EPILOGUE; SPOKEN BY MRS. Oldfield.

Ye modest matrons all, ye virtuous wives,
Who lead with horrid husbands decent lives,
You who for all you are in such a taking
To see your spouses drinking, gaming, raking,
Yet make a conscience still of cuckold-making,
What can we say your pardon to obtain?
This matter here was prov'd against poor Jane:
She never once deny'd it, but in short,
Whimper'd, and cry'd, sweet sir, — I'm
sorry for 't.

'Twas well she met a kind, good natur'd soul,
We e are not all so easy to controul :

I fancy one might find in this good town
Some wou'd ha' told the gentleman his own;
Have answer'd smart,· To what do you pre-

tend,

Blockhead! - As if I must n't see a friend:

Tell me of hackney-coaches

city

jaunts to th'

Where shou'd I buy my china — Faith, I'll

fit ye

Our wife was of a milder, meeker spirit :

You ! - lords and masters!—was not that some

merit?

Don't you allow it to be virtuous bearing,
When we submit thus to your domineering?

Well, peace be with her, she did wrong most surely,
But so do many more who look demurely :
Nor shou'd our mourning madam weep alone,
There are more ways of wickedness than one.
If the reforming stage shou'd fall to shaming
Ill-nature, pride, hypocrisy, and gaming ;
The poets frequently might move compassion,
And with she tragedies o'er-run the nation.
Then judge the fair offender, with good nature;
And let your fellow-feeling curb your satyr.
What, if our neighbours have some little failing,
Must we needs fall to damning and to railing :
For her excuse too, be it understood,
That if the woman was not quite so good,
Her lover was a king, she flesh and blood.
And since she has dearly paid the sinful score,
Be kind at last, and pity poor Jane Shore.

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Notes to Jane Shore

Title-page. Conjux . . . Curis. "Where her former husband answers her every mood." (Aeneid, v1, 473–74.)

III. Duke of Queensberry. Charles Douglas, third Duke of Queensberry (1698-1778), was born at Edinburgh. In 1720 he married Lady Catherine Hyde, second daughter of Henry, Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, a very striking and brilliant figure in the literary society of London. She was a particular friend of the poet Gay, is supposed to have had a great influence over Pitt, and was, with her husband, the friend of Congreve, Pope, Prior, and Walpole. On the accession of George III, the Duke was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland and Lord Chief Justice. Rowe dedicates the play to this young Duke of Queensberry because of the support and friendship which the Duke's father had shown to Rowe, as recounted in the dedication. Rowe was under secretary to the Duke's father when the latter was Secretary of State for Scotland.

Dramatis Personae. Duke of Gloster. The Duke of Gloster was brother to Edward IV, who left two sons at his death. These princes the Duke of Gloster caused to be murdered in the Tower. He then succeeded to the throne as King Richard III. Vid. Richard III.

Dramatis Personae. Sir Richard Ratcliffe. He was one of the Duke of Gloster's most trusted followers. He fell by his side on Bosworth Field. Sir Thomas More describes him thus: a "knight whose service the Protector specially used in the execution of such lawless enterprises as a man that had been long secret with him, bold in mischief, as far from pity as from all fear of God." More's Works, 1x (1834 ed.), 262.

Dramatis Personae. Sir William Catesby. He was another of Gloster's henchmen who carried out legitimate and illegitimate measures for the Protector.

119, 3. The queen and all her upstart race. The Queen referred to is Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV.

She was the daughter of the Duchess of Bedford, and married Sir John Grey, by whom she had two sons, known later as the Marquis of Dorset and Sir Richard Grey. Three years after her first husband's death, she married Edward IV (1464), who raised various members of the Woodville family to positions of importance. The Queen and her relations were the objects of much jealousy on the part of the old nobility. Vid. Richard III, Act I, Sc. 7. Shakespeare describes the situation :

Glo. We speak no treason, man: we say the king

Is wise and virtuous; and his noble queen

Well struck in years; fair, and not jealous;
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,

A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
And that the queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.
Richard III, Act I, Sc. I.

119, 5. Pomfret. At Pomfret were beheaded the Queen's brother, "the Earle of Ryvers, and the lord Richarde the quene's sone, Syr Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Haute." (Hall's Chronicle.) Earl Rivers, Anthony Woodville, was the patron of Caxton, and one of the most accomplished men of his day. After Edward IV's death, his two sons started from Ludlow Castle to London, under the care of the Queen's relatives, the Earl of Rivers, her uncle, Dorset and Sir Richard Grey, her sons by her first marriage, and an escort of 2000 horse. On the route Rivers and Lord Richard Grey met the Duke of Gloster at Northampton, who cunningly put them under arrest. Two months later, on pretence that they had been hatching a conspiracy in coming to London with concealed arms in the escort of the princes, Gloster had them put to death at Pomfret. Dorset escaped and later fled to Brittany. Gloster as Lord Protector now had the reins of power in his hands. The whole story is told in Richard III.

Vid. Richard III, Act. I, Sc. 3. Vid. The True Tragedie,

Shaks. So. Pub., Field, pp. 23, 29. Vid. "How Syr Anthony Wooduille, Lord Riuers and Scales, Gouernour of Prince Edward, was with his nephese, Lord Richard Gray and others, causelessle imprisoned, and cruelly murthered, a. D. 1483.” Mirror for Magistrates, Haselwood ed., p. 249.

121, 33. Hastings. Hastings was Lord Chamberlain and Governor of Calais, and one of the executors of Edward IV's will, thoroughly devoted to the interests of the House of York. Vid. "How the Lord Hastings was betraied by trusting too much to his euill counsellour Catesby, and villanously murdered in the Tower of London by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, A. D. 1483.' " Ibid. p. 275. 122, 65. Shore's unhappy wife. Sir Thomas More relates that after the death of Edward IV, Jane Shore became the mistress of Hastings. This fact is changed by Rowe. In his life of Jane Shore, Rowe says it was Hastings who was in love with Jane Shore, and who, maddened because he could not get her, inflamed Edward IV with desire to see her and force her to yield to him as king.

124, 91. Using the warrant of your mighty name. This incident seems to have been devised by Rowe for the purposes of his plot at this juncture. Later, by Richard's order, Jane Shore is proclaimed outcast.

128, 57. Alicia. A personage invented by Rowe, who holds a relation to Jane Shore similar to that of Mistress Blage in Heywood's play and Mistress Blague of the old ballad.

132, 143. live and reign forever in my bosom. Cf. similar protestation in The True Tragedie, Shaks. So. Pub., Field, p. 13; Edward IV, Heywood's Dramatic Works (1874), vol. I, PP. 149-150.

132, 156. these jewels. Cf. Edward IV, Heywood's Dramatic Works (1874), vol. 1, p. 150.

133, 168-69. The good

Introduction, p. xix.

thou hast done. Vid.

157, 70. by my hollidame. Vid. Introduction, p. xix. 159, 94. I mean to prove him. According to More, Catesby acted as spy between Gloster and Hastings.

Goe, gentle Catesby,
And as it were farre off, sound thou Lord Hastings
How he doth stand affected to our purpose.

Richard III, Act III, Sc. I.