V. i. 117. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan. Alluding to Margaret's father's title of King of the two Sicilies (Sicily and Naples). There may be an implied reference to the famous Sicilian Vespers massacre of 1282.
V. i. 140. And if words will not, then our weapons shall. The speaker, Richard, was two and a half years old when the first battle of St. Albans was fought.
V. i. 144. Call hither to the stake my two brave bears. A metaphor from the popular sport of bear baiting, at which bears were fastened to stakes and attacked by dogs. Warwick and Salisbury are termed bears because of the badge of the 'bear and ragged staff.' Cf. next note.
V. i. 202, 203. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest, The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff. The heraldry here is erroneous. Warwick's famous badge of the bear and ragged staff was not derived from his father, but inherited, like his earldom, from the Beauchamp family to which his wife belonged. The Nevil crest was a bull.
V. ii. 58, 59. Into as many gobbets will I cut it As wild Medea young Absyrtus did. Not found in the Contention. The story is told in Ovid's Tristia. Medea, pursued by her father as she accompanied Jason from Colchos with the golden fleece, delayed the pursuers by slaying her brother Absyrtus and throwing his dismembered limbs into the sea.
V. ii. 78, 79. If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom Of all our fortunes. The king was wounded with an arrow in the battle and fell into the hands of the Yorkists, from whom he suffered no further injury.
V. iii. 26. Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth. Lords were summoned to parliament by special writ issued in the name of the king. The parliament referred to was not summoned till several years after the battle.
