174 C. F. Tucker Brooke, 



" proud chariot's wheels " in the tenth parallel is perfectly natural 

 in the context in which it appears in the Massacre. Guise is referring 

 to Roman life in a carefully sustained simile : 



" As ancient Romanes ouer their Captiue Lords, 



So will I triumph ouer this wanton King, 



And he shall follow my proud Chariots wheeles." 



In the case of the Contention, however, the allusion to the chariot 

 is anachronistic and even absurd, for Humphrey is speaking, without 

 any suggestion of figurative language, of his own wife and of the 

 present time : 



" Sweete Nell, ill can thy noble minde abrooke 



The abject people gazing on thy face. 



That earst did follow thy proud Chariot wheeles, 



When thou didst ride in tryumph through the streetes." 



May we not here feel reasonably sure that the picture of the Duchess 

 Eleanor driving in triumph through fifteenth-century London streets 

 in a proud chariot with the abject people following at her wheels is 

 due to a mischievous freak of the poet's memory, which suddenly 

 diverted his attention from the real subject and caused Humphrey's 

 plain speech to end incongruously with the repetition of a remembered 

 line from the Massacre and another from Tamhurlaine ? 



There is one other parallel which seems likewise to suggest the 

 earlier composition of the Massacre. When, near the close of that 

 play, Dumaine says of his brother (1. 1122f.), 



" Sweet Duke of Guise, our prop to leane vpon. 

 Now thou art dead, heere is no stay for vs," 



he is speaking only what the exigencies of the occasion justify, for 

 the Guise's party is crushed and the speaker himself is at the moment 

 threatened with death. However, when Edward repeats virtually 

 the same words in the True Tragedy (p. 23, 1. 45 f.), 



" Sweet Duke of Yorke, our prop to leane vpon, 

 Now thou art gone there is no hope for vs," 



they seem decidedly less appropriate to the speaker's situation, for 

 Edward's emotion is merely personal sorrow at his father's death, 

 and his very next speech shows that he is as far as possible from 

 having lost political hope : 



" His name that valiant Duke hath left with thee {i. e., Richard), 

 His chaire and Dukedome that remaines for me." (1. 56 f.) 



