Cardinal Beaton: Villain or Statesman? by V.E.H. Masters

 A day out in Edinburgh recently and walking through the Cowgate, I passed this sign.

Few figures in sixteenth-century Scotland aroused stronger opinions than Cardinal David Beaton. To his supporters he was a skilled diplomat and defender of Scotland’s independence and Catholic faith. To his enemies he was a corrupt churchman whose death marked the beginning of the Scottish Reformation.

Born around 1494 into the powerful Beaton family of Fife, David Beaton rose rapidly through the Church and royal administration. Educated at St Andrews University and in France, he became an accomplished diplomat, serving James V before being appointed Cardinal in 1538, making him Scotland’s most influential churchman - and a very wealthy man. The house referred to above was only one amongst many which he owned.

Beaton was also Archbishop of St Andrews and it was as such that we were told about him in primary school – for I grew up in St Andrews, Scotland. His Bishop's palace was St Andrews Castle, the ruins of which were very exciting to visit especially because of its long siege tunnel.

                                           St Andrews Castle

Beaton was a determined opponent of Protestant reform and a staunch defender of Scotland’s alliance with France. These policies brought him into direct conflict with Henry VIII, who had broken with Rome and sought to dominate Scotland through the proposed marriage of his son Edward to the infant Mary, Queen of Scots – both of whom were only small children at the time.

Henry regarded Beaton as one of his greatest obstacles. English agents closely followed the Cardinal’s activities, and the English government viewed him as the chief architect of resistance to English influence in Scotland.

                                                       King Henry VIII

Determined that the marriage would happen, Henry conducted a campaign of raids into Scotland known as the Rough Wooing. He also had a number of Scottish supporters, referred to as his 'pensioners' who he paid for their backing.

Cardinal Beaton, as he moved around his domain, was aware of how vulnerable he was. Here's an exert from my novel, The Castilians which explains more fully.

Out Bethia goes into the twilight in time to see Cardinal Beaton’s entourage returning to St Andrews. He’s not there, no doubt ridden ahead with his guard of soldiers tight about him, the townsfolk made to line the streets and bow as he passes. The baggage train, although well guarded, will travel too slow for his safety. She’d heard it was recently attacked but, not finding the Cardinal, the ruffians indulged in a spot of thievery, stealing a chest full of gold coin.

A small crowd is still there. They’ve seen it many times, for the Cardinal never travels lightly, but the wonder of the long line of carts carrying food, fine wine, bedding, clothing, silver plates, fuel, a hundred servants both French and Scots, and the final crowning glory, his four- poster bed perched upon a broad cart, never fails to entertain – although she can hear angry muttering too. She turns to leave, after the passing of the bed, and finds the lanky figure of her brother behind her, his face dark with anger.

‘You know it is his fault.’

‘What is?’ she says, wearily. She’s cold, and in no mood to stand listening to another of Will’s rants, as well as fearful someone might overhear him.

‘Come, let me show you.’

He turns and marches for home and she trails behind. Waving her to wait, he disappears up the spiral to the attics. She stands warming herself, her back to the fire, longing for the unseasonably wintry May to pass. She can hear Will rummaging in the room above, boards creaking, and then he’s thundering back down the stairs, bursting into the room waving a paper.

He kicks the door shut, flapping it in front of her face. 

It’s a notice. She can see the hole where it was once pinned to a church door or a tree, or, most likely, a Mercat cross. She tilts it, trying to read in the firelight.

‘You may thank your Cardinal for this...’ it begins.

She looks at Will questioningly.

‘When Henry Tudor’s troops sacked Haddington and all the other towns, and even burnt the kirk at St Monans, over the past two years, they left a notice each time with these words,’ he explains.

She feels the fear, like a punch to her belly. ‘And how is it that the King of England invades our country and it becomes the fault of our Cardinal, who has been the great defender of Scotland? Take care, Will, this is anglophile talk, and treason forby.’

‘It was us who broke the treaty promising our infant queen in matrimony to King Henry’s son,’ he mumbles, looking down at his feet.

