After Magnyfycence: Speaking Parrots, Everymen, and the Alter Rex

After Magnyfycence: Speaking Parrots, Everymen, and the Alter Rex

After the composition of Magnyfycence, Skelton spent the next few years writing less politically sensitive work: he focused mainly on a series of poetic flytings with various court poets, the comic poem The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng, and on refining the Skeltonic. The Skeltonic—which is characterized by irregular short lines of two or three stresses with long terminal rhyming chains—became Skelton’s main poetic gift to posterity. Though scholars like Jane Griffiths have drawn convincing connections between the Skeltonic and religious protest poetry from c.1534-1589, this type of stylistic analysis has not been applied when comparing Skelton’s earlier works against his later, openly anti-Wolsey satires. The importance of Speke, Parott has long been recognized: it is the first of Skelton’s poems generally recognized as satirizing Wolsey. Despite its importance in Skelton’s canon, its anti-Wolsey elements have not been compared against those found in texts like Against Venemous Tongues and Magnyfycence. That is not to say these earlier poems are identical to Speke, Parott: rather, the innovations found in this poem represent a crucial evolutionary link between the didactic, but ambigiously targetted Against Venemous Tongues and Magnyfycence, and the strident satire of Collyn Clout and Why Come Ye Nat To Courte?. Though it certainly is an opaque poem, Speke, Parott more clearly focuses on Wolsey as Skelton’s target, unequivocally singling out the Cardinal for the first time in the poet’s career.

Though he stepped up his program of invective against the Cardinal, Skelton continued to use the same (or very similar) imagistic tropes in Speke, Parott as he had in Against Venemous Tongues and Magnyfycence. One of the more memorable themes which Skelton began to develop in Magnyfycence and specifically adapted to target Wolsey exclusively in Speke, Parott is the image of the lowly cur. Buried amidst deeply obscure insults and jibes against Wolsey and the humanists (Skelton’s more academic enemies, broadly unrelated to Wolsey), Parrot wittily makes reference to Wolsey’s ambitions and pretentions by casting the Cardinal as a dog:

Bo-ho doth bark well, Hough-ho he rulyth the ring,

From Scarpary to Tartary renoun therein doth spryng,

With, ‘He sayd,’ and ‘We said.’ Ich wot now what ich wot,

Quod magnus est dominus Judas Scarioth. (130-133)⁷⁵
“Bo-ho”—a nonsense name—is said to “bark well”, as an alpha dog might, and thus he displays his dominance over the English political arena (“he rulyth the ring”). Indeed, Parrot tells his audience that Wolsey’s posturing is communicated across Europe and Asia. In missives sent to locations as diverse as Tartary and Italy (Mt. Scarpario is in Tuscany) Wolsey implies that his and Henry’s wishes are coequal: instead of only issuing letters in Henry VIII’s name (“He sayd”), Wolsey makes it appear as though he were co-equal with his monarch (“we sayd”). This is a particularly remarkable satirical feature in that it highlights a concern with Wolsey’s alleged attempts to usurp Henry VIII’s power long before it became commonplace (or safe) to voice such concerns. Wolsey would eventually be arrested in part for allegedly writing phrases that implied a parity between himself and Henry VIII—as Shakespeare would later dramatize as “ego et meus rex” (3.2.315)—as the articles of Wolsey’s arrest in December of 1529 show:

[Article 4] For having in divers letters and instructions to foreign parts used the expression, “the King and I,” and “I would ye should do thus,” “the King and I give unto you our right hearty thanks,” using himself more like a fellow to your Highness than a subject.⁷⁶

After he [Giustiniani] took leave, contrived a conference with Thomas More, newly made counsellor. Endeavored to draw him into conversation: but he pretended to know nothing, “declaring that the Cardinal of York most solely, to use his own expression, transacted this matter [the Anglo-French peace treaty of 1518] with the French ambassadors; so that the King himself scarcely knows in what state matters are.”⁷⁸

The base birth of Wolsey is a recurring theme in Skelton’s explicit anti-Wolsey satires. Though Speke, Parott is less obviously didactic than, say, Magnyfycence, Skelton uses his Parrot to concentrate his anti-commoner invective against Wolsey in a targeted manner that does not appear in his earlier works. In the following stanza from Speke, Parott, we can see Skelton’s continuing use of metaphors related to low birth (and, in this case, animals as well):

For Parot is no churlish chowgh, nor no flekyd pye,

Parrot is no pendugum, that men call a carlyng,

Parrot is no woodecocke, nor no butterfly,

Parrot is no stameryng stare, that men call a starlyng;

But Parot is my owne dere harte, and my dere derling.

