No More Learning

IV) and the 'Walking Morte' (cap. XIX), his
curiosity as to the eccentricities and humour of villainy effaces his
mission as an exposer of abuses.
Awdeley's and Harman's books, together with Liber Vagatorum,
have influenced a whole class of literature, from Greene's 'conny-
catching pamphlets' to The Prince and the Pauper. And yet
the Caveat does not anticipate the spirit of the picaresque novel.
Though attracted by knavery, Harman has no toleration for the
knave. 'Lewtering Luskes, lasy Lorells, rowsey ragged rabblement
of rakehells' are amongst his designations for this class, and his only
methods for 'reforming the criminal' are the stocks and the whip.
It is worth noticing that this work, a pamphlet of unquestioned
merit, is free from the literary ideals of the court. Harman
alludes contemptuously to this delycat age, and disclaims all
pretensions to eloquence, declaring that he has set forth his work
‘symplye and truelye, with such usual words and termes as is
among us wel known and frequented.
While the social miseries of England were inspiring a whole
literature of narrative and exposure, the sixteenth century spirit of
cosmopolitanism was also finding popular expression. Curiosity with
regard to other countries was by no means a creation of the age. The
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries produced short Latin descrip-
tions of the characteristics of different nations, and a series of pen
and ink caricatures of the Irish, Welsh and Gascons are found in
the margin of a document of the time of Edward I. But popular
interest in the continent received a new impulse during the sixteenth
century. The immigration of foreigners had, by 1517, become a
marked feature of Euglish commercial life, and the period from 1512
1 Preface to Colloquia familiaria.


## p. 105 (#127) ############################################

Cosmopolitanism. Andrew Boorde
Boorde 105
>
to 1558 is one of tentative exploration, which, though it produced no
startling mercantile discoveries, accustomed England to the idea of
the expansion of Europe, and helped to produce a revolt against
insnlarity. As early as The Nature of the Four Elements, de-
claringe many proper poynts of philosophy naturall and of dyvers
strange landys and of dyvers straunge effects and causes,' we have
a conception of cosmography serving as a basis for a morality
play. The production, apparently, found no imitators. But the
broadening of the national outlook is proved by the ever-increasing
number of allusions to foreign countries, in the tracts of the
timel.
The growth of cosmopolitan ideas found its expression in a
collection of essays on the chief nationalities and kingdoms of
Europe composed by the traveller and physician Andrew Boorde.
This work was finished by 1542, but was not published until 1547,
under the significant title of The Fyrste Boke of the Introduction
of Knowledge. Again we find a work of considerable merit pro-
bably intended to preface a universal encyclopaedia and yet
produced for a public which had not completely dissociated
popular literature from the grotesqueries of the former age.
Each chapter begins with a prologue in doggerel verse, spoken
by a typical member of the country under discussion, and illus-
trated by one of Copland's stock woodcuts. These verses are
intended to portray, and, in some cases, to caricature, what is
typical of each nation. Thus, the Englishman stands naked,
musing on what clothes he shall wear; the Fleming cheerfully
admits that he is sometimes 'drunken as a rat'; the Cornishman
expresses himself in half intelligible English; the Bohemian stands
by Wyclif and cares nothing for the pope; the Venetian is repre-
sented with money to pacify the Turks and the Jews. But the
Introduction is not merely a forerunner of the modern cartoon.
Verse and prose are intermingled as in Thomas's Historye of
Italye ; the doggerel prologues are followed by prose descriptions
in which the author discusses the geographical situation, the
produce and the ‘naturall dysposicion, that is to say, the culture,
religion and customs, of the inhabitants. He ends each enquiry
with information on the coinage, sometimes with a few specimens
of the language, and, in one or two cases, with directions for travel.
Like much of the popular literature of the sixteenth century, the
2
>
>
1 Such as Supplication for the Beggars, Complaynt of Roderyck Mors, Dialogue
between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset (n. d. ), Rede me and be not wrothe (1528), The
Boke named the Governour (1531), eto. , eto.


## p. 106 (#128) ############################################

106 Progress of Social Literature in Tudor Times
Introduction stands between two ages ; it still retains the coarse
laughter and credulity of the past. Boorde believes that Merlin
built Stonehenge, and gravely records the legend of the White
Cock and Hen of St Domingo. But, at the same time, he has the
observation of an age conscious of progress. He notices the
advance of civilisation in different lands, and he understands
the importance of a country's natural resources. The economical
situation interests him; he observes that England is the land of
capital, and that Spain depends on her sea trade for wealth. He
has an eye for the poverty of people who, like the Welsh, are
still sunk in the squalor and ignorance of the Middle Ages. Any-
thing striking about the government attracts him, and the religious
situation frequently receives comment. And yet he has the indi-
vidualist's love of peculiarities. He notices the Irishman's device
for cooking, he reads that the Flemings eat frogs' legs and that
the Genoese are high in the instep.
Besides satisfying men’s curiosity in foreign lands, Boorde put
his medical knowledge and experience within reach of the unin-
itiated, by A Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of Helth. This
treatise on the cultivation of health, one of the earliest composed in
English, shows how quickly knowledge was spreading through the
middle classes. It was an age when the government insisted on
quarantine but neglected sanitation, and when Harrison believed
that the soot and smoke of chimneyless houses hardened the con-
stitution. Boorde was one of the first to see how greatly sanitation
influenced the well-being of man. The first part of his Dyetary,
really a separate treatise, shows how the secret of health is to
choose a convenient site or one's house. But the most striking
feature of his system deals with the reaction of the mind on the
body? In placing his house, a man should choose a congenial
prospect,
for and the eye be not satysfyed, the mynde cannot be contented. And the
mynde cannot be contented the herte cannot be pleased: if the herte and
mynde be not pleased nature doth abhor. And yf nature do abhor, morty-
fycacyon of the vytall and anymall and spyrytuall powers do consequently
foiowe.
In the second part of his treatise, Boorde gives practical advice
on such matters as sleeping, exercise and dress. He includes
an exhaustive examination of diet; but most of his purely
medical knowledge is still traditional. Yet, in scope and method,
>
Epistolae
1 Cf. Medici dicunt etiam quod sanum est quando aliquis est laetus.
Obscurorum Virorum, vol. I, ep. 9. Magister Conradus de Zuiccavia.


