[Page 66, ll. 11, 12.] “Bespeaking them with honourable words Themselues their prisoners freely and confesse.”—One of Drayton’s awkward inversions. The anonymous ecclesiastic says that some of the French nobles surrendered themselves more than ten times, and were slain after all.
[Page 72, l. 15.] “In comes the King his Brothers life to saue.”—“The Duke of Gloucester, the King’s brother, was sore wounded about the hippes, and borne down to the ground, so that he fel backwards, with his feete towards his enemies, whom the King bestridde, and like a brother valiantly rescued him from his enimies, and so saving his life, caused him to be conveyed out of the fight into a place of more safetie” (Holinshed).
[Page 72, ll. 25, 26.] “Vpon the King Alanzon prest so sore, That with a stroke,” etc.—There seems no contemporary authority for the single combat between Henry and Alençon of which Shakespeare has made such ingenious use in his management of the incident of Henry’s glove. According to one account, Alençon struck at the King somewhat unfairly as he was stooping to aid his brother, and smote off a piece of his crown. According to another authority, the blow was given by one of a band of eighteen knights who had sworn to strike the diadem from Henry’s head, or perish in the attempt, as they all did.
[Page 82, l. 28.] “Nock.”—Notch.
[Page 83, l. 16.] “Tue.”—Must be pronounced as a dissyllable; but the French cry was more probably tuez.
[Page 85, l. 28.] “Base.”—Run as at prisoners’ base. Murray’s “Dictionary” cites one example of the use of the word in this sense, which is from Warner’s “Albion’s England,” a poem read and admired by Drayton.
[Page 87, l. 27.] “Clunasse.”—A misprint for Clamasse.
[Page 87, l. 27.] “Dorpe” = thorpe, a word revived by Tennyson in “The Brook.”
[Page 88, ll. 17, 18.] “And in his rage he instantly commands, That euery English should his prisoner kill.”—
“I was not angry since I came to France