Halfpenny, "your minds were all on your halfpenny" (R[196],d), i.e. with an eye to the main chance, generally attentive, cautious, or prudent. The proverb is in Heywood (Works, E.E.D.S., II. 14,c; 174,b). "Ri.: Dromio, looke heere, now is my hand on my halfepeny. Half.: Thou liest, thou hast not a farthing to lay thy hands on."—Lyly, Mother Bombie (1594), ii. 1. "But the blinde [deafe] man, having his hand on another halfe-penny, said, What is that you say, sir? Hath the clocke strucken?"—Notes on Du Bartas, To the Reader, 2nd page.
Halsed, "his fair wife halsed in a corner" (M[28],d), embraced (hals = neck): the special use of the word is singularly appropriate, as Mischief had just escaped the halsman (= executioner or jailer) himself.
Hance Beerpot (W.H.), i.e. Hans, but there was no object in carrying the modernisation of the orthography so far as to alter the original Hance: see Wealth and Health.
Hand, "I bless you with my left hand" (M[23],c), i.e. curse: cf. "over the left" = altogether wrong, or the reverse of what is said. Such "left-handed" colloquialisms are by no means rare to express insincerity, ill-omen, underhandness, or inferiority. The earliest quotation in the O.E.D., s.v. Left, is 1705, so this example carries its use back upwards of 200 years.
Hands, see Aloft.
Hangman, see Calais.
Hanston, see Respublica.
Hardely (passim), steadily, boldly, certainly.
Hare, "this same way goeth the hare" (R[212],b), i.e. that's the gist, trend, secret, why and wherefore of the matter: in Heywood.