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Northumbria Research Link Northumbria Research Link Citation: Robinson, Jon (2005) Court politics and culture : their relationship to English and Scottish court literature, 1500-1540. Doctoral thesis, University of Northumbria at Newcastle. This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/15784/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html Some theses deposited to NRL up to and including 2006 were digitised by the British Library and made available online through the EThOS e-thesis online service. These records were added to NRL to maintain a central record of the University’s research theses, as well as still appearing through the British Library’s service. For more information about Northumbria University research theses, please visit University Library Online. 060 069 59 111111111120IIlilNllIII IIIV111IIIýý COURT POLITICS AND CULTURE: THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH COURT LITERATURE, 1500-1540 Jon Robinson Thesis submitted for the degreeof Doctor of Philosophy Department of English at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle October 2005 ABSTRACT t This thesis examinesthe ways in which Scottish and English court literature of the early sixteenth century existed within a complex system of entertainment, education, self-fashioning, dissimulation, propaganda and patronage that circumscribed the production and initial performance of court poetry and drama. Court literature was never autotelic and within the critical idiom of performative pragmatics selected works are placed under close critical scrutiny to explore the symbiotic relationship that existed between court literature and important socio- political, economic and national contexts of 1500-1540. The first two chapters discuss the pervasive influence of patronage upon court literature through an analysis of the panegyric verse that surrounded the coronation of Henry VIII. The rhetorical strategies adopted by courtiers within their literary works, however, differed, depending on whether the writer was, at the time of writing the verse or drama, excluded or included from the environs of the court. The different, often elaborate rhetorical strategies are, through close readings of selected verse, delineated and discussed in chapter three on David Lyndsay and chapter four on Thomas Wyatt and Thomas Elyot. Wyatt's integrity, his honest personais, however, in chapter five, shown to have been a facade deliberately and adroitly crafted by the poet that allowed him to survive and flourish within a world of political intrigue at the Henrician court. Literature at times could be appropriatedby the sovereign and specifically crafted on his behalf to further national and personal political objectives. The possibilities of this appropriation are explored in the final chapter through a scholarly informed imaginative analysis of the works of Buchanan,Dunbar and Wyatt. CONTENTS Abstract Acknowledgements Abbreviations Conventions Introduction 1 1 Poet, court and culture 15 2 Patronageand Panegyricverse 36 3 The `inclusive and exclusive' rhetorical strategy of 74 David Lyndsay's The Dreme and The Complaynt 4 Counsel, service, kingship and the moral reality of 112 the court 5 The `honestye' of Thomas Wyatt's court critique and the unstable `I' of his verse 157 6 The murky waters of court politics and poetic propaganda 208 Conclusion 253 Bibliography 257 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS t It is with deep-felt sincerity that I thank Dermot Cavanaghfor his initial guidance as the supervisor of my research.He allowed me the freedom to explore my ideas and proved to be an excellent source of information and advice. He would, no doubt, have continued to have exerted a beneficial influence upon my research had he not been offered a position at Edinburgh University. I would also like to thank Jane Shaw, along with numerousother individuals I have never actually met and who work behind the scenesat the Library of Northumbria University, for the excellent service that they have continually provided. Throughout the last three years they have been invaluable in securing me the numerous texts and articles necessaryfor my research.My deepestthanks, however, go to David Walker, not only for his having steppedinto the breach and taking over the role as my research supervisor a year and a half ago, but for the continued support, encouragement and genuine friendship he has offered me since our first meeting when he taught me Renaissanceliterature in the second year of my undergraduate degree at Northumbria University. He has been a great influence on both my deciding to undertake a PhD and my choice of subject matter. I can still remember the enthusiasm he instilled within me when he stood at the front of the lecture hall, the students completely captivated, as he spoke of how Thomas Wyatt was a `player', and a serious one at that, within the murky world of Tudor politics. I was hooked, and from that moment on have been driven to explore just how literature, particularly poetry, interacted with culture and politics during such a volatile and exciting period as that of the early sixteenth century. ABBREVIATIONS EC Essaysin Criticism ELH English Literary History ELR English Literary Renaissance HJ The Historical Journal HLQ The Huntington Library Quarterly JHI Journal of the History of Ideas JMRS The Journal of Medieval & RenaissanceStudies MA Medium Aevum MLN Modern LanguageNotes RES Review of English Studies RS Renaissance Studies SCJ Sixteenth Century Journal SHR The Scottish Historical Review SL Scottish Language SLJ Scottish Literary Journal SSL Studies in Scottish Literature SSR Scottish StudiesReview TSL TennesseeStudies in Literature TSLL TexasStudies in Literature and Language CONVENTIONS t Spelling during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century was not standardised and the same word in English can have a very different meaning in Scots. Any attempt to analyseearly Tudor and Stuart texts must confront the problem of early spelling and pronunciation. Changes in pronunciation, orthography and the meaning of specific words mean that for modern readersstraightforward texts can seemobscure and difficult to follow. On the whole I follow the modernisedspelling of the texts that are available in the editions of Wyatt, Dunbar, Skelton and Lyndsay's verse by Rebholz, Bawcutt, Scattergoodand Hadley Williams. There are times, however, due to the potential flexibility of meaning that comes from spelling in the period when, for clarity and the development of meaning that is lost in modernisation, I quote from either an early-spelling text or a manuscript source. When this occurs it is indicated with a footnote that explains the reasons why the early spelling of the verse is used. When quoting from a manuscript, from an early edition or an early-spelling edition, I have followed the recent example of critics such as Bawcutt and Heale and have modernised some aspectsof Tudor orthography and convention, altering `u's and `v's, `i's and J's and usually, `y's, to conform to modern usage. Jon Robinson INTRODUCTION t Gregory Kratzman, in Anglo-Scottish Literary Relations 1430-1550, the only relatively recent book-length study to look at the relationships between Scottish and English literature during the early sixteenth century, has detailed how the existence of a geographical and political border, or even, at times, bitter and devastating conflict, did not prevent English poetry from becoming known in Scotland, and vice versa.' Yet, Whilst Kratzman, and other critics, such as Henry Harvey Wood, in Two Scots Chaucerians, has been satisfied to outline the similarities between Scots and English verse within the context of literary influences, this is not my aim in this thesis. An investigation into similarities and connectionsbetween court poets must look to other matters than mere genre, style and sources.A. A Macdonald acknowledgesthis fact in a recent article on Anglo- Scottish literary relations when he remarks that `literary relationships need not only imply cultural contact and transfer, but may also embrace parallelism of topic and genre' and we should `attempt to take into account the whole 3 phenomenology and sociology of culture'. Nor is it my aim to offer an in-depth analysis of the way particular poets have stylistically created their verse, such as Priscilla Bawcutt's excellent book on `Dunbar the Makar' in which she discusses 4 the poet's craftsmanship and technical virtuosity. Similarly, it is not my intention 1Kratzman clearly statesin his preface to Anglo-Scottish Literary Relations that his aim within his thesis is the study of literary influences. Kratzman, G (1980) Anglo-Scottish Literary Relations 1430-1550. 2 Wood, H. (1967) Two Scots Chaucerians. 3 Macdonald, A. A. (1991)
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