Sometimes a Glove is Not Just a Glove

At about the time that the Countess of Somerset was released from her imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1622, Thomas Middleton wrote The Changeling, which includes a cruelly lascivious scene in which a dropped glove is not just a glove, and the would-be gallant's name (De Flowers, in English) is no accident:

De Flores: Here, lady. [He picks up her glove]
Beatrice: Mischief on your officious forwardness.
Who bade you stoop?
They touch my hand no more….
There, for t'other's sake I part with this;
Take 'em and draw thine own skin off with 'em.
  [She departs, leaving De Flores alone]
De Flores: Here's a favour come with a mischief. Now
I know she had rather wear my pelt tanned
In a pair of dancing pumps, than I should
Thrust my fingers into her sockets here.
I know she hates me, yet cannot choose but love her:
No matter. If but to vex her, I'll haunt her still-
Though I get nothing else, I'll have my will.