Page 13.—Master Robert Laneham. He was an English merchant who became "doorkeeper of the council-chamber" to the Earl of Leicester. He wrote an account, in the form of a letter, of the festivities in honor of this visit of Elizabeth to Kenilworth, which was afterwards printed. He is one of the characters in Scott's Kenilworth.
Page 14.—Theatres, etc. The cut facing [page 14] shows one of the movable stages referred to by Dugdale; also two of "the three tall spires" mentioned by Tennyson in the poem of Godiva. The nearer church is St. Michael's, said to be the largest parish church in England, with a steeple 303 feet high. Beyond it is Trinity Church, with a spire 237 feet high.
Page 15.—The most beautiful in the kingdom. There is a familiar story of two Englishmen who laid a wager as to which was the finest walk in England. After the money was put up, one named the walk from Stratford to Coventry, and the other that from Coventry to Stratford. How the umpire decided the case is not recorded.
Page 16.—The Cappers. The makers of caps.
Page 17.—King Herod. Longfellow, in his Golden Legend, introduces a miracle-play, The Nativity, which is supposed to be acted at Strasburg. Herod figures in it after the blustering fashion of the ancient dramas. Young readers will get a good idea of these plays from this imitation of them.
Page 18.—Other allusions to these old plays. See, for instance, Twelfth Night, iv. 2. 134, 2 Henry IV. iii. 2. 343, Richard III. iii. 1. 82, Hamlet, iii. 4. 98, etc., and the notes in my edition.
Page 19.—The legend of Godiva. See Tennyson's Godiva.
Page 22.—Dr. Forman. Simon Forman (1552–1611), a noted astrologer and quack, who wrote several books, and left a diary, in which he describes at considerable length the plot of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which he saw performed "at the Globe, 1610, the 20th of April, Saturday." See my edition of Macbeth, p. 9.
Page 23.—The head of Sir Thomas Lucy is from his monument in Charlecote church.