mistreated king. We have seen that Froissart gives him an 
 entirely different character. In the play Peter says : 
 
 Since the decease of Englands royall Sonne, 
 That plac't me lately in Spayne's gouernment. 
 Those that did feare me for his valor sake, 
 Are by the traynes and falshood of my brother 
 Reuolted from mee, etc. 
 
 It is a severe strain on the reader's credulity to hear 
 Peter talking thus of the decease of the Black Prince when 
 he himself had been dead for eight years at the time that 
 event took place. Moreover, the excuse which Peter makes 
 for leaving his realm and seeking aid first in France and 
 then in Germany is too weak to be accepted as within the 
 range of probability. It leaves Castile without a king, for 
 
 "Cf. Golden Bull, Henderson's Historical Documents, p. 234, and see 
 line 13 of the play.
 
 32 
 
 The Pals^raue. 
 
 the Bastard was already in Germany. But our author 
 needed in Germany a hermit with medical skill to cure the 
 Palsgrave of his malady, and it is easy enough in this 
 romantic sphere of history to make him a king and import 
 him from beyond the Pyrenees. After the escape of the 
 Bastard from Peter's custody^^ and the sharp reprimand 
 given Peter by the Palsgrave, we hear nothing more of 
 Don Pedro. The scene shifts to England and then to 
 France, and the Spanish king is left presumably in peaceful 
 possession of his throne. 
 
 On the English side we might expect somewhat more 
 deference to be paid to the facts of history, but we are still 
 in the realm of romance. The visit of the Palsgrave Robert 
 to England is a plausible fiction based on the actual presence 
 of the Palatine Frederick in the realm. We read in Stow 
 and Holinshed of jousts and tournaments held at Windsor 
 in honor of the founding of the Order of the Garter ( 1344) 
 and similar events. The entertainments described in the 
 play were really suggested by those given in honor of the 
 visits of such princes as Christianus von Anhalt^*^ and Fred- 
 erick of the Palatinate of the Rhine/'^ when triumphs on 
 land and water, feasts by night and by day, jousts and 
 tourneys and all sorts of masks, triumphs and entertain- 
 ments of every kind were prepared and presented with all 
 the extravagant display of the London of the seventeenth 
 century. The elaborate representation in the play of the 
 bestowal of the Garter on the Palsgrave Robert was but a 
 news item of what had occurred when Frederick V was 
 initiated into that order. ^^ 
 
 The Earl of Artoise is a historical character ; but his 
 death occurred in 1342, so that his appearance in the present 
 "honourable hystorie" presents an inconsistency as to dates. 
 
 ''See line 691 of the play. 
 
 "Stow, Abridgement (ed. 1611). p. 506. 
 
 "Stow, Annates (ed. 1631), p. 1002. Also Nichols, James I, Vol. II. 
 
 "Stow, Annates (ed. 1631), p. 1005, and Nichols, James I, Vol. II.
 
 Introduction. 33 
 
 The original of this character was descended from the royal 
 family of France and had married a sister of Philip VI. 
 He was a man of violent passions and in consequence of some 
 outburst was deprived of his possessions in the county of 
 Artoise and driven into exile. In revenge for this disgrace 
 he attached himself to King Edward, who showed him many 
 favors. Artoise persuaded the king that he (King Edward) 
 had a direct claim on the throne of France through his 
 mother Isabella, daughter of Philip the Fair. Froissart^* 
 says of him, "He was courteous, courageous, and gallant, 
 and of the first blood of the world." 
 
 The same character appears more consistently with fact 
 in that excellent anonymous play The Raigne of King Ed- 
 ward III (circa 1590), where he is portrayed as a brave 
 officer and a loyal adherent to Edward's claims to the 
 French crown. The ignominious part played by Artoise in 
 the present play seems to be altogether a creation of the 
 imagination of our author to meet the exigencies of his plot. 
 
 Which Duke of Savoy it was whom Edward wanted to 
 have elected emperor I have been unable to decide. Holins- 
 hed^° mentions a Duke of Savoy who entertained the Duke 
 of Clarence royally when he visited Italy. Froissart^^ speaks 
 of an Earl of Savoy who lived in the town of Piguerol, in 
 Piedmont, and who entertained most magnificently one of 
 Prince Edward's ambassadors. Stow mentions a Duke of 
 Savoy among the men of rank slain at the battle of Cressy. 
 The only foundation for the proposal of King Edward 
 to the Palsgrave that the Duke of Savoy be elected emperor 
 may be in the fact that the electors offered the emperor's 
 crown to King Edward in 1347.^^ As far back as 1257 
 Richard, Duke of Cornwall, was chosen King of the Romans 
 and went to Germany to receive the crown from the Pope, 
 
 "Chronicles, I. 36, 39, 120, etc. 
 
 '"Chronicles, II. 685. 
 
 "Chronicles, I. 400. 
 
 "Cf. Longman, Life of Edzvard III, I. 292.
 
 34 The Palsgraue. 
 
 but after two years of empty show, all his ready money 
 being by this time exhausted, he found himself without 
 support or power; so he returned to England.^^ 
 
 Why King John, who died in 1364, should have been 
 made to play so contemptible a part in the play is a matter 
 difficult to explain. The whole romantic episode of the 
 surprise and capture of the French court, together with the 
 various foreign princes and potentates connected with the 
 story who were then its honored visitors, it is needless to 
 say, is a fabrication entirely without foundation in his- 
 torical fact. 
 
 From this discussion it will be seen that Mr. Herford** 
 is far from wrong when he says, "The score or so of 
 early plays which profess to be founded on German history, 
 treat it with an open contempt much beyond what is de- 
 manded by the most exclusive pursuit of scenic efifect. His- 
 toric truth is not subordinated to dramatic truth, but simply 
 ignored. There is not the faintest sign that any dramatist 
 studied a German chronicle." Speaking specifically of this 
 play, he says, "The Hector of Germany, professedly dealing 
 with a contemporary of the Black Prince, is an audacious 
 revision of the history of the fourteenth century in the 
 spirit of the seventeenth."^^ In a note Herford states that 
 the action is divided between the Black Prince's adventure 
 in aid of Pedro the Cruel and an intrigue for the empire. 
 But the Black Prince is represented in the play as already 
 dead, and this episode in his history is boldly transferred 
 to the Palsgrave, who is made to perform on the same 
 battlefield, however strange to history this may be, more 
 wonderful feats than were ever attributed to the Black 
 Prince. 
 
 "Holinshed, II. 442, and Stow (ed. 1631), p. 191. 
 
 **Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Cen- 
 tury, p. 171. 
 
 */fet(f., p. 171
 
 Introduction. 35 
 
 V. 
 
 In The Hector of Germcmy we have a play representing 
 a type of ephemeral literature very similar to the popular 
 journalism of the present time. Plays of like kind are John 
 van Olden Barnaz^eldt and The Game at Chess, the former 
 wholly on a foreign subject and hence presenting an undis- 
 guised piece of stage journalism; the latter, an indirect 
 portraiture of contemporary events, including among its 
 characters the English king and the dignitaries of his court, 
 couched under the disguise of allegorical representation. 
 
 Fleay^^ says the interesting feature about The Hector of 
 Germany is that it was played not by the regular actors, but 
 by a company of young men of the city. These youths were 
 not only intensely interested in the progress of the relations 
 indicated by the popular marriage, but showed this interest 
 by actually learning and presenting a play in honor of the 
 foreign prince who had been but recently adopted into the 
 English royal household. Smith's play formed no part of 
 the royal entertainment provided for the Palatine and his 
 followers, and it was probably not noticed in court circles. 
 It was written professedly for and played by citizens. 
 Nothing could be more natural than that the citizen class 
 should desire to be entertained by a play which introduced 
 the stately dances, masks, tournaments, ceremonials of the 
 Order of the Garter, etc., which were being enacted in real 
 life at the court, and at the same time presented the proto- 
 types of the very characters in whom the whole community 
 and nation was just then so deeply interested. 
 
 Under the circumstances, we need not expect to find any 
 very high degree of literary merit of a permanent kind in 
 the play. It was doubtless written very hurriedly and care- 
 lessly, as the numerous instances of illogical situations and 
 sequences testify. Sir Walter Scott, in his Journal, under 
 the date of August, 1826, set down the first word of criticism 
 
 "Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, II, 251.
 
 36 The Palsgraue. 
 
 on this play. He characterized it as "a sort of bouncing 
 tragedy worthless in the extreme, yet like many of the plays 
 of the beginning of the seventeenth century written to a good 
 tune." He adds a discriminating bit of criticism worth re- 
 membering. "The dramatic poets of that time seemed to 
 have possessed as joint stock a highly poetical and abstract 
 tone of language, so that the worst of them often reminded 
 you of the very best. The audience must have had a much 
 stronger sense of poetry in those days than now, since 
 language was received and applauded at the Fortune and 
 Red Bull, which could not now be understood by any 
 general audience in Great Britain. "^'^ 
 
 The judgment that The Hector of Germany is worthless 
 is too severe. The play possesses as much merit as one 
 might expect of such a production. It is interesting 
 in its romance and patriotic in its appeal. Englishmen, great 
 by the power of their successes, are everywhere the fear 
 of their enemies and the toast of their friends. Spaniards 
 and Frenchmen are scoffed and derided, while the Germans 
 are lauded to the skies. The style of the verse is somewhat 
 mechanical and stiff,^^ and the phraseology is never bold 
 and imaginative, though at times it seems not wholly void 
 of poetic feeling. Though not drawn with sufficient clear- 
 ness of outlines to make them stand out in bold relief, the 
 characters are nevertheless individualized and made alive 
 to a degree at least equal to the average of plays of this class. 
 
 The nature of the material handled and the fashion 
 
 '^'The Journal of Sir Walter Scott (1890), I. 234. 
 
 "*The percentage of rimed lines is small. About twenty scenes are 
 capped off with rimes, in one instance a double set, and there are thirty- 
 nine instances of rime to round off a longer speech, or forewarn an 
 exit or entrance. There are only thirty-three instances of rime in mid- 
 scene. A large proportion of these mid-scene rimes are recorded in the 
 love-making scenes betweeen the French King and the heroine of the 
 sub-plot. Thirty-four of the rimes of the play are found in these two 
 scenes, or about 37 per cent, of the whole. There are 1861 lines of 
 verse in the play, and only about 9.8 per cent, of these are rimed.
 
 Introduction. 37 
 
 which required a romantic love story in every play of the 
 time militates against anything- like historic unity. The 
 adjective "bouncing" is certainly appropriately applied. The 
 scenes are laid in four kingdoms and on the sea. Time and 
 space are practically annihilated, but the interest in the 
 story and the characters is continually sustained. There is 
 no lack of action or of spirited dialogue. Though abso- 
 lutely worthless and inaccurate as a presentation of historic 
 fact, the purpose of cementing the alliance between the 
 German princes and the English nation was admirably sub- 
 served. 
 
 Disappointing in the extreme is the absolute unfamiliarity 
 displayed by Smith with things German. Scarcely a Ger- 
 man word, phrase, or custom is hinted at in the whole play. 
 This is all the more disappointing when we consider the 
 manifold relations, social, commercial, and literary, existing 
 between England and Germany in the late sixteenth and 
 early seventeenth centuries. When we turn to another play 
 of the period very closely related to the present one in sub- 
 ject matter and treatment we find no such lack. 
 
 Alphonsus, Emperour of Germany, ascribed to George 
 Chapman on the title page of the quarto printed by Moseley 
 in 1645, w^s probably written some time before the year 
 1613. Winstanley attributed it to Peele. Fleay^^ accepts 
 Peele as the author and dates it circa 1590, near the 
 revenge and conqueror groups of plays, to both of which it 
 belongs. Elze^^ puts it as late as 162 1, but his arguments 
 for this date are altogether unconvincing. Fleay's date is 
 probably more nearly correct ; at any rate, it seems certain 
 that the play was written before the marriage of Frederick 
 V to the Princess Eli/^abeth. The question of authorship 
 is still an open one.'"^^ The play is so full of German 
 customs and manners that it justifies Elze's conclusioi?) 
 
 ^Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 11. 156. 
 ""See his excellent edition of the play, Leipzig, 1867. 
 "Herford, Lit. Rcl. of Eng. and Gcr. in the i6th Cent., p 172.
 
 ^8 7^/i'-- Palsgrauc. 
 
 that a German, or one who had Hved a long time in Ger- 
 many, must have at least assisted in writing it.^^ Indeed, 
 one character, Hedewick, the heroine of the love plot, siDC^ks 
 German throughout, and two "bowrs" (bauers) express 
 themselves entirely in low German. The play deals with 
 exactly the same sort of historic material as The Hector of 
 Germany, though the period. treated is the interregnum of 
 the thirteenth century, the more exact date being 1257, when 
 Richard Duke of Cornwall was called to be King of the 
 Romans. The main theme is the imaginary struggle be- 
 tween Richard and Alphonsus of Castile for the imperial 
 crown, and the same disregard for fact and historic accu- 
 racy is shown as in The Hector of Germany. The char- 
 acters in the two plays are paralleled in almost very instance, 
 and w^e may safely assume that Alphonsus was known in gen- 
 eral outline to the author of our play, though he by no means 
 followed it closely. In both plays the Palsgrave or Palatine 
 of the Rhine is a loyal friend to the English, but in Alphon- 
 sus he is not made the central figure as he is in The Hector 
 of Germany. The Spanish monarch, Alphonsus of Castile, 
 is, in our play, Henry of Trastomare; the Duke of Corn- 
 wall is paralleled in the Duke of Savoy, both of whom rep- 
 resent the English candidate, and both of whom succeed in 
 the end in obtaining possession of the imperial throne. 
 Saxon at first is in favor of the English claimant, but later 
 becomes an adherent of the party of Alphonsus; in The 
 Hector of Germany he is throughout an ardent hater and 
 enemy of the English. The Bishop of Cologne is of the 
 English party, while the Bishops of Mainz and Triers are 
 adherents of the Spanish claimants in both plays. The 
 King of Bohemia and the Margrave of Brandenburg side 
 with the Palsgrave for the English candidate in The Hector 
 of Germany, but take the contrary side in Alphonsus. In 
 both plays the Spaniard succeeds for a time in grasping the 
 
 "See Elze's Introduction to the play for a full account.
 
 Introduction. 39 
 
 imperial rule, but in the end is deposed in favor of the 
 English claimant. In Alphonsus the revenge motive is 
 prominent in the development of the plot, while in The 
 Hector of Germany the prime motive seems to be the 
 apotheosis of the Prince Elector of the Rhenish Palatinate. 
 The love story of Prince Edvi^ard and Hedewick is paralleled 
 in that of young Fitzwaters and Floramel, though the situa- 
 tion and denouement are entirely different. 
 
 It will be seen that the two pieces run closely parallel 
 in the main characters, although they are wide apart in 
 type and general character of style and structure. Alphon- 
 sus is a grim and horrible tragedy of blood and revenge, 
 and on the whole, in spite of its many repulsive features, a 
 much more powerful drama than the milder play now under 
 consideration. The parallels seem too close to have been 
 accidental, but it is perfectly evident that there is no imita- 
 tion in language or in the minuter details of style or struc- 
 ture. We must conclude that if Smith knew the play, and 
 it seems likely that he did, he had merely seen it performed 
 and had but a vague outline of the more prominent char- 
 acters in his mind when he came to write The Hector of 
 Germany. 
 
 The under-plot of the father and son contending for the 
 same girl, if not directly borrowed from Chapman's The 
 Gentleman Usher (1606), is certainly considerably influ- 
 enced by that play. The situation is exactly the same. 
 Lasso, the father of Margaret, arranges a match between 
 her and the Duke Alphonsus, the father of Vincentio, her 
 lover. The young people meet, however, and are secretly 
 made one by a peculiar and most interesting priestless cere- 
 mony. The usher, Bassiolo, who lays the plot for their 
 clandestine meeting and escape, is exactly paralleled in the 
 Steward who assists young Fitzwaters and Floramel to 
 escape, though the former character is more humorously 
 conceived and is far more prominent in the play to which 
 he gives the title than is the Steward in The Hector of Get-
 
 40 The Pals grail e. 
 
 many. The same hue and cry is set up for the capture of 
 the runaways in both plays, but the reconcihation is some- 
 what differently worked out. In Chapman's play the main 
 plot deals with this situation, but in Smith's play it is merely 
 introduced in the under-plot, and this, of course, accounts 
 for many of the differences of treatment. 
 
 In Marston's Farisit aster, or the Fazvne (1606) we have 
 the plot of a son wooing for the father and being made him- 
 self a victim of Dulcimel's charms. The father is desirous 
 of seeing his son happily married and his efforts are all in 
 this direction, so we have in this play an exactly opposite 
 treatment of the same general situation. Likewise in one of 
 Lope de Vega's plays we have a variation of the situation 
 and purpose; El castigo sin vengatisa is the tragedy of a 
 natural son who falls in love with and dishonors his father's 
 beautiful young wife. The theme was later treated by Byron 
 in a narrative poem called Farisina. 
 
 This theme is worked out on lines more nearly those of 
 The Hector of Germany in Moliere's L'Avare and in several 
 of its English imitations, notably in Thomas Shadwell's The 
 Miser (1671), and in Henry Fielding's play of the same 
 title (1732). The plot is an old one. In the Casino of 
 Plautus (itself founded upon the Greek play Clerumenae 
 (YJ^rjpovfxtvoi of Diphius), an aged Athenian, Stalino, and 
 his son, Euthynicus, fall in love with a foundling carefully 
 brought up by the former's wife. In order to get possession 
 of her each of them attempts to have her married to one of 
 his slaves. The wife of Stalino naturally favors the son's 
 designs, and she uses the same device to deceive her husband 
 as that employed in The Hector of Germany, namely, a serv- 
 ant, disguised to represent the bride in the ceremony. 
 There is no doubt that our author had this comedy of 
 Plautus's or some imitation of it in his mind when he com- 
 posed the similar situation in The Hector of Germany. It 
 should be mentioned that the ruse of marrying a disguised 
 page to an amorous old man is the l^asis of the plot in 
 ]onson s Epicocne (1609).
 
 Iniroduction. 41 
 
 Two characters of the under-plot, Lord Fitzwaters and 
 young Fitzwaters, his son, suggest a comparison with the 
 characters of the same name which appear in Chettle and 
 Munday's play, The Death of Robert Earle of Huntington 
 (1601). The father, a noble old lord, had already played 
 an important part in Munday's Downfall of Robert Earle 
 of Huntington (1601), first mentioned by Henslowe, Feb- 
 ruary 15, 1599. The same characters figure also in Robert 
 Davenport's reworking of the material in his King John and 
 Matilda, printed in 1655, but written certainly before 1639, 
 probably as early as 1624.^^ There is nothing comparable in 
 the treatment in our play to the excellent portrayal of the 
 noble old father of Matilda, the Maid Marian of the Robin 
 Hood legend, as found in these plays. The name was, no 
 doubt, a familiar one to the playwrights, and Smith may 
 have appropriated it for his character without having any 
 definite historical person or any particular portrayal in mind. 
 A Lord Fitzwater appears, however, as a minor character 
 in Shakespeare's Richard H (1594), and there are some 
 points of similarity between this Fitzwater and the Fitz- 
 waters in Smith's play, which suggests the possibility that the 
 character may have been modeled on Shakespeare's. In 
 a certain scene of Richard H,^^ Lord Fitzwater shows 
 his hot temper and fearless bravery by throwing his glove 
 before Aumerle, even though he is not directly implicated 
 in the quarrel. Several daring and fiery speeches are as- 
 signed to Fitzwater in this scene. The only other appear- 
 ance of the character is in V. 6, where he announces to 
 Bolingbroke his arrival from Oxford with the heads of 
 some of Bolingbroke's enemies. The ungoverned outbursts 
 of temper on the part of the Lord Fitzwaters in The Hector 
 of Germany against his son and against Lord Clinton may 
 be compared with the wild bravadoes and challenges of Lord 
 
 "Bullen's ed. Davenport's IVorlcs, in Old Plays, Nciv Scries, III. 
 "Act IV, I.
 
 42 The Paisgraue. 
 
 Fitzwater in the gage scene ; and the announcement of suc- 
 cess in the overthrow of Brandenburg and Bohemia and the 
 rescue of Savoy is not unHke the announcement made by 
 Lord Fitzwater in Richard IL 
 
 VI. 
 
 There is not extant a single piece of work, The Hector 
 of Germany being excepted, which can with absolute cer- 
 tainty be assigned to Smith. There are, however, several 
 extant plays with which it has been conjectured by various 
 critics that he was in some way connected, and it shall now 
 be our task to examine these plays and consider whatever 
 evidence we have been able to collect which might throw 
 light on these conjectures. 
 
 Two entries in Henslowe's account-book, dated September 
 20 and 30, 1602, connect Wentworth Smith and Thomas 
 Hey wood as joint authors of a play called by that astute- 
 obtuse theatrical manager "Marshalle Oserecke." Each of 
 the poets received an equal share of the usual price paid by 
 Henslowe for a new or rewritten play, so we may surmise 
 that the work of composition must likewise have been about 
 equally divided. The one play of Heywood's which might 
 be identified with this is The Royall King and Loyall Sub- 
 ject, first published in quarto in 1637, but written some 
 time near the beginning of the century as the epilogue writ- 
 ten at the time of the publication proves and as the style of 
 the play itself undoubtedly shows. ^ Collier^ suggests that 
 Smith had a hand in this play, and Fleay^ says he feels sure 
 it is the same as Marshal Osrick, and even goes so far as 
 to assign definite parts of the original play to Smith, though 
 he admits Heywood's later revision of the whole play. An 
 
 'See Miss Tibbals's edition of the play, now in process of publication 
 in this series. 
 ^Henslowe's Diary, p. 240. 
 'Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 300.
 
 Introduction. 43 
 
 examination of The Roy all King and the evidence in Hens- 
 lowe seems to show that there is at least a strong probability 
 that the conjecture, so far as the original play is concerned, 
 is correct. In the first place, there are references in the 
 Diary to an older play under the receipts for "Oserycke," 
 February 3 and 7, iS97-'^ To increase his receipts at the least 
 possible expense the old manager probably paid two of his 
 men to rewrite or revise the play in 1602, and in order to 
 make it go well a new title was chosen and the name of the 
 marshal suppressed, though the bookkeeper, Henslowe him- 
 self or his scribe, kept the original name in the account 
 books. In the second place, the late publication of the play 
 by Heywood afforded an opportunity for him to revise the 
 whole so that he might be enabled without deception to 
 place his name on the title page as sole author. 
 
 We may call attention to a passage in the Prologue, un- 
 doubtedly written at the time of the first production of the 
 play, which may possibly be construed to indicate a double 
 authorship. The lines are, 
 
 "No history 
 We have left unrifled, our Pens have been dipt 
 As well in opening each hid manuscript. 
 As tracts more vulgar," 
 
 There seems to be a plural significance attached to the pro- 
 nouns, especially when we consider the noun pens, but it 
 may be questioned whether the application of the passage 
 is to specific authors or to the whole group of dramatic 
 writers of the time. I should be inclined to accept the first 
 of these alternatives. 
 
