"In the British Museum, Vesp. B, 16, is a ballad written at this time on the catastrophes of the Duke of Suffolk and his friends. (Temp. Henr. VI, May, 1450.) It treats these horrors with an exulting levity, which shows the barbarous unfeelingness of political rancour; but it is curious for giving the names of those friends of the government who were most hated by the people. They are the clerical statesmen who were employed either in the offices of government or on its embassies, and it shows how much the dominant church had, by these employments, become identified with the crown. It designates the Duke of Suffolk by the cant term of 'Jac Napes,' and is perhaps the earliest instance we have of the abusive application of the word Jackanapes. Our lexicographers derive this word from Jack and Ape; but the ballad shows, that Napes was a term of derision signifying a Knave; and must therefore be the Saxon Cnapa, which bore also this meaning. This will explain the reason why our third figured card is called Jack, and also Knave. The word Jackanapes therefore seems to be Jack Cnapa, and to mean Jack the Knave. In this sense it is applied to Suffolk; and as the Knave is next in power at cards to the King and Queen, the nickname may be used in the ballad with an allusion to Suffolk's being the prime minister of Henry and Margaret."[270] The following are two of the stanzas of the ballad in which the term occurs: "In the moneth of May, when grass grows grene, Fragrant in her flowres with swete savour, Jac Napes wold on the see, a maryner to ben, With his clogi and his cheyn to seke more tresour. "Swych a payn prikked him, he asked a confessour; Nicholas said, I am redi the confessour to be; He was holden so, that he ne passed that hour: For Jac Napes saule, 'placebo et dirige.'"