[16] Fairholt, "Costume in England."
[17] Stow.
[18] This lady, in 1601, registered a vow not to change her linen until the town of Ostend was taken. The siege lasted three years and three months, by which time her under-clothing had attained a colour which is perhaps easier to imagine than to describe. It provided a name for a stuff, "Couleur Isabella," which was fashionable in France for over a century.
[19] "What I have said, I have said" (the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain).
[20] The Castalian spring is at the foot of the mountain, but it should have been at the top, where the tired and thirsty traveller would be most likely to need it. Besides, it is not to be expected that we could reverse the order of the paragraph—"we have said it."
[21] It would appear to be a corruption of "mad as an atter (adder)". The word "adder" is atter in Saxon, natter in German. Its origin, however, is apparently somewhat obscure.
[22] The above story was told to the knight by a lady of his acquaintance who was an eye-witness of the event. We give here Caxton's version:—"For her clothyng and araye was different and no thyng lyke to theyr, and therefore she had wel her part beholdyng and lokyng. Thenne said the good ladyes to her, 'My frende, telle ye us, yf it please yow, how ye name that aray that ye have on your heed?' She answerde and saide, 'The galhows aray.' 'God bless us,' said the good lady, 'the name of hit is not faire.'... 'As ferre as I me remembre of it,' continued the knight's informant, 'hit was highe culewed with longe pynnes of sylver uppon her hede, after the makynge and maner of a gybet or galhows, right straunge and merveylous to se.'"
[23] William of Malmesbury.
[24] 2 Sam. xiv. 25, 26.
[25] "Phisicke is good, and yet I would wish that every ignorant doult, and especially women, that have as much knowledge in phisick or surgery as hath jackeanapes, being but smatterers in the same noble sciences, should be restrained from the publike use therof" unless they do it gratis (Stubbes, "Anatomy of Abuses," 1583).