 In comparing this play with Tlie Hector of Germany I 
 find fewer points of similarity than are noted in the com- 
 parison of The Hector of Germany with The fonre Prentises 
 
 *Henslois.'c's Diary, p. 85.
 
 44 The Palsgraiie. 
 
 of London, which is undoubtedly Heywood's.^ There are, 
 so far as I have been able to discover, no turns of phrase- 
 ology or strikingly peculiar uses of words common to both 
 plays. The Royall King, on the whole, is much the superior 
 play, both in construction and in character drawing-. There 
 are evidences of a greater freedom of verse structure, a more 
 general frequency of rimed lines in some parts and a style 
 of more regular smoothness and elegance in The Royall 
 King, though there is a painful lack of poetic feeling and 
 imaginative treatment, it seems to me, in both plays. The 
 general treatment of subject-matter, the slight connexion 
 of the under-plot with the main story, the apparent contra- 
 dictions in the portrayal of some of the characters, show 
 points of slight similarity. The introduction into both plays 
 of a Lord Clinton as a minor character may be noted as a 
 mere coincidence. The evidences of a double authorship in 
 Th-e Royall King as it has come down to us are very slight. 
 Fleay*^ argues that this play was revived and rewritten by 
 Heywood about 1633, at the time of the production of 
 Fletcher's Loyall Subject, and all parts originally written 
 by Smith, namely, I, i, 2, 3, 4, 5 ; II, 2; V, i, were re- 
 written in smoother verse and with notable absence of rime 
 as compared with the other parts of the play, which were 
 only revised with an occasional change made to bring the 
 old rimed lines into closer accord with the later fashion of 
 "strong lines." The definite assignment of parts of a play 
 to one of several collaborators is at best a dubious matter, 
 and in this case it seems altogether futile. We must con- 
 clude that none of Smith's writing is discernible in the play 
 as we have it. though it seems to me quite possible that 
 Marshal Osrick was in some form the original of The Royall 
 King and Loyall Subject. 
 
 ''See below, p. 47. 
 
 'Biogral^hical Chronicle of the English Drama. I. 300.
 
 Introduction. 45 
 
 In Henslowe's Diary^ is the following item : "Layd owt 
 for the Company, the 3 setmbr 1602 to bye iiij lances for 
 the comody of Thomas Hewodes and Mr Smythes, some 
 of viij s.," and immediately following this, on Sep- 
 tember 4, an item of twenty-seven shillings, eight pence for 
 a silk flag, probably for the same play. The next entry 
 records full payment for a book by Heywood and Smith 
 called "Albert Galles."^ Collier® suggests that this entry 
 refers to The foure Prcntises of London, the only extant 
 edition of which was printed in 161 5. The foundation on 
 which the suggestion rests is merely the woodcut of the 
 four brothers with their long lances or pikes and the many 
 references to their tossing their weapons in the text of the 
 play. Ward^° thought Collier's conjecture was highly prob- 
 able. Fleay,^^ however, seems to make out a clear case for 
 an earlier edition^^ published some time about 1610, and 
 then, counting the play back sixteen years, according to 
 Heywood's own statement as to the time of composition in 
 the dedication, dates it 1594 and identifies it with the second 
 part of Godfrey of Bulloigne, mentioned by Henslowe July 
 19 of that year. There seems to be no doubt that this is 
 correct, for it is certain that Heywood began his career in 
 London about the date assigned to this play, and his state- 
 ment that it was written "many years since in my infancy 
 of judgment in this kinde of poetry, and my first practice," 
 confirms the accuracy of Fleay's date. Moreover, the facts 
 that Godfrey and his three brothers are the heroes of the 
 play and that in the end he is decorated with the crown of 
 
 'P. 238. 
 
 'See also the discussion below in connection with the play of Nobody 
 and Somebody, p. 48. 
 
 'Henslowe's Diary, p. 238. 
 
 ^"History of English Dramatic Literature, II. 559. 
 
 ^^Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 282. 
 
 "Cf. Knight of the Burning Pestle (published 1613, acted 1610), IV. 
 ii, "Read the play of The Four Prentices, where they toss their pikes so."
 
 46 The Pahgraue. 
 
 thorns "since Syon and lerusalem are wonne," and that 
 both this play and the Godfrey of Bulloigne,. which is en- 
 tered in the Stationers' Register June 19, 1594^ by S. R. 
 for J. Danter, have the sub-title, "With the Conquest of 
 Jerusalem," seem to settle the question beyond all reason- 
 able doubt. Thus Collier's conjecture is completely vitiated, 
 and we may conclude positively that Smith had nothing 
 whatever to do with the writing of The foure Prentises of 
 London. 
 
 A close examination of this play in connection with The 
 Hector of Germany, however, seems to prove clearly that 
 the extremely popular Foure Prentises exerted a potent in- 
 fluence on our author, both as regards style and manner of 
 treatment. The handling of historic fact is practically iden- 
 tical in the two plays. The time of the action of The foure 
 Prentises is about 1087. The scene opens at London, but is 
 shifted to Ireland, France, Italy, in fact, all over Europe, 
 and finally is rounded out in Asia at the old Jewish capital, 
 Jerusalem. The four apprentices escape from their masters, 
 join Robert of Normany on a voyage to the Holy Land, are 
 shipwrecked and separated. They all reach land, but, 
 strangely enough, as far apart as from Ireland to Italy. 
 Each makes his way toward Jerusalem, and the adventures 
 that befall the travelers make up the main part of the play. 
 Tancred, an Italian Prince, is called County Palatine, and 
 thus we have two coincidences in names, Robert of Nor- 
 mandy and this County Palatine, suggesting Robert the Pala- 
 tine of the Rhine. The violent distortions of history in- 
 volved are excused in the prologue, where one of the three 
 speakers in answer to the question as to what authority he 
 has for the history replies, "Our Authority is a Manuscript, 
 a Booke writ in parchment, which not being publicke, nor 
 gcnerall in the World, we rather thought fit to exemplifie 
 vnto the publicke censure, things concealed and obscur'd, 
 such as are not common with euery one, than such Historical! 
 Tales as euery one can tell by the fire in Winter." The author
 
 Introduction. 47 
 
 of The Hector of Germany might well have claimed to have 
 used "a manuscript, a book writ in parchment — not being 
 public nor general in the world." 
 
 The verse of our play does not rise above the level of the 
 riming lines of The foure Prentises. On the whole the 
 average excellence of the style of Heywood's play is superior 
 to that 0/ The Hector of Germany. At times there seems 
 to be a rather close imitation of the style and even of phrase- 
 ology of Heywood's play in The Hector of Germany. The 
 constant use of classical names and illustrations is common 
 to both plays. Many verbal similarities might be noted, but 
 it may be sufficient to quote two passages which seem to 
 show evidences of possible unconscious imitation or direct 
 borrowing. 
 
 Neuer be from her, in her bosome dwell. 
 To make her presence heauen, her absence hell. 
 The foure Prentises of London (Heywood's Works, ed. 
 1874, n. 180). 
 
 Thou shalt not leaue me, but for euer dwell 
 Where I abide, thy absence is my hell. 
 
 The Hector of Germany, 11. 1545-6. 
 
 Eustace. I am here ; stand thou forth on the aduerse part : 
 Suruey me well, braue Hector I resemble. 
 Whose very brow did make the Greekes to tremble. 
 Guy. But I Achilles, proud ambitious boy, 
 Will drag thy coarse about the Wals of Troy. 
 Giue me thy Pike, He tosse it like a reed, 
 And with this bul-rush make mine enemy bleed. 
 
 {They tosse their pikes.) 
 The foure Prentises of London (Heywood's Words, ed. 
 1874, H. 230).
 
 48 The Palsgraue. 
 
 And see how brauely eiiery Leader rides, 
 
 Pliini'd from the Beauer to the Saddle bowe, 
 
 Whilst the bold Souldier makes his lofty pike 
 
 Stretch in the Ayre with tossing it aloft. 
 
 Brauely done fellow : that tricke once againe, 
 
 And there's gold for thy paines ; hee fights like Hector , 
 
 Whilst at his feet th'amazed Grecians fall, 
 
 And though Achilles would renew the Field, 
 
 He dares not doo't, the enemies so strong. 
 
 The Hector of Germany, 11. 208-16. 
 
 Fleay's conjecture that Albert Galles^^ is Henslowe's mis- 
 take for some title like 'Archigalle's three sons' and that this 
 play is to be identified with Nobody and Somebody, with the 
 true Chronicle Historic of Elydure, published anonymously 
 and without date but registered in 1606 by S. R. for J. 
 Trundle, leads us to a consideration of this play. Fleay 
 unhesitatingly assigns it to Heywood on the single piece of 
 evidence that the unusual spelling "ey" for "ay" or "F' is 
 used ; this he says is a peculiarity of Heywood's not shared 
 by any other w-riter of the time. There are, however, other 
 and weightier reasons for the connection of Heywood's 
 name with this play. The title-page announces that the text 
 is a "true copy as it hath been acted by the Queens Maiesties 
 Seruants" and Heywood was about the time of the date of 
 the registration of the play connected with this company. 
 The fact that Heywood's name does not appear on the title- 
 page and the absence of the address to the reader and the 
 dedication usually prefixed by him when he personally super- 
 vised the publication of one of his works would indicate that 
 this pirated edition was made from one of Heywood's own 
 manuscript copies surreptitiously obtained from some mem- 
 ber of the company. We must not, however, neglect to say 
 that the satirical character of the play would be sufficient 
 
 "See p. 45, above.
 
 Introduction. 49 
 
 reason for the suppression of these introductory matters and 
 the author's name. There are evidences of revision made 
 after March 19, 1604, the date when James assumed the title 
 of King of Great Britain, for in several places the form used 
 in the older edition, "King- of England," has escaped the eye 
 of the reviser. A very definite satirical allusion to the whole- 
 sale creation of knights in the first year of James's reign, 
 when even^'Nobody made dainty to be knighted, "^^ shows 
 that the final revision was made at least as late as 1604. But 
 Fleay^^ says the earlier play may have been written in 1602 
 by Heywood and Smith, and the references in Henslowe to 
 Alberte Galles are to this version. 
 
 Nobody and Somebody shows very decided evidences of 
 double authorship. The comic and satirical parts in which 
 the prominent characters are the Clown and Nobody and 
 Somebody are easily separable from the other scenes. 
 Fleay^*^ counts fourteen scenes and assignes scenes 3, 5, 6, 
 10, 12, 13, and a share in i and 14, to Smith. There are 
 only twelve scenes in the play, however, and as Fleay does 
 not account for seven and eight we may consider his error 
 a misprint or an oversight. Besides the Prologue and 
 Epilogue the lines thus assigned to Heywood are, 99-166; 
 734-853; 1 105-1236; 1499-1573, 1770-1983; a total of 
 850 lines or about half of the play. From the entries in 
 Henslowe, dated September 4, 1602, we learn that Smith 
 and Heywood receive in one payment six pounds for Alberte 
 Galles, and on September 3 and 4 are the items regarding 
 the four lances and the silk flag.^'^ Collier's conjecture that 
 these four lances were for The foure Prentises of London is, 
 as we have seen, altogether untenable. The four lances and 
 the flag would not be out of place in Nobody and Somebody, 
 for we have four brothers of an early English royal family 
 
 "Line ^27 in Simpson's reprint in The School of Shakspere, I. 273. 
 ^''Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 294. 
 "Simpson's edition in The School of Shakspere, I. 273ff. 
 "See p. 48.
 
 50 The Palsgraue. 
 
 ill the play, and they would need some kind of weapon or 
 insignia to distinguish their rank. Moreover, there is a 
 stage direction of "Enter drum and coiilors," which suggests 
 the necessity of a flag ; and the fighting^^ was very probably 
 done with lances, though that weapon is nowhere men- 
 tioned in the play. We may conclude then that Fleay's 
 conjecture is a very likely one, and we have in the extant 
 play of Nobody and Somebody some of Wentworth Smith's 
 work, though probably in a slightly revised form. 
 
 Under the circumstances, no absolutely conclusive deduc- 
 tions can be drawn from a comparison of the parts of the 
 play assigned by Fleay to Smith with The Hector of Ger- 
 many, but the results are, nevertheless, almost convincing. 
 Striking similarities of style and diction and general methods 
 of procedure meet the reader on every hand. A large num- 
 ber of parallel phrases and similar uses of words could be 
 collected, but such a task seems useless. More definite ideas 
 of the similarities of the styles of writing in the two plays 
 can be had from two short passages than from long lists 
 of verbal coincidences. I select passages of soliloquy for 
 comparison. 
 
 I was a King, but now I am a slave. 
 
 How happie were I in this base estate 
 
 If I had neuer tasted royaltie ! 
 
 But the remembrance that I was a king, 
 
 Unseasons the content of povertie. 
 
 I heare the hunters musicke ; heere He lie 
 
 To keepe me out of sight till they pass by. 
 
 Nobody and Somebody, 11. 854-60.^' 
 
 Since I was cast Upon this fatall Rocke, 
 And saw my Loue disseuered by the wanes, 
 
 "See lines 1619 and 1694 of Simpson's edition. 
 "Simpson's edition in The School of Shaksperc, I. 273ff.
 
 Introduction. 51 
 
 And my kinde Stewart in the Ocean drownd, 
 Here haue I liu'd, fed onely with raw Fish 
 Such as the Sea yeelds : and each Shippe I see 
 (As dayly there are some furrow this way) 
 I call vnto for ayde, but nere the neere. 
 
 The Hector of Germany, 11. 1306-12. 
 
 The only other extant play in which Wentworth Smith 
 may have had a hand is The Famous History of Sir Thomas 
 Wyatt, which was first published in what seems to be an 
 abridged form in 1607, with the names of "Thomas Dickers 
 and lohn Webster" on the title-page. In Henslozve^'^ are 
 three entries, dated October 15, 21, 27, 1602, on two plays 
 called by him Ladye Jane, and 2 pt of Ladye Jane. Five 
 poets, Dekker, Heywood, Smith, Webster, and Chettle, were 
 employed on this rush order. The extraordinarily large 
 sum of eight pounds was paid for the first part, which was 
 written, as it seems from the entries, in less than a week 
 and put on the stage in less than two weeks, if we may 
 assume, as was usually the case, that the second part was 
 not demanded until after the successful appearance of the 
 first. Whether Dekker ever wrote the second part for which 
 he was paid five shillings "in earnest" is a matter of doubt. 
 Henslowe does not mention it again and Dekker was imme- 
 diately employed on another play, Christmas Comes hut 
 Once a Year, with Heywood, Chettel, and Webster. 
 
 The play as it survives is a short one, but it covers in 
 a partial way the whole of the short period of the unfor- 
 tunate Queen Jane's public life. Dyce says that it is im- 
 possible to tell whether the abridged form in which the 
 play has come down to us was made by the authors whose 
 names appear on the first and second quartos or by some 
 other playwright. Rev. J. Mitford is rather severe in 
 his criticism of this play.^^ 
 
 "Page 242. 
 
 ^^Gentleman's MaRazinc, June, 1893, p. 191.
 
 5-2 
 
 The Pals^raue. 
 
 There are so far as I can see no traces of similarity of 
 style or treatment between any part of this play and The 
 Hector of Germany. The Famous History, although an 
 abridged piece of work as we have it. is nevertheless char- 
 acterized by a unity of design and workmanship. The play 
 is one of notable merit, and so far outclasses our play 
 as to force the conclusion that if Went worth Smith had any 
 part in its composition every trace of it has been effaced in 
 the version which has survived. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The final question to which we turn our attention is the 
 possible connection of W. Smith with the three plays, which 
 appeared at various dates during Shakespeare's activity in 
 the London theatrical world, wnth the initials "W. S." on the 
 title-pages. These plays are Locrine, Lord Cromzuell, and 
 The Puritaine. They were printed as Shakespeare's in the 
 third folio, but they have been universally rejected by Eng- 
 lish and American critics, though some of the Germans 
 contended for a time that they were genuine, and even w^ent 
 so far in certain instances as to say that they were examples 
 of Shakespeare's best and maturest work.^ 
 
 Of these plays Locrine is now generally accepted as the 
 work of George Peele.^. IMoreover, it is so early a play, 
 having been registered 1594 and perhaps produced consid- 
 erably earlier, that it could hardly be assigned to our author, 
 who seems to have begun his career as a collaborator with 
 the group of writers working for the Admiral's men in 1601. 
 
 The second play of the group, Tlie True Chronicle His- 
 tory of the Whole Life and Death of Thomcis Lord Crom- 
 rvell, was not published so far as is known until 161 3, 
 although it was entered in the Stationers' books as early as 
 1602. The initials on the title-page and the statement that 
 
 'Schlegel, Dramturgischc Vorlcsungen, ed. Leipzig, 1846, II, 308.
 
 Introduction. 53 
 
 the play was "acted by the Kings Majesties Seruants" prob- 
 ably led to the conclusion that it was by Shakespeare and 
 induced the publishers of the third folio to include it as a 
 genuine work. It is unnecessary to enter here into the 
 reasons for rejecting the play from the list of Shakespeare's 
 works, nor does it seem worth while to give an analysis of 
 the plot, since the play is so well known and has so many 
 times been reprinted. Suffice it to say that it is of the 
 biographical chronicle type and covers the life of Thomas 
 Cromwell from his boyhood in his father's blacksmith shop 
 to his death in the Tower of London. The scene shifts from 
 the vicinity of London to Antwerp and to Florence and 
 Bononia (Bologna) and back to England. Twice in the 
 play the device of the chorus is used to sum up the less 
 important events in the hero's life, and while this is not in 
 itself an absolute indication of an early date of composition, 
 there are other peculiarities of style and treatment as well 
 as of matter which seem to point to some date before 1602 
 as the probable date of the first production. Professor 
 Schelling^ argues for 1592, the date assigned by Ulrici as 
 the probable time of the writing and first appearance of this 
 play. He suggests frequency of rime, the mannerism by 
 which a character often speaks of himself in the third per- 
 son, and the non-appearance of King Henry among the 
 dramatis personcc, as indications of an early date. The 
 arguments are not altogether conclusive since rime was 
 used, especially by minor authors, quite late into the new 
 century, as witness, for example, the present play ; a man- 
 nerism such as the use of the third person in soliloquy might 
 be repeated at any time ; and finally the non-appearance of 
 King Henry may be explained by the fact that the author's 
 purpose was to portray the life and character of his hero, 
 
 *Cf Ward, II, 220; Fleay, II, 320; Schelling, The English Chronicle 
 Play, p. 25 ; cf. also W. S. Gaud in a recent exhaustive argument in 
 Modern Philology, January, 1904. 
 
 *The English Chronicle Play, p. 216.
 
 54 The Palsgraue. 
 
 and if the king had been introduced the interest would 
 naturally have centered in him. Considerable skill is shown 
 in making the king the dynamic force in parts of the action 
 without intruding him in the play. Cardinal Wolsey is 
 introduced once or twice, and the author seemed to think it 
 necessary to crave the indulgence of the audience for the 
 omission of the life of so important a man, 
 
 "Because our play depends on Cromwell's death." 
 
 There are strong reasons for allowing the date of regis- 
 tration to mark the date of composition. We learn from 
 Henslowe that during 1601 and 1602 the Admiral's men 
 were performing several plays on subjects connected with 
 events and characters of Henry the VIII's time.* Lord 
 Cromzvell purports to have been acted by the King's ser- 
 vants, which would, of course, refer in 1602 to the Chamber- 
 lain's men, and it seems quite probable that this was one of 
 the rival plays of the group running at this time. It may 
 have been based on an older play, and for this reason may 
 have retained some of the characteristics of earlier composi- 
 tions. In the absence of any absolute proof to the contrary, 
 we may be justified in considering the later date as the cor- 
 rect one, and on this conclusion we may advance to a con- 
 sideration of Wentworth Smith's claims to its authorship. 
 The only point of external evidence in support of such a 
 claim is of the most doubtful kind, namely, the possible 
 identity of the initials "W. S." with his name. On the other 
 hand, a strong piece of external evidence against his author- 
 ship is the statement that the play was acted by the King's 
 men. It seems very unlikely that Smith, a mere collaborator, 
 or, as Fleay^ says, 'novice,' regularly employed in Hens- 
 lowe's service writing for the Admiral's men, should at the 
 
 *Cf. / and 2 Cardinal Wolsey, and / and 3 Lady Jane, Henslowe's 
 Diary, pp. igSff, and 242flF. 
 *Life and Works of Shakespeare, p. 292.
 
 Introduction. 55 
 
 same time be making plays independently for the Chamber- 
 lain's men. But if the "W. S." was a deliberate forgery for 
 the purpose of fathering the play on Shakespeare, the state- 
 ment that the play was acted by the King's servants may 
 likewise be a fabrication. This would bring us, however, 
 no nearer the solution of the question of authorship. 
 
 The latest editor of Lord Cromwell, Mr. T. Evan Jacob," 
 in his introduction to the play says, "There is no reason to 
 doubt that the author of our play was Wentworth Smith, a 
 poet of considerable ability, who wrote other dramas, such 
 as the Puritan, or Widow of Watling Street, and The Hector 
 of Germany, besides The Life and Death of Thomas Lord 
 Cromwell." Mr. Jacob gives no reasons for his uncondi- 
 tional assignment of the three plays to Wentworth Smith, 
 but his edition was confessedly prepared for "the million," 
 and this may account for the total absence of technical 
 criticism. Fleay''' is of the opinion that Drayton wrote the 
 play, but Dr. Lemuel Whitaker thinks this extremely doubt- 
 ful.® Hazlitt^ thought it was an attempt to palm the play 
 off as a sequel to Shakespeare's Henry VIII. He suggests 
 no author. Farmer attributed the authorship to Hey- 
 wood. Fleay, as stated above, ascribes the play to Drayton, 
 but in another place, ^° in arguing that the play is not Went- 
 worth Smith's, he adds, "If W. S. are authentic initials, W. 
 Sly is the more likely claimant." 
 
 The comparison of this play with The Hector of Germany 
 is barren of positive C9nclusions, but the results of the in- 
 vestigation are not devoid of interest. One cannot read the 
 two plays without being struck with points of similarity of 
 style, of diction, of characterization and of a general bal- 
 
 *Old English Dramas, London, 1889. 
 'I. 152 and 160. 
 
 *See his dissertation, Michael Drayton as a Dramatist, printed in the 
 Publications of the Modern Language Association, 1903, p. 409. 
 *The Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare, p. 166. 
 ^*Life and Works of Shakespeare, p. 299.
 
