Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee: What is 'thy name?

Clerk. Emmanuel.

Dick. They use to write it on the top of letters;1— 'Twill go hard with you.

'Cade. Let me alone:-Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest 'plain-dealing man?

Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up, that I can write my name.

All. He hath confess'd: away with him; he's a villain, and a traitor.

Cade. Away with him, I say: hang him with his pen ' and inkhorn about his neck.

[Exeunt some with the Clerk.

Enter MICHAEL.

• Mich. Where's our general?

Cade. Here I am, thou particular fellow.

Mich. Fly, fly, fly! sir Humphrey Stafford and his 'brother are hard by, with the king's forces.

Cade. Stand, villain, stand, or I 'll fell thee down: He 'shall be encounter'd with a man as good as himself: He is but a knight, is 'a?

• Mich. No.

Cade. To equal him, I will make myself a knight 'presently; Rise up sir John Mortimer.

' him.3

9

obligations,] That is, bonds. Malone.

Now have at

1 They use to write it on the top of letters;] i. e. Of letters missive, and such like publick acts. See Mabillon's Diplomata. Warburton.

In the old anonymous play, called The famous Victories of Henry V, containing the Honourable Battell of Agincourt, I find the same circumstance. The Archbishop of Burges (i. e. Bruges) is the speaker, and addresses himself to King Henry:

"I beseech your grace to deliver me your safe
"Conduct, under your broad seal Emanuel."

The King in answer says:

2

66

deliver him safe conduct

"Under our broad seal Emanuel."

Steevens.

have at him.] After this speech the old play has the following words:

Is there any more of them that be knights?

Enter Sir Humphrey STAFFORD, and William his Brother, with Drum and Forces.

* Staf. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent, * Mark'd for the gallows,-lay your weapons down, *Home to your cottages, forsake this groom ;— *The king is merciful, if you revolt:—

*W. Staf. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood, *If you go forward: therefore yield, or die.

Cade. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not; 3

It is to you, good people, that I speak,

* O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign; * For I am rightful heir unto the crown.

Staf. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;

' And thou thyself, a shearman, Art thou not? Cade. And Adam was a gardener.

W. Staf. And what of that?

Cade. Marry, this:-Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, Married the duke of Clarence' daughter; Did he not? • Staf. Ay, sir.

Cade. By her he had two children at one birth.

W. Staf. That's false.

Cade. Ay, there's the question; but, I say, 'tis true: The elder of them, being put to nurse,

Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away;
'And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,
Became a bricklayer, when he came to age:
His son am I; deny it, if you can.

Dick. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king. Smith. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it; therefore, deny it not.

*Staf. And will you credit this base drudge's words, *That speaks he knows not what?

* All. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.

"Tom. Yea, his brother.

"Cade. Then kneel down, Dick Butcher; rise up sir Dick "Butcher. Sound up the drum.”

See p. 223, n. 1, and p. 228, n. 6. Malone.

3

I pass not;] I pay them no regard. Johnson.

So, in Drayton's Quest of Cynthia:

"Transform me to what shape you can,

"I pass not what it be." Steevens.

W. Staf. Jack Cade, the duke of York hath taught you this.

*Cade. He lies, for I invented it myself. [aside]— Go to, sirrah, Tell the king from me, that for his father's sake, Henry the fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns,-I am content he shall reign; but I'll be protector over him.

'Dick. And, furthermore, we 'll have the lord Say's head, for selling the dukedom of Maine.

4

Cade. And good reason; for thereby is England 'maimed, and fain to go with a staff, but that my puis'sance holds it up. Fellow kings, I tell you, that that lord Say hath gelded the commonwealth, and made it an eunuch: and more than that, he can speak French, and 'therefore he is a traitor.

5

Staf. O gross and miserable ignorance!

Cade. Nay, answer, if you can: The Frenchmen are เ our enemies: go to then, I ask but this; Can he, that 'speaks with the tongue of an enemy, be a good coun'sellor, or no?

* All. No, no; and therefore we 'll have his head. *W. Staf. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,

* Assail them with the army of the king.

Staf. Herald, away: and throughout every town,

‹ Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade; That those, which fly before the battle ends, May, even in their wives' and children's sight,

4-

is England maimed,] The folio has-main'd. The correction was made from the old play. I am not, however, sure that a blunder was not intended. Daniel has the same conceit; Civil Wars, 1595:

66

Anjou and Maine, the maim that foul appears."

