Note E40 — 10.
Reading edition
"Skarborow warning." Grose says it means, "A word and a blow and the blow first." R. J. S. in Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. i. 170, adds that it is a common proverb in Yorkshire. Fuller states that the saying arose from "Thomas Stafford, who in the reign of Mary, A.D. 1557, with a small company, seized on Scarborough Castle, and before the townspeople had the least notice of their approach." Another explanation is that, if ships passed the castle without saluting it, a shotted gun was fired at them. In a ballad by Heywood another derivation is given:
"This term Scarborow warning grew (some say) By hasty hanging for rank robbery theare. Who that was met, but suspect in that way, Strait he was trust up, whatever he were."
This implies that Scarborough imitated the Halifax gibbet law.—N.& Q. 1st Ser. i. 138. In a letter by Toby Matthew, Bishop of Durham, to the Archbishop of York, Jan. 19, 1603, he writes: "When I was in the midst of this discourse I received a message from my Lord Chamberlain that it was his Majesty's pleasure that I should preach before him on Sunday next, which Scarborough warning did not only perplex me, but so puzzel me as no mervail if somewhat be prætermitted, which otherwise I might have better remembered."—N. & Q. 4th Ser. xii. 408. "Scarborough warning. The antiquity of the phrase is shown by its occurrence in Puttenham's 'Arte of English Poetrie,' ed. 1589. The following is the passage, from p. 199 of Arber's reprint: [We have] 'many such prouerbiall speeches: as, Totnesse is turned French, for a strange alteration: Skarborow warning, for a sodaine commandement, allowing no respect or delay to bethinke a man of his busines.'"—Note by Rev. W. Skeat. See also Ray's Proverbs.