 56 The Palsgraue. 
 
 lancing of defects and excellences, and yet there are, so far 
 as I can make out, absolutely no tangible or convincing 
 points upon which to base a positive conclusion of identity 
 of authorship. Moreover, the divergences in style and 
 structure are about as many and as prominent as the sim- 
 ilarities. In applying the ordinary verse tests we find that 
 rimes are somewhat more frequent in the older play, the 
 percentage being about fourteen in Lord Cromwell and 
 about eight in The Hector of Gennany; the run-on lines are 
 slightly more frequent in the latter play, the percentage 
 being seven, as compared with four in Lord Cromwell; 
 while as regard the feminine endings, the proportion is prac- 
 tically equal, the average being about seven in one hundred 
 in both plays. The tone of the verse is not dissimilar. The 
 monotonous regularity of the count of syllables, the frequent 
 wrenching of logical stress to meet the requirements of verse 
 stress, the large percentage of end-stopped lines, are points 
 common to both. There is a much larger proportion of 
 monosyllabic words in the older play, whole lines, indeed, 
 even as many as three successive lines, being made up of 
 such words, while in The Hector of Germany even one such 
 line is of rare occurrence. 
 
 When we come to compare the general methods of treat- 
 ment of subject matter we find again the impression borne 
 in upon us that one author might have written both plays, 
 but again the arguments are not convincing. The handling 
 of historic fact is not widely different in the two plays, 
 though there is an appearance of a much closer adherence 
 to the chronicles and especially to Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 
 the immediate source of Lord Cromzvell, and perhaps neces- 
 sarily so, as the subject is much nearer in time and a much 
 more familiar one to the English public than that treated in 
 The Hector of GermaAy. The author of this play does not 
 hesitate to ascribe to Cromwell offices which he never held 
 and to suppress all the unfavorable facts in his hero's life. 
 To make a hero of this man who gained his position of
 
 Introduction. 57 
 
 eminence only by a slavish readiness to pander to the despotic 
 will of his master is perhaps as violent a wrenching of his- 
 tory as the distorted and inaccurate mixing of dates and the 
 fictitious events described in The Hector of Germany. In 
 spite of the centralization of the interest in the life of Crom- 
 well, the loose manner in which irrelevant and unnecessary 
 incidents are introduced seriously injures the unity of the 
 play. The story of the merchant Banister and his wife, and 
 of the envious and unprincipled Bagot and the merciful and 
 generous-hearted Frescobald, while interesting enough in 
 themselves, are not at all necessary to the plot, and might be 
 removed from the play as easily as the love-plot forming 
 the under-plot in The Hector of Germany. The precipitous 
 and unnatural haste with which the concluding scenes are 
 worked out in each play betrays a similar characteristic of 
 authorship. The general feebleness of the characterization 
 and the weakness displayed in the portrayal of the minor 
 personages is about evenly balanced in both plays. The 
 humor of the older play is much superior to that of the later 
 one. Hodge, the smith, attendant on Cromwell in his travels, 
 is a course, rough fellow, but never indecent. The character, 
 even if drawn on broad and coarse lines, is not without a 
 touch of genuine humor. 
 
 On the whole Lord Cromzvell is somewhat the superior 
 play, though not so greatly so as to preclude the possibility 
 of one author's having written both plays. Taking all the 
 evidence into consideration, we must, however, conclude that 
 the author of The Hector of Germany did not write Lord 
 Cromwell. The similarities of style and general manner may 
 be sufficiently accounted for by the general influences and 
 literary habits of the time, and the differences of manner and 
 treatment and the external evidence seem to be of sufficient 
 weight to justify the above conclusion. 
 
 The third play of this group, The Puritaine, or the IVid- 
 dozv of Watling Streete, Acted by the Children of Panics,
 
 58 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Written by IV. S. (1607), is an amusing imitation of the 
 Jonsonian comedy of manners, showing several marked 
 features of resemblance to Bartholomew Fair, though Jon- 
 son's play is of a later date. The Puritaine satirizes severely 
 the text-quoting, literal-minded, religious fanatic, and inci- 
 dentally takes a laugh at the haste with which the weeping 
 w'idow falls into the arms of the first boasting vagabond that 
 presents himself. George Pyeboard, a combination of 
 scholar, clown, and knave, is the dynamic element of the 
 play, and it is generally believed, and it would seem, upon 
 sufficient evidence, that the character is modeled on George 
 Peele, who, as is well known, lived a profligate life and was 
 often put to such shifts as Pyeboard is made to invent in 
 the course of the play. The very name "Pyeboard" suggests 
 an equivocation on peel, a baker's shovel or board for shov- 
 ing pies and cakes into the oven. The amusing escape of 
 Pyeboard from the officers of the law is based on an actual, 
 experience of Peek's. 
 
 Hazlitt^^ supposes this piece to have been written by Wil- 
 liam Smith, to whom he also ascribes The Hector of Ger- 
 many and Freeman's Honour. Fleay^^ argues that the 
 "Written by W. S." is an equivocation for 'concerning Wil- 
 liam Shakespeare.' This is one of Fleay's characteristically 
 ingenious conjectures, and his argument that the purport 
 of the play was to travesty Shakespeare's work likewise 
 rests on little or no foundation. He produces some un- 
 convincing parallels in support of this theory and then as- 
 signs the play to Middleton. "Any one," he says, "who has 
 read Middleton will not hesitate for a moment. The whole 
 style, plot, and metre is his. The play cannot possibly be 
 attributed to Day, Webster, or Beaumont, the only other 
 author then writing for these boys." It has been suggested 
 that the Puritan Maid, Modest Wife, and Wanton Widow, 
 
 ^Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare, p. 249. 
 "Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, II, 93,
 
 Introduction. 59 
 
 by Thomas Middleton, one of the lost Warburton manu- 
 scripts, is identical with this play, but this seems very un- 
 likely. Ward^^ quotes Dyce's opinion that the Puritaine 
 was written by Wentworth Smith, "an industrious play- 
 wright fortunate in his initials." 
 
 The comedy is written in prose with what we must call 
 an occasional descent into a lame sort of partly rimed and 
 partly unrimed decasyllabics. There are about one hundred 
 and fifty lines of verse in all. A comparison of any one hun- 
 dred of these with a like number from either Lord Cromwell 
 or The Hector of Germany shows plainly that some more 
 facile writer than the author of either of these plays wrote 
 this comedy. It cannot be said that there is any great poetry in 
 the verses, but there certainly is more freedom and smooth- 
 ness. A count of the run-on lines and of the feminine end- 
 ings shows the large average of twenty and twenty-two per 
 cent, respectively, while the riming lines are about twenty- 
 five per cent. Aside from these mechanical verse-tests the 
 comedy displays an originality of style, a clearness of con- 
 ception, and a definiteness of character portrayal which 
 cannot be claimed for the other two plays. The Puritaine 
 has one serious fault, namely, an absolute lack of any moral 
 basis for the series of cheats and deceptions of which it is 
 made up. Had the author conceived Pyeboard as a reformer 
 or a castigator of the abuses, injustice, and hypocracy of 
 the times, and had he made this the underlying motive of 
 the schemes and plottings of the main character, we should 
 be inclined to class this as one of the great comedies of the 
 age; but as it stands we must look upon it merely as an 
 amusing and interesting piece of satirical play-writing. 
 
 As to the possibility of connecting our author's name with 
 this play, we must say that if the W. S. who wrote this play 
 was W. Smith, he changed his hand completely, and for the 
 worse, when he came to write The Hector of Germany. 
 
 ^History of English Dramatic Literature, II, 230.
 
 6o The Palsgraue. 
 
 We have seen then that none of the W. S. plays can be 
 positively assigned to Smith, and Dyce's insinuation that he 
 was "fortunate in his initials" seems altogether uncalled for. 
 So far as we know Simth made no use of the the coincidence 
 of his initials with those of the master poet to obtrude his 
 works on the public as the possible productions of Shakes- 
 peare.
 
 TEXT OF THE PLAY
 
 THE" 
 
 :h^ hector 
 
 OF 
 
 G ERMANT. 
 
 O R 
 
 If Tkc Pa!fgraueyFnmtEk£tor. 
 
 Ai^ew Play, an Honour Me 
 Hiftory. 
 
 tyisit hathheengfuyiicklj ASiedat the^Kt^-^MW , 
 and a the Curtayne, by d Ctrnpofty o/T«w^- 
 menefthitCitie, 
 
 f MadebyW. Smith: with new 
 A<]<litions. 
 
 Hifm4 vita tempms. 
 
 ^nrxitdiitLonionhy Thomas Creede^ for 
 
 lojias HmfoHy and are to be foldc in 'Patr* 
 Nofler.Rorpf, attheSigne of the golden 
 jinker, l6i$.
 
 [CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY 
 
 King Edward of England. 
 
 King John of France, 
 
 Robert, the Palsgrave, Palatine of the 
 
 Rhine. 
 King of Bohemia. 
 Duke of Savoy. 
 
 Marquis of Brandenburgh. {'Electors. 
 
 Bishop of Cologne (Cullen). 
 Bishop of Mainz (Mentz). 
 Bishop of Triers. 
 Duke of Saxony. 
 Prince Henry of Trastomare (the Bastard). 
 Peter the Hermit, King of Spain (Pedro the Cruel). 
 Lord Fitzwaters, suitor to Floramel. 
 Young Fitzwaters, his son, lover of Floramel. 
 Lord Clinton, friend to Lord Fitzwaters. 
 Poitiers, a French lord (Saxony in disguise). 
 Earl of Artoise, a Frenchman at Edward's Court. 
 Vandome ] Spainish villains in the service of Prince Henry 
 Mendozze j of Trastomare. 
 
 An English Archbishop. 
 Steward to Lord Fitzwaters. 
 Page, attendant on Floramel. 
 A Frenchman. 
 An Englishman. 
 
 Queen of France, wife of King John. 
 Floramel, Lord Clinton's daughter. 
 Herald, servants, attendants, and others.] 
 
 (6s)
 
 Shipfull, 
 
 To The Right Wor- 
 
 the great Fauourer of the Muses^ 
 Syr lohn Sw inner ton Knight, 
 
 sometimes Lord Mayor of this 
 honourable Cittie of London. 
 
 SYR, Pocsic is a dininc giftc, borne unth many, zvithoiif 
 which donation no man can be a Poet, though he be 
 Princeps doctorum; and haue all the Languages {ad 
 unguem.) Ouid found this inclination in himself e, and that 
 ivas the reason hee saide, Ouicquid conabor dicere versus 
 erit ; zvhere Nature speakes so forceablie in any, there is no 
 suppressing it: For, Naturam expellas furca hcet vsq; re- 
 currit, your Wor: is so farre from offering such znolence, 
 that you are known to be a great chcrisher of the Muses. 
 And I hailing receiued some fauours from you, for priuate 
 things, thought it might be acceptable, to gitie you some 
 Honor in Print; So that this Play, intuled The Palsgraue, 
 beeing made for Citizens, ivho acted it zvell; I deemde it fitte 
 to bee Patroninde by a Citizen. And not knozinng any so 
 worthy thereof as your selfe, I made choyce of your Wor: to 
 be my Mecoenas : The kinde acceptance zvhcrcof, zvill make 
 me proceede farther in your praise. And as I haue begun in 
 a former Play, called the Freemans Honour, acied by the 
 Nozv^seruants of the Kings Maiestie, to dignifie the zvorthy 
 Com panic of the Marchantaylors, zvhereof you are a princi- 
 pall Ornament, I shall ere long, make choyce of some sub- 
 iect to equall it. hi the meane time, I Icaue the Palso^raue 
 in your hand, as a pledge of my good meaning, & zvill rest 
 Your Wor : most dutious, 
 
 W. Smith. 
 
 For 'intuled' read 'intittded.' 
 For 'Meccenas' read 'Maecenas.'
 
 THE PROLOGUE 
 
 OUr Aiithonr for himself c, this bad me say, 
 Altlwugh the Palsgrane he the name of th' 
 Play, 
 
 Tis not that Prince, which in this Kingdome late. 
 Marry ed the May den-glory of our state: 
 What Pen dares be so bold in this strict age, 
 To bring him zvhile he Hues vpon the Stage? 
 And thoiis.h he zvonld, Authorities sterne brozv 
 Such a presumtuous deede zvill not allow: 
 And he must not offend Authoritie, 
 
 10 Tis of a Palsgraue generous and high. 
 Of an vndaunted heart, an Hectors spirit. 
 For his great zfalour, zvorthy royall merite; 
 Whose fayre achieuemejits, and victorious glory, 
 Is the mayne subiect of our zvarlike Story. 
 Mars goucrns here, his influence rules the day. 
 And should by right be Prologue to the Play: 
 But that besides the subiect, Mercury 
 Sent me to excuse our insufhcicncie. 
 If you should aske vs, being men of Trade, 
 
 20 Wherefore the Players facultie zve inuade? 
 Our anszvere is, No ambition to compare 
 With any, in that qitalitie held rare; 
 Nor with a thought for any grace you giue 
 To our zveake aetion, by their course to Hue: 
 But as in Camps, and Nurseries of Art, 
 Learning and valour hmie assum'd a part, 
 In a Cathurnall Sceane their zvits to try, 
 Such is our purpose in this History. 
 Emperours haue playd, and their Associates to, 
 
 27. Read 'Cothurnall.' 
 
 (69)
 
 70 Prologue. 
 
 30 Soiiliiirrs and ScJioIIcrs; tis to spcakc and do. 
 If Citizens come short of their high fame, 
 Let Citizens beare ivith vs for the name. 
 And Gentlemen, zvc hope zvJiat is zvell ment, 
 Will grace the iveake decde for the good intent. 
 Our best zve promise with a dauntlcsse cheeke; 
 And so we gayne your lone, tis all zve seeke. Exit.
 
 PALSGRAUE. 
 
 [Act I. Scene i. The Palsgrave's castle.] 
 
 A Bed thrust out, the Palsgraue lying sicke in it, the 
 King of Bohemia, the Duke of Sauoy, the Mar- 
 quesse Brandenhurgh, entring ztnth him. 
 A Letter. 
 
 Palsgraue. Sicke at this instant now to be infirme, 
 When the English King hath his kinde Letter sent : 
 For mee to place this honourable prince, 
 The Duke of Sauoy in the Empires rule : 
 That Nation my great Grandfather did loue. 
 And since I came to vnderstand their valour, 
 I held them the Prime Souldiers of the world : 
 And thinke no Martiall Tutor fittes a prince, 
 But hee that is a true borne Englishman. 
 
 10 111 comes this Letter, and your Grace at once, 
 A worser time then this you could not choose. 
 Though I am chiefe Elector of the seuen. 
 And a meere Cccsar now the Chayre is voyde : 
 Sicknesse hath weakened all my powers so much, 
 I shalbe slighted as a worthlesse thing. 
 
 Sauoy. Why should the Palsgraue so mistrust his 
 
 Friends ? 
 Palsgr: Sauoy, because I know them factious. 
 And though Bohemia loue me as his life, 
 And Vmpeare-like, should pacific our iars, 
 
 20 What is his voyce when Saxon drawes his sword ? 
 Ments of a Cleargie-man is stout and prowde. 
 Trier his like, in nature and in vice. 
 And the bold Bastard, late expulst from Spayne, 
 Has a blood-thirsty hart, a vengefull splecne. 
 
 (70
 
 72 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Misfortune cannot daunt hini though he fled 
 Out of his owne Realme, and has lost his Crowne. 
 His inipudencie yet aymes at Cccsars Throne, 
 Ide freely part with mine inheritance, 
 If it could purchase health to tame his pride, 
 30 But in you onely I repose my trust. 
 
 Reserue your voyces for this Noble Duke, 
 Who were I well should bee an Emperour : 
 Sicknesse will be obeyde, I must decline, 
 For my speech failes mee to vrge more discourse, 
 Pray for mee all, if that they chaunce to win, 
 And I recouer He helpe all by Warre. 
 
 The Bcdde dramne in. Exit Palsgraue. 
 
 Bohem. The strength of Germonie is sicke in him, 
 And should hee die now in his prime of life, 
 Like Troy wee loose the Hector of our Age : 
 40 For hee alone, when he was strong and well, 
 
 Curb'd all their pride, and kept the w^orst in awe. 
 
 Marqu: We must expect warre: & prepare our 
 selues 
 With expedition to resist their force: 
 For a more dangerous Foe for Treachery, 
 Then is the Bastastard, Hues not in these parts. 
 
 Saiioy. I am sorie, that presuming on the health 
 Of the most valiant Palsgraue now falne sicke, 
 I came so ill prouided for the Warres. 
 
 Bohem. We are strong enough to meet them in 
 the field. 
 
 Enter the By shop of Ctillen. 
 
 50 Ciillen. Prepare for Warre, the Bastard is in 
 armes, 
 With him the fiery Saxon, Ments, and Trier: 
 And they'le besiege this Castle, to constraine 
 The Palsgraue, to elect him Emperour. 
 
 Marq: Shame to vs all, if we giue ayme to that. 
 
 45. Read 'Bastard.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 73 
 
 Sauoy. Begyrt this Castle, and disturbe the health 
 Of our deare friends, it is insufferable. 
 
 Bohcm. Let vs conuey him lower downe the riuer, 
 Vnto a stronger Castle of his ovvne : 
 And with such Forces as we haue prepar'd, 
 60 Giue battell to the Bastard and his crue. 
 
 Sauoy. You haue a Ccrsar of your owne Election, 
 To leade the Vanfjard, doe but follow mee, 
 He guide you where the greatest danger dwells : 
 And like an Emperour fright it from the field : 
 The Bastards but a Coward, and a Spanyard, 
 Coward and Spanyard oft-times goe together. 
 Their greatest valour does consist in Braues. 
 And once repulst, theyl run away like Slaues. 
 
 [Scene 2. Before the castle.] 
 
 Enter Prince Henry, the Bastard, the Duke of Saxon, 
 The Bishop of Mentz, Drum, Ciillors, & Soldioiirs. 
 
 Bastard. This land of Germanic yeelds valiant men, 
 70 Haughty in heart as they in stature are : 
 Ten thousand such had I bene Leader of 
 When the Blacke-Prince, lately my greatest Foe, 
 Opposde me at Macieres, and wonne the day, 
 I had bene Lord of that most noble F"ielde, 
 And where an Hermit now tells ore his Beades, 
 Had sat a Souldier and a Conquerour. 
 
 Saxon. That Hermit is too bookish to raigne long. 
 
 Bastard. When th'Imperiall Scepter fills my hand, 
 And I haue Cccsars wreath vpon my brow, 
 80 As had my Grandsire, and his royall Father, 
 He make Iberia wreake with my foes blood. 
 And force the Dotard to his Hermitage. 
 
 Mentz. Such thoughts becomes the Gernwiue Em- 
 perour, 
 Has courage to wage Warre with all the world.
 
 74 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Sa.von: Harry, a word in priiiate in your eare, 
 \\'hen you are Emperour, as in time you shall, 
 I must rule all, although you weare the Crowne : 
 The Edicts I propose you must enact, 
 And call them your owne Lawes, not being vext 
 90 At what I doe, although I mince your honour. 
 
 Bastard. How Sa.vouf 
 
 Saxo)i. Harry, Darst' thou wreath thy brow, 
 In any contumelious forme gainst mee? 
 T'is by my fauour that thou art aliue. 
 My greater greatnes has repaird thy fame, 
 And being but my creature, it is fitte 
 I should bee knowne to be the worthier man. 
 
 Bastard. Betw-eene our selues in priuate. 
 
 Sax: Publikely, and in the view of all, youle 
 sweare. 
 
 Bastard. I must. 
 But being installed in the dignitie, 
 100 He alter what I sweare. 
 
 Saxon. Come, Come, your Oath, . 
 Being an Elector, I am bard the onely Throane, 
 And therefore will rule by a Deputy. 
 
 Mentz. This is the Castle, shall wee sommon it? 
 
 Enter Trier, another Bishop. 
 
 Trier. Emperour elect, and princes of the State, 
 In vaine you labour to begyrt this hold 
 With hostile Armes, for Saiioy is yth field, 
 The Bishop of CuUen, and stoute Brandenhiirgh, 
 With the Bohemian King, are already prest, 
 To giue you battel! ere you stirre your foote. 
 no Bast. Are they so braue, so bote, & full of cour- 
 age? 
 Sax. The Palsgraue has breath'd spirit into them 
 all.
 
 The Palsgraue. 75 
 
 Thogh sicklies make him droop, weel meet them 
 
 straight 
 Battells are gouernd by the will of Fate. 
 
 An Allarnm. 
 
 Enter to flicni Sauoy, Bohem, Marqiiessc, and Ciillen, 
 They are beaten off by the Bastards side, & exeunt. 
 A Flourish, enter in triumph, Bastard, Saxon, 
 Trier, Mentz, leading the king of Bohemia, 
 Brandenburgh, and Sauoy, Prisoners. 
 Bast. So moues the Sitnne in glory through the 
 skie, 
 Hauing outpast the clowdes that shadow him. 
 
 Sax. Now Spanish Henry, thou hast prou'd thy 
 selfe 
 Worthy the Ger inane scepter, by thy valour, 
 And hee that sayes not Aiie Ccusar, dyes. 
 
 Boheni Swell not too high thou bubble, least 
 thou breake. 
 1 20 Bastard. He breake thy heart first. 
 Sauoy. Ere my tongue pronounce 
 Aue to any that's my enemie; 
 He bare my brest to meete thy conquering sword, 
 And make it crimson with an Emperours blood. 
 Bast: There must be but one Eniperour, thats our 
 selfe. 
 Therefore to prison with the counterfeit. 
 Whence neither County Pallatine, nor King, 
 Shall with theyr Forces if they were conioynd, 
 Haue power to set thee free. 
 
 Saxon: For you my Lords, that the Electors like 
 vnto my selfe, 
 130 Giue but your free consents that hee shall gouernc. 
 And that shall serue as ransome for you all. 
 Marq: Neuer while life lastes. 
 Boheni. Or I breath this ayre.
 
 76 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Mcntz. Then let them share hke fortune in his 
 doom 
 As they haue done this happy day ith field. 
 
 Bastard. To prison with them all. 
 
 Saxon: Not till you are Crownde. 
 That sight shall serue in steed of a Tormentor, 
 And I reioyce to vexe mine enemie. 
 
 Bastard. Giue vs our rights. 
 
 The tivo Bishops, Ments & Trier, Croitme tJie 
 
 Bastard. 
 Mentz. Rex Romanorum, & magnus Imperator 
 Germanic. 
 Uiue Ccesar. 
 
 Saxon: Uiue Ccesar. 
 140 Bastard. Enough those Uiues, take av\ay my life, 
 In the delitious wrapture of my soule, 
 For theres no heauen me thinkes like royall thoughts, 
 The Palsgraties Castles raste vnto the ground, 
 And peace establisht, we meane once againe 
 To trye our Fortune for the Realme of Spayite. 
 
 Exeunt. 
 
 [Scene 3. Another of the Palsgrave's eastles.] 
 
 Enter Peter the Hermit, King of Spaine in a disguise. 
 