Malone.

5-- hath gelded the commonwealth,] Shakspeare has here transgressed a rule laid down by Tully, De Oratore: "Nolo morte dici Africani castratam esse rempublicam." The character of the speaker, however, may countenance such indelicacy. In other places our author, less excuseably, talks of gelding purses, patrimonies, and continents. Steevens.

This peculiar expression is Shakspeare's own, not being found in the old play. In King Richard II, Ross says that Henry of Bolingbroke has been

"Bereft and gelded of his patrimony."

So Cade here says, that the commonwealth is bereft of what it before possessed, namely, certain provinces in France. Malone.

Be hang'd up for example at their doors :• And you, that be the king's friends, follow me.

[Exeunt the two STAFFORDS, and Forces. *Cade. And you, that love the commons, follow me.* Now show yourselves men, 'tis for liberty. *We will not leave one lord, one gentleman: * Spare none, but such as go in clouted shoon; *For they are thrifty honest men, and such *As would (but that they dare not) take our parts. * Dick. They are all in order, and march toward us. *Cade. But then are we in order, when we are most * out of order. Come, march forward." [Exeunt.

Alarums.

SCENE III.

Another Part of Blackheath.

The two Parties enter, and fight, and both
the STAFFORDS are slain.

Cade. Where 's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?
Dick. Here, sir.

Cade. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst thyself as if thou hadst been in 'thine own slaughter-house: therefore thus will I re'ward thee, The Lent shall be as long again as it is;7 and thou shalt have a license to kill for a hundred lack⚫ing one.

• Dick. I desire no more.

* Cade. And, to speak truth, thou deserv'st no less. * This monument of the victory will I bear; and the

6

8

Come, march forward.] In the first copy, instead of this speech, we have only-Come, Sirs, St. George for us, and Kent. See p. 168 n. 2; p. 218, n. 1; and p. 223, n. 1. Malone.

7

as long again as it is;] The word again, which was cer. tainly omitted in the folio by accident, was restored from the old play, by Mr. Steevens, on the suggestion of Dr. Johnson.

Malone.

8 This monument of the victory will I bear;] Here Cade must be supposed to take off Stafford's armour. So, Holinshed:

"Jack Cade, upon his victory against the Staffords, apparelled himself in Sir Humphrey's brigandine, set full of gilt nails, and so in some glory returned again toward London." Steevens.

Sir Humphrey Stafford, who was killed at Sevenoke in Cade's rebellion, is buried at Bromsgrove in Staffordshire. Vaillant.

* bodies shall be dragged at my horse' heels, till I do come to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before us.

9

* Dick. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols, and let out the prisoners.

* Cade. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's * march towards London.

SCENE IV.

London. A Room in the Palace.

[Exeunt.

Enter King HENRY, reading a Supplication; the Duke of BUCKINGHAM, and Lord SAY with him: at a distance, Queen MARGARET, mourning over SUFFOLK's head.

* Q. Mar. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind,

* And makes it fearful and degenerate;

* Think therefore on revenge, and cease to weep. * But who can cease to weep, and look on this?

* Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast: But where 's the body that I should embrace?

Buck. What answer makes your grace to the rebels' • supplication?1

* K. Hen. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat:2

9 If we mean to thrive and do good, &c.] I think it should be read thus: If we mean to thrive, do good; break open the gaols, &c.

Johnson. The speaker designs to say-" If we ourselves mean to thrive, and do good to others" &c. The old reading is the true one.

Steevens.

1- to the rebels' supplication?] "And to the entent that the cause of this glorious capitaynes comyng thither might be shadowed from the king and his counsayll, he sent to him an humble supplication,-affirmyng his commyng not to be against him, but against divers of his counsayl," &c. Hall, Henry VI, fol. 77. Malone.

2 I'll send some holy bishop to entreat:] Here, as in some other places, our author has fallen into an inconsistency, by sometimes following and sometimes deserting his original. In the old play, the king says not a word of sending any bishop to the rebels; but says, he will himself come and parley with them, and inthe mean while orders Clifford and Buckingham to gather an army and to go to them. Shakspeare, in new modelling this scene, found in Holinshed's Chronicle the following words: "to whome [Cade] were sent from the king, the Archbishop of Canterburie and Hum