[Page 24, l. 19.] “Scripts of Mart.”—Letters of marque. “Mart, originally for Mars. It was probably this use of mart that led so many authors to use letters of mart, instead of marque, supposing it to mean letters of war. Under this persuasion Drayton put ‘script of mart’ as equivalent” (Nares).
[Page 24, l. 22.] “Deepe.”—Dieppe.
[Page 24, l. 28.] “Like the huge Ruck from Gillingham that flewe.”—It seems remarkable to meet with the roc of the “Arabian Nights” in English so long before the existence of any translation. The word, however, occurs in Bishop Hall’s “Satires,” thirty years before Drayton. It probably came into our language from the Italian, being first used by Marco Polo, who says (part iii., chap. 35): “To return to the griffon; the people of the island do not know it by that name, but call it always ruc; but we, from their extraordinary size, certainly conclude them to be griffons.”
[Page 25, l. 2.] “Stoad.”—Not found in the dictionaries, but apparently equivalent to stowage, and hence in this place to cargo.
[Page 25, ll. 5, 6.] “Straitly commanded by the Admirall, At the same Port to settle their aboad.”—“On the 11th of April, 1415, Nicholas Mauduyt, serjeant-at-arms, was commanded to arrest all ships and other vessels carrying twenty tons or more, as well belonging to this kingdom as to other countries, which were then in the river Thames, and in other sea-ports of the realm as far as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, or which might arrive there before the 1st of May, and the said vessels were to be at the ports of Southampton, London, or Winchelsea by the 8th of May at the latest” (Sir Harris Nicolas).
[Page 25, l. 28.] “Bay of Portugall” = Bay of Biscay.
[Page 26, l. 14.] “Pruce.”—Prussia.
[Page 26, l. 23.] “Flee-boats.”—Flyboats, Fr. flibots, which affords a more probable etymology than freebooter for flibustier and filibuster.
[Page 27, ll. 17, 18.] “From Holland, Zeland, and from Flanders wonne By weekely pay, threescore twelue Bottoms came.”—“It was one of the earliest measures to secure shipping from Holland” (Nicolas). The total number of ships enumerated by Drayton as joining in the rendezvous at Southampton is one hundred and seventy-eight, the foreign hired vessels included. A contemporary authority quoted by Sir Harris Nicolas makes it three hundred and twenty, made up by contingents from the neighbouring havens to between twelve and fourteen hundred. According to the list published by Sir Harris Nicolas, the number of effective fighting men did not exceed ten thousand five hundred, though there were probably as many more attendants and camp-followers.
[Page 27, l. 31.] “The acclamation of the presse.”—Might be said in our time of any popular war, but in how different a sense!