 Peter. Since the decease of En glands royall Sonne, 
 That plac't me lately in Spaynes gouernment, 
 Those that did feare me for his valor sake, 
 Are by the traynes and falshood of my brother, 
 1 50 Reuolted from mee, and to saue my life 
 I was constrained to put on this disguise, 
 To goe to Englund for a newe supplie 
 Of men and Soldiours would but weary them. 
 I haue therefore bene in France, and failing there, 
 Am come to Germanie, to implore the ayde
 
 The Palsgraue. yj 
 
 Of the Electors, but by ill siiccesse, 
 Bohemia, Brandenbitrgh, and Sauoyes tane: 
 The Bastard has bewitcht the other Peeres. 
 So that my Foe is now an Emperour, 
 1 60 And all the hope I haue to get mine owne 
 Lyes in the Pahgraiie sicke I heare to death, 
 Heare I expect his answere to my Letter. 
 
 Enter the Palsgraue, led in by Cidlen, and others, 
 
 Palsgr. Are you the Hermit that did bring this 
 
 letter ? 
 Peter. And personate him that sent it. 
 Palsgraue. What Spaynes King? 
 Oh that I were as I was wont to bee, 
 Before this dangerous sicknesse was my Foe, 
 No Christian King that came to mee for ayde 
 But hee should speed. 
 
 Peter. In time you may recouer. 
 Palsgr. Meane time be welcom, sit, & take your 
 rest, 
 170 And now my Lord of CuUcn Ime preparde, 
 
 To heare the woefull tydings you haue brought. 
 Comes noble Saiwy, and Bohemias King, 
 With the stoute Marqiicsse Brandenbitrgh in tri- 
 umph ? 
 And is proude Saxon taken, with the Bastard, 
 Trier and Mentz made subiect to your sword? 
 Oh if they bee speake it, and make me well. 
 
 Ctdlen. Alls lost. We are conquerd, Saiioy is sur- 
 prizde. 
 And our best Friends in bondage to our Foes : 
 Heauen has forgot the Justice of our cause. 
 180 And onely I escapt to tell the newes. 
 
 Palsg: This were enough to kill some men in 
 health, 
 But in me the effect is contrary.
 
 78 The Palsgraue. 
 
 All lost, all conquerd, Saiioy made a Slaue : 
 
 My Friends in prison, and none escapt but you, 
 
 Hee that can heare such ill newes and be sicke, 
 
 Deserues nere to recouer, in my blood, 
 
 I feele an inflammation of reuenge : 
 
 Theres greater strength gathered into my nerues, 
 
 Than ere before, since that I grewe infirme : 
 
 190 They will not rest thus, and stay onely there, 
 
 But hauing conquerd them, assume the Crowne, 
 And make the Bastard Empcroitr. 
 Cullcn. Hee is Crownd. 
 
 Palsg. More blood increases, & some more ill 
 newes 
 Would make me cast my Night-cap on the ground, 
 And call my Groome to fetch mee a Warre-horse, 
 That I may ride before an Army royall. 
 And plucke the Crowne from off the Bastards head, 
 That is anothers right. 
 
 Cullcn. Tis thought my Lord. 
 Your Castle which you left to saue your life 
 
 200 Is beaten to the ground, and your goods theirs : 
 And further, that they will pursue you hither, 
 As if you fled before their conquering swords. 
 
 Palsgr. Be sicke who will, mine Ague does retire. 
 And Cullcn thou hast cur'd me with ill newes. 
 Come valiant Soldiours shew your selues like men, 
 And be assur'd weele winne the victory. 
 Harke how they shout as they applauded mee : 
 And see how brauely euery Leader rides, 
 Plum'd from the Beauer to the Saddle bowe, 
 
 210 Whilst the bold Souldier makes his lofty pike 
 Stretch in the Ayre with tossing it aloft. 
 Brauely done fellow : that tricke once againe. 
 And there's gold for thy paines, hee fights like Hector, 
 Whilst at his feete th'amazed Grecians fall, 
 And though Achilles would renew the Field,
 
 The Palsg-raiie. 79 
 
 Hee dares not doo't, the enemies so strong, 
 Me thinks I heare a peale of Ordinance play. 
 They are the Bastards Cannons, planted high, 
 To ouerthrow my Castle to the ground. 
 220 Now they shoote off, Death, all my foes are come. 
 Marshall my Troups, and let Drum answere Drum. 
 My selfe in person will be generall. 
 But I fainte, and am not what I would be. 
 My spirit is stronger then my feeble lyms, 
 Leade me once more with griefe vnto my bed, 
 Fewe know the sorrowes of a troubled head. 
 
 Manent Cullcn & Peter. Exit Palsgroue led in. 
 
 Cidfen. How faine would valour sicknes ouercom? 
 But his infirmity denyes such power. 
 And I am more grieued for his weake estate, 
 230 Then for our late great losse. 
 
 Peter. Palsgraue may helpe him. 
 And as I liu'de a fellow amongst Hermits, 
 I learnt some skill that has curde many a Prince. 
 See him safe guarded from his enemies. 
 And on my life I will recouer him. 
 
 CidJeu. Wee are strong enough to wafte him to 
 his Fleete, 
 And when the Enemy shall misse him here, 
 Theyle turne their conquering Force another way, 
 And goe for Spayne. 
 
 Peter. My Kingdome. 
 
 Cidlen. To subdue it. 
 
 Peter. Let them proceed, but when hee has got his 
 240 strength, theyle rue their boldnesse; Meane time trust 
 to me. For next to Heauen He ctu^e his maladie.
 
 8o The Palsgraue. 
 
 [Act II. Scene i. England. Lord Fif.^n'atcrs's 
 house. ] 
 
 Enter olde Fitzivaters, and his Steward. Exeunt. 
 
 Old Fit::: Thou art his hand, the agent of his 
 thoughts. 
 And onely enginor, by which he works 
 Some dangerous plot to I3I0W his Honour vp : 
 Is't possible my Sonne should be from Court 
 So often, and the cause vnknowne to thee 
 That art his bosome-friend, his Counseller? 
 
 Stew. I know no cause except to take the ayre. 
 
 Old Fyth. My wrath shall finde another in thy 
 brest. 
 250 Know that thou tread'st on thy last foote of earth, 
 From whence is no remooue, but to the graue : 
 Flye me thou canst not, and to make resistance, 
 Will draw vpon thee for one Lyons rage, 
 All the whole denne. Offers to kill him. 
 
 Sfezi'. Hold, and He tell your Honour. 
 Know that his vsuall haunt is to the house 
 Of the Lord Clynton, whither he is gone 
 To see his Daughter, whom he does affect. 
 
 Old. Doats he on my betrothed, my Loue, my 
 wife? 
 Had he the hues of many hopefull sonnes 
 260 Incorporate with his owne, my rage is such 
 I should destroy them all, ere lose my Loue. 
 But how does she affect him? 
 
 Stezi'. As her life : 
 Alleadging, that the Contract made to you. 
 Was by constraint to please her honour'd Father : 
 But he was precontracted, first made sure. 
 And this I heard her speake, with pearled teares; 
 Then Loue, no passion ought to be more free. 
 Nor any agreement like that sympathie.
 
 The Palsofraue. 8 1 
 
 ■^b 
 
 Old Fyth. I hane put on Dianiras poysoned shirt 
 270 In the discourse, and euery word cleaues to me 
 As deadly in the apprehension, 
 As that which kill'd the lew-borne Hercules. 
 But wherefore doe I combat with my selfe, 
 That haue a greater enemie to curbe? 
 Oh, but he is my sonne! What is a sonne? 
 The effect of a sweete minute, he shall dye. 
 Being my pleasure to effect my pleasure : 
 Attend me where he is, I may destroy him. 
 
 Exeunt. 
 
 [Scene 2. Rear of Lord Clinton's honse.'\ 
 
 Enter a Page. 
 
 Page. I haue a sweete Office, to be a Gentleman Por- 
 280 ter to a backe dore ; but tis for a Lady, the best beauty 
 in England : and if there be any Pandering in the bu- 
 sinesse, though I am accessary i'the fee, because I 
 Hue by it, I haue no knowledge in the fault. Ma- 
 ny a Courtier would be glad of my place, yet I hold 
 it not by pattent, for terme of life, nor for yeeres : 
 but as young Gentlemen get Venison vpon sufferance 
 or by stealth. If the Lord Clyiiton should haue no- 
 tice of this Key or euidence, by which the young 
 Lord Fythzvatcrs is conueyed to his Daughter against 
 290 his will, though shee be his Wife by a precontract, 
 I might bee conueyed to the Porters-lodge. But 
 if all Court-secrets come to light, what will be- 
 come of the Farthingales thinke you that couer 
 them? No, since Ladies weare Whale-bones, ma- 
 ny haue been swallowed, and so may this. Heere 
 comes the Young Lord. 
 
 Enter Young Fythwaters. 
 
 2y2. Read 'love-borne.'
 
 82 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Y. F\t. Alwaies at hand, thy carefuhiesse is great : 
 Where is thy Lady? 
 
 Pag. Walking in the Garden. 
 Y. Fyt. So early, then I see lones the hest larke ; 
 300 For the Corne builder has not warbled yet 
 His mornings Carroll to the rising Sunne. 
 There's for thy paines. 
 
 Page. I thanke your Lordship. And now like the 
 Keeper of a prison, hauing my fee, tis fit I should 
 turne the Key. You know the way to my Ladies 
 chamber. 
 Y. Fyth. I doe. Exit Young Fythzvafcrs. 
 
 Page. Sure liberallitie was a louer, or he would nere 
 Be so bountifull : some thinke it a chargeable thing to 
 keepe a Woman of any eminent fashion, and so tis ; 
 310 but to keepe them as I doe vnder locke and key, and 
 suffer none to enter but such liberall Gentlemen, is 
 the onely way to make a rich Keeper. I must walke 
 still to watch his comming foorth. 
 
 Enter old Fythwaters and Stezvard. 
 
 O. Fyt. You haue beene with the Lord Clynton? 
 
 Stew. And he promist to meete you in the Garden 
 couertly. 
 
 O. Fyth. Is this the place? 
 
 Stew. And this is the Ladyes Page that lets him 
 in. 
 
 Page. Helpe, helpe. Stop his month. 
 
 320 O. FytJi. If you bellow here, you breath your 
 last; by waies, 
 Backe (lores, come sir along with me. 
 If that her father meete, as I desire, 
 Whats but a sparke. will prooue a mount of fire. 
 Locke the dore after vs. 
 
 Stezvard. ]\Iy Lord I will. Exeunt all.
 
 The Palsgrane. 83 
 
 [Scene 3. Garden of Lord Clinton's house.] 
 
 Enter in the Garden, Floramell the Lord Clyntons 
 Daughter, and Young Fythzuaters. 
 
 They sit on a banke. 
 
 Flo. The dehan Lute is not more Musical! 
 Then thy sweere voyce, Oh my Apollo speake, 
 That with the wrapture of thy words, my soule 
 May be intranst, and wish no other ioyes : 
 330 That by the discord of two Broken harps, 
 (Old and vnfit for Louers harmony) 
 Our ioyes should suffer a distate of feare ; 
 And in our most delights a qualme of griefe 
 Runne like a vayne of Lead through a Gold-mine. 
 
 Olde Fyth-zvaters and the Lord Clynton 
 come behinde, and ouer-heare them. 
 
 Flo. We grow too iealous of our prosperous daies, 
 Making an euill, where no ill is meant : 
 Like hallowed ground, loue sanctifies this place, 
 And will not suffer danger to intrude. 
 Here we are ringd in earthly Paradise, 
 340 And may haue all the heauen to our selues : 
 Be then Mistrust an exile from my brest. 
 Where Hues no iealousie, dwells present rest. 
 
 Clyn. But wee'l disturbe it, & your amorous ioyes. 
 
 Y. Fyt. Our Fathers present; Sweet, we are 
 betraid. 
 
 O. Fyt. Betrayd to death : why doe you hold my 
 Sword ? 
 There's greater fury kindled in my brest. 
 Then can be quencht by any thing but blood : 
 I shall turne frantique if you brand the Sea 
 
 327. Read 'sweete.' 
 332- Qy. Read 'distaste.' 
 348. Qy. Read 'band.'
 
 00 
 
 84 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Of my displeasure in such narrow bounds, 
 And with a Dekige, equall to the first, 
 That ouer-spred the world, swell vp so high, 
 Till not a Mountaine ouer-looke the streame, 
 Nor heauen be seene for Riuers of the Land. 
 
 Y. Fyt. If I could feare the waning of a Sword, 
 Mine enemies had frighted me ere now ; 
 But Fme invaluable, like my minde, 
 Not to be wounded but with darts of loue; 
 And I as little estimate a Father 
 In these Pathaires, as he esteemes my griefe. 
 360 There's no preoritie in loues high Court 
 
 Graunted vnto the Father 'fore the Sonne; 
 But like the purest gouernment of all, 
 Euery mans minde is his owne Monarchy : 
 Where reason nere set foote to make a law, 
 Shall common sense keepe one, that were absurd. 
 
 O. Fyt. Wouldst fight with me? 
 
 Y. Ft. Not if you will forbeare me; 
 But in a warre defensiue I will stand 
 Against an Army of my Auncestors, 
 Did their enfranchiz'd soules break ope their tombes, 
 370 And reassum'd their bodyes as they liu'd. 
 In their full pride and youthfull iollity. 
 
 O. Fy. Let Rauens perch vpon these blossomd 
 trees, 
 Night Owles their stations in this Garden keepe, 
 And euery ominous portence draw neere: 
 For here He ofifer vnto Hecate, 
 A hellish sacrifice in a sonnes blood. 
 
 Clyu. I feele an Earth-quake in my tremblug flesh, 
 And my well boding Genius bids me draw 
 A sword of vengeance on this hastie Lord, 
 380 Ere sufTer him to be a Paricide. 
 
 356. Read 'invulnerable.' 
 374. Read 'portent.' 
 377. Read 'trembling.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 85 
 
 O. Fyth. Will the Lord Clynton buckler out my 
 foe? 
 
 Clyn. No, but restraine you from a wilfull mur- 
 ther. 
 
 Flo. And like the best oblation for your wrath, 
 Loe, I the subiect of this variance fall 
 Prostrate on my knee, to suffer death, 
 Ere such a rude act, most vnfather-like, 
 Be put in practise on so good a sonne. 
 
 O. FyfJi. Good to deceiue me. 
 
 Y. Fyth. The deceit is yours. 
 
 O. Fyth. Forsweare him, and I shall rest satisfied. 
 390 Flora. Neuer. 
 
 Y. Fyth. Nor I. 
 
 O. Fyth. Giue way. 
 
 Y. Fyth. I neede no buckler. 
 
 Clyn. I stand not here to offend, but to defend 
 Your hues and honour gainst so vile an act 
 Would blurre the Conquerors fame perpetually, 
 Making your swords the furies fire-brands, 
 Bath'd so vnnaturally in others blood. 
 Where neither Honour, nor Religion springs, 
 Tis better farre such combats be vnfought : 
 I know your pleas, her father has my graunt, 
 You her affection got against my will : 
 400 The place whereon you stand is our owne ground, 
 And here tis fit I abritrate the cause, 
 Mongst reasonable men peace is held good : 
 None loue dissention, but they thirst for blood. 
 
 O. Fyt. Counsel preuailes, I am glad he is not 
 slaine. 
 
 Y. Fyt. T line witli joy, that I'me no Father-killer. 
 
 Clyn. Will you subscribe to what we shall enioyne? 
 
 Old Fyth. & Y. Fyt. We doe. 
 
 Clyn. In hriefc tis this. You must forbeare my 
 house, 
 And neuer more be scene within my gates.
 
 86 The Palsgraue. 
 
 410 Y. Fyt. This is extreame. 
 
 O. Fyt. I haiie a heaiiier doome, 
 Which on my curse I charge thee to obserue : 
 Whicli is. That instantly thou leaue the Land, 
 And trouble me no more to get her loue. 
 y. Fyt. How am I crost ! 
 Flor. How is my heart tormented ! 
 Y. Fyt. Yet I haue all the wprld to trafique in, 
 Except in England, and your Honoues house: 
 ^ But as the dissolution of the soule 
 
 Erom such a body as desires to loue. 
 Is burthensome and grieuous to the man ; 
 420 Such is my heart disseuered from my Loue. 
 
 Flo. And such is mine to lose thy company, 
 Y. lyt. You are cruell to impose a curse vpon 
 me, 
 That sentence is extreame, I feele it worke 
 More deadly on my grieued faculties, 
 Then to haue dyed vpon my fathers sword : 
 Eor now mine owne woes must destroy my selfe. 
 And thats a murther worse then paracide. 
 
 Exit Y. Fyt. 
 Flora. My knife shall end me. 
 Old Fyth. Hold thy desperate hand, 
 Would'st make our Nuptialls proue a Tragedy? 
 430 Flo. I would, and be inhum'd within the ground, 
 Rather then measure out a hated bed. 
 
 Clyii. Neuer regard the passions of a woman, 
 They are wily creatures, and haue learnt this wit, 
 Where they loue most, best to dissemble it. 
 
 O. Fyt. If that proue so, my heart wil be the 
 lisfhter. 
 
 Manet Steward. Exeunt. 
 
 417. Read 'Honours.' 
 421. Read 'Y. Fyt.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 87 
 
 Stew. I haue done an act \\\\\ make me odious 
 To all succeeding times, betrayde my friend : 
 But here he comes, He stay and speake with him. 
 
 Enta' young Fytczvaters. 
 
 Y. Fyt. Carelesse of foes, of father, or his curse, 
 440 Come I againe to challenge Floraniell, 
 
 Which I suspect the Stezvard has betrayde. 
 
 Stezi'. Within my brest bathe a reuengefull sword, 
 Loe, I oppose it to your greatest wrath : 
 Yet if you saw the counsells of my heart. 
 There you may reade, twas not I but feare 
 That was the Authour of your loues betraying; 
 Your angry father threatned me with death, 
 And I had no euasion but to tell it : 
 But if your Lordship please to pardon me, 
 450 He lay a plot to helpe you to your Loue. 
 
 Y. Fyt. He that is once false, will be neuer true. 
 
 Stezi'. Then wherefore serues repentance? 
 
 Y. Fyt. Well, proceede. 
 
 Stezv. Set downe the place where I shall finde your 
 Honour, 
 And if I bring not thither Floramell, 
 At our next meeting take away my life. 
 
 Y. Fyt. Meete me at Yorke house. 
 
 Sfezi.: He be there ere long. 
 I haue done amisse, and will amend the wrong. 
 
 Exeunt. 
 
 [Scene 4. In front of Lord Clinton's housc.l 
 
 Enter old Fythzvaters, Clynton, and a Bishoppe. 
 
 Clyn. The Bride not vp, and the Archbishop 
 come, 
 Some call her downe. 
 
 0. Fyt. Welcome my reuerend Lord. 
 460 Doe not you Bishops vse sometimes to dreame?
 
 88 The Palsgrane. 
 
 Bish. We haue the same incitements of the blood 
 That others haue, and in our phantasies 
 We see strange shapes, and diners things to follow. 
 
 Clyn. What was your dreame to night ? 
 
 Bish. As I remember, 
 Himcn was turn'd into a Mercury, 
 And hee's the Patron of all slye deceits. 
 But whats my dreame to your affayres my Lord ? 
 
 O. Fyt. That such another dreame I had last night : 
 And if I should be cheated of my Bride, 
 4/0 Twere a strange premonition. 
 
 Ch'u. Feare it not, see where shee comes. 
 
 Enter the Page, drest in one of Floramells Goivncs, 
 zvcarin^ a Maske. Floramell and the Steazvard aboue. 
 
 0. Fyth. March forwards to the Church. 
 
 Exeunt Lords and Page. 
 
 Ste. So. whilst he takes your place, we are for 
 
 Yorkhouse. 
 Flora. I come Fythzvaters flying. 
 Stew. Let's away. 
 
 [Scene 5. Street before York house.'] 
 
 Enter young Fythivaters. 
 
 Y. Fy. The stay of my faire Mistris makes me 
 wilde, 
 Sure I shall neuer more behold her face ; 
 The Stewards false, and Floramell may change. 
 He therefore giue a period to my griefe. 
 And in dispayre finish what life denyes : 
 Yet ere I dye, let all the World this know, 
 480 A IVomans hue procur'd my ouerthrozv. 
 
 Enter the Stezvard and Floramell. 
 Y. Fith. My Floramell, to Sea. Exeunt.
 
 The Palsgraue. 89 
 
 [Scene 6. Street in front of a church.] 
 
 Enter from Church, old Fythwatcrs, Clynton, Bishop, 
 and the Page disc oner ed. 
 
 O. Fyth. Oh my distracted soiile, this is extreame, 
 Gull'd with a Boy, drest in your Daughters gowne : 
 This is a crosse that patience cannot beare. 
 
 Clynton. Who was the cause of this, speake; 
 Wheres my Daughter? 
 
 Page. Fledde to your Sonne. 
 The Steward layd the plot ; What I haue done 
 Was for my Ladies sake. 
 
 Old Fzi^cC.- That Steward is a Villaine. 
 
 Clinton. Lets goe seeke him. 
 Take seuerall streetes, but let your meeting be 
 490 At the Water-side, least they should flee to Sea. 
 
 Old Pi. To the water side; Lord Bishop keep the 
 boy. 
 
 Exeunt Old Pitzzvater and Clynton. 
 
 Bishop. I will. 
 My Dreame is falne out right, Hymen is chang'd 
 Into a slye deceyuing Mercuric: 
 But tis most requisite, they that doe wrong 
 Should feele the penaltie by suffering it. 
 I witnesse can the Young Lordes precontract. 
 Bad Fathers that infringe a holy act. Exeunt. 
 
 [Scene 7. Another street.] 
 
 Enter King Edward disguised like a priuate 
 man, a Lord imth him. 
 
 King. This day I thinke I i)romised the Lord 
 Clinton 
 500 To be his Guest.
 
 90 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Lord. It was my Liege this Day. 
 
 King. I haiie dismist my Traine to stcale vpon 
 him, 
 But whats the reason all things are so quiet ? 
 A Lordes house at so great a Cerimonie 
 As is a Marriage, should be like a Court : 
 Multitudes thronging vp and downe like wanes. 
 And the Gate kept with an Officious porter. 
 To giue kinde entertainment to all Commers ; 
 Heres no such a matter. 
 
 Lord. Here Oldc fit::watcr: comes. 
 
 Enter Okie Fitzzvaters. 
 
 O. Fyf. Some Pegasus has borne her from my 
 sight 
 510 For nere a horse I keepe can ouertake them: 
 By all coniectures they are gone to Sea, 
 And Shipt by this. 
 
 King. His Bride. 
 
 Lord. Belike tis so. 
 
 O. Fyt. Some whirle-winde follow them ; 
 And making the Ocean rougher then my brow, 
 Yee dauncing Par pusses caper aloft, 
 And mud the white foame with your ietty backs ; 
 A perfect signe a tempest is at hand. 
 Rise from the bottome of the deepe ye WJiales, 
 And ouerturne the Shippe that carryes them : 
 520 But let a Dolphin saue my Floramcll, 
 
 And backe vnto the hauen guide her safe. 
 As for the boy, make him your watry pray, 
 Eate him aliue, that he may heare his bones 
 Crash in the iawes of the Leiiiathan: 
 But saue his head for me to know him by, 
 Authour of all my griefe and misery. 
 
