202. Speght has Pretir, an obvious error for Prester. The authoress may easily have obtained her knowledge of Prester John from a MS. of Mandeville's Travels; see cap. 27 of that work. And see Yule's edition of Marco Polo. He was, according to Mandeville, one of the greatest potentates of Asia, next to the Great Khan.
209. cereal; borrowed from Chaucer:—'A coroune of a grene ook cerial'; C. T., A 2290. And Chaucer took it from Boccaccio; see note in vol. v. p. 87.
210. trumpets, i.e. trumpeters; as several times in Shakespeare. Cf. l. 213.
212. tartarium, thin silk from Tartary. Fully explained in my note to P. Plowman, C. xvii. 299 (B. xv. 163), and in the Glossary to the same. bete, lit. beaten; hence, adorned with beaten gold; see note to C. T., A 978 (vol. v. p. 64). were, (all of which) were; hence the plural.
213. Read bere, as in l. 223; A.S. bǣron, pt. t. pl.
220. kinges of armes, kings-at-arms; who presided over colleges of heralds. Sir David Lyndsay was Lord Lion king-at-arms.
224. Cf. 'Set with saphyrs'; A. L. 480.
233. vel-u-et is trisyllabic; as in The Black Knight, 80.
234. 'And certainly, they had nothing to learn as to how they should place the armour upon them.'
238. in sute, in their master's livery.