## p. 107 (#129) ############################################

William Bullein
107
the book is an effort to shake off the ignorance of the past and
apply to practical life the learning gathered in universities.
Boorde was not the only physician who advanced the culture
of his age. In those days, chirurgeons and doctors were, men of
general knowledge. Thomas Vicary insists that, besides his pro-
fessional training, a chirurgeon should be versed in natural
philosophy, grammar, rhetoric and abstract science. John Halle
adds astronomy, natural history and botany to the list. These
sciences were needed to equip the practitioner with the skill and
ability to put his own art to the fullest use. And thus the
physician kept in touch with the knowledge of his time. Robert
Recorde, said to have been physician to Edward VI and Mary,
wrote dialogues on arithmetic, geography, mensuration, astrology,
astronomny and algebra. But no writer has embodied so much
sentiment, learning, eloquence and dramatic power in his scientific
treatises as William Bullein. In his first book, The Gouvernement
of Healthe, we find a reflection generally considered the property
of Shakespeare:
In dede the poore sylly shepehard doth pleasantly pipe with his shepe,
whan mighty princes do fight amonge their subjectes, and breake manye
slepes in golden beds, whan bakers in bags and brewers in bottels, do snorte
upon hard strawe, fearing no sodaine mishappe.
In 1562, he produced Bullein's Bulwarke of Defence againste
Sicknes, Sorues, etc. , obviously modelling his title on Elyot's success-
ful Castel of Helth. Bullein's attitude to his subject can best be
expressed in the words of his own dedication ;
I beyng a child of the Commonwealthe am bounde unto my mother, that
is, the lande, in whom I am borne: to pleasure it with any good gift that it
hath pleased God to bestowe upon me, not to this ende to instructe the learned
but to helpe the ignoraunt, that thei maie resort to this little Bulwarke.
The book is divided into four separate treatises, the second in
the form of a dialogue, and it contains what he had learnt from
travel and study about herbs, surgery, the cultivation of health and
the practical part of a physician's work. But the scholars who were
carrying on this work of enlightenment had many other things of
which to tell the people besides remedies for their bodies. Although
the College of Physicians had been incorporated as early as 1518, the
position of medical men was far from established. Bullein ascribes
their low estate to the impostures and frauds of empirics and mounte-
banks? Here, again, the curtain is lifted which bides the low life of
1 Cf. Ep. Obsc. Virorum, vol. I, epp. 33 and 34.


## p. 108 (#130) ############################################

108 Progress of Social Literature in Tudor Times
>
the Middle Ages, and, in a passage of bitter eloquence, we hear of
the escaped criminals, idle labourers and runaway serving-men
that sell worthless or poisonous drugs, practise witchcraft and
necromancy, doing more harm, according to Bullein, than limitours,
pardoners or vagabonds. The whole work has many digressions
and touches of autobiography. But the personal note is sounded to
most effect when the physician who had undergone the insult of a
prosecution for murder and was then languishing in prison for
debt, utters the lamenta beginning : ‘Truely there is none other
purgyng place or purgatorie but this'-not only in bodily suffer-
ing but in anguish of soul,
continuall thought, sometyme wishyng that Death might conquere life,
broken hart and vexed spirite, full of sondrie inwarde affections and alteracions
of minde, small rest or quietnes, sorowful for the death of kindred, or frendes,
being changed into bitter enemies, whiche is a greate plague.
The most important of Bullein's works, from a literary point of
view, is A Dialogue both pleasaunte and pieti full wherein is a
goodly regiment against the fever Pestilence with a Consolacion
and Comfort against death, of which the earliest extant copy is
dated 1564. Although no great plague had visited England for
many years, the congestion of the poor in cities made smaller visita-
tions a frequent occurrence. Yet none of the great physicians
before Gilbert Skene wrote anything that has come down to us
on the epidemics. But Bullein's tract is a great deal more than
one of the earliest treatises to suggest remedies for the plague. In
his hands, the Dialogue is hardly less than a drama of death. He
sketches twelve types of society as a physician would satirise them
in an age when death was rampant. The action is twofold. At
the beginning, the interest centres round the grasping money
maker Antonius, who is sinking fast, but keeps off the thought of
death by attaching Medicus to his person. Antonius, heretofore,
had contented himself with an otiose observance of religion, but is
now troubled by visions of hell. Medicus, unlike Halle's ideal
physician, is a cynical atheist, but, like Chaucer's prototype, makes
a fortune by attending the wealthy and neglecting the poor.
Between these two, the causes and cures of the fever are discussed.
This part of the Dialogue illustrates the transitional stage of the
science, which attributes fever to infected air and the ill health of
the patient, but also accepts eclipses of the moon as a probable
1A Dialogue betwene Sores and Chyrurgi, fol. vi.
Booke of Compoundes, fol. liiij. (Both the Dialogue and the Booke of Compoundes
are sections of the Bulwarke. )


