[83] Vide Sir Peter Leycester's Antiquities of Chester.
[84] By the treaty of Messina, 1190
[85] Malone says, that "In expanding the character of the bastard, Shakspeare seems to have proceeded on the following slight hint in an old play on the story of King John:—
Next them a bastard of the king's deceased—
A hardy wild-head, rough and venturous."
It is easy to say this; yet who but Shakspeare could have expanded the last line into a Falconbridge?
[86] The Greek Merope, which was esteemed one of the finest of the tragedies of Euripides, is unhappily lost; those of Maffei, Alfieri, and Voltaire, are well known. There is another Merope in Italian, which I have not seen: the English Merope is merely a bad translation from Voltaire.
[87] "Queen Elinor saw that if he were king, how his mother Constance would look to bear the most rule in the realm of England, till her son should come of a lawful age to govern of himself."—Holinshed.
[88] King John, Act iii, Scene 1.
[89] Louis VII. of France, whom she was accustomed to call, in contempt, the monk. Elinor's adventures in Syria, whither she accompanied Louis on the second Crusade, would form a romance.
[90] Henry II. of England. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the story of Fair Rosamond, as far as Elinor is concerned, is a mere invention of some ballad-maker of later times.