‘It is a too rough wooing of our wee Queen Mary,’ she says angrily.

‘Why can’t you understand Bethia – we must have reform of the church, and Cardinal Beaton blocks it. And he’s all about supporting French interests, for they align with his own.’

She reaches up and touches his face. ‘Will, please don’t listen to those lairds. Father says they are not good men.’

He knocks her hand away and leaves the room, slamming the heavy door behind him. 

Cardinal Beaton is most widely remembered for ordering the execution of the reformer George Wishart for heresy.  Wishart was burned outside the walls of St Andrews Castle in March 1546. According to some accounts, Beaton watched the execution from a castle window, wrapped against the cold. Yet he did order that Wishart, once he was tied at the stake, be draped in gunpowder so when the fire caught it would explode and Wishart's torment would be over swiftly.

                                                      George Wishart

One of the reasons Beaton had Wishart killed was Wishart's advocacy, amongst other ecclesiastical reforms, for the right of clergy to marry. The Cardinal staunchly defended the principle of clerical celibacy and yet had a long term relationship with Marion Ogilvy with whom he had eight children.

Increasingly fearful for his life, Cardinal Beaton ordered the strengthening of St Andrew's Castle defences. In late May 1546, barely three months after Wishart's death, a group of Protestant lairds, taking advantage of the work being carried out, disguised themselves as stone masons and entered the castle in the early morning. 

Taken unawares, Beaton was stabbed to death in his chamber and his naked body hung from the ramparts so that all would know that these men were now in control. They called themselves The Castilians, as in holders of the castle – hence the title of my book.

                                            Geddy Map of St Andrews, 1580

In school, we were always told the men who took the castle were the good guys because they were the Protestants. But many were in the pay of Henry VIII and they ran amok in St Andrews during the fourteen months in which they held the castle.

These dramatic events form the backdrop to my novel The Castilians, which follows ordinary men and women of St Andrews caught up in the chain of events that led to Beaton's assassination and the long siege which followed. 

To Protestant reformers, Beaton was a symbol of corruption and tyranny. Modern historians tend to see a more complex figure: an able diplomat, a determined statesman, a flawed churchman and a man attempting to preserve a political and religious order that was already beginning to collapse.

Nearly five centuries after his death, Cardinal Beaton remains one of the most fascinating and controversial figures of the Scottish Reformation.

References:

Sanderson, Margaret H. B, Cardinal of Scotland: David Beaton c.1494–1546.

Dawson, Jane E. A., Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587

Donaldson, Gordon, The Scottish Reformation

Knox, John, History of the Reformation in Scotland.

Author Bio

V.E.H. Masters is the best selling author of the award winning Seton Chronicles, which follows a Scottish family caught up in the religious and political upheavals of sixteenth century Europe. She grew up on a farm near St Andrews and drew on her own experience of farming life when writing her most recent, and contemporary, novel Keeping Distance. She lives in the Scottish Borders with her husband and two cats.

For three free short stories which tell more of the Seton Family visit www.vehmasters.com and pick up your copies of A Bonny Lass, Sounds of Silence and A Long Wait. 

Why did men wear Cod Pieces? by Vicky Masters

I went to see the rock group Jethro Tull perform on several occasions when I was a lot younger. The front man, Ian Anderson, would stand on one leg playing the flute, which was fairly impressive, but what really drew the eye was the glittering codpiece he wore while doing so.

The next time I encountered a codpiece was many years later in a display case amongst the dressing up clothes at Stirling Castle. This was on a whole different level to Anderson's which seemed remarkably discreet by comparison. Indeed, to my 21st century eyes, it was so immodestly large and protruding I was embarrassed to be caught staring at it and moved swiftly on.

 When I came to write my first novel I debated whether my characters should don them or not and wondered if they were indeed commonly worn by the men of Scotland in 1546. I decided to delve, metaphorically, into the codpiece further.