Melpomene, that fayre mayde, she burneshed his beke:

I pray you, let Parrot have lyberte to speke. (204-210)⁷⁹
This stanza uses anaphora to emphasize that Parrot is not a “churlish chowgh” (an archaic name for a jackdaw, which Wolsey had adopted on his coat of arms), nor a thieving magpie, but is a “popegay ryall” and by virtue of his status as a bird of paradise he can be relied upon: he is not a “pendugum” (a garrulous person) that is popularly called a “carlyng” and so can be taken seriously. It is here we find the deeply-buried satirical swipe at Wolsey. “Carlyng” has several possible meanings; in addition, an onomatopoetic link between “carlyng” and ‘cardinal’ is suppositional but plausible.⁸⁰ More tellingly, “carlyng” is a diminutive form of ‘carl’, meaning a villein or farmer, and is consistent with Skelton’s usage of that “class-conscious” word in Magnyfycence. ‘Carl’ is also used as a synonym for ‘churl’, having derived from the same Old Teutonic word, ‘karlo-z’, and bearing the same negative implications as ‘churl’ after the thirteenth century, which remained throughout the early modern period.⁸¹

Parrot also makes mention of Wolsey’s size, often through obscure scholarly and Biblical allusions interspersed with insults based on Wolsey’s allegedly obese condition. A typical example of this is his reference to Wolsey as a ‘fat hog’:

O Esebon, Esebon, to the is cum agayne

Seon, the Regent Amorreorum,

And Og, that fat hog of Basan, doth retayne

The crafty coistronus Cananeorum,

And assilum, whilom refugium miserorum,

Non phanum, sed prophanum, standyth in lytyll sted:

Ulula, Esebon, for Jepte is starke ded!⁸²
This stanza is rich with criticism of Wolsey derived primarily from the Old Testament (and Numbers 21 in particular). England is linked with Esebon (Heshebon), an Amorite kingdom which was ruled by Seon (Sion) and conquered by the Israelites, and Og was an Amorite giant who ruled Basan (Bashan) and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites after their victory over Seon. ⁸³ Like many of Skelton’s metaphors (particularly in Speke, Parott) these two metaphors are a little confusing and not entirely appropriate: Og is linked to Wolsey by virtue of his bulk and Wolsey is connected to Seon because of the Biblical ruler’s tyranny. Esebon is connected with England purely because Seon (in this metaphor, Wolsey) ruled Esebon and was overcome by the godly Israelites (in this metaphor, presumably meant to represent right-thinking Englishmen). To Skelton it must have seemed an appropriate metaphor, if a bit muddied (and perhaps was intentionally muddy, as a tactic to avoid prosecution): Wolsey had won tremendous secular and religious power for himself and seemed to be the instrument of a resurgence of Papal political control in England (a perception which would later result in Wolsey being cast in a writ of praemunire). Of course, Skelton was a fervent traditionalist and blasted the humanists with the same vehemence that he applied to Wolsey, so it is difficult to argue for a fully-articulated argument behind this stanza. Whatever the exact implications of Skelton’s opaque message might have been, the connection between the apparently obese Lord Chancellor and the Biblical giant is clear enough.

As the decade progressed and Wolsey’s power increased, so too did Skelton’s invective. Collyn Clout, primarily composed before October 1522 (excepting a portion possibly written in early 1523), is built on the same satirical principles as Speke, Parott. Unlike his earlier satires, where the poet assumed a thick layer of ambiguity to protect himself, Collyn Clout maintains only a thin veneer of displaced opinion. Skelton does this by creating an ‘everyman’ narrator: Colin Clout. The reader is not initially aware of this device; Clout only introduces himself after a lengthy tirade against Wolsey. The first fifty lines of the poem then are at first perceived to come from Skelton himself. In this excerpt, we can see how Skelton begins by asking rhetorical questions about the hypocrisy evident in Wolsey’s actions:

What can it avayle…

To wryte or to indyte

Other for delyte

Or elles for despyte?

