a duchy. He instantly did homage for it, and at the same time surrendered to the king the castle of Cherbourg, the county of Évreux, and all other lordships he possessed within the kingdom of France, renouncing all claim or profit in them to the king and his successors, on consideration that with this duchy of Nemours the king of France engaged to pay him two hundred thousand gold crowns of the coin of the king our lord.' In this rather complicated transaction Shakespeare may have found the suggestion for the still more complex business of the play, in which likewise a deceased King Charles (cf. II. i. 162) of Navarre and a total sum of two hundred thousand crowns (cf. II. i. 128–134) are involved.[1]
The French and English halves of the play are joined together by the characters of Armado and his page Moth, who are neither French nor convincingly English. In these two figures literary precedent is more evident than elsewhere, and it is clearly John Lyly whom Shakespeare is following. Compare the talk of Armado and Moth in II. i with the following scene between a braggart and his page in Lyly's Endimion.[2]
'Sir Tophas. Epi, loue hath iustled my libertie from the wall, and taken the vpper hand of my reason.
Epiton. Let mee then trippe vp the heeles of your affection, and thrust your goodwill into the gutter.
Sir. To. No, Epi, Loue is a Lorde of misrule, and keepeth Christmas in my corps.
Epi. No doubt there is good cheere: what dishes of delight doth his Lordshippe feast you withal?
