Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stol’n a pix, and hanged must ’a be.
It will be seen by the following extract from the anonymous Chronicler how minutely Shakespeare has adhered to history— “There was brought to the King in that plain a certain English robber, who, contrary to the laws of God and the Royal Proclamation, had stolen from a church a pix of copper gilt, found in his sleeve, which he happened to mistake for gold, in which the Lord’s body was kept; and in the next village where he passed the night, by decree of the King, he was put to death on the gallows.” Titus Livius relates that Henry commanded his army to halt until the sacrilege was expiated. He first caused the pix to be restored to the Church, and the offender was then led, bound as a thief, through the army, and afterwards hung upon a tree, that every man might behold him.
([C])
Go, bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder’d,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour:]
My desire is, that none of you be so unadvised, as to be the occasion that I in my defence shall colour and make red your tawny ground with the effusion of Christian blood. When he (Henry) had thus answered the Herald, he gave him a great reward, and licensed him to depart. —Holinshed.