Note 80 — NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING LIFE.

See “The auncient order societie and unitie laudable of prince Arthure and his knightly armory of the round table . . . Translated and collected by R. R. London, Imprinted by John Wolfe dwelling in Distaffe-lane neere the signe of the Castle, 1583.” 4to, b. l. It appears from this publication that on the revival of London archery in Queen Elizabeth’s time, “the worshipfull socyety of archers,” instead of calling themselves after Robin Hood and his companions, took the names of “the magnificent prince Arthure and his knightly traine of the round table.” It is, probably, to one of the annual meetings of this identical society that Master Shallow alludes in the Second Part of King Henry IV. “I remember,” says he, “at Mile-end Green [their usual place of exercise],—I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s shew,” &c. (See also Steevens’s Shakespeare, 1793, ix. 142.) The successors of the above “friendly and frank fellowship” assumed the ridiculous appellations of Duke of Shoreditch, Marquis of Clerkenwell, Earl of Pankridge, &c. See Wood’s Bowman’s Glory, 1682.