The Prince and the Pauper
A Minimal Edition

EXPLANATORY NOTES

kqkp001 hi: See the introduction (pp. 19–25) for a general discussion of the historical sources of  The Prince and the Pauper hi: and for complete publication information on the works cited below only by author and short title. 

ca0001 The houses . . . like doors.] This description of London dwellings was probably based on William Harrison’s Description of England (chapter 12, “Of the Manner of Building and Furniture of Our Houses”), first published in 1577 as part of the first volume of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles.

ca0002 Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane] Pudding Lane, infamous as the squalid street where the Great Fire of London began in 1666, lies between the Tower and London Bridge. Offal Court is probably Mark Twain’s invention, but the name is appropriate since, as John Stow notes in his sixteenth—century Survey of London, “the butchers of East Cheap have their scalding house for hogs corr: in Pudding Lane , and their puddings, with other filth of beasts, are voided down that way to their dungboats on the Thames” (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1890, p. 216).

ca0003 They were all dressed . . . ugly costume.] The quaint uniform described here was actually not adopted until soon after Edward VI founded Christ’s Hospital in 1552, five years after the period of Mark Twain’s story.

ca0004 “They were dressed . . . attendants.”] The source of this quotation and the source or sources of those following at 109.6–7 and 110.6–12 have not been identified. The nature of the revision in these passages and the fact that the opening and closing quotation marks were added later in ink 3 suggest that these descriptions may have been Mark Twain’s own invention.

ca0005 “Space being made . . . behold.”] All but the last line of this passage is a close transcription (the only changes are those that blur historical references and effect some modernization of spelling) of Edward Hall’s description of a banquet given by Henry VIII on Shrove Sunday, 1510, in the parliament chamber at Westminster (Chronicle, p. 513). The passage was also incorporated into Holinshed’s Chronicles (3:555), a work from which the author quoted elsewhere in The Prince and the Pauper. Differences in spelling and punctuation, however, indicate that Hall, rather than Holinshed, was Clemens’ source. The last line of the passage was taken from Hall’s description of another pageant during the reign of Henry VIII (Hall, Chronicle, p. 519; Holinshed, Chronicles, 3:561).

ca0006 Don Caesar de Bazan] Mark Twain alludes to the ruined count in Victor Hugo’s play Ruy Blas.

ca0007 This structure . . . gateways.] A footnote added here in the manuscript and then canceled (see the alterations list, 132.8) makes it clear that the source for this description of London Bridge was J. Heneage Jesse’s London (2:278–279). The manuscript pages describing the bridge were originally numbered 13 through 17 and were apparently fragments of a sequence of pages drafted independently, perhaps even for some other project, and then incorporated into the manuscript.

ca0008 *He refers . . . creation.] The present—day title of baronet was created in 1611 by King James I. The evolution of the baronet footnote is discussed in the textual introduction (pp. 398–401).

ca0009 Near four hundred years ago . . . may do.] During his 1873 trip to England Clemens saw the de Courcy tomb in Westminster Abbey and noted the probably apocryphal story of the privilege granted to John de Courcy of Kinsale (or Kingsale) in the early thirteenth century by King John (Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, Volume I (1855–1873), ed. Frederick Anderson, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth Sanderson corr: Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1975 , p. 535). The story of the de Courcy privilege gained currency through its inclusion in Thomas Fuller’s History of the Worthies of England (1662).

ca0010 There was a woman] Clemens was decidedly partial to this ballad, singing it, rather inappropriately, during his wedding trip in 1870. The author included it in the raftsmen chapter from Huckleberry Finn published in chapter 3 of Life on the Mississippi. The ballad, originally a British folk song, survives in the United States from the Southern Appalachians to the Southwest under various titles—“There Was an Old Woman in Our Town,” “She Loved Her Husband Dearly,” and “The Rich Old Lady.” A version of the same ballad, called “The Old Woman of Wexford,” has been recorded in recent years by the Clancy Brothers. The ballad and Mark Twain’s use of it are further discussed in ref: MTHL   (p. 874). The revision of the last line at William Dean Howells’ suggestion is described in the textual introduction (pp. 395–396).