Cod, in this instance, has nothing to do with fish but was the slang for scrotum. Codpieces began as something quite practical – a small piece of cloth to fill the space between tunic and hose, serving the function of the contemporary zip fly and preserving men's modesty. But as the fashion in doublets became shorter, greater covering was required and the codpiece became a fashion statement of itself, and a sign of virility in the early 1500s. 

They were inevitably the provenance of the wealthy, a statement of power and masculine bravado and, as such, were worn by the swashbuckler about town. They were not considered acceptable wear for the humbler members of society – although smaller twill versions have been found.

Often they were decorated with tassels, bows or jewels. Some were large enough to store coins, a handkerchief or even a handy snack. The increased padding provided protection from swords, lances and other implements of war. Here's King Henry VIII's armour, with protective appendage, which can be viewed at the Tower of London.

But the era of the cod piece was also the period when the pox was rife throughout Europe. Treating syphilis involved a range of herbs, sticky unguents and decoctions. Containing it all within a large codpiece helped protect clothing from stains, as well as keeping the poultice in place.

The sumptuary Act of 1562 raises 'the monstrous and outrageous greatness' of codpieces, although the new double ruffs worn at the neck also incurred disapproval. Both were categorised as inappropriate apparel for any but those attending court and the phrase 'aping your betters' was much bandied about.

By late 16th century the cod piece had had its day and was replaced by the well padded stomach, known as a peascod belly; the codpiece beneath gradually shrinking in size – as in this Portrait of a Gentleman below painted circa 1580 where the codpiece only peeps out.

 

As for why Ian Anderson sported one I suspect it was a piece of flamboyant fun that fitted with the overall romance of the clothes of the 1970s. And his was modest by comparison with the 'packages' some other rock stars were creating.

And did I have my male characters sport codpieces...  in my third in series The Apostates one does pop up, which I had some fun with…

Bethia turned to the man on her other side who was wearing a most alarming headdress, consisting of a number of ostrich feathers set in a metal ring around his bonnet. They were dyed in alternating red and green, drawing all eyes to him and making him seem much taller than he was. Each time he turned his head the feathers brushed against the side of Bethia's face.
     'Your plumes are most wondrous,' she said.
     He preened, proud as any cock. 'They are come from Matthaus Schwarz, for he is the king of such designs.'
      Bethia smiled politely.
      'You don't know of Master Schwarz? I thought you were recently living in Antwerp, and he works for the Fuggers who are much in evidence in that city.'
       'I do know of the Fugger Brothers for they are great merchants but I didn't go out much while I lived in Antwerp.'
      'You must be very happy to have left then,' said her companion and she couldn't stop the bubble of laughter escaping.
      They discussed ostrich feathers, and the delicate task of dyeing them so they weren't damaged, until the subject was exhausted at which point he moved onto cod pieces, standing up to display the thrust of his.
      'Look, I had my jeweller provide a few diamonds to make it sparkle and the tassels are of my particular design. It even cunningly holds this,' he said fiddling at his package.
      Bethia knew she should avert her eyes but somehow could not. She waited to see what would emerge. He tugged out a handkerchief, flourishing it to the applause of those around them. 

References:

Grace Vicary, Visual Art as Social Data: The Renaissance Codpiece

Ruth Goodman, How to be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life

V E H Masters is the award winning author of The Seton Chronicles. You can find out more about her at vehmasters.com. and if you subscribe to her newsletter there are a couple of free short stories relating to her novels, available only for subscribers

 

Colouring in Oxford by Janie Hampton

The tower of Magdalen College was built in 1492 beside the River Cherwell
Copyright Janie Hampton, 2019.

The River Cherwell (pronounced ‘Charwell’) flows into the River Thames- but where it flows through Oxford, the Thames is called the Isis! It then goes back to being the Thames until London and then the English Channel. On May Morning, Magdalen choir sing from the top of the tower at dawn. Then drunk students leap off Magdalen Bridge into the River Cherwell. It is shallow enough to punt, so a dangerous pastime. On the left are the Oxford Botanical Gardens, home to many exotic and wonderful plants.

