Gaol.
Bring forth the prisoners, see the court prepar'd;
The justices are coming to the bench:
So, let him stand; away and fetch the rest. [Exit servant.

Cob.
O, give me patience to endure this scourge,
Thou that art fountain of this virtuous stream;
And though contempt, false witness, and reproach^{9 note}
Hang on these iron gyves, to press my life
As low as earth, yet strengthen me with faith,
That I may mount in spirit above the clouds.

Re-enter gaoler's servant, bringing in lady Cobham and Harpool.
Here comes my lady. Sorrow, 'tis for her
Thy wound is grievous; else I scoff at thee.
What, and poor Harpool, art thou i'the briars too?

Har.
I'faith, my lord, I am in, get out how I can.

L. Cob.
Say, gentle lord, (for now we are alone,
And may confer) shall we confess in brief
Of whence, and what we are, and so prevent
The accusation is commenc'd against us?

Cob.
What will that help us? Being known, sweet love,
We shall for heresy be put to death,
For so they term the religion we profess.
No, if we die, let this our comfort be,
That of the guilt impos'd our souls are free.

Har.
Ay, ay, my lord; Harpool is so resolv'd.
I reck of death the less^{1 note}, in that I die
Not by the sentence of that envious priest.

L. Cob.
Well, be it then according as heaven please. Enter the Judge of assize, and Justices; the Mayor of St. Albans, lord and lady Powis, and sir Richard Lee. The Judge and Justices take their places on the bench.

Judge.
Now, master mayor, what gentleman is that
You bring with you before us to the bench?

Mayor.
The lord Powis, an if it like your honour,
And this his lady travelling toward Wales,
Who, for they lodg'd last night within my house,

And my lord bishop did lay wait for such,
Were very willing to come on with me,
Lest, for their sakes, suspicion we might wrong.

Judge.
We cry your honour mercy; good my lord,
Will't please you take your place. Madam, your ladyship
May here, or where you will, repose yourself,
Until this business now in hand be past.

L. Pow.
I will withdraw into some other room,
So that your lordship and the rest be pleas'd.

Judge.
With all our hearts: Attend the lady there.

Pow.
Wife, I have ey'd yon prisoners all this while,
And my conceit doth tell me, 'tis our friend
The noble Cobham, and his virtuous lady. [Aside.

L. Pow.
I think no less: are they suspected for this murder?

Pow.
What it means
I cannot tell, but we shall know anon.
Mean time, as you pass by them, ask the question;
But do it secretly that you be not seen,
And make some sign, that I may know your mind. [She passes over the stage by them.

L. Pow.
My lord Cobham! Madam!

Cob.
No Cobham now, nor madam, as you love us;
But John of Lancashire, and Joan his wife.

L. Pow.
O tell, what is it that our love can do
To pleasure you, for we are bound to you?

Cob.
Nothing but this, that you conceal our names;
So, gentle lady, pass; for being spied—

L. Pow.
My heart I leave, to bear part of your grief. [Exit lady Powis.

Judge.
Call the prisoners to the bar. Sir Richard Lee,
What evidence can you bring against these people,
To prove them guilty of the murder done?

Sir Rich.
This bloody towel, and these naked knives:
Beside, we found them sitting by the place
Where the dead body lay within a bush.

Judge.
What answer you, why law should not proceed,
According to this evidence given in,
To tax you with the penalty of death?

Cob.
That we are free from murder's very thought,
And know not how the gentleman was slain.

1 Just.
How came this linen-cloth so bloody then^{2 note}?

L. Cob.
My husband hot with travelling, my lord,
His nose gush'd out a bleeding; that was it.

2 Just.
But how came your sharp-edged knives unsheath'd?

L. Cob.
To cut such simple victual as we had.

Judge.
Say we admit this answer to those articles,
What made you^{3 note} in so private a dark nook,
So far remote from any common path,
As was the thick^{4 note} where the dead corpse was thrown?

Cob.
Journeying, my lord, from London, from the term^{5 note},

Down into Lancashire, where we do dwell,
And what with age and travel being faint,
We gladly sought a place where we might rest,
Free from resort of other passengers;
And so we stray'd into that secret corner.

Judge.
These are but ambages to drive off time,
And linger justice from her purpos'd end. Enter Constable, with the Irishman, sir John, and Doll.
But who are these?

Con.
Stay judgment, and release those innocents;
For here is he whose hand hath done the deed
For which they stand indicted at the bar;
This savage villain, this rude Irish slave:
His tongue already hath confess'd the fact,
And here is witness to confirm as much.

Sir John.
Yes, my good lord; no sooner had he slain
His loving master for the wealth he had,
But I upon the instant met with him:
And what he purchas'd with the loss of blood,
With strokes I presently bereav'd him of:
Some of the which is spent; the rest remaining
I willingly surrender to the hands
Of old sir Richard Lee, as being his:
Beside, my lord judge, I do greet your honour
With letters from my lord of Rochester. [Delivers a letter.