 King. He interrupt his passion.
 
 The Palsgrane. 91 
 
 Lord. Stay my Liege. 
 Yon shall heare more, here comes the other Father. 
 
 Enter Clynfoii. 
 
 Clyn. How now my Lord, hane yon snrprizd yonr 
 Bride? 
 
 Old. I thinke thy trechery conneyed her hence, 
 And by thy meanes another was attyr'd 
 In her habi laments to vexe me thns. 
 
 Clyn. You highly wrong me. 
 
 Old. I would right you better, 
 Were I assur'd of your close tretchery. 
 
 Clyn. Threaten me? 
 
 Old. With no more then He performe. 
 
 Clyn. Not in cold blood. 
 
 Old. No, but in blood like fire. 
 
 Clijiton. In choller, passion and a crazed braine, 
 But when you haue slept vpon your menaces, 
 You will not then make good a noble challenge, 
 And enter single combate like a Lord. 
 
 Old Fit:;. There lie my gage I dare thee to the 
 field, 
 And will auer without the aduice of sleepe, 
 That thou wert priuy to the Stewards blot. 
 
 Clint. He take your gage, and meet you when you 
 dare. 
 
 King. But we'le not suffer it, that loue the lines 
 Of euery subiect. much more of our Peeres : 
 And as for you Fitc-zcotcrs, that are growne 
 Hotter then I expected from your age, 
 Except you can produce good witnesses, 
 That Clinton has decieu'd you of your Bride, 
 He stay the combate or imprison you. 
 
 Fit::. I cannot prooue it, but I thinke tis so. 
 
 543. Read 'plot.'
 
 92 The Palsgraue. 
 
 King. Correct snch thoughts, and giue him back 
 
 his gage. 
 Fifa. Withall my heart, (giitcs bake the gage. 
 King. Clinton I am satisfied. 
 
 Enter a Messenger mith a Letter zuJiith he offers 
 to the King. 
 
 King How now, what newes bring you ? 
 Messenger Letters my Liege from the Count Pala- 
 tine 
 King. Our noble friend Bauaria's vahant Duke. 
 Messenger From him my Liege. 
 King. Weele read them instantly. 
 
 The Contents of the Letter. 
 
 Alls lost, our elected friend Sauoy taken prisoner, 
 560 with him Bohemia, and Brand enburgh; sickenesse 
 w^ould not suffer mee to weare Armour, but by the 
 helpe of the Royall Hermit, Peter the King of Spayne 
 your friend and Beadesman I am recouered. The Ba- 
 stard is made Emperour, and has shipt himselfe 
 for Spaine, whither I purpose to saile to hinder 
 His intendements, If T suruiue the Battell, and be con- 
 querour. He vnfitte you in England, except the Sea be 
 my Sepulcher. 
 
 Your Friend in Amies, 
 570 ROBERT the Palsgraue. 
 
 Ill newes, not suddenly to be amended, 
 The Palsgraues sicknesse was the greatest losse. 
 The Bastard Crownd, vncrowne him if thou canst. 
 Thou that are matchlesse for thy Chiualrie. 
 Send but his head from Spayne, to tread vpon. 
 And I should count it an vn valued gift. 
 
 554. Read 'which.' 
 567. Read 'visitte.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 93 
 
 As for good Sauoy, and his Gcrmainc Friends, 
 Ere long He set them free, or make the soyle 
 That holds them prisoners a Alarsh-groiind for blood, 
 580 Till I heare newes from Spayne of good successe. 
 Each day I Hue will be a yeare of griefe. 
 
 Clynton. Pleaseth my Lie-^-e to lay aside your sor- 
 row, 
 And with your Royall person grace my house, 
 Clynton will holde it an exceeding fauour. 
 
 Old Fitzzv: So will FitzuKiters gratious soueraigne. 
 And though this day looke blacke with my disgrace, 
 Your Royall presence whites an Aithyops face. 
 King. I accept your kindnesse, & wilbe your Guest. 
 
 Exeunt. 
 
 [Act III. Scene i. Battle-field, Mazieres, Spain.] 
 
 Enter the Palsgraue, Cullen: and Peter the King 
 of Spayne, Drum, Cullors, and Soldiors. 
 
 Palsg. Next vnto heauen to you, we giue the praise, 
 
 590 Most zealous King for our recouery. 
 
 And now my Lord of Cullen shew }'our selfe. 
 
 As good a Souldier as a Cleargie man. 
 
 In stead of Beades now vse a Martiall sword. 
 
 For here in Spayne where the Blacke Prince incampte, 
 
 And made the Bastard flie, our Tents are pitcht. 
 
 And the prowde Foe comes with a Spleene inrag'de, 
 
 To driue vs from Macicres; Harry shall know. 
 
 As hee has Kingly blood within his veynes. 
 
 And is a Cccsar, hee shall meete with Cccsars. 
 
 600 Cullen. I heare their Drummes. 
 
 Peter. And I reioyce to heare Ihcm. 
 
 Enter to them the Bastard, Sa.von, Mcntz, and Trier. 
 
 Bastard. The Palsgraue hcere, now wee shall haue 
 Your voyce to our Election, or for that your life.
 
 94 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Soxoii. Yon were sicke in Gcnuaiiic. 
 Palsgraue. Bnt now reconered. 
 And hither come to beate you out of Spaine. 
 
 Trier. He beares himself, as he were sure to 
 
 conquer. 
 Mentj:. And looks more like a I one then like a man. 
 Palsgraue. I hold my thunder here, & my right 
 arme 
 Has vigor in it, when you feele my blowes 
 To giue you cause to call them Thunderboltes. 
 6io If there be any in this Martiall Troope 
 
 That with a Soldiours face, has a bold heart, 
 And dares auerre that this religious prince 
 Is not the lawfull and true King of Spaine, 
 I will make good his Title by the sword, 
 And against that prowde combattant oppose 
 My selfe as challenger to fight for him. 
 
 Bastard. I dare take vp your gage, and answere 
 you. 
 But that I should impaire this dayes renowne. 
 By giuing desperate men such meanes to dye, 
 620 Who for you know your Armie weake, and fewe 
 Would hazard that vpon a single fight. 
 Which in the Battell you are sure to loose. 
 No Foxlike pollicie shall blind my sight, 
 But that He see the ruine of you all. 
 This day ith Field, thine Palsgraue and the rest. 
 He combats well rips vp an Armyes brest. 
 Saxon. He answer his prowd challenge. 
 Bast. We forbid it, that are your Emperor, both 
 
 in stile & power. 
 Sa.von. In stile, but not in power, that stregth is 
 mine, 
 630 Except youle be forsworne. 
 
 Bastard. This for an Oath, 
 Th'art but the step b)^ which I did ascend, 
 And being vp, rest there till I descend.
 
 The Palsgrane. 95 
 
 Saxon. Yoiile answere this anon. 
 
 Bastard. Here, or else-where. 
 Didst eiier know a Cccsar that could feare. 
 
 Sa.YOii. He stabbe the Bastard. 
 
 Trier. Worthy Duke desist. {Sfaycs him. 
 
 Palsg: No Combat then will be accepted of. 
 
 Bastard. In general, with our powers in the ope 
 field, 
 But not betwixt the Generalls priuately. 
 
 Palsgr: Then you are Cowardes all. 
 640 He so proclaime you in my thundring- Drums, 
 And by the gloryes that I hope to win, 
 Proue it this day to thy perpetuall shame : 
 But to a hartlesse foe words are but vaine. 
 Alarum Drum, that showres of blood may raigne. 
 
 Exeunt oniiics. 
 
 Alarum, The Bastards side beaten off. 
 
 Enter in an excrision Bastard, Saxon, Mentz, and 
 Trier. 
 
 Bastard. It shall be treason to my Fame to day. 
 If I encounter any Foe ith field. 
 Till I haue combatted this drunken Saxoti. 
 Saxon. How Bastard, how? 
 Bast. Bastard! 
 Saxon. What else? 
 Thou wert twice misbegotten, once in Nature. 
 650 And secondly, in being any prides defalt, 
 By which thou art a Bastard Fmperour. 
 
 Bastard. Stand from about me, or He strike you 
 
 dead 
 Mentz. Remember where you arc amongst your foes 
 Who by your discord may destroy vs all. 
 And this aduantage of your variance 
 
 644. Read 'excursion.'
 
 96 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Giues them the victorie with easinesse. 
 
 If not for your owne Honours and your hues, 
 
 Forbeare for ours. 
 
 Trier. They shah not combat here : 
 He make my Rotchet crimson hke your Colours, 
 660 Ere I stand by and suffer such a wrong. 
 
 Sas. How these braue Churchmen talke. 
 Bast. Are you in your Pulpits? Strikes the 
 Bishops on their Targets, and fights with Saxon. 
 
 Enter Palsgraue, Peter and Cullen, zvith Souldiers. 
 
 Trier. Here's those will strike you. 
 
 Bast. What the Palsgraue come! 
 
 Sax. Emperour be wise, & ioyne thy force to mine, 
 Till we haue driuen away the enemy. 
 And then returne to our old variance. 
 
 Ba. I am Saxons till the Palsgraue dye or fly. 
 
 Pa. You should haue fought stil, twould haue bin 
 my glory, 
 To haue giuen ayme, & then the conqueror conquerd : 
 But what your variance leaues vnfinish here, 
 670 He end with the destruction of you both. 
 
 Bast. We feare you not. 
 
 Pals. Vpon them valiant friends. 
 
 Charge vpon them, and the Bastard taken Prisoner 
 on the Stage, Saxon and the Bishops beaten off. 
 
 SoA'on is fled, Ccesar my captiue is, 
 
 I must not lose him ; guard the Emperour sure, 
 
 Whilst I pursue the Duke. 
 
 Peter. We will. 
 
 Bast. Am I your prisoner? 
 
 Peter. Not so good, my slaue. 
 
 Citllen. To trample on, or vse as he likes best. 
 
 669. Read 'vnfinisht.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 97 
 
 Bast. We are Brothers. 
 Peter. Now : but in your high estate, 
 No greater enemy then you had I. 
 
 Ciil. Best that we guide him to the Pahgrmics 
 Tent. 
 
 Enter Saxon with two sivords, and meetes them. 
 
 680 Saxon. Although he be Ambitious, and my Foe, 
 Honour commaunds mee that I reskew him. 
 That I may haue the honour of his death, 
 When we trye Maisteries in a single fight. 
 
 Peter. Tis Saxon, Guarde him sure. 
 
 CuUen. To our best power. 
 
 Saxon. No further, if you meane to saue your Hues. 
 The Palsgraues slaine, his blood wreakes on my 
 
 sword. 
 And I aduise you for your owne discharge, 
 To giue this valiant Emperour libertie. 
 
 Peter. Not whilst wee Hue. 
 
 Saxon. Helpe to release your selfe. 
 
 Saxon gines him a sworde. 
 
 690 Bastard. Most willingly. 
 
 They beate of Ciillen the King of Spayne, 
 
 Thanks for your paines, but yet we will be Foes. 
 Saxon. To horse, to horse and talke of that els- 
 where. Exeunt. 
 
 Enter againe Cnllen and Peter. 
 
 Peter. This was the most ill chance that euer 
 hapned. 
 
 Cullen. He saide he had slaine the Palsgraue. 
 
 Peter. Twas his cunning to astonish vs with feare, 
 but if he Hue, how shall we answer him for this mis- 
 chance.
 
 98 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Cullcn. See where he comes. I would the storm 
 were past. 
 
 Enter Palsgraue. 
 
 Palsgraue. I lost him in the preasse, his snowy steed 
 Was crimsond oner with the blood of men, 
 700 And Lyon-like he fought with all his strength, 
 But since the Empcroiir is my prisoner, 
 I shall the lesse regard the Dukes escape. 
 
 Peter. Oh Noble Syr, we haue deceiued your trust, 
 And lost the lewell you bad vs keepe. 
 Ccesar by Saxon is redeemd and fledde, 
 And wee remaine in griefe for his escape. 
 
 Palsgraue. When Fortune is disposd' to crosse a 
 man. 
 Valour and foresight are of no effect : 
 Releast by Saxon, and his Keepers line; 
 710 You are not as I thought you, valiant men : 
 
 But worse then these that runne away for feare. 
 He should haue made passage through my heart, 
 Ere scapt from me by Soxon or his plots : 
 But now it is too late to follow him ; 
 And the whole Field is made a liquid Sea, 
 Sinke may they both into the crimson fenne. 
 But why should they sinke, you deserue it best : 
 From hencefoorth He nere take a Spaniards part, 
 Except he had a far more valiant heart. 
 720 Peter. Let my blood speake for me, faire words 
 displease. 
 Palsg. Well, since I thinke twas weaknes and not 
 will. 
 By which they are escapt, I calme my spleene, 
 And rest content that we haue woon the field. 
 After you are establisht in your Throne, 
 
 713. Read 'Saxon.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 99 
 
 He sayle to England to regreete the King : 
 And then to Germany, where if we meete, 
 Bauaria's, ayre shall be his winding-sheete. 
 Retreat, retreat, and thanke heauen for the day. 
 
 [Scene 2. Another part of the field.] 
 Enter Bastard, Saxon, Mentn, and Trier. 
 
 Saxon. At your requests my Lords, I am con- 
 tented 
 730 To receiue this Emperour into grace and fauour. 
 
 Bast. He flouts me, would you haue me suffer this ? 
 At their requests they haue requested me 
 To allay my spleene, and take thee into fauour. 
 
 Mentz. Theyle nere be friends. 
 
 Trier. Lets leaue them both to fight. 
 
 Bastard. Away. 
 
 Saxon. Weele force you else. 
 
 Mentz. We are going. Exeunt Bishops. 
 
 Bast. So, now I will imagine that this ground 
 Is all the Empire that my greatnesse swayes : 
 And that the heads of many rebell Subiects 
 Are plaste on thee ; that striking off thy head, 
 740 I cut off halfe a Nation at a blow. 
 
 Saj;. And I the Emperours of a Nation. 
 
 Fight, and Saxon is dozvne. 
 
 Why dost not kill me, since tis in thy power? 
 
 Bast. Thou sau'dst my life, for that He set the free. 
 
 Sax. Cccsar, thou art a Noble enemie ; 
 Hencefoorth I vow to relinquish euery ill 
 That may displease thee, and obey thy will. 
 
 Bast. Such be my conquests ouer those I loue. 
 
 As they embrace, Enter Trier and Cullen.
 
 loo The Palsgraue. 
 
 Mentz. So, they are friends, they haue fought 
 away their anger. 
 
 Sa^v. Has conquer'd me with courtesie and valour. 
 750 Men. Then now to counsel how we shall proceede 
 In this most dangerous warre against the Palsgraue, 
 Who as I heare by firme intelligence. 
 Meanes with his Fleete to touch the English Shore, 
 And draw the valiant Edzcard to his part. 
 
 Bast. If such a day come, twill be blacke to vs : 
 For of all Nations in the world, I hate 
 To deale with Englishmen, they conquer so. 
 
 Saxon. Follow his example, and lets get a King 
 To take our part, as well as they haue done : 
 760 France has beene wasted by their crueltie, 
 And cannot but in spleene desire reuenge, 
 Were he sollicited to be our friend. 
 We should with the more ease be conquerers, 
 
 Mcntz. Send thither. 
 
 Trier. Or sayle thither. 
 
 Bast. Thats the best : 
 But shall we onely build our hopes on strength ; 
 I thinke twere good to peece the Lyons skinne 
 Where it too short falls, with the Foxes skinne, 
 A couple of Protean villaines I haue ready, 
 For any dangerous attempt in peace, 
 770 And they can poyson, stab, and lye in wayte 
 
 Like Serpents, to intrappe and cease their prey, 
 Mendoza and, Uandome, those are the men : 
 Let them be call'd in. 
 
 Mentz. They are heare, great Ccrsar. 
 Enter Uandome and Mendoza. 
 
 Van. Most mightie Emperour, whats your High- 
 nes will ? 
 
 Bast. That vnto England presently you sayle, 
 And there consort you with the Earle of Artoyes, 
 A Frenchman borne, but one that loues vs well ;
 
 The Palsgraue. loi 
 
 Let him and you send vs intelHgence 
 Of the proceedings of the Enghsh King, 
 780 With the haughty Palsgraue, giue the Earle this 
 Letter, 
 By which yee may winne credit in his trust : 
 And er't be long I will deuise a plot, 
 Which you shall mannage, for the generall good. 
 Be carefull, as you doe respect our loue. 
 And hope for gold in showres ; meane time take this. 
 Mend. Your will shall be obey'd. 
 Vand. It shall be done. 
 Sax. Great lone can say no more : 
 That State thriues best that has such Slaues in store. 
 Bast. See our Fleet ready : and yee swelling gales, 
 790 That blow the good houres, fill our empty sayles. 
 
 Exeunt, 
 
 [Scene 3. Boulogne, France.] 
 Enter the King, the Queene, and Poytieres. 
 
 F. King. My Lord of Poytieres, as you are in- 
 form'd, 
 Where meanes the Emperour and his trayne to land? 
 
 Poyt. Here at this towne of Bulleigne, & the newes 
 Is certaine that his Mightinesse is neere. 
 
 QiL How angry has the heauens bin with the sea, 
 That it hath boyld so much, and cast the sands 
 Into such mountaines that they ouer-looke 
 The bounds that held them in. 
 
 F. King. Well may our friends 
 Escape the danger of this heauy storme : 
 800 Small gusts at Land, sinke a whole Fleete at Sea; 
 And whilst our Cities keepe vs from their rage, 
 The Rocks beate them, as Tennis-Courts doe balles. 
 Ide haue an Atheist trauell through the deepe, 
 And he shall sec sucli wonders, that his soulc
 
 102 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Would iTjake him soone beleeue there is a God. 
 But what fayre Gentlewoman haue we hei'e, 
 Which is a Ship-wrackt creature, comes a shore? 
 
 Enter Floramell. 
 
 Flo. All wet and weary with a boysterous storme, 
 At last I haue set my foote vpon the Land ; 
 8io I tremble as a Feauer shooke my ioynts, 
 But tis the Ocean that has frozen me : 
 Drop there thou moysture of a swelling Flood. 
 And let me see, no Fisher-man at hand, 
 To tell me in what Coast I am arriu'd : 
 Alas I see none, I shall dye with cold, 
 
 Q. Foytiers speake to her, giue the woman com- 
 fort. 
 
 Foyt. How is it with pretty Gentlewoman? 
 
 Flor. Sir, I am very cold, and wet, and ill. 
 Would you could helpe me to a little fire 
 820 To drye my selfe, and I would pray for you. 
 
 Foyt. Tis now no time to reason of your state : 
 Here take my Cloake. A taffata Cloake. 
 
 Flora. Alasse Sir, tis but thinne. 
 And makes me shake the more to thinke vpon't : 
 I would be shifted into warmer Roabes, 
 If I could meete with some kinde Gentlewoman. 
 
 Qii. Make vse of me, you shall not want for helpe. 
 
 Flo. You seeme to be of a Maiestique state. 
 What should a poore distressed Gentlewoman, 
 Trouble a person of such eminence? 
 830 F. King. Thy state wants present pitty, women 
 take it. 
 
 Flo. I haue scene a King ere now, 
 And by your Diadem you should be one : 
 Pray, rather let me dye then trouble you. 
 
 Qu. Tis perfect charitie to helpe the poore : 
 Yet by these lewels, you should beare a place. 
 If not amongst the Royall, with the Noble.
 
 The Palsgraue. 103 
 
 Flo. Indeede I am but a poore Gentlewoman, 
 Punisht for wearing lewels in a storme : 
 But I haue lost a husband whom I lou'd, 
 840 For marying whom, I haue endur'd this crosse; 
 And now his friends, if they should finde me out, 
 Would finish what the storme has left vndone. 
 
 Queene. His name? 
 
 Flo. Twas Infortunio, as mine is, 
 With the alteration of a letter onely. 
 
 Quee. Good Infortuna goe along Avith me, 
 He finde some helpe for this thy misery. 
 
 Flo. May the Sea neuer vse you of this fashion ; 
 I take your courtesie, and will attend. 
 
 Exeunt Queene and Floramell. 
 
 F. K. Young, fayre, an lonely, is she not P oy tiers f 
 850 Poyt. She is comely, and a sweet Genlewoman. 
 
 F. King. In my opinion shee's the fayrest crea- 
 ture 
 Nature ere made. 
 
 Poyt. In loue my gracious Liege? 
 
 F. K. What and my Queen aliue, that would 
 
 seeme strange. 
 Poyt. Loue does regard no person, nor the time. 
 F. King. Loue is a power will ouer-rule a King. 
 Poyt. Finding her honest, though of meane estate, 
 You may doe well to rayse poore vertue vp, 
 And marry her to some great Nobleman. 
 
 F. K. He thinke of that hereafter : now, the newes ? 
 
 Enter Queene. 
 
 860 Qu. The Emperour and the Electors are arriu'd. 
 
 Enter Bastard, Saxon, Ments, and Trier. 
 
 843. Read 'Jnfortuno.' 
 850. Read 'Gentlewoman.'
 
 104 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Bast. Health to the IMaiestie and Seate of France. 
 
 F. King. As welcome hither is your Mightinesse, 
 As if you were arriu'd in Germany. 
 
 Bast. I thanke King lohn. 
 
 F. King. Saxon, with Mentz, and Trier. 
 
 Saxon. We rest your louing friend for Warre. 
 
 Trier. For Counsell. 
 
 F. King. And Counsell is as great a friend as War. 
 
 Mentc. It hath preuaild as much. 
 
 Quecnc. Thrice welcome all. 
 
 Bast. The storme has kept vs ouerlong at Sea : 
 But Mighty King of France, worse stormes then these 
 870 Haue and will shake vs, if you helpe vs not : 
 
 All things goe Backwards, that should bode vs good; 
 
 And he that is Conqueror already, 
 
 The haughty Palsgraue, is to England sayld, 
 
 To ioyne with Edzvard in our ouerthrow. 
 
 F. Ki. We haue felt the valour of the English 
 King, 
 And of his sonne, the Blacke Prince now deceased : 
 Witnes Poytiers and Cresscy, where our blood 
 Royall, although it be sau'd to make clay 
 Moyst with the showers, and temper the dry earth : 
 880 When I and all my sonnes were prisoners tane. 
 And had to England to be wondred at : 
 Ransom'd although I was, it grieues me much 
 I cannot doe the like vnto my foe. 
 
 Sa. Let your French Souldiers ioyne themselues 
 with ours, 
 Aud weele inuade his Kingdome. 
 
 Bast. And constraine him & the Palsgraue to the 
 like disgrace. 
 