It is far too hot here in Southern England to read much. So here are some drawings of the history of Oxford you may print out. Then go and sit under a tree, or any shadey, cool place, and colour them in. Choose your favourite. Or print out several and offer them to friends, or neighbours. But don't sell them or use them for commercial gain. You can use paint, coloured pencils or felt pens, or a combination of all three. There are no rules for colouring. Use any colour you like, stay in the lines, go over the lines, add your own flowers, leaves and people. The only rule is that you should enjoy doing it. This is not work, or school prep, it is for fun!

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) visited Oxford once, in 1566.
The castle mound in the background is still there. Copyright Janie Hampton, 2019.

In 1566 Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) visited Oxford during her annual ‘Royal Progress’ around England. The Queen and her courtiers were entertained by university students with debates, plays and music. She attended discussions at the Church of St Mary the Virgin and closed the final debate herself with a speech in Latin. Five years later in 1571, she founded Jesus College, the first Protestant college. Her father, Henry VIII, had ensured she was well-educated and although she had no children of her own, she paid for the education of many of her 100 godchildren.

Alice Lidell (left) and her sisters Lorina and Edith with ukuleles in 1848.
From a photograph by Lewis Carroll, author of ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
Copyright Janie Hampton, 2019.

The drawing above of Alice Lidell (1852-1934) and her sisters is possibly the first ever photo of anyone playing a ukelele. Though some people dispute these were exactly like ukeleles that we play today. Can you spot the characters from ‘Alice in Wonderland’? 

Stained glass window in Christ Church Cathedral, designed by Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) . Copyright Janie Hampton, 2019.

Christ Church cathedral was built on the site of St Frideswide's monastery, which dates back to the 12th Century. Christ Church College, where many British Prime Ministers were educated, was built in 1525, funded by Henry VIII as part of his dissolution of Roman Catholic monasteries and establishment of the Church of England.
Oxford, originally called Oxnaforda, (the place where Oxen could cross the river without a bridge) has been here for over a thousand years. I have lived in Oxford thirty four years this week, and little has changed, apart from more traffic, more visitors and more cafés with wi-fi. It is not often I really look at this beautiful, old city. Doing these drawings made me look, and think, and appreciate. One day I may have enough to make a whole book. But for now, I share a few of them with you, gentle readers. If you like them I shall do some more.

www.janiehampton.co.uk 

Cabinet of Curiosities - A Cat's Got In! - by Charlotte Wightwick

The last few weeks for me have been all about one thing. No, not Brexit.

February and March have, for me, been the months of The Cat. Within days of my Feline Overlord arriving, I was fully under the paw, accepting as standard the fact that I will be woken up every day at 5am by a barrage of yowls, followed by a large furry creature sitting on my head, attempting to lick my face and demanding I get up to feed it. Not to mention all the 'help' I get whenever I sit down to write anything.

Stevie the Cat, helping. Source: C. Wightwick

The joys of cat ‘ownership’ have made me wonder what feline artefact should be placed in the Cabinet of Curiosities to celebrate the thousands of years that humans have been domesticated by cats.

The obvious place to start is of course ancient Egypt, where cats were famously worshipped as gods and millions of cat mummies have been found. Personally, I’ve never quite got over the horror/ fascination of seeing kitten mummies at the British Museum as a small child: somehow the idea disturbed me more than the idea of embalmed people. I’m not sure what this says about me – nothing good, I fear. 

Ancient Egyptian cat mummies

Source: Wikipedia Commons

One of my favourite ‘real life’ historical cats is Pangur Ban, the subject of a ninth-century Irish poem, who spends his time hunting mice while his master, the monk and author of the poem, styles himself as a hunter of words. As a lover of medieval history, there’s something about this poem that really appeals to me: it gives me an incredibly vivid image of a tonsured and robed monk, writing long into the night with only his white cat, chasing mice through the library, for company.

