1 SCENE III. London. Hill before the Tower. Enter, at the Gates, the Duke of GLOSTER, with his Serving-men in blue coats. GLO. I am come to survey the Tower this day; Since Henry's death, I fear, there is convey ance. Where be these warders, that they wait not here? Open the gates; it is Gloster that calls. [Servants knock. 1. WARD. [Within.] Who is there that knocks so imperioufly? 1. SERV. It is the noble duke of Glofter. 2. WARD. [Within.] Whoe'er he be, you may not be let in. 1. SERV. Villains, answer you so the lord pro tector? 1. WARD. [Within.] The Lord protect him! fo we answer him: We do no otherwise than we are will'd. GLO. Who willed you? or whose will stands, but mine? 2 There's none protector of the realm, but I. - 9 - there is conveyance.) Conveyance means theft. HANMER. So Pistol, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Convey the wife it call; Steal! foh; a fico for the phrase. STEEVENS. 2 Break up the gates, ) 1 suppose to break up the gate is to force up the portcullis, or by the application of petards to blow up the gates themselves. STEEVENS. ( Servants rush at the Tower gates. Enter, to the gates, WOODVILLE, the Lieutenant. WOOD. [Within.] What noise is this? what traitors have we here? Glo. Lieutenant, is it you, whose voice I hear? Open the gates; here's Glofter, that would enter. WOOD. [Within.) Have patience, noble duke; I may not open; The cardinal of Winchester forbids; From him I have express commandement, i GLO. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him 'fore me? Arrogant Winchester? that haughty prelate, brook? Thou art no friend to God, or to the king: 1. SERV. Open the gates unto the lord protector; Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not quickly. To break up in Shakspeare's age was the same as to break open. Thus in our tranflation of the Bible: "They have broken up, " and have passed through the gate." Micah, ii. 13. So again, in St. Matthew, xxiv. 43: "He would have watched, and would not have fuffered his house to be broken up." WHALLEY. Some one has proposed to read Break ope the gates, but the old copy is right. So Hall, HENRY VI. folio 78, b. "The lufty Kentishmen hopyng on more friends, brake up the gaytes of the King's Bench and Marshalsea," &c. MALONE. Enter WINCHESTER, attended by a train of Servants 6 in tawny coats. 6 WIN. How now, ambitious Humphry? what means this? 7 GLO. Piel'd priest, dost thou command me to be shut out? taruny coats. It appears from the following passage in a comedy called A Maidenhead well Loft, 1634, that a tawny coat was the dress of a fummoner, i. e. an apparitor, an officer whose bufiness it was to summon offenders to an ecclefiaftical court: Tho I was never a tawny-coat, I have play'd the Summoner's part." 66 These are the proper attendants therefore on the Bishop of Winchester. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 822, - and by the way the bishop of London met him, attended on by a goodly company of gentlemen in tawny coats," &c. Tawny was likewise a colour worn for mourning, as well as black: and was therefore the suitable and sober habit of any person employed in an ecclefiaftical court: "A croune of bayes shall that man weare "That triumphs over me; * For blacke and tawnie will I weare, The Complaint of a Lover wearyng blacke and tawnie: by E. O. [i. e. the Earl of Oxford. ) Paradise of Dainty Devises, 1576. STEEVENS. 7 How now, ambitious Humphrey? what means this?] The first folio has it-umpheir. The traces of the letters, and the word being printed in italicks, convince me, that the duke's chriftian name lurk'd under this corruption. THEOBALD. • Piel'd priest, Alluding to his shaven crown. POPE. In skinner (to whose Dictionary I was directed by Mr. Edwards) I find that it means more: Pilld or peel'd garlick, cui pellis, vel pili omnes ex morbo aliquo, præfertim è lue venerea, defluxerunt. In Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, the following instance occurs: " I'll fee them p-'d first, and pil'd and double pild." STEEVENS. In Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 364, Robert Baldocke, bishop of Londen, is called a peel'd prieft, pilide clerke seemingly in al ) WIN. I do, thou most ufurping proditor, And not protector of the king or realm. GLO. Stand back, thou manifeft confpirator; Thou that contriv'dst to murder our dead lord; Thou, that giv'st whores indulgences to fin: 9 I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat, If thou proceed in this thy infolence. 2 lusion to his shaven crown alone. So, bald-head was a term of scorn and mockery. TOLLET. The old copy has-piel'd priest. Piel'd and pil'd were only the old spelling of peeld. So, in our poet's Rape of Lucrece, 4to. 1594: " His leaves will wither, and his fap decay, "So must my foul, her bark being pil'd away." See also Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: Pelare. To pill or pluck, as they do the feathers of fowle; to pull off the hair or Skin." MALONE. 9 Thou, that giv'ft whores indulgences to fin:] The publick stews were formerly under the district of the bishop of Winchester. POPE. There is now extant an old manuscript (formerly the office-book of the court-leet held under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Winchefter in Southwark) in which are mentioned the several fees arifing from the brothel-houses allowed to be kept in the bishop's manor, with the customs and regulations of them. One of the articles is, “De his, qui cuftodiunt mulieres habentes nefandam infirmitatem." "Item. That no flewholder keep any woman within his house, that hath any fickness of brenning, but that the be put out upon pain of making a fyne unto the lord of Cshillings." UPTON. 2 I'll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal's hat, This means, I believe I'll tumble thee into thy great hat, and shake thee, as bran and meal are shaken in a fieve. So, fir W. D'Avenant, in The Cruel Brother, 1630: "I'll fift and winnow him in an old hat." To canvas was anciently used for to fift. So, in Hans Beer pot's Invisible Comedy, 1618: We'll canvas him.- - I am too big." Again, in the Epistle Dedicatory to Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596: “ canvaze him und his angell brother Gabriell, in ten sheets of paper," &c. STEEVENS. WIN. Nay stand thou back, I will not budge a foot; This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain, GLO. I will not flay thee, but I'll drive thee back! Thy scarlet robes, as a child's bearing-cloth WIN. Do what thou dar'st; I beard thee to thy face. GLO. What? am I dar'd and bearded to my face?Draw, men, for all this privileged place; Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Prieft, beware your beard; [Gloster and his men attack the Bishop. I mean to tug it, and to cuff you foundly: Again, in the Second Part of King Henry IV. Doll Tearsheet says to Falstaff -" If thou doft, I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets." M. MASON. Probably from the materials of which the bottom of a fieve is made. Perhaps, however, in the passage before us Glofter means, that he will toss the cardinal in a sheet, even while he was invested with the peculiar badge of his ecclefiaftical dignity. - Coarse sheets were formerly termed canvass sheets. See Vol. XIII. p. 96, n. 8. MALONE. 3 This be Damascus, be thou from Damafcus is a high hill, Cain flew his brother Abel. cursed Cain,] About four miles reported to be the fame on which Maundrel's Travels, p. 131. POPE. Sir John Maundeville says, " And in that place where Damafcus was founded, Kaym floughe Abel his brother." Maundeville's Travels, edit. 1725, p. 148. REED. Damascus is as moche to saye as shedynge of blood. For there Chaym flowe Abell, and hydde hym in the fonde." Polychronicon, fo. xii. RITSON. |