[Ic.9] ——make imaginary puissance:] i.e., imagine you see an enemy.
Act I
[I.1] ——task] Keep busied with scruples and disquisitions.
[I.2] Archbishop of Canterbury,] Henry Chichely, a Carthusian monk, recently promoted to the see of Canterbury.
[I.3] Bishop of Ely.] John Fordham, consecrated 1388; died, 1426.
[I.4] ——wrest,] i.e., distort.
[I.5] ——or bow your reading,] i.e., bend your interpretation.
[I.6] Or nicely charge your understanding soul] Take heed, lest by nice and subtle sophistry you burthen your knowing soul, or knowingly burthen your soul, with the guilt of advancing a false title, or of maintaining, by specious fallacies, a claim which, if shown in its native and true colours, would appear to be false. —Johnson.
[I.7] ——miscreate,] Ill-begotten, illegitimate, spurious.
[I.8] ——in approbation] i.e., in proving and supporting that title which shall be now set up.