France may (perhaps) into the Hazard runne.”
On these lines Mr. Julian Marshall observes: “This passage is remarkable, as offering one of the first examples of the double sense of racket, meaning hubbub as well as the implement used in tennis; and also as showing the early use of the word bandy, which we shall find recurring later in the history of the game.” None of the historians who have related the incident mention the pointed reply to the Dauphin put into Henry’s mouth by Shakespeare, that he would “strike his father’s crown into the hazard.” The old playwright on whose foundation Shakespeare built merely says, “Tel him that in stead of balles of leather we wil tosse him balles of brasse and yron.” Drayton must consequently have borrowed the term from Shakespeare, which is a pretty conclusive proof of his having read “Henry V.” as well as witnessed its performance. Regarding Shakespeare’s justification for the technical terms used by him, Mr. Marshall judiciously remarks: “It is certain that tennis was played and that rackets were used in the time of Henry V.; but whether chases were marked and a hazard invented, and to which of our hazards that hazard would answer, are questions which we cannot solve, and which doubtless never troubled ‘sweet Will’ for one single moment.”
Sir Harris Nicolas prints in his appendix a ballad on the story of the tennis balls, “obligingly communicated by Bertram Mitford, of Mitford Castle, in Northumberland, Esquire, who wrote it from the dictation of a very aged relative.” He also gives another version, from what source derived is not stated. The Roxburghe collection of ballads at the British Museum contains yet a third version, which, as it differs in many respects from the other two, is printed as an appendix to these Notes. Judging from the type, the date of the Museum broadside would appear to be about 1750, and the piece itself can hardly be earlier than the eighteenth century.
[Page 21, l. 18.] “Iacks.”—Machines for planing metal.
[Page 21, l. 19.] “An olde Fox.”—Sword, so called, it is said, from the figure of a fox anciently engraved upon the blade; or, as Nares suggests, from the name of some celebrated cutler. “Thou diest on point of fox” (Shakespeare, “Henry V.,” act iv., sc. 4).
[Page 21, l. 23.] “Fletcher.”—An arrow-maker (fléchier), with which trade the manufacture of bows, properly the business of the bowyer, was naturally combined. The frequency of the name in our own day might be alleged in proof of the ancient importance of the industry, but in most cases it is probably derived from flesher, a butcher.
[Page 22, l. 1.] “The Light-horse and the Bard.”—A barded horse (French bardelle, a pack-saddle) is one with the body entirely covered with armour. “For he was barded from counter to tail” (“Lay of the Last Minstrel”).
[Page 23, l. 17.] “The scarlet Iudge might now set vp his Mule.”—“Judges and serjeants rode to Westminster Hall on mules; whence it is said of a young man studying the law, ‘I see he was never born to ride upon a moyle’ (‘Every Man out of his Humour,’ ii. 3); that is, he will never be eminent in his profession” (Nares). It is an odd example of the mutations of ordinary speech that if we now heard of a judge setting up a mule, we should understand the exact contrary of what was understood by Drayton. A modern writer would more probably have said, set down.
[Page 23, l. 25.] “By this, the Counsell of this Warre had met.”—A curious echo of Spenser: “By this the northern waggoner had set.”
[Page 24, l. 16.] “Sleeue.”—Entirely obsolete in English, but France still knows the Channel as La Manche.