ca0011 He did . . . woman’s way.] Mark Twain was apparently as bewildered as Hendon about the intricacies of threading a needle for he gave precisely the opposite information in chapter 11 of Huckleberry Finn—“hold the needle still and poke the thread at it—that’s the way a woman most always does; but a man always does ‘tother way.”

ca0012 *Hume.] Mark Twain cites David Hume’s History of England as his source here and on page 161, but the list of executors as he gives them and the details of the late king’s expenses and his gifts to important crown servants are probably from James Anthony Froude’s History of England (5:18, 20–21, 22, 23).

ca0013 *Leigh Hunt’s . . . tourist.] Leigh Hunt quotes the sixteenth—century German traveler Paul Hentzner’s description of Queen Elizabeth and her attendants going to chapel at Greenwich and preparing to dine (The Town, pp. 407–408). All the quotations in this chapter are transpositions of parts of Hentzner’s long and detailed description, with obviously inappropriate references to Elizabeth and her retinue deleted or emended and the verbs altered from the past to the present tense.

ca0014 “Bien . . . trine.”] From the 1874 facsimile edition of The English Rogue (1:46). Mark Twain quotes only the final verses, which may be translated: lg: l: Good night then, Drink Woman and Tavern,  l: The good man goes away,  l: On the gallows to hang near London gallants dining  l: For his long sleep at last.  l: Go out good women and watch, and watch,  l: Go out of London town,  l: And watch the man that stole your goods,  l: Upon the gallows to hang.   

ca0015 “Ruffler,” or chief] As Francis Grose’s Dictionary explains, the begging crew, male and female, was divided into twenty—three distinct castes, with the “rufflers” being the premier order in that hierarchy.

ca0016 budges . . . morts] “Budges,” persons who steal clothes; “bulks” and “files,” pickpockets and their mates; “clapperdogeons,” born beggars; and “maunders,” the general cant term for beggar. “Dells,” “doxies,” and “morts” were terms for women. These cant terms can be found in both The English Rogue and Grose’s Dictionary.

ca0017 And still . . . hang!] This information regarding the punishment of beggars and run—away slaves occurs in J. Hammond Trumbull’s True—Blue Laws (pp. 13–14), which clearly states that the harsh statutes were instituted during Edward VI’s reign. It is therefore questionable whether Trumbull was the original source for this anachronistic passage, which necessitated a clumsy footnote. Clemens did consult Trumbull’s book at some point, however, since his copy (now in the Detroit Public Library) has marginal scorings and brief factual notations on these pages.

ca0018 ‘O, sir, . . . ready to perish!’] This plea for alms echoes one recorded in The English Rogue (1:62).

ca0019 “Clime” . . . passer—by.] Mark Twain paraphrases The English Rogue (1:61–62).

ca0020 Non compos mentis lex talionis sic transit gloria Mundi] Nonsense Latin made up of well—known phrases—“Not of sound mind the law of retaliation so passes away the glory of the world.”

ca0021 ad hominem expurgatis in statu quo] More nonsense Latin: “to the man you cleanse in the existing state.”

ca0022 History was . . . shameful page.] Mark Twain is referring to Henry II’s scourging at the tomb of Thomas à Becket in 1174.

ca0023 *Hume’s England.] Hume, History of England, 3:315.

ca0024 The chronicler says] In this and the following descriptive passages, Mark Twain selectively paraphrases Holinshed’s account of Queen Elizabeth’s passage from the Tower through the City of London to Westminster in January 1559, several days before her coronation (Chronicles, 4:159–167).

ca0025 notes 1 and 2] Both notes quote material in John Timbs’s Curiosities of London (p. 96), although Mark Twain has silently omitted some information and slightly altered a few readings.

ca0026 note 6] Mark Twain found this information about the loving—cup in Timbs’s Curiosities of London (p. 395n).

ca0027 notes to chapter 23] Mark Twain neglects to mention that the entire episode of the woman and the pig was taken with only minor changes from The English Rogue (1:63–65).

ca0028 notes to chapter 33] This information is quoted, with some liberty, from Jesse’s London (3:225–226) and Timbs’s Curiosities of London (pp. 98, 99, 101).