NOTES
I. i. 5. entrance of this soil. The earth is personified, and the dry surface is called her mouth.
I. i. 28. Cf. the last lines of Shakespeare's Richard II, King Henry's speech when news is brought him that, at his suggestion. King Richard, his predecessor whose throne he has usurped, has been murdered:
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for that I do lament
And put on sullen black incontinent:
I'll make a journey to the Holy Land
To wash this blood from off my guilty hand.
During the year which has intervened, civil wars have prevented the fulfilment of this vow.
I. i. 38. Mortimer, Earl of March, rightful heir to the throne of England at the time of King Richard's death (see genealogical table in note on I. iii. 145-146), now in command of King Henry's forces on the western front.
I. i. 52. Holy-rood day. Holy Cross Day, September 14.
I. i. 53. Young Harry Percy. The youngest member of the great Percy family, now in command of the king's forces on the northern front. The Percies (see Dramatis Personæ) had been King Henry's chief supporters in his usurpation of the throne.
I. i. 71. Mordake, the Earl of Fife, was not son to beaten Douglas, but to the Duke of Albany, regent of Scotland. Shakespeare's error is due to a mistake in punctuation in Holinshed's list of Hotspur's prisoners, which reads: 'Mordacke earle of Fife, son to
