The banners borne in the English army, besides those of the king and the principal leaders, were, as usual, those of St. George, St. Edward, and the Trinity. The French, in addition to the royal and knightly banners, displayed the oriflamme, which was of bright scarlet, embroidered with gold, and terminating in several swallow tails. It is so represented in the hands of Henri Seigneur de Metz, Marechal de France, in the church of Notre Dame de Chartres. The female costume of this period was disfigured by a most extravagantly high and projecting horned head-dress, curious examples of which are to be seen in the royal MS. marked 15 D. 3, and in the effigy of Beatrice, Countess of Arundel, engraved in Stothard's Monumental Effigies. The rest of the habit was rather graceful than otherwise; consisting, in general, of a long and full robe confined by a rich girdle, high in the neck, the waist moderately short, and the sleeves like those of the men, reaching almost to the ground, and escalloped at the edges. A representation of Katharine, Queen of England, exists in the carving of an oak chest in the Treasury of York Cathedral. Isabelle of Bavaria, her mother, is engraved in Montfaucon, from a MS. in the French Royal Library, wearing the high, heart-shaped head-dress, introduced into England in the reign of Henry VI., but, probably, worn earlier in France. There are several other portraits of her in the steeple head-dress, a still later fashion, contemporary in England with the reign of Edward IV. O for a muse of fire, that would ascend Crouch for employment.' But pardon, gentles all, And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, Suppose, within the girdle of these walls Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times; Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, a This chorus does not appear in the quarto editions. SCENE I.-London. ACT I. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace. Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and BISHOP OF ELY. Cant. My lord, I'll tell you, -that self bill is urg'd, Which, in the eleventh year o' the last king's Six thousand and two hundred good esquires; A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill. Ely. This would drink deep. "Twould drink the cup and all. And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him; To envelop and contain celestial spirits. a Currance. So the original folio. It was changed to currant in the second and third folios; and to current in Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness As in this king. Ely. We are blessed in the change. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,3 And, all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire the king were made a prelate: Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, You would say it hath been all-in-all his study: List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle render'd you in music: Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle ; And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected. Ely. But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty Incline to it, or no? Cant. He seems indifferent; the fourth folio. If it be necessary to modernize Shakspere's phraseology, the correction was right; but currance is the French courance, from which we have compounded concurrence and occurrence. a Theorick. Malone says, "In our author's time this word was always used where we now use theory." Shakspere, indeed, never uses theory, although he has theorick in two other passages. In All's Well, we have "the theorick of war;" in Othello, "the bookish theorick." The word was occasionally used as late as in the time of the Tatler; but in Bishop Hall, a contemporary of Shakspere, we find theory, and in Fuller's Worthies both theory and theorick. b Companies is here used for companions. Stow uses it in the same sense: "The prince himself was fain to get upon the high altar, to girt his aforesaid companies with the order of knighthood." Y 2 |