a pretty thing.
I know you can do much; if you excuse me,
While Skelton lives, Sir John, be bold to use me.

SIR JOHN. I will persuade the king; but how can you
Persuade all these beholders to content?

SKEL. Stay, Sir John Eltham: what to them I say,
Deliver to the king from me, I pray.
Well-judging hearers, for a while suspend
Your censures of this play's unfinish'd end,
And Skelton promises for this offence
The second part shall presently be penn'd.
There shall you see, as late my friend did note,
King Richard's revels at Earl Robert's bower;
The purpos'd mirth and the performed moan;
The death of Robin and his murderers.
For interest of your stay, this will I add:
King Richard's voyage back to Austria,
The swift-returned tidings of his death,
The manner of his royal funeral.[246]
Then John shall be a lawful crowned king,
But to Matilda bear unlawful love.
Aged Fitzwater's final banishment;
His piteous end, of power tears to move
From marble pillars. The catastrophe
Shall show you fair Matilda's tragedy,
Who (shunning John's pursuit) became a nun,
At Dunmow[247] Abbey, where she constantly
Chose death to save her spotless chastity.
Take but my word, and if I fail in this,
Then let my pains be baffled with a hiss.

FINIS.

_EDITION_.

_The Death of Robert Earle of Huntington. Otherwise called Robin Hood of
merrie Sherwodde: with the lamentable Tragedie of chaste Matilda, his
faire maid Marian, poysoned at Dunmowe by King Iohn. Acted by the Right
Honourable the Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England, his
seruants. Imprinted at London, for William Leake_ 1601. 4to. B.L.

INTRODUCTION.

Henry Chettle, who certainly joined Anthony Munday in writing "The Death
of Robert Earl of Huntington,"[248] if he did not also assist in penning
"The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington," was a very prolific
dramatic author. Malone erroneously states that he was the writer of, or
was concerned in, thirty plays; according to information which he
himself furnishes, forty-two are, either wholly or in part, to be
assigned to Chettle. The titles of only twenty-five are inserted in the
"Biographia Dramatica." The proof of his connection with the historical
play now reprinted has been already supplied,[249] and it is derived
from the same source as nearly all the rest of the intelligence
regarding his works--the MSS. of Henslowe.

Of the incidents of the life of Henry Chettle absol