## p. 109 (#131) ############################################

A Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence 109
cause, and varies such practical safeguards as cleanliness, gaiety
and avoidance of emotion with the most extravagant quackeries.
Two lawyers, Avarus and Ambodexter, hover round the fortune of
Antonius, speculating on his death and scheming to influence his
will. The scene then shifts to the home of a prosperous, self-
satisfied burgher, who with his wife and servant Roger are
travelling into the country to escape from the plague stricken
city, with its ringing bells and sounds of woe. The tedium of the
journey is beguiled by discussions on portents and comments on
the dishonesty of lawyers. Roger, a country wit, with the liberty
of the household jester, full of rustic wisdom and folklore, con-
tributes quaint stories and anecdotes after the manner of A C.
Mery Talys. They reach an inn where the wife's admiration
for the wall-paintings discloses a series of emblems passing in
review the abuses and evils of the age. Another traveller, Mendax,
joins them at dinner, and, through his extravagant accounts of
foreign lands, Bullein satirises not only Utopia but books of travel
and legend from Pliny, Isidore and Strabo to Sebastian Münster
and Boiastuau. They proceed on their journey, but black clouds
gather, thunder is heard, Roger flees, the wife hides and Mors
appears. Civis is warned in terrible words that his last hour has
come, and, after fruitless parleyings, is left with a mortal thrust to
write his will and, with the help of Theologus, to prepare his soul
for death. When the danger is past, Roger reappears, infinitely
disgusted that his own name does not appear in his master's will.
As the household is now broken up, he thinks of joining the
cozeners and vagabonds, but fears the gallows. If only he had
Civis's money he would soon make a sumptuous living by usury.
Thus, in one episode, Bullein satirises moneylenders and points out
the vagabonds' recruiting ground.
No summary can give an idea of the learning contained in the
Dialogue. The discussions range from Aristotle's theory of the
elemental forces to symbolic sketches of the chief English poets? .
Its satire reaches nearly every abuse of the age, and there are
passages of unmistakable eloquence and power. The influence of
the morality plays is obvious, but the true historical significance of
the tract consists in the fact that the thought has outgrown the
literary form. The dialogue was a medieval device to convey
1 This idea was far older than Bullein. Cf, the maxim of the school of Salernum :
Si tibi deficiant Medici, Medici tibi fiant
Haec tria : mens hilaris, requies, moderata dieta.
2 Cf. Bouge of Courte, in which Skelton represents the poets laureate (i. e. learned
men) both ancient and modern assembled by Pallas.


## p. 110 (#132) ############################################

110 Progress of Social Literature in Tudor Times
instruction in an attractive form, and, as the reading public in-
creased during the sixteenth century, this means of sugaring the
pill was constantly resorted to. But the exchange of argument
between two or more persons loses its effectiveness unless confined
to the discussion of a single thesis, or the conflict of two characters.
The detached essay and the Theophrastian character are needed to
supersede the dialogue when ideas become more varied and the
picture of life less simple.
We have seen how the great changes of the sixteenth century-
the increase of luxury, the rise of the middle class, the growth of
competition, the suppression of the monasteries, the expansion of
Europe, the frequency of pestilence—inspired a vigorous litera-
ture, quite distinct from the theological and aesthetic movements
of the time. But, while the popular printing presses were thus
exposing fraud and enlightening ignorance, the superstitions of
an earlier age were reappearing in an aggravated form. The belief
in fetishes, totems, the evil eye, luck-bones, folk-remedies, love
charms and nefarious magic was rampant in England. Christ-
ianity and paganism were, among the unthinking and untaught
peasantry, inextricably mingled. Jugglery and legerdemain had
still the glamour of the miraculous, and magic was used to dis-
cover lost things, bring back wayward lovers and cure disease.
Astrologers still foretold events by studying the position of the
stars, and sold information as to the auspicious hour for all kinds of
human enterprise, from the founding of cities to the taking of
medicine. Waldegrave, in 1580, published an attack on prognosti-
cations in the Foure Great Lyers, Striving who shall win the Silver
Whetstone. The writer quotes the Biblical injunction against
taking thought for the morrow, and appends a list of the 'absurd,
unknowne and insolent wordes' used by prognosticators to im-
press the inexperienced. But he still adinits, on the authority of
Scripture, that national benefits or calamities are foreshadowed in
the heavens, and will not definitely deny that stars influence
the fortunes of the individual. Mankind had not yet given up the
search for the philosopher's stone, and the debasement of coinage
during Henry's and Edward's reigns was an additional inducement
to search for wealth by means of alchemy. Such superstition
offered limitless opportunities for ‘alcumysticall cousenages,' in
which the unwary, beguiled by a specious manner and by the
tricks of the trade, invested money in experiments, or entrusted it
to be multiplied. These practices were exposed from time to time
and added to the general sense of corruption and wickedness which
1


