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King Richard the Second aid demanded by the king from his subjects. The first instance of this practice is recorded of Edward IV in 1473, so that its imputation to Richard II is an anachronism.

compromise. In 1397 Brest and Cherbourg had been given back to their rightful owners, upon payment of the ransom for which they had been held since 1378.

His brother, etc. A line has been lost here. 'The archbishop late of Canterbury' was Thomas Arundel, brother of the Richard, Earl of Arundel, who was beheaded as a result of Richard's coup in 1397. The latter's son Thomas was, according to history, a member of Bolingbroke's expedition, and was, moreover, the man who escaped from the Duke of Exeter's house. Ritson suggested inserting between ll. 280 and 281 a line almost word for word from Holinshed, 'The son and heir of the late earl of Arundel.' This certainly makes sense, and no worse meter than the other lines of the passage.

Imp out our broken wing. A figure from the art of falconry; to engraft feathers in a hawk's wing to restore or improve the powers of flight.

Historically, Queen Isabel was at this time but a child of ten, having been married to Richard in 1396 by her father, Charles VI of France.

perspectives. Boards cut or channeled into a series of oblique flats or flanges, to which strips of a picture were pasted, so that, looked at from one side ('awry'), the whole picture appeared, but viewed from straight in front ('rightly') only a confusion was to be seen. Somewhat similar devices are used to-day for advertisements.

A difficult passage. Punctuated as in the text, it may be paraphrased, 'I cannot but be so grievously sad as makes me faint and shrink with