 Me. Fortune was neuer stedfast vnto any. 
 But like the Ocean that bounds in the Land, 
 
 885. Read 'And.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 105 
 
 Both ebbs and flowes according to the Moone. 
 890 Qtiee. But if I might aduise your Maiestie, 
 
 By former losses you should be more wise, 
 Then hazzard France againe to the like spoyle : 
 Edzvard is fortunate in all his warres ; 
 And wise men will not striue against the streame: 
 Therefore be circumspect, and keepe your owne. 
 F. K. This theame our counsel shal at large dis- 
 cusse, 
 Till when, to England, weele Ambassage send, 
 To aduise King Edzvord not to be our foe, 
 Lest it offend vs, that are friends to both : 
 900 If the Done speede not, weele the Serpent proue. 
 
 Sax. And winne by craft, what may not be by 
 loue. 
 Who shall haue that imployment ? 
 
 Basf. Not your Honor, because your spirit is 
 
 rojLigh and turbulent. 
 F. K. No, if I might intreat these reuerend Bish- 
 ops, 
 By them I would direct this Embassie : 
 Since it concernes them, it behooues they stirre, 
 Who know the sweetes, will cause no warre. 
 
 Trier. Weele vndertake it, if the Emperour please. 
 Bast. When I send thither, it shall be in thunder : 
 910 Yet as the French King orders it proceede. 
 
 F. K. You know your charge, be milde, but yet not 
 base. 
 Though we giue ground, we will not lose our place. 
 
 Manet Sa.vou. Exeunt. 
 
 Saxon, Euen now a bold conceit hath entered me, 
 And thats to visit England in disguise : 
 As well to further our conspiracie 
 Against the Palsgraue and King Edzvard s life, 
 As to surueigh the Countrey, and obserue
 
 io6 The Palsgraue. 
 
 What Hauens best to entertaine a Fleete : 
 The Enghsh Nation with my soule I hate, 
 920 And would doe any thing to winne the State. Exit. 
 
 [Act IV. Scene I. King Edzvard's palace.] 
 
 Enter Edward, Clynton, olde Fytswaters, the Pals- 
 graue, Cullen, and others. 
 
 King. Not possible my Lords to finde those men ? 
 Are they so wily to deceiue vs all ? 
 Sure they are harboured by some neere about, 
 That does affect the English Diadem : 
 He's worse then mad would ayme at Englands 
 
 Crowne. 
 Though the Blacke Prince be dead, so many sonnes 
 I haue left to gouerne, which marres their rule. 
 Edzvard himselfe has left a hopefull heyre, 
 The Princely Richard to inherit it. 
 930 Plots yet, tricks yet, well we must hope the best. 
 
 Pals. I rather thinke the ill was aymd at me, 
 Because I came to mooue your Maiestie 
 For the deposing of the Emperour : 
 And it is knowne the Bastard is my foe, 
 Witnesse the Warres in Germany and Spayne: 
 Treason by him is euermore in act. 
 His brayne coynes faster then the English Mynt ; 
 Tretcherous proceedings, gold has many friends : 
 And he must be a man of excellent vertue 
 940 Whom it corrupts not. Howsoere, I am sorry 
 The Saylors did escape. 
 
 Clyn. Here are their cases. 2. Saylors canims 
 Suits. 
 Vnder the which I thinke were better cloathes, 
 And for their Steedes, thought could not be more 
 
 quicke, 
 Or we had tooke them.
 
 The Palsgraue. 107 
 
 O Fyfit;,. They were swift indeed. 
 
 King. As swiftly with their flight vanish our 
 feares. 
 And now most Noble Palsgraue of the Rheine, 
 Thinke your selfe welcome to the English Court : 
 And reuerend Ciillcn. 
 
 Cullcn. I doe thanke your Grace. 
 
 King. Your Father lou'd me well, and for his sake, 
 950 As well as for your owne, He honour you : 
 And after feasting we will try your force 
 In friendly manner at a Tournament, 
 Which as I thinke, you haue prepard my Lords. 
 
 O. F. We haue my Liege, & the most youthful 
 blood 
 That the Court yeelds will shew their Chiualdry, 
 In honour of Bauaria's Royall Duke. 
 
 Palsg. Let him sit fast that shall contend with me. 
 Or I shall shake him, be he nere so Royall : 
 I shew no fauour when I am in Armes, 
 960 Nor looke for any from my Opposites. 
 
 But Turnaments are reuels made for sport. 
 And hee runnes well, that gets a good report. 
 
 King: Weele trie your valour, & perchance run 
 with you. 
 Leade on. Exeunt. 
 
 [Scene 2. Apartments of the Earl of Artoise.] 
 
 Enter the Earle of Artoise. 
 
 Artoise. The discontented English like to mee. 
 Hates all delight, I and the Court it selfe: 
 To lead a priuate life, where they may plot 
 Reuenge on those that are thcyr oi)posites. 
 Not many yeares past, who but I estcem'd, 
 970 King Edward has vpon my shoulder leand,
 
 io8 The Palsgraue. 
 
 And thankt mee in mine eare many a time. 
 For making Frauncc his. I betraid Ualoys 
 My soneraigne King, in Englmid to get grace : 
 And now I lookte to l)e a Duke at least : 
 Artoise is sleighted as a thing forgot, 
 But I haue sent my x^ttendant to the Court, 
 And if he speed not, I shall prone as false 
 Edzvard to thee, as to my Natiue French. 
 
 Enter a Scruant. 
 
 Scriiant. The King is not at leysure 
 980 To listen to your sute; All his thoughts now 
 Are taken vp to giue the Palsgraue grace. 
 Who is come to Court, and meanes to Turney there 
 Art. Treason run with them, or som dangerous plot, 
 Take life and being to destroy them both; 
 Must my affaires giue place vnto a Palsgraue? 
 T'was I that quartered with the English Lyons, 
 The Armes of France, in opening Edwards Title, 
 Which but for mee had in obliuion slept. 
 Then I was as the Palsgraue in his brest. 
 990 My sight his foode. my saying, his harts rest. 
 
 Who's that, that knocks, look forth, & bring vs word? 
 Seru. A couple of Gentlemen would speak with you. 
 Arto. Let them com in, were they a pair of mis- 
 chiefs, 
 They are welcome now. For I haue thoughts like 
 
 Hell, 
 Blacke and confusde. 
 
 Enter Uandomc and Mendozze. 
 
 Sent. These are the Gentlemen. 
 
 Uandomc. Our busines is to you most noble 
 Artoise, 
 The Enipcrour does salute you in this Letter, 
 And prayes you by the Honour of an Earle,
 
 The Palsgraue. 109 
 
 You faile not to conioyne your ayde with ours, 
 1000 About some plot against his Enemies. 
 
 Artoise. The Letter speaks the words, but names 
 
 no plot. 
 Mendo: Tis not deuisd as yet, but ere long great 
 Casar 
 Will set it downe, and send it to vs all. 
 Now as his Mightinesse desires is this, 
 That you giue shelter to vs while wee stay 
 For his Affaires in England, and your i>ension 
 Which euery yeare you haue receiued from him, 
 Shall from henceforth be doubled with his loue. 
 Artoise. Ccusar is gracious, and has my hart : 
 loio But were not you the Seruants that attended 
 On the last Emperour that was made away, 
 And helpt to send him to a timelesse graue? 
 Uandome. We were my Lord. 
 Artoise. Let me embrace you in mine amies for 
 
 that. 
 Mendo: But that ill speed followed our hopes to 
 day. 
 We had giuen a period to King Edzvards life. 
 And to the Palsgraues. 
 
 Uandome. Wee attempted it. 
 Habited like Saylers, but our pistolls failde, 
 And after long pursute, our Roabes throwne off, 
 1020 We escapte with life. 
 
 Mendo::ae. And come to line with you. 
 Artoise. Line here as safe as in a Fort of brasse. 
 Such men I wisht for to assist my spleene, 
 Vnto one marke all our affections tend. 
 And they both dye if that the Emperour send. 
 
 Exeunt.
 
 no The Palsgraue. 
 
 [Scene 2. Another room in King Ediimrd's palace] 
 The Trumpets sound 7inthin as at a Tournamait: 
 A great shoutc. 
 Enter old Fytzwatcrs and Clynton. 
 
 O. Fytc. Did yon ere see a better Tonrnament, 
 Or brauer Runners then this day appear' d 
 In the Tilt-yard? 
 
 Clyfi. The best that ere I saw. 
 What a braue Horse the Palsgraue rid vpon, 
 And with what courage, nimblenesse, and strength, 
 1030 Did he vnhorse his vaHant opposites? 
 
 Speares flew in sphnters, halfe the way to heauen, 
 And none that ranne against him kept his saddle. 
 Except the King, and he demeand him well : 
 It ioyes my soule, that he has yet in store 
 Such manly vigor ; and the peoples hearts 
 Were not a little glad. 
 
 O. Fytz. Here they come all. 
 Enter King Edward, Palsgraue, Cullen, and others. 
 
 King. I feare you are ouer-wearied with our sports, 
 To speake the truth, I feele them troublesome, 
 1040 Whether it be by discontinuancce or age, I know not, 
 But my breath growes short. 
 
 Pals. What Oke is euer strong? age makes I ones 
 tree, 
 The fayrest King, and Emperour of the wood. 
 To bend it selfe, and bow his lofty armes 
 Downewards vnto the earth that fostred it. 
 No C coder growes straight till his latest day : 
 As there's a weaknesse in their springing vp. 
 So is there in their declination. 
 The middle age the lust}' does exiM'esse, 
 
 1040. Read 'discontinuance.'
 
 The Palsgraue. ill 
 
 1050 And there flowes vigor, Hke a sea of strength, 
 
 Able to beare downe what doth stand the streame : 
 Such is mine now ; but as my yeers doe flow, 
 Like Okes and Ccrdcrs they must straight bow low. 
 King. Sit by our side, and weare a Cccsars wreath. 
 
 A Wreath of Laurell. 
 
 Palsgr. Victorious Edward keepe it as your right, 
 And let it mingle with your Royall Crowne, 
 That haue deseru'd it in the field of warre. 
 Not as tis mine, giuen for a Turnament. 
 
 King. It is our gifte, and you shall weare it still, 
 1060 Bring forth the other honour wee intend 
 Vnto this thrice renowned Gentleman. 
 
 Enter an Herauld, with a fadre Cushion, o-iui the 
 Garter vppon it. 
 
 Herald. My gratious Liege here is the Garter 
 
 ready. 
 King. Which to the Palsgraue we command you 
 beare, 
 Garter and Herald heere presents your Honour 
 With the Order of the Garter, whence he takes 
 His Office and his Name, by our Decree : 
 This is a fauour which no Forraine Prin-ce 
 Euer enioyd yet, but the time may come 
 When Kings in seeking it may be instald, 
 1070 It was my Institution, and is worne 
 
 By none but the most Noble, and tiiose fewe 
 Hereafter I will tell your Excellence 
 The Motiue why the Order was deuisd' : 
 Meane time his hand shall claspe it to your Lcgge, 
 For tis a custome which you must not breake. 
 
 Palsgr: Your Highnes honours mee exceedingly. 
 King. You are now my F el loinh Knight, and you 
 must sweare,
 
 112 The Palsgraue. 
 
 To figlit for Ladies, & their Fames preseriie. 
 But that wee leaue to Deputation, 
 To fight for Ladies, & their Fames preserue. 
 1080 It shall suffice now, say on, passe your word. 
 
 [Palsg.'\ My Word and Oath, so please your Ma- 
 iestie, 
 The Motto, as I red it was in French, 
 Honny soil qui Mai y pense: 
 111 be his meede makes goodnesse an offence : 
 Or, Euill bee to him that euill thinkes. 
 I haue learnt the sence, the Order I will keepe 
 Inuiolate, by Hand and by my Sword ; 
 And hope in time it shall as famous prooue, 
 As that of Malta or lerusalems. 
 1090 Clinton. The Bishops, Mentz, & Trier, sent from 
 France, 
 By the French King desire to be admitted. 
 With them associate comes the bold Poytiers, 
 But as I thinke hee's no Embassadour. 
 
 King. Giue them admittance. 
 We could not wish for a more braue assemblie, 
 Then at this instant to giue Audience. 
 
 Enter Mentjj and Trier, and Saxon disguised 
 like a Frenchman. 
 
 Mentz. Because the matter does concerne our selues 
 Most mighty King of England, we haue taken 
 This Embassie in hand, not sent by Ccesar, 
 1 100 But from your Neighbour, the great King of Frcntcr: 
 Who by vs first intreates, after enioynes 
 You take good heede how you the Palsgraue aide, 
 For that he sayes, and will maintaine asniuch. 
 It were vniust now Ccesar to depose, 
 Who by his valour, if all Titles faile, 
 Merits the honour of an Emperour. 
 
 1 103. Read 'as much.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 113 
 
 Trier. And that lie is peerlesse for his minde, 
 And haughty resolution through the world, 
 That none so well as hee deserues the stile, 
 mo And being inuested in the dignitie, 
 
 Twere a dishonour great and Capitall, 
 Now to constraine him to a lower place : 
 Which if you seeke, heele shield from such disgrace. 
 King. Has France forgot our former victories, 
 That his Commission is so peremptorie? 
 Or is it but the Stratageme of Cccsar, 
 To blinde vs with the Name of the Frence King? 
 And lohn of France be ignorant of this, 
 Before we answere your prowde Embassie, 
 1 120 Weel send Embassadours to know the truth: 
 And if we be deceiu'd by a tricke, 
 Cccsar shall know he has dishonourd vs. 
 
 So'Xon. I am a Frenchman, and a Peere of France, 
 My name Poyctiers, but no Ambassadour. 
 Yet by the Honours that my sword hath wonne, 
 King lohn of France deliuered what they spake. 
 
 King. Being no Embassadour, why came you hither 
 To be a Spye, and to surueigh my Land ? 
 
 Sajron. A Spye, one of my blood without disguise, 
 1 130 Being the first Reuealer of my selfe. 
 
 How can this hold King Edward to be true? 
 I vse no Intelligence but with my sword : 
 Nor seeke for other corners then deepe wounds. 
 So if I come by any great mans hart 
 In honourable difference I surueigh it. 
 Palsgraue. At whose hart aime you now, tliat you 
 are come? 
 To iustifie an Embassage against mee? 
 
 Sojcon. I say who weares the Germaine Diadem 
 Deserues it better then the best that's here; 
 1 140 Or any whom the English King, or thou 
 
 For priuate reasons wouldst preferre to wearc it.
 
 114 The Palsgraue. 
 
 And that it is not honour prompts you to it ; 
 But secret pride, to haue a person gouerne, 
 Which Palsgraue, thou mightst rule ambitiously. 
 Palsgr: Thou fowl-mouth'd sladerer eat thy prowd 
 words vp, 
 Wherwith thou hast asperst me; or by my furie 
 Shall make thee curse this bold-fac'te impudence. 
 Saxon. Come, Come, you cannot doe it. 
 Palsgraue. Cannot. 
 
 Saxon. Nor dare. He stand the furie of thy 
 prowdest shocke, 
 1 1 50 Not fearing danger in so sleight a Foe: 
 
 Should I put off these Masks, my wounds would 
 
 fright, 
 And these wide mouthes which I haue got in warre 
 Not halfe heald vp, pronounce it in thy blood. 
 Thou art too weake to enter Armes with mee. 
 
 Palsgraue. Since mildnesse cannot temper your 
 stern wrath, 
 But that your splene must vomit vpon mee. 
 He teach you Syr to haue your tongue lockt vp. 
 By taking off your locke. {Pulls off his locke. 
 
 Saxon. My haire tome off. {They part them. 
 
 Palsgr. Who haue we here? This is the hauty 
 Saxon. 
 1 1 60 Saxon. Grant me the combat Edward, of this 
 Palsgraue. 
 King. He is a prince himselfe, & knowes his power 
 Palsgraue. Now by the honour of my Fathers 
 house, 
 Saxon He meete thee in the Realme of France, 
 In the Kings Court, or place where thou wert borne, 
 So I may haue good Hostage, and faire play. 
 
 Saxon. Now by my gage thou shalt. {His gloue. 
 Palsgr: This shall suffise. 
 I haue your locke to mee a better pledge.
 
 The Palsgraue. 115 
 
 Saxofi. I would I had thy head to countertiayle it. 
 A whyrl-winde be thy guide, and a rough Sea 
 1 170 Plague thee before thou comst for my haires losse, 
 Hel & som Deuill was author of this crosse 
 
 Exit Saxo. 
 King. You haue payd him soundly and deseruedly. 
 But now to answere you in briefe, tis thus, 
 The Palsgraue and our selfe will see the King 
 With expedition, where (if hee make good 
 The prowd Iniunction you haue chargde vs with. 
 We will lay wast his Countrey, and once more 
 Put France in hazard of a sound losse. 
 
 Palsgraue. This Saxons braue, giues courage to 
 vs all. 
 1 1 80 But He requite it with a Germaine braule. 
 
 [Scene 4. Apartments of the Earl of Artoise.] 
 
 Enter Saxon, Artoise, Uandome, and Mcndoza, 
 Trier, and Cull en. 
 
 Sax. You are the cause next to disgrace the Pals- 
 graue 
 For which I came. The Empcrour greetes you well, 
 And would haue noble Artoise lend his hand, 
 Both to cut off Bauaria and the King. 
 
 Artoise. Where ? 
 
 Mentz. Here in England. 
 
 Trier. Or what place you will. 
 
 Uandome. France is the safer for the Stratagem. 
 
 Mend OS. And Edward is determined to saile 
 thither. 
 
 Saxon. In Fr amice then giue it birth. 
 Where if it fayle He be the Palgraues death. Exeunt.
 
 1 1 6 The Palsgraue, 
 
 [Scene 5. Palace of the Frcnce king.'\ 
 Enter French King solus. 
 
 1 190 F. King. The care of Kingdomes is a weighty 
 charge 
 So is the care of children. But Loucs care 
 Exceeds them all : That dryes the blood of life 
 More then the Feauer, though they burne like Fire : 
 And to submit it to the law of reason, 
 Makes reason follie, and discourse a Foole, 
 Then irresistable all ruling power 
 Reuell in young mens hearts, aivl leaue the olde, 
 Or meddle with inferiours, not with Kings ; 
 We should be priuiledged, because most high, 
 
 1200 But what's a King vnto a Deitie? 
 
 Enter Floramell, with a Napkin, and a cup of Wine. 
 
 FlorameU. Your Maiestie call'd for a cup of wine. 
 
 F. King. I did faire creature, & I thank your 
 paines. 
 But when I view the colour of your lippe, 
 And looke on this, the wine me thinks lookes pale : 
 You haue a better luster in your eye, 
 Then any sparkle that can rise from hence : 
 The siluer whitenesse that adornes thy necke, 
 Sullyes the plate, and makes the Napkin blacke. 
 Thy looking well, makes all things else looke fowle, 
 12 10 Being so faire in bodie, what's thy soule? 
 
 Floram. My soule and body are the gift of heauen, 
 And I will vse them to my Makers praise : 
 If other seruice (great King) you require, 
 I am ready, attend your hearts desire. 
 
 F. King. I think sweet creature, what thy tongue 
 has vtterd 
 Is distant many paces from thy heart. 
 My hearts desire, tis not in bending low,
 
 The Palsgrane. 117 
 
 After the afficious custome of a Court : 
 Nor lyes it in the vse of common things, 
 
 1220 To bring and take away; my hearts desire 
 Is to enioy thee in another sort, 
 Which if thou yeeld vnto, thou shalt be great, 
 Greatest in France, next, nay before my Queene: 
 For He finde meanes to take away her Hfe, 
 So I may haue thee as a second wife. 
 
 Flora. The Saint of France forbid it, & all powers, 
 That haue continued both so long together 
 In sacred rites of Mariage, heauen deny 
 I should be Authour of her Tragedy : 
 
 1230 Or giue content where murther is oppos'd. 
 
 If I should yeeld, and your Queene made away, 
 
 Might you not vse me so another day? 
 
 Tis fearefull building vpon any sinne, 
 
 One mischiefe entred, brings another in : 
 
 The second pulls a third, the third drawes more, 
 
 And they for all the rest set ope the dore : 
 
 Till custome take away the iudging sence. 
 
 That to offend we thinke it no offence. 
 
 Wherefore my Lord, kill mischiefe while tis small, 
 
 1240 So by degrees you may destroy it all. 
 
 F. King. Deuine is tliy discourse, like to thy l)eauty. 
 Flo. Doe not Idolatrize, beauties a llowre, 
 Which springs and withers almost in an houre: 
 Sicknesse impayres it, but death kills it quite, 
 It vades as fast as shaddowes in the night. 
 Why should your Grace call it Diuinitie? 
 There's nought diuine, but that which cannot dye. 
 Least T offend l)y staying here too long. 
 He take my leaue, and so curbc in my tongue. 
 
 1250, F. King Speake still. He licarc thee. 
 
 Flor. To our Sex tis bard, (E.vit Floramrll 
 
 We should be twice scene, ere we be once heard. 
 
 1218. Read 'officious.'
 
 Ii8 The Palsgraue. 
 
 F. K. Shee'll neuer yeeld ! why do I woo her then? 
 Because I cannot bridle my desires, 
 Nor sleepe, nor eate, but as I dreame of her : 
 Shee's to me as my Genius, or my soule; 
 And more then they, because she gouernes them. 
 Some way He take, my freedome to recouer : 
 That there's no physicke made to cure a Louer ! 
 
 Enter the French Qtieene. 
 
 Queenc. My Lord. 
 
 F. King. My Loue. 
 
 Quecne. Yes. 
 
 F. King. Infortuna. 
 1260 Quecne. How! Infortuna? 
 
 F. K. I mistooke thy name: 
 Yet now I thinke on't, I had busie thoughts 
 How I might raise that Virgin to some Honour, 
 And match her with some worthy Peere of France. 
 
 Qu. Your selfe my Lord in some Adulterate kinde. 
 
 F. K. Nay then you wrong me, I meant ver- 
 tuously ; 
 Beleeue me Sweet I did, I loue thee so, 
 No euill thought should make me wrong thy bed, 
 By this it shall not, this, and this, my Loue. Kisses 
 her. 
 
 Quecne. You flatter me. 
 
 F. K. I loue thee as I should : 
 1270 What, we haue liu'd together twenty yeeres. 
 And neuer wrongd each other, should I now 
 Be the first causer of the marriage breach ? 
 Banish such thoughts, let all mistrust begon. 
 If she grow iealous, I am twice vndone. Exit F. King. 
 
 Quee. He haue about with her, to finde out all. 
 Within there. Enter Floramell. 
 
 Flo. Madame.
 
 The Palsgraue. 119 
 
 Queene. What Medea was't, 
 Of whom you learnt the Art of Socery, 
 To inchaunt a King, and draw him to your bed ? 
 Thinke you, because you are my Mayd of Honour, 
 
 1280 He honour you so farre, to haue my Lord, 
 Thou shamelesse Callet? tis ingratitude, 
 Into my Husbands heart so to intrude. 
 I could haue helpt thee to a wealthy choyce, 
 Had you spar'd mine; but now it cannot be, 
 For I must hate thee for thy tretchery. 
 