## p. 111 (#133) ############################################

Superstition in the XVIth Century II
oppressed mankind. The temper of the age is illustrated by the
belief that the heresies, vanities and worldliness of the nation
would shortly cause some awful manifestation of divine anger.
No sooner was this vague terror established than the old
heathen belief in portents and prodigies made itself felt. Conrad
Lycosthenes closed his Prodigiorum ac Ostentorum Chronicon,
in 1557, with the warning that these miracles and strange
sights 'were the certain prognostications of changes, revolutions,
and calamities and the veritable tokens of God's wrath. The
popular presses were already making a profitable business out
of news sheets, in verse or prose, publishing sensational reports
from all the world. They now profited by this religious terror
to publish broadsides announcing prodigies and portents. We
read of children born without arms and legs, a monstrous pig with
a dolphin's head, a child born with ruffs, and another having 'the
mouth slitted on the right side like a libarde's (leopard's) mouth,
terrible to beholde. ' These fly-leaves, beginning with a most
circumstantial description of the portent, end with an exhortation
to the people of England to take warning at the manifestations of
God's wrath and to repent. Many of them relate to the year 1562,
which Holinshed and Stow record as especially fertile in monsters.
But the superstitious excitability of the people reached its
most harmful phase in the revival of witch persecutions. To
the medieval mind, heaven and hell were two tremendous powers
fighting for the supremacy of man. The church was, indeed,
master, but the devil was not destroyed. From time to time, his
influence was felt, and now, in this age of pestilence, blasphemous
controversy and schism, men thought that the Evil One was re-
asserting his power. His activity was most clearly discovered in
witchcraft. All sorcery was a voluntary alliance with the powers
of evil. In the case of witches, a carnal union with the devil was
supposed to have taken place. Men who believed themselves
at war with the invisible fiend would not be long in assailing his
confederates on earth. In 1541, Henry VIII passed the first act
against sorcery and magic; in 1562, the law was revived; and, in
1575 and 1576, persecutions were renewed. Terror was increased
by the diseases of insanity and hypochondria being misunderstood.
It was an age of monstrous hallucinations; men believed that they
were wolves and fled to the mountains ; nuns imagined they were cats
and began to mew; maidens vomited pins; men believed they had
snakes in their vitals. Remedies were no less monstrous. People
rubbed themselves with magic ointment to produce dreams and


## p. 112 (#134) ############################################

112 Progress of Social Literature in Tudor Times
}
cured diseases by drinking water out of a murdered man's skull.
This ‘nightmare of superstition' did not obsess everybody; there
were enough readers to call for three editions of a burlesque
rbapsody which ridiculed sorcery, spells and cat-legends under the
title Beware the Cat. The tract, with its new fashioned arti-
ficialities of style, was, probably, designed for the rapidly increasing
class of exquisites, and it did not appeal to the majority of
Englishmen, whose minds were unsettled by the momentous changes
of the age.
This species of fanaticism was now no longer confined to the
vulgar and uneducated. The theology and science of Germany
had already been brought to bear on the subject. As early as
1487, Malleus Maleficarum, which established such fantasies as
the incubus and succubus, the initiation of magicians, the black
art and the counter-charms of the church, bad received the
sanction of the theological faculty and a patent from Maximilian I.
Johannes Trithemius produced, in 1508, Antiphonus Maleficiorum,
which accepted witchcraft as a fact, and taught the Christian how
to defend himself against it. Cornelius Agrippa, on the other
hand, argued against the persecution of witches in his De Occulta
Philosophia, and his pupil, the physician Johann Weier, exposed
the superstition and cruelty of that practice in De Praestigiis
Demonum et Incantationibus ac Beneficiis. Weier still believed
in a certain magic worked by the devil, but he discovered how
much the imagination had to do with witchcraft, and how much of
sorcery can be explained by a knowledge of natural phenomena.
The book provoked the keenest opposition, especially from Jean
Bodin, who put all his experience as a judge in witch trials and
all his theoretic knowledge of magic and sorcery into his Traité
de la Démonomie des Sorciers.
Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, in 1584, is the first
great English contribution to this European controversy. He had
already given proof of the qualities of foresight, reflectiveness and
common sense in a work on hops, designed to improve one of the
industries of his country. The Discoverie, also, was primarily in-
tended as a humanitarian protest—'A Travell in the behalfe of the
poore, the aged and the simple. But the primitive belief in magic
and witchcraft had now become a matter for academic discussion,
and Scot's work is inevitably coloured by continual restatement of
Agrippa’s and Weier's arguments, and by counterblasts to Malleus
and Jean Bodin.
It is essentially a work of investigation and exposition. In that
1
1


## p. 113 (#135) ############################################

Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft
113
uncritical and pedantic age, the great sources of knowledge seemed
to confirm man's natural belief in magic and sorcery. It was
argued that Deuteronomy, the Twelve Tables, the Justinian code,
recognised the existence of witches. Among profane literature,
no lesser authorities than Manilius, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus
and Lucan had given credence to sorcery. A refutation of such
contentions hinged on the interpretation of texts. Thus, much of
the Discoverie is devoted to an academic examination of Hebrew
and Latin words. But Scot was not only a scholar. In the ad-
ministration of his inherited estates, he came into contact with the
unprogressive population of rural districts, and he also seems to
have acquired at Oxford a sound knowledge of law. He boldly
criticises the legal methods of procedure with accused witches,
and shows how melancholy and old age often cause women to
incur the suspicion of sorcery. One feature of his book is its
thoroughness. Witchcraft was involved in other forms of credulity;
to believe in one manifestation of supernatural power was to
admit all to be possible. So Scot explains the legerdemain which
beguiled the simple; he detects the frauds and impostures of friars
and priests who encouraged the belief in invisible spirits. Borrow-
ing from the keen humour and intelligence of Erasmus, he exposes
the tricks of alchemists, and discredits the practice of incantation
and devil-conjuring by merely enumerating at full length the
ludicrously elaborate charms then in use. With admirable skill
he attributes the superstitions of witch-mongers to the influence
of the Roman Catholic religion. He sums up the conclusions of
his work in these words:
Witchcraft is in truth a cousening art, wherin the name of God is abused,
propbaned and blasphemed, and his power attributed to a vile creature. In
estimation of the Vulgar people it is a supernaturall worke, contrived betweene
a Corporall old woman and a spirituall divell. The maner thereof is so secret,
mysticall and strange, that to this daie there hath never beene any credible
witnes thereof. It is incomprehensible to the wise, learned or faithfull, a
probable matter to children, fooles, melancholike persons and papists.
But Scot's Discoverie produced no permanent effect on the
beliefs of his time. The treatise is too diffuse and ill-constructed
to be read with pleasure. Furthermore, science was not suffici-
ently advanced to substitute reason for superstition. Melanchthon's
Initia Doctrinae physicae was based on a belief that the devil
bore sway over natural phenomena. Paracelsus was infected
with the same error; Reuchlin believed in witches. Cardanus
contended that certain complaints and affections must be the
result of magic and the workyng of cursed sciences,' since
8
8
E. L. III.
CH. V.


