COPE is also the name of an ancient custom or tribute due to the king, or lord of the soil, out of the lead-mines in some part of Derbyshire; of which Manlove faith thus:

Egrets and regrets to the king's highway, The miners have; and let and cope they pay: The thirteenth dish of ore within their mine, To the lord, for let, they pay at measuring time; Sixpence a load for cope the lord demands, And that is paid to the burghmaster's hands.

This word by Domesday-book, as Mr Hager hath interpreted it, signifies a hill: and cope is taken for the supreme cover, as the cope of heaven.