Note 127 — ACT II.
Reading edition
A costermonger is a seller of apples; and an apple-squire was formerly a cant term for a pimp.
So in Erasmus's "Praise of Folly," translated by Chaloner, 1549, sig. P.: "Or doo you judge peradventure they coulde easily fynde in their hertes, that so many scriveners, so many registrers, so manie notaries, so many advocates, so many promoters, so many secretaries, so many moyleters, so many horsekeepers, so many gentlemen of householde, so many apple-squires, so many baudes, I had almost spoken a softer worde," &c.
Again, in "Faults, Faults, and Nothing but Faultes," by Barnaby Rich, 1606, p. 24: "Shee shall not want the assistance of her ruffians, her apple-squires, and of those brothell queanes that lodge, that harbour, and that retain her."
Again, in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour," iv. 10—
"Well, good wife bawd, Cob's wife, and you, That make your husband such a hoddy doddy; And you, young apple-squire, and old cuckold-maker, I'll ha' you every one before a justice."
See also "Dekker's Belman of London," sig. H 2.
And in Bale's "Actis of Englishe Votaries," 1550, Part I., fol. 27: "Women in those dayes might sore have distained their newlie risen opinion of holines, if they had chaunced to haue bene with childe by the prelates, and therefore other spiritual remedies were sought out for them by their good providers and proctors; ye may if ye will call them apple-squires."—Gilchrist.