The next candidate for the Cabinet of Curiosities has to be the suit of feline armour recently doing the rounds on Twitter, reportedly made for Henry VIII’s cat Dagobert. I suspect I wasn’t alone spending a few confused minutes wondering how on earth one persuaded a cat to wear said armour (presumably a LOT of whatever the sixteenth century equivalent of Dreamies were) before finding out that Dagobert probably never existed, and the armour is modern, created by Canadian artist Jeff de Boer. A disappointment.

I saw my final option on Twitter too, but this one is attested by the good folks (and specifically Mark Forsyth, author of A Short History of Drunkenness) at History Extra. And it’s a good one: the ‘Puss and Mew Machine’: a mechanical cat-shaped gin dispenser. The machine was a way of illegal gin-sellers avoiding the swingeing taxes that the government had imposed in an effort to ban drinking among the lower classes in the eighteenth century. You can find out more at https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/gin-craze-panic-18th-century-london-when-came-england-alcohol-drinking-history/. I knew there was something missing from my life, and now I know what it is.

So, which feline delight shall go into the Cabinet? A mummified kitten, a ninth-century monk’s companion, some impossible feline armour or a mechanical gin-dispensing cat? Its tricky. But as a ‘word hunter’ myself, I think it will have to be the memory of a small white cat, over a thousand years old but immortalised forever:

I and Pangur Bán, my cat
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight

Hunting words I sit all night.

Written by an unknown Irish monk, 9th century. Trans Robin Flower. 

The page of the Reichenau Primer on which the Pangur Ban 

poem is preserved. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Lady in the Tower by Lynne Benton

In 1503 Walter Hungerford III was born at Heytesbury, Wiltshire, the only child of Sir Edward Hungerford of Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset, and his first wife, Jane Zouche.  They lived in his family home, Farleigh Castle in Wiltshire, which I was lucky enough to visit recently.  And it was there that I learnt the story of the Lady in the Tower.

The remains of Farleigh Castle today

Walter was nineteen when his father died in 1522, and soon afterwards became squire to Henry VIII.  He married three times, but prospered only after his third marriage in 1532 to Elizabeth, daughter of John Hussey, first Baron Hussey of Sleaford.  Walter was keen for advancement, so he asked his father-in-law to recommend him to Henry VIII’s rising minister Sir Thomas Cromwell.  This Hussey did, and subsequently let it be known that Walter would like to become Sheriff of Wiltshire, a desire which was gratified in 1533.  Walter became Cromwell’s agent in the Farleigh area, a service which bore fruit in 1536 when he was created the first (and last) Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury.  Thus far his third marriage had served him well.

The Hungerford coat of arms

However, by that time his father-in-law, John Hussey, had fallen out of favour at court, so in punishment Lord Walter began to persecute his unfortunate wife Elizabeth.  His treatment of her was remarkable for its brutality.  He locked her in a tower at Farleigh Castle

The tower probably used for her incarceration

and kept her there for four years, during which time his chaplain, William Bird, brought her food and drink.  However, she didn't trust Bird, and in around 1539 she wrote an appeal for protection to Cromwell, saying that she was “continually locked in one of my Lord’s towers in his castle … these three or four years past … under the custody of my Lord’s chaplain, which has once or twice heretofore poisoned me.”  She claimed that she was often reduced to drinking her own urine, and that without the charity of “poor women of the country” who “brought me to my great window, in the night, such meat and drink as they had”, she would have starved to death.  Apparently they rigged up a basket and pulley system through a window in the tower, and provided her with food and drink.  This may have been the window they used.

The window in the tower

It is not known whether Cromwell ordered Elizabeth’s release on receipt of her letter, but by that time Henry VIII was becoming increasingly worried about uprisings in the country protesting about his break with the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  For this reason Thomas Cromwell, the King’s Chief minister, also fell out of favour. 

