12S. VI. JUNES, 1920.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
269
almost without exception, mention is made
of " commendations," either received or
given. So in Act III. sc. iii. of ' Timon ' we
find, " commend me to thy honourable,
virtuous lord," and " commend me bounti-
fully to his good lordship." Middle ton
habitually dropped the personal pronoun in
the nominative case, as in these instances
from ' Timon ' :
takes no account How things go from him. Has only sent his present occasion now.
Must I take the cure on me ? Has much disgraced me in't How fairly this lord strives to appear foul ! takes virtuous copies to be wicked.
If the argument for Middleton be proved, | it is plain that he figures in every act. j Therefore, ' Timon ' cannot be a partnership play : there is too much of Middleton for that. The question remains : Did Shake- 1 speare revise Middleton's work, or Middleton , Shakespeare's ? Everything points to the : conclusion that the original ' Timon ' was an early work of Middleton's, no later, cer- tainly, than ' Michaelmas Term' (1607).! It was probably revised by Shakespeare : some five or six years later. Middleton's work in the play cannot be referred to his \ latest period, for when writing ' The Game at Chess,' and revising ' The Noble Gentle- man,' he had ceased to employ prose, of j which, be it remembered, he must have found a large amount in the last-named play, j written by Beaumont and Fletcher about 1606-8. In conclusion, let it be said that though, in a few cases, the peculiarities noticed may be found in the work of other dramatists, none but Middleton can lay claim to all. WILLIAM WELLS.
THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. The
four hundredth anniversary of the meeting
of the sovereigns of England and France
on the Field of the Cloth of Gold falls
this month. The festivities began on Friday,
June 8, and lasted till Sunday, June 24,
1520. The place where Henry and Francis
met lay between Guines and Ardres, which
towns were respectively the headquarters
of the two monarchs, and occupied a great
extent of ground. The site, however, may
be said to have been at or near Balinghem,
a village lying a little to the north of the
road between Ardres and Guines. The
Carte de 1'Etat-major marks the " Camp
dti Drap d'Or," some two or three kilo-
metres to the south-west of the village, on
the other side of the road. Bremes, which
is sometimes named as the place of the
meeting, lies on the road close to Ardres,
some four or five kilometres south-east of
Balinghem. M. Ardouin-Dumazet, in his
' Voyage en France,' tells how he went out
of his way to visit the site of the Field of
the Cloth of Go'd, but found nothing but the
name on the map. He states that the
peasants who live in the vicinity know
nothing about the famous meeting of the
sovereigns. The site was called Drap d'Or,
they said, because of a windmill of that
name which formerly stood there !
The field of meeting is only some two or three miles west of the great highway between St. Omer and Calais. On the high- way itself, about two kilometres from Ardres on the St. Omer side, is a site styled " Le Plat d'Or." The name occurs on the Carte de 1'Etat-major, and on an iron sign-post by the roadside. What is the signification of " Le Plat d'Or ? " M. Ardouin-Dumazet does not mention it, and there is no reference to it in the Abbe Dusautoir's ' Guide des Touristes ' in the arrondissement of St. Omer. Regarding the meeting of the sovereigns Abbe Dusautoir says, " C'est a Balinghem que Francois ler et Henri VIII. d' Angle terre se reunirent pour signer la paix," and further on, " La celebre entrevue du Camp du Drap d'Or, en 1520, eut lieu entre Bremes et Campagne." F. H. CHEETHAM.
DEGREES OF " BELOVED "-NESS. When the ' O.E.D.' reaches the word " well- beloved," the editor may be glad to refer to official examples of the exact gradation of royal affection, though he will not be able to cite them in full. The Letters appointing the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts (1881, ' Report,' p. 3) begin :
Victoria [etc.] to.... Our Bight trusty and Right entirely-beloved. . . .Archbishop of Canter- bury.... Our Bight trusty and entirely-beloved Cousin, J. A., Marquess of Bath.... Our Bight trusty and Bight well-beloved H.T., Earl of Chichester. . . .Our Bight trusty and well-beloved Councillor, J.P., Baron Penzance, . . . .Our trusty and well-beloved Sir W. C. James, Baronet.
It is to be observed "that the word " beloved " is not applied to the sovereign's son, who in the commission on the Housing of the Working Classes (1884, Pref. to ' Report,' p. 3) is addressed as :
Our Most Dear Son Albert Edward Prince of Wales, Knight of our Most Noble Order of the Garter, Field Marshal in our Army.
Q. V.
