10. The king of Navarre (Henry IV.), by his manifesto,
published in
1585, after discussing sundry points
of state with the leaguers,
defied the Duke of Guise, their
loader, to mortal combat, body to
body, or two to two, or ten to ten,
or twenty to twenty. To this
romantic defiance the Duke returned
no direct answer; but his
partizans alleged, that as the quarrel
betwixt the king of Navarre
and their patron did not arise from
private enmity, it could not
become the subject of single combat.
Davila lib. vii.]
11. This alludes to the defacing the Duke of
York’s picture at
Guildhall; an outrage stigmatized
in the epilogue to “Venice
Preserved,” where Otway says,
Nothing shall daunt
his pen, when truth does call;
No, not the picture-mangler
at Guildhall.
The rebel tribe, of
which that vermin’s one.
Have now set forward,
and their course begun;
And while that prince’s
figure they deface,
As they
before had massacred his name,
Durst their base fears
but look him in the face,
They’d
use his person as they’ve used his fame;
A face, in which such
lineaments they read
Of that great Martyr’s,
whose rich blood they shed.
The picture-mangler is explained by a marginal note to be, “the rascal, that cut the Duke of York’s picture.” The same circumstance is mentioned in “Musa Praefica, or the London Poem, or a humble Oblation on the sacred Tomb of our late gracious Monarch King Charles II., of ever blessed and eternal Memory; by a Loyal Apprentice of the honourable City of London.” The writer mentions the Duke of York as
—loaded
with indignity,
Already martyred in
effigy.
O blast the arm, that
dared that impious blow!
Let heaven
reward him with a vengeance meet,
Who God’s anointed
dared to overthrow!
His head
had suffered, when they pierced his feet.
Explained to allude to the Duke
of York’s “picture in Guildhall,
cut from the legs downward undiscovered.”
In another tory ballad, we have
this stanza in the character of a
fanatic:
We’ll smite the
idol in Guildhall,
And then,
as we are wont,
We’ll cry it was
a Popish plot,
And swear
these rogues have done’t.
12. This speech depends on the gesticulation
of the sorcerer: Guise
first desires him report the danger
to the people,—then bids him
halt, and express his judgment more
fully. Malicorn makes signs of
assassination.—Guise
goes on—
—Let him
if he dare.
But more, more, more;—
i.e. I have a further reason than state policy for my visit.—Malicorn makes repeated signs of ignorance and discontent; and Guise urges him to speak out on a subject, which he himself was unwilling to open.
13. The business of this scene is taken from the following passage.