Note XV

III. 4. 78–80. The first Folio reads:

The first Quarto has:

Theobald altered Ratcliffe to Catesby, observing in his note, ‘The scene is here in the Tower: and Lord Hastings was cut off on that very day, when Rivers, Gray and Vaughan suffered at Pomfret. How then could Ratcliff at the same instant be both in Yorkshire and the Tower? In the very scene preceding this we find him conducting those gentlemen to the block. The players in their edition first made the blunder, as to Ratcliff attending Lord Hastings to death: for, in the old Quarto, we find it rightly;—Exeunt: Manet Catesby with Hastings.’ But in the next scene Theobald, while he makes Lovell and Catesby bring in the head of Hastings, allows Gloucester, just before their entrance, to say, ‘Catesby, o’erlook the walls.’ Hanmer corrected this inconsistency by reading, ‘Some one o’erlook the walls.’ We have followed the Folios, for the difficulties could not be removed entirely without applying more violence to the text than an editor is justified in using.