## p. 114 (#136) ############################################

114 Progress of Social Literature in Tudor Times
physic and chirurgery knew of no remedy. Scot, also, had the
limitations of his contemporaries. He still believed in a 'naturall
magicke' and he accepted many of the legends of classic lore, such
as the belief that a certain river in Thrace makes white sheep
produce black lambs, and a large number of folk-remedies, such as
the belief that the bone of a carp's head staunches blood.
We have seen how prominent a part the middle classes
played in forming the literature of the sixteenth century. While
accepting the stories, satire and learning of the Middle Ages,
they created a demand for English books that should reflect
the tendencies of the present and embody the humour and wisdom
of the past. One feature of their reading is its assimilation of
French, Italian and German thought; another, its attractive-
ness for 'clerks' and 'gentlemen' as well as for the commons. '
This popular literature was not obscured by the 'melodious bursts'
of Elizabeth's reign. On the contrary, social and fugitive tracts
continued to develop along the same lines till the Civil War.
Satires on folly and domestic discord, character studies, jest-books,
broadside ballads, beggar books, treatises on cosmography, the culti-
vation of health, universal knowledge and witchcraft continued to
flourish throughout the Jacobean period, and the great work of
exposing abuses was bequeathed to not incompetent hands. Never-
theless, a change in the temper of the people begins to be noticeable
during the last twenty years of the sixteenth century. Puritanism,
which had long made itself felt, now became prominent; national
sentiment took possession of the people; the conceits of pseudo-
classicism became an almost universal fashion; style preoccupied
readers and writers; the essay was developed; the gulf between
popular and court literature began to widen; above all, London
grew into a centre-or, rather, a hotbed-of professional writers.
These changes were felt at once in the people's literature. The
tracts of Churchyard, Gilbert, Greene, Nashe, Gifford, Lodge,
Chettle, Dekker, Thynne, Overbury, Jonson, Earle, Parrot, Wye
Saltonstall, Breton, Brathwait, Peacham, Parker and Rowlands
belong to a different era. Reginald Scot has been classed with
Tudor writers because his work is a résumé of the thoughts of
that time and his treatment has the rather clumsy earnestness of
an earlier period. But the others mark a subsequent stage in
popular English literature and are dealt with in later chapters of
the present work.
a


## p. 115 (#137) ############################################

CHAPTER VI
SIR DAVID LYNDSAY
AND THE LATER SCOTTISH MAKARIS'
ALTHOUGH Sir David Lyndsay, properly the last inheritor
in Scotland of the Chaucerian tradition, was, evidently, well
read in the great English master and his successors, and was
influenced both in his poetic form and method by Dunbar and
Douglas, his verse is informed by a spirit radically different
from that of previous 'makaris. ' Like Dunbar, he was largely
a satirist; he was a satirist of the political, social and ecclesiastical
corruptions of his age, just as Dunbar was of those of the previous
age. But, in Lyndsay's time, the sentiment against social and
ecclesiastical corruptions had become much stronger. It was
rapidly becoming national; and its more absorbing character was
ultimately to have a fatal effect on poetry. The character of
Lyndsay's verse was symptomatic of the approach of a period
of poetic decline. The artistic purpose is not so supreme in
him as in Dunbar. He is less poetical and more didactic.
While by no means so polished and trenchant, he is much more
special and precise. The gilded coarseness of gentlewomen, the
hypocrisy and worldliness of churchmen, the greedy covetousness
of courtiers, were to Dunbar, according to his mood, subjects for
bitter or humorous mirth. To his mirth, blended with humour,
or wrath or contempt, he gave expression in biting and brilliant
verse, without any very definite purpose beyond that of finding
vent for his emotions and scope for his art. To Lyndsay, on the
contrary, the definite purpose was almost everything; he was,
primarily, less a poet than a political and social reformer; and
he made use of the literary medium that would best achieve his
moral purpose. Had he lived in modern times, he might have
been either a prominent and successful statesman, or a brilliant
writer on the burning questions of the hour; and, had the period
of his literary activity fallen only a few years later than it did-
when the advantages of the invention of printing were more
842


## p. 116 (#138) ############################################

116
Sir David Lyndsay
.
utilised, and had begun to create a demand for vernacular prose-
he might have indulged in admonitions, exhortations and blasts,
somewhat after the manner of Knox: he had no mastery, like
Buchanan, of either Latin verse or prose, even had his particular
purpose not been better served by utilising different forms of
vernacular verse.
Sometimes, like Douglas, Lyndsay employed allegory, and he,
also, employed it for a moral purpose; but, unlike Douglas,
he was not content to deal with the virtues and vices in the
abstract, or merely in meditatively pictorial fashion; his primary
aim was to point out, and hold up to scorn, the definite political,
social and moral scandals of the time. In his early manhood he
may have written a variety of verse with a merely artistic purpose, ,
but the earliest of his poetical pieces which has come down
to us is The Dreme, which internal evidence seems to show was
written shortly after the escape of the young king, James V, from
the tutorship of the Douglases in 1528. From the time of the
birth of James V, in 1512, Lyndsay had been, as he records in
the introductory Epistil to the Kingis Grace, the king's personal
attendant-his sewer arranger of his table), cupbearer, carver,
treasurer, usher and cubicular. Being the king's chief companion
in his more solitary hours, he had been accustomed to entertain
him with all kinds of ancient tales; and, now that James had
come to years of discretion, and had personally to undertake the
responsibilities of government, Lyndsay proposed to show him
'a new story'-one of a different kind from any told to him before,
and more suited to the graver character of his new circumstances.
The poem was intended for the king's perusal, and thus the pill
had to be gilded in order that it might be accepted. This accounts
for the introductory display of the poet's accomplishments as a
master of terms aureate, and for his resolve to make known his
revelations in the elaborate allegorical fashion that was a poetic
convention of the time.
The Dreme of Lyndsay may have been suggested by The Dreme
of Dunbar; but it is about ten times as long, and it has nothing
in common with it beyond the name and the description of a
dream for its theme. Certain stanzas in Lyndsay's prologue are,
however, very similar in manner and substance to some of the
introductory stanzas of Dunbar's The Thrissil and the Rois, and,
like the latter poem, it is written in the rime royal of Chaucer,
all except the epilogue, which is in the nine-lined stave used
by Dunbar in The Goldyn Targe, by Chaucer in Anelida and
а


