ot answer me? Dost thou think it good altogether
to give place unto thy choler and revenge, and thinkest thou it not
honesty for thee to grant thy mother's request in so weighty a cause?
Dost thou take it honorable for a nobleman to remember the wrongs and
injuries done him, and dost not in like case think it an honest
nobleman's part to be thankful for the goodness that parents do show to
their children, acknowledging the duty and reverence they ought to bear
unto them? No man living is more bound to show himself thankful in all
parts and respects than thyself, who so universally showest all
ingratitude. Moreover, my son, thou hast sorely taken of thy country,
exacting grievous payments upon them in revenge of the injuries offered
thee; besides, thou hast not hitherto showed thy poor mother any
courtesy. And, therefore, it is not only honest, but due unto me, that
without compulsion I should obtain my so just and reasonable request of
thee. But since by reason I cannot persuade ye to it, to what purpose do
I defer my last hope?" And with these words, herself, his wife, and
children, fell down upon their knees before him.

[82] _Vide_ Daru, Histoire de Bretagne.

[83] _Vide_ Sir Peter Leycester's Antiquities of Chester.

[84] By the treaty of Messina, 1190

[85] Malone says, that "In expanding the character of the bastard,
Shakspeare seems to have proceeded on the following slight hint in an
old play on the story of King John:--

Next them a bastard of the king's deceased--
A hardy wild-head, rough and venturous."

It is easy to _say_ this; yet who but Shakspeare could have expanded the
last line into a Falconbridge?

[86] The Greek Merope, which was esteemed one of the finest of the
tragedies of Euripides, is unhappily lost; those of Maffei, Alfieri, and
Voltaire, are well known. There is another Merope in Italian, which I
have not seen: the English Merope is merely a bad translation from
Voltaire.

[87] "Queen Elinor saw that if he were king, how his mother Constance
would look to bear the most rule in the realm of England, till her son
should come of a lawful age to govern of himself."--HOLINSHED.

[88] King John, Act iii, Scene 1.

[89] Louis VII. of France, whom she was accustomed to call, in contempt,
_the monk_. Elinor's adventures in Syria, whither she accompanied Louis
on the second Crusade, would form a romance.

[90] Henry II. of England. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the
st