Or bokes to compyle

Of dyvers maner style,

Vyce to revyle

And synne to exyle?

To teche or to preche

As reason wyll reche?

Sey this and sey that:

‘His heed is so fat

He wottyth never what

Ne whereof he speketh.’⁸⁴

And yf ye stande in doute

Who brought this ryme aboute,

My name is Collyn Cloute.

I purpose to shake oute

All my connynge bagge,

Lyke a clerkly hagge.

For though my ryme be ragged,

…

It hath in it some pyth.⁸⁵

In our examination of Skelton's Colyn Clout, we must realize that Colin Clout, Skelton's spokesman in the poem, is usually attacking Wolsey, the embodiment of all episcopal faults…. [At] other times Colin is pointing to a few good bishops who are alert and conscientious keepers of their charges but lack courage and boldness in attacking evil and bringing about reform. These few, as well as others with sufficient talent, education, and character, are at times encouraged to exercise their neglected episcopal functions (namely, preaching and spiritual leadership) and withstand the one (obviously Wolsey) who is stripping from the prelates their ancient rights and privileges.⁸⁸

But they are lothe to mell,

And lothe to hange the bell

Aboute the cattes necke,

For drede to have a checke.

They are fayne to play deuz decke.⁹⁰

But when the bell had been bought, and hung on the chain,

There was never a rat in the rout—not for the realm of France

--That dared to bind the bell about the Cat’s neck,

Nor hang it over his head, for the while of England.

They confessed themselves fearful, and their plan feeble,

And allowed that their labour was lost, and all their long scheming.⁹¹
By portraying Wolsey as a cat which ought to be controlled (in this metaphor, by means of a bell), Colin Clout both belittles Wolsey as, in essence, a relatively minor domestic predator and also provides moral contrast by comparing Wolsey with the good bishops. Of course, even the good bishops are too afraid of Wolsey to confront him for fear of punishment: “checke” here can mean a rebuke, but it can also mean a noose, as can be seen in Magnyfycence: “A Tyborne checke / Shall breke his necke” (907-11).

A recurring image that Skelton was helpless to resist was to form an imagistic pun on the surname of Wolsey’s longtime mistress, Joan Larke. Wolsey’s longtime relationship with Joan Larke, who bore Wolsey two children before being married to another man, was not a well-kept secret. Colin Clout mocks the relationship by addressing Wolsey directly:

I tell you as men say.

Amende whan ye may,

For, usque ad montem Sare,

Men say, ye can nat appare;

For some say ye hunte in parkes

And hauke on hobby larkes

And other wanton warkes

Whan the nyght darkes.⁹²

As in the earlier satires, Collyn Clout is also rife with jibes about Wolsey’s size. Early in the poem, Skelton makes clear that the everyman Colin Clout (and by extension the godly people of England) makes a firm connection between the tendency of bishops to increase in size and worldliness as they rise within the Church:

But thus the people carke,

And surely thus they sey:

‘Bysshoppes, yf they may,

Small householdes woll kepe,

But slombre forth and slepe,

And assay to crepe

Within the noble walles

Of the kynges halles,

To fatte theyr bodyes full,

Theyr soules lame and dull;

And have full lytell care

Howe evyll theyr shepe fare.’⁹⁴

1522 proved to be something of a climactic year for Skelton and his anti-Wolsey satire, as the poet finished Collyn Clout in the summer and moved on to his most open anti-Wolsey invective in Why Come Ye Nat To Courte?, which was completed in October of 1522. Like Collyn Clout, Why Come Ye Nat To Courte? is primarily composed in the Skeltonic: Kinsman has counted 1248 lines of English Skeltonic, 27 lines of Latin Skeltonic, 10 leonine hexameters and 4 hexameters.⁹⁵ The long, occasionally breathless Skeltonic chains give this poem a speed and urgency which is reflected in the vehemence of the polemic used. The poem opens with a warning: “All noble men of this take hede, / and beleve it as your crede.”⁹⁶ The poet, no longer using a narrator-character to protect himself, revisits themes and images he used in his previous satires:

