FOOTNOTES AND TWAIN'S NOTES

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The loving-cup, and the peculiar ceremonies observed in drinking from it, are older than English history. It is thought that both are Danish importations. As far back as knowledge goes, the loving-cup has always been drunk at English banquets. Tradition explains the ceremonies in this way. In the rude ancient times it was deemed a wise precaution to have both hands of both drinkers employed, lest while the pledger pledged his love and fidelity to the pledgee, the pledgee take that opportunity to slip a dirk into him!

NOTE 7, Chapter XI. The Duke of Norfolk's narrow Escape.

Had Henry VIII. survived a few hours longer, his order for the duke's execution would have been carried into effect. 'But news being carried to the Tower that the King himself had expired that night, the lieutenant deferred obeying the warrant; and it was not thought advisable by the Council to begin a new reign by the death of the greatest nobleman in the kingdom, who had been condemned by a sentence so unjust and tyrannical.'--Hume's History of England, vol. iii, p. 307.

NOTE 8, Chapter XIV. The Whipping-boy.

James I. and Charles II. had whipping-boys, when they were little fellows, to take their punishment for them when they fell short in their lessons; so I have ventured to furnish my small prince with one, for my own purposes.

NOTES to Chapter XV.

Character of Hertford.

The young King discovered an extreme attachment to his uncle, who was, in the main, a man of moderation and probity.--Hume's History of England, vol. iii.p324.

But if he (the Protector) gave offence by assuming too much state, he deserves great praise on account of the laws passed this session, by which the rigour of former statutes was much mitigated, and some security given to the freedom of the constitution. All laws were repealed which extended the crime of treason beyond the statute of the twenty-fifth of Edward III.; all laws enacted during the late reign extending the crime of felony; all the former laws against Lollardy or heresy, together with the statute of the Six Articles. None were to be accused for words, but within a month after they were spoken. By these repeals several of the most rigorous laws that ever had passed in England were annulled; and some dawn, both of civil and religious liberty, began to appear to the people. A repeal also passed of that law, the destruction of all laws, by which the King's proclamation was made of equal force with a statute.--Ibid. vol. iii. p. 339.

Boiling to Death.

In the reign of Henry VIII. poisoners were, by Act of Parliament, condemned to be BOILED TO DEATH. This Act was repealed in the following reign.

In Germany, even in the seventeenth century, this horrible punishment was inflicted on coiners and counterfeiters. Taylor, the Water Poet, describes an execution he witnessed in Hamburg in 1616. The judgment pronounced against a coiner of false money was that he should 'BE BOILED TO DEATH IN OIL; not thrown into the vessel at once, but with a pulley or rope to be hanged under the armpits, and then let down into the oil BY DEGREES; first the feet, and next the legs, and so to boil his flesh from his bones alive.'--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p. 13.