“Peace wait on my Lady!” said the pedlar, bowing low as he took leave. “If it please the Holy One, my Belasez shall be here at my Lady’s command before a week is over.”
Note 1. This was the answer given to her judges, four hundred years later, by Leonora Galigai, when she was asked to confess what kind of magic she had employed to obtain the favour of Queen Maria de’ Medici.
Note 2. The Earl’s quotation from Scripture was extremely free, combining Matthew eleven verse 25 with the substance, but not the exact words, of several passages in the Psalms. Nor did Friar Matthew Paris know much better, since he refers to it all as “that passage in the Gospels.”
Note 3. King Henry was given to allusions of this class, to the revered memory of his excellent father.
Note 4. “Oh, delightful!” The modern schoolboy’s “How jolly” is really a corruption of this. The companion regret was “Ha, chétife!”—(“Oh, miserable!”)
Note 5. The wimple covered the neck, and was worn chiefly out of doors. Ladies from a queen to a countess wore it coming over the chin; women of less rank, beneath.
Note 6. Tight-lacing dates from about the twelfth century.
Note 7. A short cloak, worn by both sexes, ornamented with buttons.