[7] Of the two grandmothers of Edward III., one, Eleanor of Castile, was pure Spanish, and the other, Joanna of Navarre, was half or more.
[8] Had the male line of Burgundy survived, it would have inherited the crown instead of the House of Bourbon.
[9] This low opinion of Scotch valor was still rife in Shakspeare’s time. The poet in describing the lovers of Portia, makes the German a drunkard, the Frenchman a montebank and the Scotchman a coward.
[10] Green calls this prelate sometimes bishop of Winchester and sometimes bishop of Chichester. He was so swept along by his own rhetoric that he forgot men’s names like the Bastard in King John.
[11] Malone whose researches had been standard authority fifty years when Green wrote, says that two lines only of that incomparable scene were thus taken. But let us be just to Green; his incapacity to discern the touch of Shakspeare, and his inadequate knowledge of Shaksperean literature, are after all, among the least defects of his histories.
[12] The order of the Golden Fleece is still extant. The emperor of Austria and the king of Spain, both descendants of Philip, share between them the Grandmastership of the order.
[13] Philip’s third wife was Isabella of Portugal, granddaughter of John of Gaunt, and therefore niece of the cardinal and cousin of Bedford. Isabella was the mother of Charles-the-rash, and it is thus that the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons trace descent from the Plantagenets.
[14] Louis XII. was grandson of Louis of Valentina. Their great-grand-daughter; grand-mother hyphenated below Margaret of Valois was grand-mother of Henry IV. from whom have descended all the branches of the House of Bourbon.
[15] Dunois took his title, count of Dunois, from an estate given him by his half-brother the duke of Orleans, one of those who had stood by his side at the dying bed of Valentina.
[16] Byng was defeated by a French fleet in the Mediterranean. There was no question of his courage or loyalty, but he was none the less condemned to be shot; and the barbarous sentence was carried into effect, Voltaire said it was “pour encourager les autres.”