v. 769. _Cowntes of Surrey_] Was Elizabeth Stafford, eldest daughter of Edward Duke of Buckingham, and second wife of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who afterwards (on the death of his father in 1524) became the third Duke of Norfolk. She had previously been attached and engaged to the Earl of Westmoreland with the consent of both families; but her father, having broken off the intended match, compelled her to accept the hand of lord Thomas Howard in 1513. She was twenty years younger than her husband. After many domestic quarrels, they separated about 1533. Of their five children, one was Henry Howard, the illustrious poet. She died in 1558. See _Memorials of the Howard Family_, &c. by H. Howard, 1834, folio. The Countess of Surrey appears to have been fond of literature; and, as she calls Skelton her “clerk,” we may suppose that she particularly patronised him. The probability is, that the present poem was really composed at Sheriff-Hutton Castle, which (as already noticed, p. 300) had been granted by the king to the Duke of Norfolk for life, and that the Countess was residing there on a visit to her father-in-law. The _Garlande of Laurell_ was written, I apprehend, about 1520, or perhaps a little later: in v. 1192 Skelton mentions his _Magnyfycence_, which was certainly produced after 1515,—see note on title of that piece, p. 236. Page 392. v. 771. _beue_] i. e. bevy. v. 774. _warhe_] i. e. work. v. 775. _asayde_] i. e. tried, proved. Page 393. v. 776. _cronell_] i. e. coronal, garland. v. 786. _of there lewdnesse_] May mean (as Nott explains it, Surrey’s _Works_, i.—Append. p. ix.)—of their ignorance, ignorantly; but I rather think the expression is here equivalent to,—evilly, impudently. v. 787. _tappettis and carpettis_] See note on v. 474. p. 311. v. 790. _To weue in the stoule_] So Chaucer; “And _weauen in stole_ the radevore.” _Leg. of Philomene_, fol. 195.—_Workes_, ed. 1602. and Hall; “On their heades bonets of Damaske syluer flatte _wouen in the stole_, and therupon wrought with gold,” &c. _Chron._ (_Hen. viii._) fol. vii. ed. 1548.—Mr. Albert Way observes to me that in _Prompt. Parv. MS. Harl._ 221, is “Lyncent werkynge instrument for sylke women. Liniarium,” while the ed. of 1499 has “Lyncet workinge _stole_;” and he supposes the _stole_ (i. e. stool) to have been a kind of frame, much like what is still used for worsted work, but, instead of being arranged like a cheval glass, that it was made like a stool,—the top being merely a frame or stretcher for the work. —— _preste_] i. e. ready. v. 791. _With slaiis, with tauellis, with hedellis well drest_]—_slaiis_, i. e. sleys, weavers’ reeds: _tauellis_, see note, p. 94. v. 34: “_Heddles_, _Hedeles_, _Hiddles_. The small cords through which the warp is passed in a loom, after going through the reed.” _Et. Dict. of Scot. Lang._ by Jamieson, who cites from G. Douglas’s _Æneid_;