Sir Rich.
Is this the wolf whose thirsty throat did drink
My dear son's blood? art thou the cursed snake
He cherish'd, yet with envious piercing sting
Assaild'st him mortally? Wer't not that the law

Stands ready to revenge thy cruelty,
Traitor to God, thy master, and to me,
These hands should be thy executioner.

Judge.
Patience, sir Richard Lee, you shall have justice.
The fact is odious; therefore take him hence,
And being hang'd until the wretch be dead,
His body after shall be hang'd in chains,
Near to the place where he did act the murder.

Irishm.

Prethee, lord shudge, let me have mine own cloaths, my strouces there^{6 note}; and let me be hang'd in a wyth^{7 note} after my country, the Irish fashion.

Judge.
Go to; away with him. And now, sir John, [Exeunt Gaoler and Irishman.
Although by you this murder came to light,
Yet upright law will not hold you excus'd,
For you did rob the Irishman; by which
You stand attainted here of felony:
Beside, you have been lewd, and many years
Led a lascivious, unbeseeming life.

Sir John.
O but, my lord, sir John repents, and he will mend.

Judge.
In hope thereof, together with the favour
My lord of Rochester intreats for you,
We are contented that you shall be prov'd^{8 note}.

Sir John.
I thank your lordship.

Judge.
These other, falsely here

Accus'd, and brought in peril wrongfully,
We in like sort do set at liberty.

Sir Rich.
And for amends,
Touching the wrong unwittingly I have done,
I give these few crowns.

Judge.
Your kindness merits praise, sir Richard Lee:
So let us hence. [Exeunt all except Powis and Cobham.

Pow.
But Powis still must stay.
There yet remains a part of that true love
He owes his noble friend, unsatisfied
And unperform'd; which first of all doth bind me
To gratulate your lordship's safe delivery;
And then entreat, that since unlook'd-for thus
We here are met, your honour would vouchsafe
To ride with me to Wales, where, to my power^{9 note}

Cob.
'Tis true, my lord, and God forgive him for it.

Pow.
Then let us hence. You shall be straight provided
Of lusty geldings: and once enter'd Wales,

Well may the bishop hunt; but, spite his face,
He never more shall have the game in chace¹. [Exeunt. [1]

This play has been hitherto printed in an unbroken series, and is now first divided into acts and scenes.

Having said in the preliminary remarks that lord Cobham was engaged in a traiterous design against king Henry, it may be proper to add, that the accounts of the monkish historians who charge that nobleman with treason, as they held different religious tenets from him, and considered him a heretick, are liable to some suspicion. Mr. Hume however thinks, that though at first he had no other object but the reformation of religion, yet at length, being provoked by persecution and stimulated by zeal, he was urged to attempt the most criminal enterprises. But for this assertion he only quotes Walsingham, a writer who falls within the description above-mentioned. After his escape from the Tower, lord Cobham took refuge in Wales; and, though a thousand marks were offered for apprehending him, beside many liberties to any city or town that should deliver him up, he for a long time could not be found. At length he was seized by lord Powis, after a valiant resistance, and hanged in the year 1418.

Either the play before us, or The Second Part of Sir John Oldcastle, was acted at London before Monsieur Vereiken, ambassador to queen Elizabeth from the arch-duke and the infanta, March 6, 1599–1600. It is said by Rowland Whyte [Sydney-Papers, vol. ii. p. 175] to have been performed at the lord chamberlain's house by his servants; but having been printed in the same year as acted by the lord admiral's servants, I imagine that Mr. Whyte was mistaken. If the lord chamberlain's servants (that is, Shakspeare's company,) had represented this piece before him in private, it is to be presumed they would have likewise exhibited it at the Globe of Black-fryars play-houses; and if it had been performed publickly at either of those theatres, it would certainly have been mentioned in the title-page. The silence of the printer on that head would be a sufficient argument to shew that this play was not the composition of Shakspeare, if any additional argument were wanting on so clear a point. Malone.

The extracts from the records of the Stationers' Company, as well as the imperfect state in which the story of this drama is left, sufficiently prove it to be only the first part of the history of sir John Oldcastle. Few readers will lament the loss of the second.— The late Mr. James West, of the Treasury, assured me, that at his house in Warwickshire he had a wooden bench, once the favourite accommodation of Shakspeare, together with an earthen half-pint

mug, out of which he was accustomed to take his draughts of ale at a certain publick house in the neighbourhood of Stratford, every Saturday afternoon.—I fear that the respect paid to the seat and the pitcher, do more honour to our poet's memory, than the imputation of this play. Steevens.

LORD CROMWELL.

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