The note here is not sufficiently explanatory. The old drinking pots, being of wood, were bound together, as barrels are, with hoops; whence they were called hoops. Cade promises that every can which now had three hoops shall be increased in size so as to require ten. What follows in the notes about "burning of cans," does not appear to relate to the subject.
Scene 2. Page 140.
Smith. The clerk of Chatham.
This person is a nonentity in history, and in all probability a character invented by the writer of the play. It is presumed that few will be inclined to agree with Mr. Ritson in supposing him to have been Thomas Bayly, a necromancer at Whitechapel, and Cade's bosom friend.
Scene 7. Page 161.
Cade. Then break into his son in law's house, Sir James Cromer.
Mr. Ritson cites William of Worcester to show that this sheriff's name was William. The author of the play, if wrong, may be justified by the examples of Halle, Grafton, Stowe, in his early editions, and Holinshed, who call him James. Fabian, as if doubtful, leaves a blank for Crowmer's Christian name. As to the fact itself, the evidence of William of Worcester, a contemporary writer, is entitled to the preference. Fuller's list of the sheriffs of Kent likewise makes the name William.
Scene 10. Page 173.
Cade. I think this word sallet was born to do me good: for many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill.
The notes on this occasion may admit of correction as well as curtailment. It is possible that we have borrowed sallet from the French salade, in the sense of a helmet: but the original word is the old Teutonic schale, which signifies generally a covering. Hence shell, scale, scull, shield, &c. Wicliffe does not use brain-pan for scull, in Judges ix. 53, as Mr. Whalley supposes, but brain, simply.