## p. 117 (#139) ############################################

The Dreme
117
Arcite and by Gavin Douglas in part of The Palice of Honour.
The general form of Lyndsay's poem seems to have been sug-
gested rather by The Palice of Honour than by any poem of
Dunbar, who did not intermeddle with extended allegory. Like
The Palice of Honour, it records an adventurous journey, but of
a less purely imaginative or allegorical character, for Lyndsay is
made to visit what he regards as actual realities—the lowest
hell, purgatory, the seven planets, heaven and paradise. The
character of the journey may have been suggested to him by
Chaucer's House of Fame; but other-world scenes had, generally,
much attraction for the imagination of medieval poets. This
portion of the poem was, also, largely a conventional excrescence.
It was chiefly introductory to his main theme. He was here
intent partly on displaying his poetic paces with a view to arouse
the literary interests of the king and secure his attention, partly
on putting him in such a frame of mind as would induce him
to give serious consideration to the succeeding exposure of the
poverty, wrongs and miseries of his subjects.
As revealed to Lyndsay by Dame Remembrance, Scotland is
described as possessing within itself all that is needful for the
highest prosperity: abundant rivers and lochs for fish, many lusty
vales for corn, fruitful hills and green meadows for the pasturage
of sheep and cattle, forests swarming with deer and other animals
of the chase, various rich metals and precious stones, and, if none
of the finer fruits of the warmer climates, from which spices and
wines are made, various sorts of fruit of a thoroughly good and
wholesome kind. This description tallies with actual fact; in the
Scotland of Lyndsay's time, there was an abundant supply of food
for the limited number of its inhabitants. It possessed all the
essential resources for comfort and prosperity, and it was inhabited,
as Dame Remembrance points out, by a strong, ingenious and
courageous people. Why, then, he asks, has there come to be
such evident poverty, such great unhappiness, such a lack of
virtuous well-doing? And the answer of Dame Remembrance
is that the cause is lack of policy, lack of proper administration
of justice and lack of peace. This is further revealed in detail
by John the Commoun Weill, whose arrival as he is hastening to
leave the country, and whose ragged costume, lean looks and
dejected bearing are described with vivid picturesqueness. In
reply to Lyndsay's query as to the cause of the miserable and
poverty-stricken appearance of one whose life was exemplary,
and whose aims high and honourable, John the Commoun Weill


## p. 118 (#140) ############################################

118
Sir David Lyndsay
informs him of the banishment from the country of all his best
friends, of the unrighteous triumph of his enemies and of his evil
treatment in every part of the country where he sought refuge-
the borders rampant with theft and murder and mischief; the
highlands peopled by lazy sluggards; the islands and the western
regions a prey to unthrift, laziness, falsehood and strife; and the
more civilised portions of the lowlands, from which 'singular
profit' (selfish greed), after doing him great injury and offence,
expelled him with opprobrious epithets. He then proceeds to
describe in detail, and with much terse vigour, the corruptions
and inefficiency both of the civil and spiritual rule during the
king's minority, and intimates his determination not again to give
Scotland the comfort of his presence, until she is guided by the
wisdom of 'ane gude and prudent Kyng. '
With the departure of John the Commoun Weill, the visions
vouchsafed to the poet come to a close. He is brought again
by Dame Remembrance to the cove where he had laid him down
to sleep; and, after being awakened by the shot of a cannon from
a ship in the offing, he proceeds to his home, where, after a good
dinner, he sits himself down to record the events of his vision. To
this record he finally appends an epilogue entitled An Exhorta-
tion to the King, which takes the form of shrewd advice, and
serious and solemn warning.
The Complaynt—in the octosyllabic couplet, and of rather
later date-records, in a brisk, mocking fashion, the methods
adopted by the Douglases to enrich themselves at the king's ex-
pense, and to make him the passive instrument of their ambition ;
describes the generally scandalous condition both of church and
state under their rule; and congratulates him on his escape from
the clutches of such false friends, and on the marked improvement
in social order and general well-being throughout the kingdom,
except as regards the spiritualitie. ' On the doings of the
ecclesiastics he advises him to keep a watchful eye, and see that
they preach with ‘unfeyneit intentis,' use the sacraments as
Christ intended and leave such vain traditions as superstitious
pilgrimages and praying to images. Finally, Lyndsay-as poets
were then accustomed to do-ventures to suggest that the king,
now that his affairs were prosperous, might do worse than
bestow on him some token of his regard, either by way of loan
or gift. Should he be so good as to lend him one or two thousand
pounds, then Lyndsay jocosely undertakes, with 'seelit obligations,'
to promise repayment as soon as any of several equally unlikely
-


