I claim the crown) had issue-Philippe, a daughter, Roger had issue-Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor. But to the rest York. His eldest sister, Anne, My mother, being heir unto the crown, Married Richard, earl of Cambridge, who was son Succeed before the younger, I am King. War. What plain proceeding is more plain than this? Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt, The fourth son; York claims it from the third. Scroop. Once more, my lord of Cambridge, make rehearsall How you do stand intitled to the Crowne, This Lionell Duke of Clarence, as I said, Third sonne of Edward (England's King) the third, Had issue, Philip, his sole daughter and heire, Two daughters and two sonnes; but [of] those, three Dide without issue: Anne, that did survive, Edward the Duke of Yorke, and sonne and heire The son of Edmund, which did marry Philip, Cam. True; for this Harry and his father both, That was the eldest of King Edward's sonnes : So that my wife derived from Lionall, Third sonne unto King Edward, ought "precede And take possession of the Diadem Before this Harry or his father, King[s] If the reader has had patience to wade through the above passages, he cannot fail to discover that the principal resemblance lies in that of Sir John Oldcastle to the amended play: in the latter of these we find the glaring blunders in the Contention are corrected and carried down from Lionel Duke of Clarence, through his daughter Philippe and her children by her marriage with Edmund Mortimer, to Richard * Misprinted "first." 4 Misprinted "proceed." 1 Misprinted "By." 3 Misprinted "first." 2 Earl of Cambridge, whose descent from Edmund Langley is also introduced; all which is either omitted in the edition of 1594, or else so curiously mis-stated, as to render York's claim a very doubtful one. We have, therefore, no ground for supposing that the passage in Sir John Oldcastle can have been borrowed from the Contention. Again, in comparing that from Sir John Oldcastle with Henry VI., there is such an appearance of tedious prolixity about the former, that it gives us every reason to believe that it must have been written subsequently to that in Henry VI.; and it is scarcely possible that the one should have been composed independently of the other. Another resemblance also meets our eye, in the passage, "When he perceives his quarrel to be just;" so similar to the line, "Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just," (Henry VI., Part II., act iii., sc. 2) which does not occur in the Contention. These, added to the repeated allusions to Falstaff and other characters in the plays of Henry IV. and Henry V, which we find in Sir John Oldcastle, as well as many other plagiarisms, show that the author (or rather authors) must have openly and unscrupulously borrowed from these sources. If this fact be granted, we are forced to conclude that the play of Henry VI., Part II., must have existed in its complete state, and have been well known in that form before the year 1600, as the entry in Henslowe's Diary, first brought forward by Malone, shows that the four authors concerned in writing that play received a present of half-a-crown a piece, in consideration of the success of that play on its first performance, which must have taken place between November 1st and 8th, 1599. Comparing, therefore, this date with that of Churchyard's poem, and supposing the premises to be true, a difference of only ten years could exist between the composition of "The Contention" and the completion of the play of Henry VI., Part II. December 29, 1847. G. M. ZORNLIN. ART. VII.—Extract from a Manuscript at Oxford, containing a memorandum of the complaints against Dethick, the herald who made the grant of arms to John Shakespeare. No biographer of Shakespeare has hitherto had an opportunity of comparing Dethick's answer to the complaints made against him, with the allegations of misconduct with which he was charged; most writers supposing them not to be extant. I have, however, discovered a copy amongst the Ashmolean MSS., No. 857; and, although it contains no notice of the Shakespeares, yet it is of some interest and value in estimating the degree of credibility we may be disposed to assign to the rambling statements contained in the drafts of the grant of arms to John Shakespeare in 1596 and 1599. It will be observed that Dethick is here expressly charged with giving arms "to base and ignoble persons," and falsifying pedigrees, a singular instance of the latter charge being expressly quoted. Even if we give Dethick the favour of placing a partial reliance on all the charges exhibited by his enemies, his own replies would furnish very good grounds for believing that his practice in granting arms was, to say the least, occasionally distinguished by great irregularity. J. O. H. "A Remembrance of Sir William Dethickes, alias Garter King of Armes, his abuses, since the tyme he was Yorcke Heraulde to this present Ao. "William Dethicke, when he was Yorcke Herauld, gave armes by Patents under his hand and seale, and writeing in the Inscripcion of his seales, Gulielmus Dethicke Armig: Primarius Heraldus Eboracensis, which tytle belonged to Norroy, King of Armes of the North. "At that time also he embeazelled bookes forth of the Office of Armes, and forswore them solempnely on a booke, as by the hande of his owne father, his brother, and iiij. or five others was testifyed. "Hee strooke his father with his fiste, for the which his father cursed him, and he wounded his elder brother on the head with his dagger, within the Castle of Windsore. "Upon his father's decease, he sued for his father's Office of Garter, and abuseing of one Nicaseus, then one of the Clerkes of the Signett, hee inserted into the bill to be signed, which was delivered unto him upon trust to bee faire written, these wordes of encrease, Necnon visitandi et insignia armorum claris viris concedendi, by which wordes hee would have carryed both the offices of Clarenceaulx and Norroye; but Somersett Glover, understandinge thereof, complayned unto the Queene, and her Majestie advertysed Sir Francis Walsingham. Sir Francis so sharply reprehended Nicasius for his oversight, as the poore olde man for very griefe dyed. "After this, Clarenceaulx sent Richmonde herauld upon a visitacion, as his Marshall, into Lincolnshire; but Dethicke, then Garter, standing upon the wordes of his Patent, and pretending that hee ought not to visitte without him, countermanded him by lettres, discrediting him so much to the Lord Willoughby, and to the Judges, being then in their circuite, as the men returned very much endamaged by that journey. 66 Complainte whereof being made unto the Lord Treasurer Burghley, his lordship with Sir Francis Walsingham joyning (by her Majesties appointment) in commission, called the said Dethick before them, and, after some sharpe rebukes and threats given him, he rendred his Lettres Patents on his knees, desireing that hee might enjoy them, as his father did; which they promised him they would obtaine of the Queene; but he, not trusting to their promise, privily got a duplicate from the Records, by which he served the Office vj. or vij. yeares untill the Lord Treasurer dyed, and then he gott the originall Patent againe. |