Sir Thomas Cromwell

Unsurprisingly it was not long before the king also caught up with Cromwell’s protégé, Lord Walter, and in 1540 he accused Walter, together with William Bird, of sympathising with the so-called “Pilgrims of Grace”, a popular uprising that had begun in Yorkshire in 1536 and was spreading.  The members were protesting not only about Henry’s split from Rome and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but also about Thomas Cromwell’s policies and other political, social and economic grievances. 

On 28^th July 1540 both Lord Walter Hungerford and Sir Thomas Cromwell were beheaded on Tower Hill: Cromwell for treason and Lord Walter for treason, witchcraft and the then capital crime of homosexuality.  Contemporaries noted that Lord Walter had gone mad by the time of his execution, ‘for he seemed so unquiet, that many judged him rather in a frenzy than otherwise.’

After her husband’s death Elizabeth was finally released from the tower.  She survived, and subsequently married Sir Robert Throgmorton, with whom she had five daughters.  She died peacefully in 1554.

website: www.lynnebenton.comwww.lynnebenton.com

latest book: "Danger at Hadrian's Wall"

"Graven with Diamonds" by Nicola Shulman - review by Katherine Langrish

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot stalking in my chamber…

I’ve always loved Thomas Wyatt’s poetry, so I was delighted a couple of years ago to come across Nicola Shulman’s wonderful account of his life and poems, ‘Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt, Courtier, Poet, Assassin, Spy’ (Short Books, 2011).  I meant to review it then, but was distracted by other things. Having just read it for the second time with as much thrilled admiration as before, I feel impelled to tell you all about it. You have to read this book! 

What makes it so different, besides being a detailed and knowledgeable biography, is Shulman’s fascinating interrogation of Wyatt’s lyrics. It is not a literary investigation, not an analysis of how he wrote. Rather,

This is a book about the uses of Wyatt’s love poetry; why he wrote. … At Henry’s [Henry VIII’s] court, Sir Thomas Wyatt and his poems were the hub and centre … and if we run the story of Wyatt’s life and times behind his lyrics, they – these apparently slight, unaddressed, undated, unadorned songs – will show us that they had more uses than we might imagine. Not all of their uses are evident to us now. Some of them would have been hidden even to Wyatt, at the outset. When Wyatt began to write poems he could not have guessed into what strange service they would be pressed by the changing times. To see their changing purpose is the purpose of this book. 

Wyatt was a courtier, but what was a courtier? Shulman recreates for us the Tudor court of the 1520s and 30s with its formalities, its hierarchies, its dependence on chivalric games and lavish spectacles to ‘fill the new and potentially dangerous longueurs of peacetime’, its love of pastime (‘Pastime and good company/I love and shall until I die’, Henry VIII wrote) and above all, its youth. Aged only 21, Wyatt was one of fifteen esquires who challenged Henry – himself still in his early thirties – at the elaborate Christmas Joust at Greenwich in 1525. After the outdoor martial entertainments, the company would proceed indoors to be entertained with ‘diversions and amusements’ on the fashionable theme of courtly love. Lyric poetry was an integral part of this. 

The primary social purpose of courtly love lyrics [was] that they and all the activity they generated were a way of dealing with sexual frustrations at court. In emulation of Francis I’s practices, attractive women were more and more visible at Henry’s court, and yet no more sexually available to the many young men in attendance than they had been before. Women were aloof, and men continually supplicated for favours that must not, under the rules of the system, ever come. The lyric operated in the gap between hope and expectation.

Wyatt’s poems circulated in what amounted to a private Facebook group ‘intended for a closed, incestuous coterie consisting of the most precocious and sophisticated men and women of the court’, and Shulman vividly recreates the context outside of which these poems lose much of their point.

            Help me to seek, for I lost it there,

               And if that ye have found it, ye that be here,

               And seek to convey it secretly,

               Handle it soft and treat it tenderly

               Or else it will plain [complain] and then appair [be damaged].

This riddling rondeau about something Wyatt has lost, which of course in the last verse turns out to be his heart, seems yawnworthy enough – but, Shulman asks, what if what’s happening here is an actual, physical game?

