Alexander Dyce, A General Glossary to Shakespeare's Works

clubs “cannot part them,” AS YOU LIKE IT, v. 2. 37 ; “I'll call for clubs, if you will not away,” 1 HENRY VI., i. 3. 83 ; “Clubs, clubs! these lovers will not keep the peace,” TITUS ANDRONICUS, ii. 1. 37 ; “I missed the meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out ‘Clubs!’ when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw to her succour, which were the hope o' the Strand, where she was quartered,” HENRY VIII., v. 4. 48 ; “Clubs, bills, and partisans!” ROMEO AND JULIET, i. 1. 71. “It appears, from many of our old dramas, that, in our author's time, it was a common custom, on the breaking out of a fray, to call out ‘Clubs—clubs,’ to part the combatants” (MALONE) . “Clubs” was originally the popular cry to call forth the London apprentices, who employed their clubs for the preservation of the public peace. Sometimes, however, they used those weapons to raise a disturbance, as they are described doing in the last but one of the passages above cited.