1the shakinge of the sheetes. Of this allusion, Gray writes, “According to Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, I, 84ff., the name of a country dance” (p. 71). See also OED shaking (n.), sense 1d, which notes that the phrase “shaking of the sheets” was “in the 16–17th centuries very often used jocularly for sexual intercourse.”back to note source
5Make readie then your winding sheete. The burial shroud, or winding sheet, is a frequent motif in poems of the danse macabre tradition. See, for example, the Emperor’s comment at lines 85–86 in the A version of Lydgate’s Dance of Death, where he acknowledges his worldly wealth will pass away and he will be left with “a simple shete — ther is no more to seyne — / To wrappe in my body and visage.”back to note source
14the banker with his beating hookes. This allusion is untraced. The later printed editions emend it to “baiting hookes” (see Textual Note to this line), an image that suggests a desire to lure unsuspecting clients into disadvantageous financial arrangements.back to note source
23How sodenlie in Oxfordshire. An allusion to the “Black Assize” at Oxford in 1577, an outbreak of “gaol fever” (likely typhus) that coincided with the trial of a recusant bookseller by a largely Puritan jury. See ODNB, “Barham, Nicholas.”back to note source
26And tooke both Bell and Baram away. Sir Robert Bell, chief baron of the exchequer, and Nicholas Barham, a sergeant-at-law, were two of the dead during the “Black Assize.” While Sir Robert Bell was a judge and chief baron of the exchequer, it is not clear why Barnham is singled out here among the more than a dozen figures named in Holinshed’s Chronicle.back to note source
37peltinge. This word is likely of Scots origin. See DOST pelt (n.2).back to note source
ExplicitThomas Hill. None of the printed versions of the poem are signed. Gray suggests this may be Edmund Hill (1564–1644), an English Benedictine monk whose name in religion was Thomas St. Gregory (ODNB, “Hill, Edmund”). Hill published several devotional works, but there is no evidence to connect him directly to this text.back to note source