## p. 119 (#141) ############################################

Testament of our Soverane Lordis Papyngo 119
things should come to pass : when kirkmen cease to crave
dignities, or when wives no longer desire sovereignty over their
husbands, or as soon as a winter happens without frost, snow,
wind or rain; or he will repay him after the Day of Judgment;
or, if none of these conditions please him, then he hopes that, out
of his sovereign bounty, he will bestow on him some definite
reward.
The humorous hint of Lyndsay was successful, for, shortly
afterwards, in 1530, he was made Lyon King of Arms. His pro-
motion did not, however, tend to silence his reformatory zeal, but,
on the contrary, made him more anxious to do what he could to
promote the success of the young king's sovereignty. In The
Testament and Complaynt of our Soverane Lordis Papyngo
(parrot) he exposed more particularly the corruptions and worldli-
ness of the spirituality, and this in a more comprehensive and
scathing fashion than in his two previous pieces, while the versifi-
cation is, in parts, more elaborately polished. It opens with a
prologue-in one of the nine-lined staves, aab, aab, bcc, used by
Douglas in The Palice of Honour-in which, after a glowing
and finely expressed tribute to his poetic predecessors from
Chaucer, and various polite allusions to his poetic contemporaries,
he affirms that even if he had ‘ingyne' (genius), as he has none,
the 'polleit terms' had been already pulled, and there was no-
thing left in all the garth of eloquence' but 'barren stok and
stone. ' For lack, therefore, both of a novel poetic theme and a
novel poetic method, he had been reduced to record the complaint
of a wounded papyngo.
In this ingenious and humorous apology he partly followed
conventional models. Yet, in all likelihood, he was conscious of
his own lack of high poetic inspiration, of his unworthiness to
be named alongside of Chaucer and other English masters, or the
'aureate' Kennedy, or Dunbar, who ‘language had at large,' or
the more recent Gavin Douglas, whose death he laments, and
whose translation of Vergil he specially celebrates ; and his
apology must also be taken as a kind of intimation that, in
recording the complaint of the papyngo, he was influenced less
by poetical ambition than by the desire to render service to
the higher interests of his country.
The introductory stanzas of the poem dealing with the accident
that befel the papyngo-which, with the remainder of the poem,
are in rime royal--are modelled on the aureate methods of Chaucer
and Dunbar, blended with the more profuse classical imagery of


## p. 120 (#142) ############################################

I 20
Sir David Lyndsay
Douglas. Of the animal fable, the chief exponent was, of course,
Henryson, but, in the more modified form adopted by Lyndsay,
it is made use of both by Chaucer and Dunbar. In the case of
Dunbar, it is, ir. The Thrissil and the Rois and the Petition of the
Grey Horse, utilised more indirectly and with more subtle art.
Truth to tell, there is little or no art in Lyndsay's use of the
expedient, so far as regards the counsel of the dying bird either
to the king or to the 'brether of the courte. ' In both cases, the
voice is the voice of Lyndsay, without any attempt to disguise it.
The counsel to the king or the first epistleconsists of a series
of plain and definite advices, couched, practically, in the language
of prose, as how best to discharge his multifarious and difficult
duties; and the second epistle gives a terse and striking summary
of the great tragedies of Scottish history from the time of the
duke of Rothesay, with a view to impress on the courtiers both
the uncertainties of kingly favour, and the evil consequences
of unscrupulous personal ambition. This second part concludes
with the dying bird's touching words of farewell to the chief scenes
of her former happiness : Edinburgh, the ‘heych tryumphant
toun,' fair 'Snawdoun' (Stirling) with its touris hie' and 'Falk-
land! the fortrace of Fyfe. '
In the concluding section of the poem, the fable form is much
more strictly observed. Here, also, all is pure satire-much of it
of a very clever and trenchant character, although some of the
scenes are rather too prolonged. It relates the communing of
the wise bird with its holy executors,' who appear in the form
of a pyot (representing a canon regular), a raven (a black monk)
and a ged or hawk (a holy friar). The disposition and aims of
these ghostly counsellors are sufficiently manifest; and they act
entirely in keeping with their reputed character. The poor parrot
would have much preferred to have, at her death-bed, attendants
of a less grovelling type of character, such as the nightingale, the
jay, the mavis, the goldfinch, the lark, etc. ; but, since none of
them has come, she has to be content with the disreputable birds
who have offered her their services. After a piquant discussion
with them on the growth of ecclesiastical sensuality and greed,
she thereupon proceeds to dispose of her personality-her 'galbarte
of grene' to the owl, her eyes to the bat, her beak to the pelican,
her music to the cuckoo, her 'toung rhetoricall' to the goose
and her bones to the phoenix. Her heart she bequeaths to the
king; and she leaves merely her entrails, including her liver and
lungs, to her executors who, however, immediately on her death,
a