To hasty of sentence,

To ferce for none offence,

To scarce of your expence,

To large in neglygence,

To slacke in recompence,

To haute in excellents,

To lyght intellegence,

And to lyght in credence;

Where these kepe resydence,

Reson is banysshed thence,

And also dame Prudence,

With sober Sapyence.⁹⁷

Than, without collusyon,

Marke well this conclusyon:

Through suche abusyon,

And by suche illusyon,

Unto great confusyon

A noble man may fall,

And his honour appall.

And yf ye thynke this shall

Not rubbe you on the gall,

Than the devyll take all!⁹⁹
In this excerpt, we can see the didactic heritage of Magnyfyence; Skelton is warning the nobility that if left unchecked, Wolsey will ruin them; however, as John Scattergood points out, there is a strong element of ambiguity here.¹⁰⁰ The “noble man” of line 22 may refer to Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, who was executed on May 17, 1521, and thus might be either a condemnation of Stafford or a defense of him. If we read this as a condemnation, then this passage can be a prediction: if Wolsey does not mend his ways, he too will soon fall. If we read this as a defense, then the warning is being given to the truly noble men of the realm, who may be dragged down by the ‘confusyon’ wrought by a man like Wolsey. In either case, the message is simple: these traits, when present in the leading figures of a government, cause turmoil.

The dangers of a kingdom ruled by vice-ridden men are expounded upon at great length; they vary from domestic misrule to disastrous foreign wars. Skelton rails against Wolsey’s poor policies: “For whyles he doth rule, / All is warse and warse”.¹⁰¹ In a patriotic appeal to his countrymen, Skelton devotes some eighteen lines to anti-Scottish and French insults, followed by a return to his didactic warnings:

But yet they [the French and Scottish] over-shote us

Wyth crownes and wyth scutus;

Wyth scuties and crownes of golde

I dred we are bought and solde.

It is a wonders warke.

They shote all at one marke:

At the Cardynals hat.

They shot at that!¹⁰²

When "some" of the bishops are denounced as luxurious, "they" are described riding on mules, bedecked in gorgeous garments (309-322)-a description that tallies perfectly with Cavendish's famous picture of Wolsey proceeding to court.¹⁰³

As in the earlier satires, canine imagery features prominently among other animal images in this poem. In Decastichon Virulentum, a short Latin poem appended to Why Come Ye Nat To Courte?, Wolsey is referred to as “maris lupus”, the ‘wolf of the sea’.¹⁰⁴ The pun on Wolsey’s name that this image centers on is perhaps not entirely appropriate, since Wolsey was not particularly connected with the sea, nor would assuming Skelton is making some sort of piratical allusion be a solid supposition; instead it seems most plausible that Skelton simply appreciated the paronomasic qualities of ‘Wolsey’ and ‘wolf-sea’. This hypothesis is borne out by the onomatopoetic pun on Wolsey’s name in line 131 of Why Come Ye Nat To Courte? wherein the narrator refers to Wolsey’s “webbe of lylse wulse”, meaning a web of poor-quality wool. Regardless of whatever artistic merit readers may assign to the pun, Skelton is clearly making a pejorative link between Wolsey and the often-maligned wolf, a symbol of clerical rapaciousness.

Of course, it would be difficult to cite every example of anti-Wolsey imagery in this poem; Skelton devotes the majority of the text to blasting Wolsey in various ways. But one final image must be remarked upon, for it in many ways sums up Skelton’s legacy as far as Wolsey is concerned. In the following passage, Skelton impugns Wolsey by evoking the Cardinal’s heritage as the son of a butcher:

He [Wolsey] regardeth lordes

No more than potshordes.

He is in suche elacyon

Of his exaltacyon,

And the supportacyon

Of our soverayne lorde,

That, God to recorde,

He ruleth all at wyll

Without reason or skyll.

How be it the primordyall

Of his wretched originall,

And his base progeny,

And his gresy genealogy,

He came of the sank royall

That was cast out of a bochers stall!¹⁰⁵