 Flo. I am accus'd, that ought to be excus'd, 
 And blam'd as one vnchaste, for being chaste. 
 I Inchaunt the King, and vse Medeas Art? 
 Witch-craft I haue alwaies hated with my heart : 
 
 1290 And except Modestie a Circe be, 
 I know no other kinde of Socery. 
 Your Highnesse sent me with a Cup of Wine 
 Vnto the King, the occasion of his wooing ; 
 Was it my fault to doe your Highnesse will ? 
 ludge gracious Maiestie but as you ought. 
 And doe not blame me for a Virgins tryall : 
 His loue was answered with a strong denyall ; 
 And so deny'd for euer shall he be, 
 That seekes by such meanes to dishonour me. 
 
 1300 Before I wrong a Queene so truely kinde, 
 
 He marre my face, and make my sad eyes blinde. 
 
 Queene. In. Exit FIoramcIL 
 
 Weele consider farther of your teares : 
 He haue her watcht, if she prooues false, she dyes; 
 But if continue constant to the end, 
 Neuer had Lady a more Royall friend. Exit. 
 
 [Scene 6. An island in t/ie English Channel'] 
 Enter youn<^ Fil.TiCaters aloft. 
 
 Y. Fytn. Since I was cast vpon this fatall Rocke, 
 And saw my Loue disseuered by the wanes,
 
 120 The Palsgraue. 
 
 And my kinde Steward in the Ocean drownd, 
 Here I haue Hu'd, fed onely with raw Fish, 
 
 13 10 Such as the Sea yeelds : and each Shippe I see, 
 (As dayly there are some furrow this way) 
 I call vnto for ayde, but nere the neere. 
 Once ask't me, What I was ? I answer'd him, 
 An Englishman. Quoth he. Stay there and sfarite. 
 , To the next that past, I sayd I was a French-borne. 
 He ayde no French quoth he. Vnto a third, 
 That I a Spaniard was. He bad me hang: 
 So that I know not what I ought to say, 
 Nor whom to speake to : but in happy time, 
 
 1320 From this high Rocke. I see a tall Shippe come, 
 Furnisht with all his Sayles ; and as it ploughes 
 The Ocean vp, it rayses hills of snow. 
 That fly on both sides as they did giue way, 
 To make a valley for the Shippe to passe : 
 Their Captaine as I thinke lookes vpon me. 
 And has tooke notice of my waning hand. 
 Now the Ship turnes and this way ploughes amaine, 
 As if it meant to runne itself aground : 
 In happy time, now I shall be relieu'd. 
 
 Enter Saxon, Artoise, Menf::, Uandome, 
 and Mcndoza. 
 
 1330 Saxon. Twas heere abouts the Gallant beckned me, 
 He seemes a person of some eminence, 
 By the glittering of his Suite against the Sunne, 
 Cast Anker here, and let vs question him. 
 
 Men. Yonder he stands, mounted vpon the rocke. 
 Sax. The very same. What art thou, whats thy 
 name? 
 Thy place of birth, fortune, and parentage. 
 That thou are left vpon this desolate shore? 
 And what requirest thou stranger at our hands ? 
 13 13. Read 'One.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 121 
 
 Y. Eit£. As you are men, and therefore may be 
 crost, 
 1340 Be fauorable to a wretched man : 
 
 Know, that the Sea has cast me on this place, 
 Where I haue led a discontented life, 
 Ere since the last storme, and no passenger 
 Has taken pitty to remootie me hence. 
 Though food I want not, cause the sea yeelds fish, 
 I would be shifted to a better place. 
 My name's Fitczvatcrs, by my byrth a Lord : 
 My naturall residence in England was, 
 Some of your company I haue often scene ; 
 1350 Set me aland where dwell inhabitants, 
 And thankfully I will requite your loue. 
 
 Artoy. Tis young Fytzwaters, pray sir take him in. 
 
 Sax. You know my hatred to all Englishmen, 
 Since my disgrace, and shall I pitty him ? 
 
 Ment. But he's descended of a Noble house. 
 
 Sax. The more should I reioyce to see him dye. 
 
 Trier. Has valour. 
 
 Sax. Let him vse it on the Rocks. 
 
 Uand. But euery enemie 1)eares not your minde. 
 Some haue beene fauourable to their foes. 
 1360 Mend. And tis an honour in an enemie 
 To saue where he may kill. 
 
 Y. Fytrj. Your answere there? 
 
 Sa>x. You speake as you'd compell it. 
 
 Y. Fyt.z. In the lionourable entercourse of men 
 I should doe so, and were you in my case. 
 You would inforce your owne ncccssitie. 
 
 Sa. What would this Stranger be in prosperous 
 state, 
 That beares so high a mindc in liis distress? 
 
 Y. Fytz. I would be as thou art, proud of nothing. 
 
 1339. Read 'Y. Fife'
 
 122 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Sox. Is a Shippe nothing ? 
 
 Y. Fyts. As it ankers here 
 1370 It beares a goodly show; but launcht againe. 
 And a storme rise, it may be cast aland 
 As I haue beene : nay worse, it may may be sunke, 
 And then what is't, but a fayre something, nothing? 
 What is, and now is not; man's life, or a dreame, 
 Now swimming, and then swallowed in the streame. 
 
 Sax. His words are piercing, some go take him in : 
 Come downe, and be receiued into our Boate. 
 
 Art. That shall be my charge. Exit Artoise. 
 
 Sax. Could wee draw this spirit 
 Into our plot, hee'd helpe to manage it 
 1380 Vnto the life, and I should take it better 
 Then yet I doe. 
 
 Vand. Perswasion may corrupt. 
 
 Menf. But be aduis'd how you perswade him to it. 
 
 Trier. And take his Oath at first for sacrifice. 
 
 Vand. We are not puny Pollititians, 
 To be instructed in the rules of euill : 
 Here comes Fitswaters. 
 
 Enter young Fytswaters and Artoise, 
 
 Sax. Your hand. 
 
 Y. Fytc. And sword, but that the Sea deuour'd it. 
 Sax. Know sir, we haue businesse of import in 
 hand. 
 Wherein our purpose is to craue your ayde, 
 1390 And as we sayle to France weele open it. 
 
 Y. Fysf. I am yours in all things that are honour- 
 able. 
 Sax. Honourable or not, you shall do what we list. 
 Launch foorth into the deepe. Exeunt. 
 
 1372. Omit 'may.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 123 
 
 [Act V. Scene i. In France.] 
 
 Enter King Edzi'ard, Palsgraue, old Fytzivaters, 
 
 Clynton and Ciillen, Drummes, Colours, 
 
 and Soiddiers. 
 
 King. We did not thinke to haue footed the 
 French ground. 
 A second time in such Hostihtie; 
 But when the conquered beares so proud a head, 
 Tis fit we make him stoope : yet least the King 
 Be not himselfe, or be abus'd by any, 
 My Lord of Ciillen, we intreat your paynes 
 1400 To enquire it out by our Ambassadour, 
 
 As Mcntz and Trier his : say that our force 
 Might spoyle his countrey, and make waste his land ; 
 But that with Frence blood we haue surfetted, 
 And therefore care not greatly to shed more. 
 Say, We will meete him at an enterview. 
 There to discourse our griefes before we fight, 
 Where if he haue wrongd me, he shall doe me right. 
 
 Cullen. I shall delate your Highnesse Embassie. 
 
 Pal. But say from me my sword nere drunke 
 Frence 
 1410 And therefore it is thirstie for their lines : 
 That ere I leaue the Continent of France, 
 Without good satisfaction from the King, 
 None of his Caualieres shall were a locke, 
 He haue them all cut off, and euery yeere 
 Be payd in such a tribute for my wrongs. 
 As for proud Saxon, Say my word is kept. 
 And bid him warily respect his owne : 
 The French Kings Palace shall not saue his life, 
 Nor the best rampierd Buhvarke in the Land, 
 1420 Except he answere me as fits a Peere. 
 
 Cut. But to the Emperour, whats your will to him? 
 
 Pals. That as he run from Spaynic, he shall run 
 hence,
 
 124 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Or I shall make him a poore Emperour. 
 
 His Basterd brauery tell him must goe downe, 
 
 And the legitimate weare Ccrsars Crowne. 
 
 King. Fayle not to vtter euery sillable 
 Both of the Palsgraucs sending and our owne. 
 
 Cul. I shall deliuer both. 
 
 Pals. Tak't how they please. 
 If they fly hence, weele follow through the Seas. 
 1430 Cullen. I goe. Exit Ciillen. 
 
 King. High is this Embassy, like to your valour, 
 Which I admire, and loue ardently; 
 That I could wish your presence all my dayes, 
 And thinke your company to me more sweete 
 Then mine owne Kingdome, or my Crowne besides. 
 
 Pals. Your loue and Royall presence I desire. 
 
 K. Clynton, and bold Fytzn'atcrs, be it your 
 charge, 
 Prouided well of our best Ships and Souldiers, 
 To sayle to Germanic, and free our friends, 
 1440 Kept as we heare there with a slender guard, 
 In a weake Castle. 
 
 Old Fit:;. Which weele soone beate downe. 
 
 Palsgr. And bring them hither. 
 
 Clinton. Or returne no more. 
 
 King. March forwards to the place where weel en- 
 campe. Exeunt. 
 
 [Scene 2. Another part of France] 
 Enter Fit:::-zcaters, Artoysc. Uandonic, and Mendoza. 
 
 Uand. What should the reason be of this dissen- 
 tion 
 And why is young Fitz-zvatcrs f roward thus ? 
 
 Artoysc. His arguments are strong and forcible. 
 
 Mcndoz. Single vs hither to the forrest side, 
 Vnder pretense to plot more priuately,
 
 The Palsgraiie. 125 
 
 And now not onely to mislike our drifts, 
 1450 But call vs punies, and vnskilfull men, 
 It shewes a spleenefull hatred to vs all. 
 
 Y. Eytz. Not vnto all, but only to you two : 
 Why should the Earle and I borne a Lords sonne, 
 loine with a paire of base companions, 
 In such a waighty cause as a Kings death : 
 I know youle say you haue beene physitians, 
 Sailer, and Soldiers, and in such disguise, 
 Done some exploit that haue deseru'd respect, 
 I graunt as much, but yet your birthes are meane, 
 1460 No gentry in your bloold was euer knowne 
 By naturall Heraldry, your low discents 
 Disables vs, and we must seeke to rise, 
 With others of our owne condition. 
 
 Men. Come Uandome, of our selues weele do the 
 deed 
 
 F. Fits. Thar were the ingrossing of the fame 
 from vs 
 And so you would haue all the thankes your selues : 
 Neither commixt with vs, nor yet alone, 
 Shall it be acted, but as we are the best 
 In brith, and ablity to doe it, 
 1470 Weele haue the priuiledge of doing it. 
 
 Vandome. And we should giue it ouer. 
 
 Y. Fits. To your betters. 
 Or hauing fit place, Artoise and my selfe, 
 Will kill you first, then cast you in the Riuer. 
 
 Artoise. Hee speakes what wee intend. 
 
 Mendossc. Intend your worse? 
 Cccsar has promisde him the Falsgraues place, 
 
 1452. Read 'Y. Fytz.' 
 
 1458. Read 'exploits.' 
 
 1460. Read 'blood.' 
 
 1465. Read 'That.' 
 
 1469. Read 'birth' and 'ability.'
 
 126 The Palsgraiie. 
 
 And I shall be the Marqucssc Brandcnhiirgh : 
 Thinke you such Titles shalbe lost by feare. 
 Our valour has bene tryde with worthy men, 
 And ere we loose the glorie of the Act, 
 1480 Uandonic and I doe meane to vse you so. 
 
 Y. Fyth. Theyle nere be honest. 
 
 Uandome. Come Syr, are you ready? 
 
 Artoisc. Most resolute villains, how they would 
 outbraue vs ? 
 
 Y. Fyth. But noble Artoisc, now the fire is giuen 
 The Cannon must goe off. 
 
 Artoisc. Vnto theyr deaths. 
 
 Fight. Y. Fyth and Artoisc kill Uandome, 
 mid Mendozsa. 
 
 So they are dead, and now the Fame remaines 
 Onely to vs, that will accomplish it. 
 
 Y. Fyth. Onely to mee, that will perform't alone. 
 Thinkes Artoisc those were slaine cause they are 
 
 base? 
 Or that I wrought you to assist my plot, 
 
 1490 Because you are of the Nobilitie? 
 
 No, I haue still this Majvime in my thoughts, 
 That a Competitor, though nere so Noble, 
 Takes away halfe the fame in euery thing : 
 I could haue opend this vnto you all, _ 
 But that I thought my selfe too weake for three : 
 And therefore prouidently vsde thy strength, 
 To kill them first, that I might slay thee after. 
 Now they are dead, thy life must follow theirs. 
 And so I share the honour to my selfe : 
 
 1500 I will be Palsgrauc, Marqucssc Brandenburgh, 
 And the Bohemian King in mee alone, 
 Ccesar shall write himselfe three Friends in one. 
 
 1481 and below. Read 'Y. Fytz.' ■
 
 The Palsgraue. 127 
 
 Artoise. I doe not think thou meanst to be a 
 traitor. 
 
 Y. Fit:;. Now you come neer me, but that secrets 
 mine, 
 And seeking it you must digge through my heart, 
 Or it will nere be found, it lyes so close. 
 
 Art: He know it, or a reason in your blood. 
 
 Y. Fyt:^. Wilt thou turne honest? 
 
 Artoise. Doe not torture mee. 
 With repetition of that Beggars name : 
 1 5 10 Whome none but Idiots, Innocents, or blockes 
 Will entertaine. 
 
 Y. Fyta. I would change your minde 
 From this erronious and ill boding thought, 
 Because of late you freed me from the rocke, 
 But if it be so hurtfull to your sight 
 Be your owne death. He not reueale my minde. 
 
 Arto. If that I cannot force it with my sworde, 
 He let it alone. 
 
 Fight, and kills Artoise. 
 
 [Y. Fits.] So lye together, three a paire Royall 
 makes. 
 And heres a paire Royall of excellent Villaines ; 
 1520 These haue slaine princes by their owne confession. 
 These made a Nation swimme in her owne blood. 
 The streame is turnde with you, t'is now high flood : 
 But I must cast you all into the Riuer. 
 Yea, swords and all, to cleare mee from suspect ; 
 Suspect? by whome this place yeelds no such eye, 
 Tis well the worlds rid of their villanie. Exit. 
 
 [Scene 3. Palace of the French Kini^.] 
 
 Enter seuerally, the French King and Floramell 
 
 Flora^m. His Highnes here, then Floramell giue 
 back.
 
 128 The Palsgraue. 
 
 F. King. Tis shee, a word ; theres no retiring 
 hence. 
 In vaine you striue, my force opposde against yours, 
 1530 Will easily subdue your womans strength, 
 But theres a power included in your eye 
 That conquers Kings, subdues a Deitie. 
 And he that had the strength to rule those graces, 
 Might nere be caught, yet view the brightest faces : 
 One kisse, and He no more importune you. 
 
 Floram. On that condition, I will graunt you one. 
 F. King. But you must giue it mee. 
 Floram. Dian forbid, that were immodestie. 
 F. King. It must be so. 
 Floram. Vpon your Kingly Oath, 
 1540 Neuer hereafter to renew your sute. 
 
 F. King. Now by my crowne I sweare. 
 Floram. Take it. 
 F. King. Tis done : 
 And with this kisse, a second Fire begun, 
 More ardent are my thoughts now then before : 
 I lou'd thee well, but now I loue thee more. 
 Thou shalt not leaue me, but for euer dwell, 
 Where I abide, thy absence is my hell. 
 Floram. Thinke on your Oath. 
 F. King. At Louers periurie, the Gods themselues 
 
 doe winke. 
 Flo. A King say so, pardon mc sir, your wil He 
 not obey. 
 1550 But your oth broken, mainely run away. Exit Floram. 
 Enter the Qiieene, hauing heard their conference. 
 Qii. So, so, so : This is the afifection that you beare 
 to me? 
 Thinkes the French King He not reuenge this wrong? 
 As I am Queene of France, He make her know, 
 What tis to be corriuall in my Loue : 
 Shee dyes by Heauen.
 
 The Palsgraue. 129 
 
 F. King. If thoii but spoyle a hair. 
 Or shed one drop of her celestiall blood 
 For any conrtesie I hane offered her, 
 My wrath shall : as a fnrie haunt the deed. 
 1560 And He torment thee for such crueltie, 
 
 Worse then the damned in the world below. 
 
 I seldome threaten, but I doe it straight. 
 
 Her death thy Hell, looke too't, tis a shre\vd fate. 
 
 Exit King. 
 
 Qiieene. Hee euer yet was soueraigne of his word, 
 What shall I doe, brooke this corriualship? 
 No, since I cannot in the Realme of France, 
 Haue the reuenge my longing heart desires, 
 Else-where He seeke it, I of late beheld 
 An English Lord in fauour at the Court, 
 1570 His name Fitrnvaters, and I loue him well : 
 By his procurement I will lay a plot. 
 To yeeld King lohn vnto his enemies, 
 So to obtaine my purpose, if it take 
 How euer Fooles may thinke to proiect ill, 
 It likes mee well, because I haue my will. Exit. 
 
 [Scene 4. Retired place near the French King's 
 palace. ] 
 
 Enter a Frenchman and an Englishman. 
 
 Frenchman. What are you ? 
 
 English: An Englisliuuui ik. a trauclk'r; what are 
 you? 
 
 French: A FrencJvma/n, and no traueller. 
 
 English: Then giue way; I'^or I am the l)etlcr man. 
 1580 French: The better man ? 
 
 Englishm: I, the better man, by the perambulation 
 of 2. or 3. thousand miles, I haue scene the great 
 Turke borrow M(jney. and neucr miiidc the rci)ay- 
 ment ont.
 
 130 The Palsgraue. 
 
 French: Penh, is that all? we haue a number of 
 great Christians that will doe so, and when a man 
 comes to demaund his owne somewhat boldly, hee 
 shalbe committed to prison, or made a Foole, to stand 
 wayting at the foredore where the Coach stands, 
 whiles the Lord steales out at the backe-dore by 
 water. 
 1590 English: 1st possible? 
 
 French: That our Tradesmen can tell, to their 
 great hindrance, & I my selfe know this, that being in 
 pouertie, a Lord called me by my name thrice, but 
 hee would not remember it once, when hee came to 
 his Lands. 
 
 Englishman. The reason is. least thou shouldst 
 begge some of his New-liuing. 
 
 French: Nay rather for feare of paying the old 
 score. 
 
 English: Sure thou art some Nohlcmans bastard, 
 thou canst tell their tricks so right. 
 1600 French. And by some great woman : For I can tell 
 you their trickes too. 
 
 English. As how? 
 
 French. Your only fine Lady is wantonnesse, & 
 new Fashions, your Cittizens wife gallops after. But 
 shee is not so well horste to ouertake her. 
 
 English: Now we are in the discourse of women. 
 What Countrey-women doest thou loue best? 
 
 French: I loue none. 
 
 English: I loue all. and to kisse them after the 
 1 610 fashion of all Nations. 
 
 Frenchm. Why I pray sir, doe not all Nations 
 kisse alike? 
 
 English: You are no Traueller. and therefore He 
 beare with your ignorance : but know this, your Span- 
 yard, as hee is prowde, hee kisses prowdly, as if hee 
 scornde the touch of a Ladies lippe; marry you
 
 The Palsgraue. 131 
 
 Frenchmen draw it in, as if hee would swallow her 
 aliue : Now the Italian has scone done with the vpper 
 parts, to be tickling of the lower : and we Englishmen 
 1620 can neuer take enough at both endes. 
 
 Frenchm: Is not your name Maister doe much ? 
 
 English: It is, and yours (I thinke should be Mon- 
 sieur doe litle. 
 
 Frenchman. Wee ere somewhat a kinne in the first 
 part of our names, and I pray heartily let vs be better 
 acquainted together. 
 
 English: You must doe as I doe then, and since 
 we were both appointed, to wayte heere for the 
 French Queenes comming, lets take her golde, and 
 1630 forsweare our selues. 
 
 French : Heere comes her Maiestie. 
 
 Enter the Quecne. 
 
 Qtieene. Are you resolu'de to vndergoe this 
 charge ? 
 Tis but an Oath, which I will guild with Crownes, 
 And beare you out against the Law. 
 
 Frenchm: I can doe little beeing so animiited, if 
 I should not forsweare my selfe. for so fayre a 
 Oueene. 
 
 Englishm: And He doe as much as your Maiestie 
 will haue me doe. 
 1640 Qtieene. Take this in earnest, and when tis done, 
 you shall haue more. 
 
 Frenchman. Wee will. 
 
 Englishman. And from this time forwards, let vs 
 bee forsworne brothers. 
 
 Frenchman. Content. Exeunt French. & English. 
 
 Qtieene. He instruct you : Here comes Fitz^vaters. 
 
 Enter Young Fytazvaters. 
 
 1624. Read 'are.'
 
 132 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Y. Fytz. According to your Majesties commaund, 
 I come to know your pleasure for the Letter 
 I should deliuer to the English King, 
 1650 With that base strumpet that has Iniur'd you. 
 
 Queene. There is the Letter, which I charge you 
 beare vnto King Edward, and assure his Grace 
 I will performe what I haue promis'de in't, 
 He send the strumpet to you instantly. Exit Queene. 
 
 Y. Fyth. I knowe not by what influence I am falne 
 Into the affection of this potent Queene : 
 But shee has sworne shee loues me as her soule : 
 And to enioy me in her amorous Bed, 
 Would spend the reuenues of the Crowne of France 
 1660 Were it her owne : Be temporize with her. 
 
 To effect some plot vpon my Soueraignes foes, 
 But shee shall know, Although shee loue me well, 
 My hearts desires were drownd with Floramcll. 
 
 Enter Floramcll. 
 
 Florauicll. By all descriptions this should be the 
 man. 
 To whome I am directed by the Queene : 
 But whome doe I beholde the young Fyt::iuaters? 
 
 Y. Fyth. Tis she, Oh no, shees in the Ocean 
 drownd, 
 No ; Shees escapt it seemes as well as L 
 But I will take no acquaintance of my Loue, 
 1670 Till shee has cleerd her from the Queenes suspect. 
 
 Floramcll. It is not meete I take acquaintance first, 
 Nor wall I till I know a iust cause why. 
 Of his Famjliar dealings vv'ith the Queene, 
 Here is the key her Highnes promiz'd yon. 
 
 Y. Fyt::. And you the prisoner to be safe lockt vp, 
 For your incontinence and wanton life. 
 
 Floramcll. You doe me wTong, I hate incontinence. 
 Nor did I euer loue a w-anton life:
 
 The Palsgraue. 133 
 
 I am a desolate Ladie, shipwrackt here, 
 1680 And had a Husband once, too Hke thy lookes, 
 
 But not of such a rude condition. 
 
 Oh were hee present, and should heare thee speake 
 
 Such boystrous termes against his honourd wife, 
 
 He would out of the vertue of his minde 
 
 Knowing my conuersation to be good. 
 
 Write this base slander in thy villaines blood. 
 F. Fytz. So confident, her innocence is great. 
 