What if ‘mine heart’ is also an actual object, a heart-shaped envelope made of cloth with a balloon, or squeaking thing inside?  Now the poem comes to life. Under that construction, the otherwise mystifying lines ‘Handle it soft and treat it tenderly/Or else it will plain and then appair’, make sudden sense: if you are rough with it, it will pop or squeal, and go flat. 

Now we can imagine groups of giggling young people dashing about trying to smuggle an inflated heart from one room to another: a lost world in which a poem beginning ‘Comfort thyself, my woeful heart’ and includes lines such as, ‘Alas I find thee faint and weak,’ may conjure a vision of Wyatt making everyone laugh as he holds up a bladdered heart and makes it squeak. As Shulman says, 

It casts new light on a tiny Holbein drawing where a young couple in elegant dress are shown with a cup and a large heart. 

It wasn’t all sheer fun. Gossip and jealousy and spite must also have run rife through the court. Courtly love was an elaborate pretence; all the same, some young people probably really were in love – and in danger of losing their reputations.  

Take heed betime lest ye be spied,

Your loving eyes you cannot hide,

At last the truth will sure be tried,

Therefore take heed!

For some there be of crafty kind

Though ye show no part of your mind,

Surely their eyes ye cannot blind,

Therefore take heed!

A poem like this could have been an uncomfortable thing to encounter, passed around and recited, as malicious smiles and sideways glances picked out the blushing subjects. Wyatt’s carefulness to name no names, the apparent anonymity and deliberate ambiguity of his verse, was as much a protection for himself as it was for others. He left it possible for himself always to protest innocence.

            For what I sung or spake

               Men did my songs mistake.

There was a fine line to be trodden between amusing people, and making enemies – a line which, once Anne Boleyn was queen, became a matter of life and death.  

Shulman argues convincingly that Thomas Wyatt had, once, been in love with Anne Boleyn. In a sonnet written long after Anne’s disgrace and death, Wyatt declares himself to be in love again, this time with a blonde woman, someone very different from ‘Brunet that set my wealth [my well-being] in such a roar.’ 

‘Brunet’ is Anne Boleyn. There can be very little doubt about this, because Wyatt originally wrote,

Her that did set our country in a roar.

Then he thought better of it and amended the line in his own handwriting. In place of the too-explicit reference he put one word, ‘Brunet’ – just enough to invoke Anne, but only to those people at court who knew both that Wyatt was the author of this poem and that he had once pursued Anne Boleyn.

Unpicking the ambiguities of Wyatt’s verse to reveal the secret life of the court, Shulman shows how the elegant game of courtly love, played by young courtiers to unwritten rules which everyone understood, was ripped into coloured shreds by Thomas Cromwell. Flirting with the queen and her ladies had been de rigeur, la politesse, the correct behaviour for a courtier who wished to shine. (And it was later to be revived by Anne’s daughter Elizabeth, for her own political purposes, once she became queen.)

Cromwell … knew perfectly well how the courtly bargain worked in the case of a queen: amorous protestations were paid in, and favours paid out in grants, offices and promotions, not sex. 

Choosing, deliberately, to interpret all those courtly flirtations literally and legalistically, Cromwell brought Anne and her coterie to the block – and Wyatt to the Tower, though he escaped deeper involvement because Cromwell rather liked him, and there were enough other victims. And yet Wyatt wasn’t silenced. Shulman shows again and again how, for those who knew how to read his ever-ambiguous lyrics, Wyatt speaks out – candidly, boldly, sometimes in anguish – about the tragic and dangerous events in which he found himself embroiled. To all fans of Thomas Wyatt, as well as to all lovers of poetry and history, I recommend this brilliant and fascinating book.

Picture credits

Courtly couple, Hans Holbein the Younger, Kunstmuseum, Basle, wikimedia commons 

Sir Thomas Wyatt, Hans Holbein the Younger, Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

Anne Boleyn, artist unknown, National Portrait Gallery London, wikimedia commons

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, Hans Holbein the Younger, Frick Collection, public domain