Note 321 — SCENE III.

Edward II. was only forty-three when he was murdered. Stow often speaks of Edward II. as the "old king." Malone on Richard II. i. 1 ("Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster"), remarks:—"Our ancestors, in their estimate of old age, appear to have reckoned somewhat differently from us, and to have considered men as old whom we should esteem middle-aged. With them every man that had passed fifty seems to have been accounted an old man.... I believe this is made to arise from its being customary to enter into life in former times at an earlier period than we do now. Those who were married at fifteen had at fifty been masters of a house and family for thirty-five years."