was in 1450, the outbreak following Suffolk's death by two months.)
IV. vii. 55, 56. when honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets. Hose and doublet were the indispensable articles of dress, covering the lower and upper parts of the body respectively. The cloak was worn over hose and doublet by the well-to-do. For the horse's 'cloak' or foot-cloth cf. note on IV. i. 54.
IV. vii. 65, 66. Kent, in the Commentaries Cæsar writ, Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle. The wording, which is almost the same in the Contention, is probably borrowed from Golding's translation of Cæsar's Commentaries (1565): 'Of all the inhabitants of this isle the civilest are the Kentishfolke.' Marlowe, a Kentishman, may have introduced the quotation. The less complimentary appraisal in line 61, ''tis bona terra, mala gens' (good land, bad people), is supplied by the reviser, who adds the words, mala gens.
IV. viii. 1. Up Fish Street! down St. Magnus' corner! Places on the northern, or London, side of London Bridge. St. Magnus' Church was at the foot of the bridge, and Fish Street ran up from the bridge towards Eastcheap (where Shakespeare's Boar's Head Tavern was situated). This scene evidently takes place on the Southwark side of the river.
IV. viii. 26. at the White Hart in Southwark. Next to the Tabard Inn, which stood near, the White Hart was the best inn in Southwark. Holinshed records that Cade lodged at the White Hart.
IV. viii. 44–46. Were 't not a shame that, whilst you live at jar, The fearful French, whom you late vanquished, Should make a start o'er seas and vanquish you? Probably an anachronistic allusion to French raids upon the English coast in 1457 (seven years after Cade's rebellion), when Sandwich was captured and sacked and Fowey in Cornwall burned.
IV. x. 31. I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich.
