Is supposed to have been originally a Scotch ballad. The reader here has an ancient copy in the English idiom, with an additional stanza (the 2d.) never before printed. This curiosity is preserved in the Editor's folio MS. but not without corruptions, which are here removed by the assistance of the Scottish Edit. Shakespeare, in his Othello, act ii. has quoted one stanza, with some variations, which are here adopted: the old MS. readings of that stanza are however given in the margin.
[The Scottish version referred to above was printed in Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany, and the king mentioned on line 49 is there named Robert instead of Stephen. He is King Harry in the folio MS.
The "corruptions" to which Percy alludes are all noted at the foot of the page, and in one instance at least (line 15) the MS. gives an important new reading. Mr. Hales thinks that the MS. version is the oldest form of the ballad, because the definite mention of the court looks more original than the use of the general term of town, and he says, "the poem naturally grew vaguer as it grew generally popular."[824]
Besides the reference to this ballad in Othello mentioned by Percy above, Mr. Hales has pointed out to me another evident allusion in the Tempest, act iv. sc. 1, where Trinculo says,
"O King Stephano, O Peere: O worthy Stephano,
Looke what a wardrobe here is for thee."
(Folio 1623, Booth's ed. p. 15, col. 2.)
The cloak that had been in wear for forty-four years was likely to be a sorry clout at the end of that time, but the clothes of all classes were then expected to last from year to year without renewal. Woollen cloths were of old the chief material of male and female attire. When new the nap was very long, and after being worn for some time, it was customary to have it shorn, a process which was repeated as often as the stuff would bear it. Thus we find the Countess of Leicester (Eleanor third daughter of King John, and wife of Simon de Montfort) in 1265, sending Hicque the tailor to London to get her robes re-shorn.[825]]