'Poor knave, I blame thee not; thou art o'erwatched.'

98. This is the reading of the ed. of 1598. Dyce, following the ed. of 1622, reads:

'O let me not die yet; stay a while.' 100. still, always. See note on i. 1. 15.

108. in a trice, in an instant. Wedgwood, Dict. Etym., derives this expression from the Spanish tris, a crack, noise made in breaking, as if ' in a crack.' Wagner rejecting this 'curious coincidence,' says 'the derivation is altogether a riddle.' Gower, Confessio Amantis, i. p. 142, has:

'All sodeinlich as who saith treis
Where that he stood in his paleis
He toke him from the mennes sight.'

This passage, quoted by Wedgwood, is altogether against his explanation.
In Ralph Roister Doister, iii. 3. 142, is

'I wyll be here with them ere ye can say trey ace.' which is explained by Mr. Skeat 'a throw at dice, viz. trois (the trey of old-fashioned card-players even now) three, and ace one; hence a quick expression.' It is probable that this is really the origin of ‘in a trice,’ though it may be only Dr. Udall's explanation of a difficult phrase.

Ib. table. See line 32. Compare Holinshed, p. 341, 'they came suddenlie one night into the chamber where he laie in bed fast asleepe, and with heavie feather beds, with a table (as some would write) being cast upon him, they kept him down.' Stow, p. 357, does not speak of the table, but says 'rushing in upon him, as he lay in his bedde.'

III. this cry. There is a certain grim quaintness in the words of Holinshed. p. 341, His crie did moove many within the castell and towne of Berkeley to compassion,' so that diverse being awakened therewith. . . . praied heartilie to God to receive his soule, when they understood by his crie what the matter ment.' Thus was King Edward murthered in the yeare 1327 on the 22 of September.'

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112. take horse and away. Marlowe makes Gurney go to the young King and betray Mortimer to him, and Matrevis flee after seeing Mortimer. This is not the story which he found in Holinshed, but it helps to a quick and dramatic retribution which is needed, though not provided in the history. Holinshed, p. 341, 'The Queene, the bishop, and others, that their tyrannie might be hid, outlawed and banished the lord Matrevers, and Thomas Gourney, who flieng unto Marcels, three yeares after being knowne, taken and brought toward England was beheaded on the sea, least he should accuse the chiefe dooers, as the bishop and other. John Matrevers repenting himselfe laie long hidden in Germanie, and in the end died penitentlie.'

Scene VI.

2. undone. Compare Macbeth, iii. 2. 12, v. 1. 67, and the feeling of one of the murderers of Clarence, Richard III, i. 4. 270.

9. Fly to the savages. The poet is probably thinking of the savages in America or some of the newly discovered lands, and so is putting an anachronism into the mouth of Mortimer. So he makes Collapine in 2 Tamburlaine, i. 2. 35, speak of 'armados'

'Fraughted with gold of rich America.'

10. Jove's huge tree. The oak. This is a very common classical allusion in the Elizabethan poets. Compare As You Like It. iii. 2. 218 :

Cel. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.

Ros. It may be called Jove's tree, when it drops forth such fruit.' The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York, xx. 9:

Whose top branch overpeered Jove's spreading tree.' Virgil, Georgics, iii. 332, 'magna Jovis quercus.'

compressed for dramatic purposes.

The

20. Here the history events of October 1330 are brought close to those of September, 1327. The Scottish war, the young King's marriage, the Scottish treaty, the attempt of Lancaster to get rid of Mortimer, are left out. Compare Introd. P. xiii.

42. hand. He produces the letter, as if in the handwriting of Mortimer. This scarcely agrees with Holinshed, or with v. 4. 6, from which it is plain the letter was written by a friend.' Hand is ‘handwriting.' Compare King Lear, i. 2. 56, 61:

'You know the character to be your brother's?

It is his hand, my lord.'

43. betrayed. See note on v. 5. 112.

44. murder.

The proverb murder will out' occurs often in old

writers. Compare Chaucer, Nonne Prestes Tale, 232:

Mordre wil out, that se we day by day.'

So in the Prioresses Tale, 564; Merchant of Venice, ii. 2. 71, 'murder cannot be hid long'; Macbeth, iii. 4. 124; Hamlet, ii. 2. 575,

'For murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak,

With most miraculous organ.'

50. hurdle. Criminals were dragged to execution on a hurdle, or piece of wattle work. The word hurdyce (Lat. hurdicium, Fr. hourdis, (compare Fr. hourder, Germ. hürde) was also used for a palisade or barricade. To be drawn, hanged, and quartered, was the punishment for eason; used to a much later date; compare Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 17, 1660, 'Scot, Scrope, Cook, and Jones suffered ... in sight of the place where they put to death their natural Prince. I saw not their execution, but met their quarters, mangled, and cut, and reeking, as they were

brought from the gallows in baskets on the hurdle.' Mortimer was arrested at Nottingham castle in October 1330, brought to London, condemned by the Parliament which sat from November 26 to December 6, and hanged.

63. as a traveller; a simile very suitable to the poet's days, an age of great geographical discovery.

75. I fear me. See note on ii. 4. 2.

77. to the Tower. The Queen was arrested at Nottingham with Mortimer. She was made to surrender the enormous possessions which she had taken, was allowed three thousand pounds a year, and was sent to live in retirement at Castle Rising in Norfolk. The historians are very silent as to the Queen's relation to Mortimer, and the poet has followed them.

4. 63.

89. boots not, matters not, is of no importance. See note on i.. 96. to mourn. Compare the last speech of Bolingbroke in Richard II v. 6. 45, 52:

'Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe.

March sadly after; grace my mournings here;
In weeping after this untimely bier.'