225. This is the constitutional principle which was universally acknowledged by our early political writers, and of which some strong declarations will be found in my "Political Songs" (published by the Camden Society). The doctrine of "right divine" was certainly not a prevalent one in the middle ages.
291. This fable appears to be of middle-age formation, for it is not found in any of the ancient collections. It does not occur in the fables of Marie. It is however found in the old collection, in French verse of the fourteenth century, entitled Ysopet; and M. Robert has also printed a Latin metrical version of the story from a MS. of the same century. La Fontaine has given it among his fables. It may be observed that the fable is nowhere so well told as in Piers Ploughman. (See Robert, Fables Inédites, des xii^e, xiii^e, et xiv^e siècles, i, pp. 98-101.) The readers of Scottish history will remember the application of this fable in 1481, by the earl of Angus (popularly named, from this circumstance, Archibald Bell-the-cat), in the conspiracy against the royal favourites, which forms an excellent illustration of our text.
381. _Væ terræ, etc._ Ecclesiastes, x, 16. "Væ tibi, terra, cujus rex puer est, et cujus principes mane comedunt."
423. _and pointeth the lawe._ MS. Trin. 2.
429. after this line the following are inserted in the second MS. of Trin. Coll.
I saugh bisshopis bolde, And bacheleris of devyn, Become clerkis of acountis The king for to serve, Archideknes and denis, That dignités haven, To preche the peple And pore men to fede, Ben y-lope to Lundone Be leve of hire bisshop, And ben clerkis of the kinges bench The cuntré to shende.
438. _Taillours, tanneris, | And tokkeris bothe._ MS. Trin. 2.
453. The Cottonian MS. Vespas. B. xvi, from which Price has given a long extract in his edition of Warton, has here "With wyne of Oseye | and wyn of Gascoyne." Whitaker's reading is "Whit wyn of Oseye and of Gascoyne." Price observes, in a note, "good wyne of Gaskyne, and the wyne of Osee [is the reading of MS. Harl. No. 875].--The same hand already noticed has corrected _wyn_ to _weyte_ (wheat) _of Gascoyne_;--an obvious improvement." I by no means partake in this opinion: _wine_ of Gascony, and _not wheat_ of Gascony, is perpetually alluded to in the literature of France and England from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The reading of the text now printed is evidently the original one, which has been corrupted in the others: the wine more particularly known as Gascon, was a red wine. The writer of "La Desputoison du Vin et de l'Iaue," says of it--