Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/177

Richard the Third Vergil, 540), and left it to join the rebellion raised by Buckingham in October, 1483 (Holinshed, iii. 743). After Buckingham's capture, Dorset succeeded in escaping by sea and 'arriued safelie in the duchie of Britaine.' Holinshed, iii. 743. Halle, 394.

cockatrice. See note on 'basilisk', I. ii. 150.

Warwick. Warwick was killed fighting on the Lancastrian side in the battle of Barnet, where Richard was one of the Yorkist generals.

Eighty odd. The Duchess of York was born in 1415, and therefore was only sixty-eight in 1483.

play the touch. The touchstone was a black jasper from India used by Italian goldsmiths in testing the genuineness of gold (King). There are many references to touchstones in Elizabethan literature. Cf. 1 Henry IV, IV. iv. 10: 'To-morrow is a day Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men Must bide the touch.'

His name, my lord, is Tyrrell. Sir" (quoth his page) "there lieth one on your pallet without, that I dare well saie, to doo your grace pleasure, the thing were right hard that he would refuse.” Meaning this by sir Iames Tirrell. ' Holinshed, iii. 734. More, 81/15. In the same passage Holinshed records that when Richard broached the matter to Sir James 'he found him nothing strange.'

grievous sick. '[Richard] procured a common rumor (but he would not haue the author knowne) to be published and spred abroad among the common people, that the queene was dead; to the intent that she, taking some conceit of this strange fame, should fall into some sudden sicknesse or greeuous maladie. ' Holinshed, iii. 751. Halle, 407.

brother's daughter. Stow gives March