 That can doe this sincetely without trickes : 
 
 But if you be the same that you would seeme, 
 1690 How comes that your reputations growne, 
 
 Into such scandall, and your name the theame, 
 
 Of euery idle fellow in the Court? 
 
 That Groomes report, faire Infortunate is 
 
 The French Kings loue : Nay worse his concubine. 
 
 The voyce of men is held the voyce of God : 
 
 And where an euill is so farre proclaimde, 
 
 The generality approues the guilt, 
 
 And shees vnworthy to sur^•iue a minute, 
 
 To be the separation of two hearts, 
 1700 Made one by Marriage. 
 
 Floramell. Kill me, kill me then. 
 
 Hauing my sentence, wherefore am I sparde? 
 
 Or doe you take delight to torture mee? 
 
 Before you serue the Execution? 
 
 The Law ref|uires no more but death for Lust. 
 
 The lingring is a note of Tyrannic. 
 
 It is sufficient that the wretch must die, 
 
 The sooner done, the lesser crueltie. 
 
 But if your conscience vrge you to forhearc. 
 1 710 I shall confute your worthlesse Arguments. 
 
 And tell you in the |)urenesse of my sonic, 
 
 1688. Read 'sincerely.' 
 1693. Qy. Read 'Infortuna.'
 
 134 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Report's a lyar, common talke a Foole. 
 Wayters & Groomes, light-headed hke theyr plumes, 
 And those that doe attend in Princes Courtes, 
 Too actiue and quicke-witted to depraue 
 A Courting they proclaime for a consent, 
 A fauour for the deede, belieue them not : 
 It is too common, this they hourely doe, 
 And thinke none chast, but her whom none did wooe, 
 1720 Y. Fytz. But you did kisse the King. 
 
 Floramell. The Oueene did see it, 
 Vrg'de by constraint, and Kingly violence. 
 Vpon condition hee should wooe no more : 
 And for that kisse I am esteemd a whore : 
 If you beleeue I am, I pray proceede, 
 I kist the King, doe you a murderous deede. 
 
 Y. Fytz. Rise, rise, hereafter the discourse He tell, 
 Meane time Fytzzvatcrs welcomes Floramell. 
 
 FlorauieU. So then I am honest by your owne con- 
 fession. 
 But ere I entertaine you as a Husband, 
 1730 He be resolu'd what Loue has past betweene 
 The Oueene and you, that you her Agent are. 
 In such a weighty cause as is my life. 
 
 Y. Fytc. Runs the stream this way, is the wind 
 turnd thus? 
 
 Floramell. I must know all. 
 
 Y. Fyt£. In sight of Heauen I vowe 
 Shee is as chaste for any lust from mee, 
 As vnborne Infants, and I vse her loue. 
 But to aduance my soueraigne and his Realme. 
 No other cause by honour I protest. 
 In signe whereof I oppose an innocent breast 
 1740 Against the sword : if you beleeue not. kill, 
 But neuer man died for a lesser ill. 
 
 Floramel. I am satisfied, rise loue, and let vs goe, 
 Theres no true ioy without some taste of woe. 
 
 Exeunt.
 
 The Palsgraue. 135 
 
 [Scene 5. Hall in the French King's palace] 
 
 Enter French King, Bastard, Saxon, Trier, and 
 Ments, Queene. 
 
 F. King. Prosperity I thinke was borne in France, 
 Tis so obsequious vnto all our acts ; 
 And like a subiect waites vpon our will : 
 To morrow is this happy enterv'iew, 
 In which Fitj:-waters and the Earle of Artoise, 
 Haue promisde to surprise the English King, 
 1750 And the ambitious Palsgraue. 
 
 Bastard, If it take, 
 We shall haue cause to praise our happinesse. 
 
 Saxon. Take, out of all surmise : and in my 
 thoughts 
 It is as good already as perform'de. 
 
 Trier. I thinke no lesse. 
 
 Mentz. It is most probable. 
 
 F. K. Where is the Queen she promisde vs a 
 maske ? 
 
 Queene. The Maske is ready. 
 
 F. K. Be louiall Caesar : mitrth began the night : 
 And we will end it with the like delight. 
 
 Enter King Edzuard, the Palsgraite, end V. Fitz. 
 
 Floramel, Cullen, & diners Lords in the Maske, 
 
 they daunce there. 
 
 F. King. We are beholding to you Gentlemen, 
 1760 For this your Court-ship, i)ray discouer now. 
 
 E. King. We will, and make you all die prisoners. 
 
 F. K. King Edward heere? 
 Saxon. The Palsgraue. 
 Bastard. All our foes. 
 Mentz. Whose plot was this? 
 
 1757. Read 'mirth.'
 
 136 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Trier. Or is it not a Dreame? 
 
 Palsgraue. Tis such a Dreame youl neuer waken 
 from : 
 To talke of this strange admiration, 
 Which hke the night houers on eiiery eye : 
 Know that I haue deluded you with hopes 
 Vaine, Hke those villaines, which my sword did kill, 
 And by a Letter to the King deliuered, 
 1770 Sent by your Oueene, to be reueng'd for lust, 
 I causde his Maiestie to enter thus. 
 
 Queene. I receiuved them in at the backe Gate. 
 
 King. Wheres the Lady that has wrong the Queen? 
 
 Y. Fitzw. Heere is my troth-plight wife, 
 Freer from that foule imputation. 
 Then is her Maiestie from iealousie. 
 
 King. Is she then chaste? 
 
 French King: He answere for the Virgin, 
 By my good Fortunes once, now by my beard, 
 She is as nobly vertuous of a stranger, 
 1780 As ere I knew, and though I sought her loue, 
 I nere obtaind it. 
 
 Queene. No, where is my witnesse? 
 
 King. Sonne, call them in. 
 Enter Frenchman, and Englishman druncke. 
 
 Palsgrofne. What can you sweare? 
 
 French: What must wee sweare? 
 
 English: He sweare that the Lady is a good Ladie, 
 The Queen a good Queen, & thers an end of swear- 
 ing. 
 
 King. Is this all? 
 
 English. And more then you should get of mee, 
 but that the Queene gaue vs golde to say something : 
 1790 but who haue we here sirrah? 
 
 Fren^hm. Players, by this light players : Oh I 
 loue a play with all my heart. 
 
 EnglisJi. Begin, begin, we are set. (Sit on the 
 Railes.
 
 The Palsgraue. 137 
 
 French: Thats a braue King. 
 
 English: Thats a braue boy that playes the 
 Oueenes part. 
 
 French: He shalbe my luggler. 
 
 English: And when the play's don, He be at 
 charges to bid them all to supper. 
 
 Palsgraue. Away with them. 
 1800 French: I am very sleepy. 
 
 English: Would I were a bed. 
 
 y. Fit:;. He lead you thither. 
 
 English. God a mercy good Chamberlaine. 
 
 French. The play's done, and now we must go 
 home. Farewell. Exeunt Fooles. 
 
 Queene. But shal the stream turne, this way is my 
 plot 
 Become so weake? you will beleeue a Subiect 
 Before a Queene? I haue out-shot my selfe, 
 In seeking Justice at an enemies hand : 
 1810 This is a crosse beyond the strength of brayne; 
 Sure I shall end my dayes in Lunacy, 
 Like one to whom due vengeance is denide. 
 Because of weaknesse, on my selfe He turne 
 The fury that should light vpon my foe, 
 Scatter my hayre, like chaffe before the windc. 
 Hell in this world dwells in a iealous minde. Exit. Q. 
 
 Pals. Our reuelling has strucke day out of night, 
 And bright Aurora vshers foorth the Sunne 
 To his diurnall course; yet neyther night, 
 1820 Day, nor the morning, with her staring beamcs. 
 Can stirre vp valour in this Saxons brest : 
 What, is thy minde made captiue with thy iK^xly ? 
 Or thinkst thou that I take aduantages 
 Where honour should be shewd. Tmc still my sclfc 
 
 1806. Read 'But shal the stream turne this way? Is my plot 
 Become so weake?'
 
 138 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Ready to giue an answere to thy challenge 
 As at the first, and if thou conquerst me, 
 By my Atchieuements I will set thee free. 
 
 Sax. You shew your selfe in this a Noble foe, 
 And I receiue more honour then I hop't : 
 1830 I thought, because I was your prisoner, 
 You had esteemd captiuitie a conquest. 
 Butsince you haue awa ked sleeping valour. 
 And giuen your Captiue such priuiledge : 
 I am the same bolde combattant to dare. 
 And doe as much as erst I did intend. 
 
 Palsgraue. Choose your owne Weapons, and He 
 meete you streight. 
 
 Saxon . My Armour there. Exeunt. 
 
 Enter Cullcn. 
 
 Cullen. Clinton and bold Fytzii'nters are arriu'de, 
 And bring with them releast from seruitude 
 1840 Brandenherg, Sauoy, and Bohemia. 
 King. Guide them in. 
 
 Enter Old Fytzzvaters, Clinton, Drum, and Collours, 
 zmth Sauoy, Brandenherg, and Bishops, z^nth Soldiers. 
 
 Old Fytzzv: These with our selues, we humbly doe 
 present vnto your Maiestie. 
 
 Clinton. Such as our Swordes by a glorious vic- 
 torie set free. 
 
 King. When Heauen is pleasde to giue prosperitie, 
 How it flowes in : welcome my honord Friends : I am 
 glad your thraldomes proue your libertie. 
 
 Sauoy. The King of England has bene alwayes 
 kinde. 
 
 Boheni. I haue euer found it so. 
 
 Brandenb: And so haue I. 
 
 1841. Read 'But since you haue awakened sleeping valour.'
 
 The Palsgraue. 139 
 
 1850 Old Fytzzv: Whom doe I see? my Sonne that stole 
 my Bride? As you respect my seruice( gracious King) 
 Let me haue Justice. 
 
 Clint: Clinton, kneeles with him. 
 
 Y. Fytc. To their great seruice, greater I oppose, 
 And doe beseech your Highnes wrong me not. 
 
 Old Fyfzzi.': Wrong thee? 
 
 Y. Fitzzu: I wrong mee, may not Kings doe 
 wrong? Or dare you thinke because you are my 
 Father, He loose my wife. 
 
 Clinton. Daughter come from him. least I force 
 3^ou hither. 
 
 F lor am ell. Father I may not. 
 
 Y. Fytj:. Fathers both shee shall not. 
 i860 King. Weele heare no more of these bold menaces 
 On paine of death I charge you both forbeare : 
 And let my censure sway this difference. 
 In England at your house the Byshop tolde mee 
 That Clintons Daughter by a precontract, 
 Was young Fytzzvatcrs wife ; and that some tricke 
 Betwixt the Fathers to preserue theyr wealth. 
 Broke off the match, to haue him wedde the olde. 
 This being true ; I charge you on your Hues 
 Vrge him no further in his lawfull choyce, 
 1870 But as twas wrong enough to hinder it, 
 Make him amends, by being reconcilde. 
 
 Y. Fyt.z. Which I intreat v])on a dutious knee. 
 
 Floranicll. And so doe T. 
 
 Old F\t.zw. Rise, rise, T am frcnds with you both, 
 and when my Angers ouer you shall find me a kind 
 Father. 
 
 Clinton. So shall you. 
 
 Y. Fyt.z. All lets are now rcniou'd, 1 am truly 
 happy. 
 
 1867. Read 'her.'
 
 140 The Palsgraue. 
 
 Cullen. The Combattants are ready. 
 King. Guide them in. 
 
 Enter scucrally Saxon and the Palsgraue Armd, and 
 in thcyr shyrts, Drum & CiiUors. 
 
 Palsgr. Idle are words where we must vse our 
 swords, 
 Yet that it may appeare \vhat mindes we beare, 
 1880 Now we are marcht into this dreadfull Lists, 
 Know that this day my Honour shall exceede. 
 Or I lye breathlesse where I set my foote. 
 
 Saxon. Were thy brest Marble, & thy ribbs of 
 brasse, 
 Saxon will haue the superioritie, 
 Or in this dreadfull place, his life expires. 
 
 Palsgraue. Sound trumpets, & the destinies guide 
 all. Fight, and kills Saxon. 
 
 Bastard. The Palsgraue is invincible I thinke. 
 
 F. King. Not to be ouercome. 
 
 Mentz. Nor to be tam'de by any. 
 
 F. King. Matchlesse and farre beyond the praise 
 1890 of words, are all thy actions, let me honour thee. 
 
 Palsgraue. Our Friends returnd in safety theres 
 more ioy. 
 
 F. King. Cccsar resigne your Title vnto Sauoy, 
 and Sauoy, sit you vp, whilst the Electors heere ioyne 
 all their hands to make thee Emperour. 
 
 Palsgr: Mine as the first. 
 
 Bo hem. 
 
 Trier. And to get your loue. 
 We will disgrace our selues to honour him. 
 
 Bastard. Receiue the Crowne, but as hee weares 
 the same may it crush out his braines. 
 
 Palsgr. Long line and happily the Germaine 
 Cccsar.
 
 The Palsgraue. 141 
 
 1900 Sauoy. As happily as your kinde lones haue made 
 me, And as long as please the Heauens. 
 
 Palsgraue. Your farther rights shalbe performd 
 with State in Germanic, whither I inuite the Maiestie 
 of Englajid, and all our Friends. 
 King. lie beare you companie. 
 Palsgr: Faire windes and prosperous to our 
 seueral realmes, wee wish and pray for, tis not our 
 least good to be the Fauorites of the waning Flood. 
 
 Exeunt. 
 FINIS. W. Smyth.
 
 NOTES ON THE TEXT. 
 
 Dedicatory letter, p. 67. Quicquid conabor diccre versus erit. An 
 adaptation or an inexact quotation of Ovid, Trist'mm IV, 10, 25-26. 
 Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos : 
 Quicquid temptabam scribere versus erat. 
 
 P. 67. Naturam expellas furca licet vsq; recurrii — 'You may drive off 
 nature with a pitchfork, but she ever comes running back.' Horace, 
 Epodes I, 10, 24. 
 
 Prologue, 25. 'Nurseries of Art,' a reference to the universities where 
 plays were often acted. 
 
 Prologue, 27. 'Cathurnall,' a misprint for 'Cothurnal.' Cf. Jonson, 
 Poetaster, V. i, 130, 'cothurnal buskins.' Cf. also Lusts Dominions, 
 V. 5. 'The scene wants actors ; I'll fetch more, and clothe it In rich 
 cothurnal pomp.' 
 
 13. 'A mere Caesar,' /. e., one temporarily invested with the powers of 
 Emperor of the Roman Empire. By order of the Golden Bull, issued 
 in 1356 by Emperor Charles IV, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was 
 the arch-steward of the Empire and during a vacancy of the throne he 
 became the administrator of the Empire with the power of presenting 
 benefices, collecting revenues, investing with fiefs, receiving oaths for 
 and in the name of the Holy Empire, but such acts, were to be con- 
 firmed by the new Emperor. 
 
 52-3. If the author had any particular stream in mind, it was proba- 
 bly the Neckar; and the 'stronger castle' was doubtless the celebrated 
 one at Heidelberg. 
 
 54. The meaning seems to be 'Shame to us all if we sit still and 
 allow that to happen.' In archery the expression 'give aim' means to 
 guide one by giving him the result of a preceding shot; hence, to direct. 
 In line 668 the phrase is used more nearly in its literal sense. 
 
 73. The modern town of Mazieres is south of the Loire, in eastern 
 middle France. There is little doubt that the author intended Najarra. 
 See Introduction, p. 30. 
 
 84. Relative omitted, as often. Cf. Abbott, Shak. Gram., 244. 
 lOi. There seems to have been no provision by which an elector wa.s 
 barred from the emperorship. 
 
 147. 'Inflammation,' deep feeling or desire. 
 
 163-226. The dramatic motive contained in these lines is that of 
 
 (143)
 
 144 T^fi^ Palsgraue. 
 
 the first Act of Henry IV, where Northumberland is informed of the 
 overthrow of his party and the death of his son: 
 'In poison there is physic; and these news 
 Having been well, that would have made me sick, 
 Being sick, have in some measure made me well.' 
 
 213-4. See the comparison of these lines with similar ones from The 
 foure Prentises of London, Introduction, p. 48. 
 
 230. The beginning of Peter's speech is unintelligible as printed. 
 Perhaps we should read 'Palsgrave, I may helpe him,' but a more 
 plausible reading would be, 'Cullen, I may helpe him.' 
 
 239. This speech, though printed as prose, is easily scanned. 
 
 241. Compare 1. 589. 
 
 269. Dejaneira, the wife of Hercules. 
 
 275-9. Ben Jonson's additions to The Spanish Tragedy, III, 2. 
 'My Sonne? And what's a sonne? A thing begot 
 Within a paire of minutes, there-about.' 
 
 326. With the name Floramell compare Florimell in Spenser's Fccrie 
 Qiieene. Cf. also Floramell, a fairy knight in The Whore of Babylon 
 (Dekker's Works, II). 
 
 330. The figure refers to the fathers who would have prevented the 
 marriage of the young couple. 
 
 345. Lord Clinton here prevents Lord Fitzwaters from striking 
 young Fitzwaters. At line 380 Lord Clinton interposes his body be- 
 tween the father and son. 
 
 359. 'Pathaires' seems to mean affairs of deep feeling, aft'airs of 
 the heart. The word is of rare occurrence and of doubtful origin and 
 meaning. In Arden of Feversham, IV, i, we find, 
 
 'Such depe pathaires, lyke to a cannons burst.' 
 Tyrrell, in commenting upon the passage, says {Doubtful Plays of 
 Shakspere, p. 409) , 'That is, moving sighs ; sighs which by their intensity 
 have a pathetic power.' 
 
 366. 'Forbeare,' keep away from, or keep from interfering with. Cf. 
 1. 407, for a similar use of the word. 
 
 456. In the reign of Edward IV, Lawrence Booth, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of York, bought one moiety, nearly 400 acres, in the parish of 
 Battersea, on the Surrey side of the Thames. He annexed it to the 
 see of York and built a house by the river as a residence for the 
 archbishops in their visits to the south. It was used for this purpose 
 till late in the seventeenth century. This would be a very likely place 
 for the runaways to meet if they desired to escape by water. The 
 anachronism is not reprehensible. 
 
 520. A reference to the story of Arion.
 
 Notes on the Text. 145 
 
 554. There is some corruption of the text here. Perhaps some re- 
 mark made by the king is omitted. 'I am satisfied' is evidently Clin- 
 ton's speech. 
 
 576. 'Unvalued,' inestimable, invaluable. Cf. Richard III, I, 4, 27. 
 
 650. Qy. Read 'my prides defalt.' The passage as printed is unin- 
 telligible. The Bastard represents what Saxon's pride necessarily failed 
 of achieving because Saxon admits that he must rule by proxy, being 
 himself 'bard the onely Throane.' 
 
 659. 'Rotchet,' a close-fitting vestment of linen worn by bishops. 
 
 668. See note 54. 
 
 725. 'Regreete.' Compare Edzcard III., Ill, 5, 64. 
 
 731-3. The first line is spoken to the Bishops, Mentz, and Trier, as is 
 Saxon's speech just preceding. The remainder of the speech is ad- 
 dressed to Saxon. 
 
 749. 'Has,' a common contraction of 'he has,' sometimes (always by 
 Jonson) written 'h'as.' 
 
 926-7. The meaning is that the succession to the crown is so well 
 established that any attempt to gain ascendency would be fruitless. 
 Besides Prince Richard, the son of the Black Prince and the heir to 
 the throne, Edward, had three sons still living. 
 
 949. Spoken to the Palsgrave. 
 
 974. The real Robert of Artoise was created Earl of Richmond by 
 Edward. 
 
 1012. 'Timelesse,' eternal. Cf. Marlowe, Edzvard II, I, 2. 
 'This ground, vvhich is corrupted with their steps 
 Shall be their timeless sepulchre or mine.' 
 
 The commoner meaning of 'timeless' is 'untimely.' Cf. S/r Thomas 
 Wyatt (Dekker, Works, III, 121). 
 
 1018. An anachronism. Pistols were not in use in England until the 
 sixteenth century. Cf. Pericles, I, i, 168. 
 
 1081. This speech evidently belongs to the Palsgrave. 
 
 1089. Knights of the Order of St. John, called 'Hospitallers,' had 
 their origin at Jerusalem early in the eleventh century. It was not 
 until 1530 that Charles V ceded the island of iVlalta to the Hospi- 
 tallers. 
 
 1 152. Cf. Julius Ccrsar, HI. i. 260. 
 
 'Over thy wounds now do T prophesy 
 Which like dinnb mouths do ope their ruby lips.' 
 
 1 153. 'Pronounce,' annomice. The sense apparently is that the sight 
 of the wounds would prndtice great fear. The figure is extravagant and 
 infelicitous. 
 
 1 158. 'Locke' means here wig. Cf. the fashionable 'love-lock' wnrn 
 by men in the early seventeenth century.
 
 146 The Palsgraue. 
 
 1 178. 'Sound,' considerable. Qy. Read 'sounder,' for sake of meter. 
 
 1245. 'Vades,' vanishes, a doublet of fades. 
 
 13 12. A proverbially common quibble signifying to come near an 
 object, but never attain it. 
 
 1465. 'Ingrossing,' taking the gross or whole of, depriving. Cf. Jon- 
 son, Cynthia's Revels, IV, 2, 16. 
 
 1509. The antecedent of 'that Beggar' is apparently 'honesty' con- 
 cealed in 'honest' 
 
 15 18. 'Paire Royall,' three similar things, especially three cards of 
 the same denomination, as in the game of primero. Cf. Ford, Broken 
 Heart, V, 2. 
 
 "On a pair-royal do I wait in death : 
 
 My sovereign, as my liegeman; on my mistress. 
 
 As a devoted servant ; and on Ithocles, 
 
 As if no brave, yet no unworthy enemy.' 
 
 1545-6. Cf. similar lines from The foure Prentises of Londoyi, quoted 
 in the Introduction, p. 47. 
 
 1548. The familiar quotation based on Tibullus, III, VI, 6. 49. 'Pet- 
 jiiria ridct amaiitum Jupiter.' Cf. Romeo and Juliet. II. 2, 92. 
 
 1635. 'Animated,' intended as a quibble for 'nominated.' 
 
 1712. Cf. the proverb 'Gossiping and lying go together.' 
 
 1768. The author makes a slip here. The 'villaines' were killed 
 by young Fytzwaters. 
 
 1808. 'Out-shot,' overshot. Cf. Chapman, All Fools, IV, i ; also 
 Julius Ccesar, III, 2, 155. 
 
 1895. Bohemia's speech has dropped out in all the copies of the 
 quarto knov.n to me. 
 
 1889- 1907. The last page of the quarto is not printed as verse, the 
 only apparent reason for this being the impatience of the printer. Be- 
 ginning with line 1889, I have scanned the verses to end successively 
 with the following words : zvords, thee, toy, Sauoy, heere, Emperour, 
 hue, him, same, braines, Ccesar, me, rights, Germanie, England, coni- 
 panie, Realmes, good. Flood.
 
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