a

alabaster of the great earl and his two countesses, most valuable example of the armour and costume of the period.

EARL OF WARWICK. This is the distinguished character in the preceding play, Richard Beauchamp, who, though much engaged in the French wars, and serving at Harfleur, was not present at Agincourt. Walsingham states that he returned to England immediately after the capture of Harfleur. He afterwards went to France, and was made Governor of Caen when it was taken by Henry V., who created Warwick Earl of Albemarle and a K. G. He was also one of the ambassadors to treat of Henry's marriage; was present at Troyes; and was appointed by the king, when dying, tutor or governor to his infant son, for that " no fitter person could be provided to teach him all things becoming his rank." This great nobleman figures in the next play; he was honoured by the Emperor Sigismund with the title of "The Father of Courtesy."

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. This personage was Henry Chicheley, called by Fuller "that skilful statefencer," and by Southey, in his Joan of Arc,

"the proud prelate, the blood-guilty man, Who, trembling for the Church's ill-got wealth, Made our fifth Henry claim the crown of France."

He was born (about 1362) at Higham Ferrars, where he afterwards, in 1415, built and endowed a college for secular priests. He became a monk of the Carthusian order, then Archdeacon of Salisbury, Bishop of St. David's in 1408, and Archbishop of Canterbury in 1414.

This prelate, who died April 12, 1443, founded All Souls' College, Oxford, in 1437, and enlarged and beautified Lambeth Palace.

BISHOP OF ELY. Mr. T. P. Courtenay says of this character, "I do not know why Shakespeare selected him." In The Chronicle Historie of Henry the Fift the "two bishops" are introduced, without any names assigned to them. In the folio of 1623, the stage-direction is, "Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and Ely.” John Fordham, Dean of Wells, was appointed in 1381 to the see of Durham, and transferred to Ely in 1388; he died in 1425. It was Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, who opened the proceedings in Parliament, and announced the king's intention to invade France.

EARL OF CAMBRIDGE. This character was Richard Plantagenet, brother of the Duke of York in this play, and second son of Edmund of Langley, the "Duke of York" in King Richard II. He married Anne Mortimer, daughter of Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March, by whom he had two children,- Isabel Plantagenet, who married Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex; and Richard Plantagenet, who is the "Duke of York" in the next three plays.

For the part he took in the conspiracy against Henry V., at Southampton, the Earl of Cambridge was beheaded there, Aug. 5, 1415, and attainted. His intention was to place his brother-in-law Edmund Mortimer, fifth Earl of March, on the throne, but the latter, far from wishing success to the scheme, disclosed the plot to his intimate friend, the king, whom he accompanied in his French wars.

LORD SCROop. He is rightly styled in this play, "Henry Lord Scroop of Masham;" he was the eldest son of the loyal "Sir Stephen Scroop," the character in King Richard II., who was only brother to that monarch's favourite, the Earl of Wiltshire. This Henry Scrope [or Scroop] was greatly trusted by Henry V. in embassies to Denmark and France; but whilst in the latter country he allowed himself to be corrupted by the promise of an immense bribe, as John Lydgate says, "For a million of golde, as I herde say," to compass the destruction of Henry V. and his brothers at Southampton, and he induced the Earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas Grey to join him; he was condemned, after a hasty trial, attainted, and beheaded Aug. 5, 1415.

SIR THOMAS GREY.- This associate of Cambridge and Scroop was the second son of Sir Thomas Grey of Berwick, Constable of Norham Castle, by his wife Catharine, daughter of John, fourth Lord Mowbray of Axholme. He was executed at Southampton three days before Cambridge and Scroop suffered.

SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM. This celebrated knight landed with Bolingbroke at Ravenspurg, and was made by him a K. G., Chamberlain of the Household, and Warden of the Cinque Ports. To this experienced warrior, "grown gray with age and honour," was intrusted the setting in order of battle of the English army at Agincourt; and when all was ready for the attack he gave the signal by throwing his truncheon in the air, and crying out," Now strike!" In the "Roll of Agincourt' the knight is styled "Steward of the King's House; his retinue consisted of "sixteen lances and forty-seven

archers." Henry IV. had bestowed upon him the manor and advowson of Toft-monks, Norfolkshire, in which shire his ancestors had been long seated at Erpingham; and Sir Robert de Erpingham, grandfather of Sir Thomas, was knight of the shire in 1332. The character in this play was a great benefactor to the city of Norwich, where he built the noble gateway, called after him "the Erpingham Gate."

GOWER, FLUELLEN, MACMORRIS, JAMY, Officers in King Henry's army. Shakspeare probably selected. these names to represent the four nations which sent contingents to Henry's army in France. The Englishman, "Captain Gower," does not appear to be the same as the character in the preceding play, and the name is not found on the "Roll of Agincourt."

In the valiant and choleric Welshman, some commentators see a caricature of Davy Gam, which means squint-eyed," whose real name was Llewellyn, though it is worth notice that Fluellen, as the Welsh word is pronounced, is, as well as Bardolph, the name of a contemporary townsman of Shakspeare's, in Stratford-uponAvon.

The Irishman, "Captain Macmorris," who assists the Duke of Gloucester in the order of the siege," takes the place of "Master Giles," the engineer who really directed the mining operations against Harfleur, and who is named as giving advice to the Duke of Clarence, in a narrative written in Latin by a priest, one of the chaplains to Henry V., attached to the expedition, of which the manuscript is in the British Museum.

On account of the ancient feuds between England and Scotland there would not be many of the latter nation

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present, represented by the Scots captain, Captain Jamy," or "James," as he is also called by Fluellen; but there was one of the nation who accompanied Henry V. throughout his wars in France, of the highest rank, no less a personage than James the First, King of Scots, who had been taken prisoner in the reign of Henry IV., 1405, and kept confined by him in Windsor Castle. He obtained his personal freedom in the next reign through the intercession, it is said, of Queen Joan, on the condition of serving as a private knight under the immediate leading of Henry V. in his French wars, the prince not being allowed to return to his native land, to which in fact he was not restored until 1423. The King of Scots followed as chief mourner in the protracted funeral of Henry V. through France. His marriage with a lady of the English blood-royal was made a condition of his final release, and his choice fell on the lady Joanna Beaufort, John of Gaunt's granddaughter, for whom the Scottish prince conceived a strong affection, which he has recorded in his poem called "The King's Quair.” When he was basely murdered by Sir Robert Grahame and other nobles, his heroic Queen Joanna received two wounds in trying to save her royal husband. From their marriage descended all the succeeding sovereigns of Scotland and Great Britain.

NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, formerly servants to Falstaff, now Soldiers in King Henry's army. The name of Nym is a verb which signifies "to filch," or as Pistol softens the expression, "Convey the wise it call." Nym's peculiar "humour may have been taken by Shakspeare from actual observation.

The theft for which Bardolph was condemned to die