Poetical alhisions — Hey wood, Shakespeare 163 



second fine stanza is sufficient to prove this, even 

 though there were not the well-known coincidence 

 in the date of the battle, October 15 (St. Crispin's 

 Day) :- 



' Upon Saint Crispin's day 

 Fought was this noble fray, 

 And Fame did not delay. 



To England to carry ; 

 O, when shall English men. 

 With such acts fill a pen, 

 Or England breed again 



Such a King Harry ? ' 



It may be, however, that Lord Tennyson had 

 in mind the poem of Thomas Hey wood {c, 161 5), 

 like himself a Lincolnshire man, written on the 

 same subject : — ■ 



' Agencourt, Agencourt, 

 Know ye not Agencourt ? 

 Where th' English slew and hurt 



All the French foemen ; 

 With our guns and bills brown, 

 O, the French were beat downe, 



Morris pikes and bowmen.' 



Shakespeare makes use of the term ' double 

 fatal ' in evident allusion to the poisonous nature of 

 the tree and the use of the wood in the manu- 

 facture of deadly weapons : — 



' Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows. 

 Of double-fatal yew against thy State.' ^ 



^ King Richard II. , Act iii. Sc. 2. 



