Shakespeare's life deal with his attitude toward the project of enclosing the common at Welcombe near Stratford. His kinsman, Thomas Greene, wrote as follows, November 17, 1614: 'My cosen Shakspear comyng yesterdy to town, I went to see him how he did. He told me that they assured him they ment to inclose no further than to Gospell Bush, and so upp straight (leavyng out part of the Dyngles to the field) to the gate in Clopton hedg, and take in Salisburyes peece; and that they mean in Aprill to survey the land, and then to gyve satisfaccion, and not before; and he and Mr. Hall [Shakespeare's son-in-law] say they think ther will be nothyng done at all.' On September 1, 1615, Greene wrote in his Diary: 'Mr. Shakspeare told Mr. J. Greene that I was not able to beare the enclosing of Welcombe."
I. iii. 63. canoniz'd. The accent is on the second syllable, as regularly in Shakespeare.
I. iii. 75-77. And he of these that can do most of all Cannot do more in England than the Nevils: Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers. These lines are not found in the Contention version, and may be fairly credited to Shakespeare's Warwickshire memories of the Nevils. This noble family—'of all the great houses of mediaeval England . . . incontestibly the toughest and the most prolific' (Oman)—originated in the north, about Raby Castle near Durham. The first earldom they acquired was that of Westmoreland, bestowed by Richard II upon Sir Ralph Nevil in 1397. The latter is the Earl of Westmoreland who appears in Shakespeare's plays of Henry IV and Henry V. He married, as his second wife, a daughter of John of Gaunt, sister of the Cardinal Beaufort of the present play. Salisbury was their son and Warwick their grandson.
I. iii. 105. Or Somerset or York, all's one to me. Holinshed records that at the expiration of York's