## p. 121 (#143) ############################################

Minor Poems
I 21
proceed to devour her whole body, after which the ged flies away
with her heart, pursued by the two other birds of prey.
The king, who practised verse, though no piece definitely
known to be his has been preserved, had, it would appear, replied
in a rather mocking and scurrilous fashion to certain of Lyndsay's
hints as to his amatory inclinations; and to this Lyndsay wrote
an Answer in rime royal, after the coarsely plain-spoken fashion
of his time, which casts, directly and indirectly, a vivid light on
the gross character of contemporary morals and manners. Another
piece, meant as a satire on the king's courtiers, is Ane Publict
Confessioun of the Kingis auld Hound callit Bagsche, written
in the French octave, and describing, in light, amusing fashion, the
evil doings, and the consequent narrow escapes from condign
punishment, of an inveterately wicked old hound, as related
by the hound itself to the present pet dogs of the king, with
the view of warning them to live a quieter, more exemplary
and less spiteful life than had the old hound. Another satire,
Kitteis Confessioun, written in' couplets, records with bitter
irony the unedifying particulars of a lady's interview with a
priest on the occasion of her auricular confession. Here he
deprecates the custom of minute and systematic confession as
injurious rather than beneficial to the morals and the self-control
of the supposed penitent. Confession, he thinks, should be made
to a preacher only when the person is in dire distress or de-
speration and in need of special advice. A second satire, but
much less serious in tone, on female folly, is Ane Supplicatioun
againis Syde Taillis—in the octosyllabic couplet-a witty and
amazingly coarse description of the various evils resulting from
the inconvenient fashion of wearing long trains, which had infected
not merely the ladies of the court, but women of all ranks and
classes, including even nuns and female farm servants. Ane
Description of Pedder Coffeis—in the octave of three rimes—
deals with quite another phase of contemporary manners; it is
a satirical account of the wiles of seven varieties of the peddling
merchant, of which one is a lewd parish priest, and another an
avaricious cathedral dignitary. Another satirical piece is The
Justing betwis James Watson and Johne Barbour-in the heroic
couplet-written for the entertainment of the king on the occasion
of his marriage, in 1538, to Mary of Lorraine. Modelled on
Dunbar's Joustis of the Tailzeour and the Sowtar, it is quite
good-natured and not so grotesquely extravagant as Dunbar's
piece, although, at the conclusion, he borrows some of Dunbar's
grossness.
.


## p. 122 (#144) ############################################

I 22
Sir David Lyndsay
But by far the most searching and scorching of Lyndsay's
satires is, of course, the long and elaborate drama entitled Ane
Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis in commendatioun of
Vertew and Vituperatioun of Vyce. Our information on the
early history of the drama in Scotland is very scanty; but the lack
of information does not imply a lack of plays. The absence of
reference to morality and mystery plays in the High Treasurer's
accounts may be explained by the fact that they were, primarily,
popular amusements. On the other hand, such information as
we possess regarding morality plays in Scotland in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries seems to suggest that, while their
character was analogous rather to the morality play of France
than to that of England, they were a very common diversion.
Adjoining the principal towns were playfields with elevations
forming a kind of amphitheatre. The earliest play of which we
have mention is one entitled The Halyblude, which was acted on
the Windmill hill at Aberdeen, in 1445 ; and there is also
mention of two others having been acted there in later years.
More definite is the reference by Knox to 'a play againis the
Papists' by friar Kyllour, performed before James V at Stirling,
on Good Friday morning, 1535. 'Diverse comedies and tragedies,'
by John Wedderburn, wherein ‘he nipped the abuses and super-
stitions of the time,' were, also, played at Dundee, in 1540, among
them The History of Dionysius the Tyrant, in the form of a
comedy which was acted in the playfields. Neither Knox nor
Calderwood conveys the slightest impression that performances
of extended plays were uncommon; but they had no reason for
alluding to other plays than those used for satirising the eccle-
siastics. Later, in 1568, there is mention of a play by Robert
Sempill, performed before the Lord Regent, and, a few years
afterwards, Knox was present at the performance of a play, by
John Davidson, one of the regents of St Andrews university, in
which was represented the capture of Edinburgh Castle—then
held for queen Mary-and the execution in effigy of its defenders.
Further, an act of the kirk in 1575, for the censorship of
* comedies, tragedies and other profane plays,' is a sufficient
indication of the popularity of the diversion. Nevertheless,
Lyndsay's Pleasant Satyre is the only surviving example of a
sixteenth century Scottish play, though an anonymous play
entitled Philotus was published in 1603, and there is an early
graphic fragment—probably by Dunbar in the Bannatyne MS,
entitled The Interlude of the Droichis Part of the Play!
>
1 See vol. 11 of the present work, pp. 253,
255.


## p. 123 (#145) ############################################

Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis 123
In his official capacity of Lyon King of Arms, Lyndsay, doubt-
less, acquired considerable dramatic experience, for he had the
general superintendence of the pageantry and diversions on the
occasion of royal fêtes, and, probably, devised the farces, masques
and mummeries. Indeed, there is evidence that, at an earlier period
of his life, he was accustomed to act in such entertainments or in
more elaborate plays. Ane Pleasant Satyre is not the work of
a dramatic novice. It is specially notable for its dramatic
quality: it manifests a fine instinct for telling dramatic situations
and dramatic contrasts and a complete comprehension of the
method both of impressing and tickling a popular audience. In
construction, in variety of dramatic interest, in vividness of
presentation, in keenness of satire, in liveliness of wit—though the
liveliness is apt to degenerate into grossness—and in what is
termed stage 'business,' it is immensely superior to any contem-
porary English play. The nearest approach to it in dramatic
development is Bale's King John, which is of later date-probably
about 1548. Lyndsay's play was performed before James V at
Linlithgow in 1540, and it may have been performed elsewhere
at an earlier date. It was performed, at some unknown date, at
Cupar-Fife, and, in 1554, at Greenside (at the foot of the Calton
hill), Edinburgh. Not improbably, it was written at the instance
of the king, who, about the same time, was encouraging Buchanan
to satirise the Franciscans. Henry Charteris, the first publisher
of Lyndsay's Works, could attribute Lyndsay's escape from per-
secution only to the special intervention and mercy of heaven;
but it is to be remembered that Lyndsay did not, like Buchanan,
direct his attacks against any special religious order, that he
enjoyed the intimate friendship of the king and, it may be, of
Mary of Lorraine as well, and that he was not a preacher, nor
even a full-blown reformer. He was neither Calvinist nor
puritan, and was less interested in disputes about doctrines and
forms of church polity than in the social and political well-being
of the people.
Ane Pleasant Satyre is a morality play, but it is also some-
thing more. It is a blend of secular and sacred drama, and
embodies something of the French morality farce. It introduces
real, as well as allegorical, personages, and it lightens the action
of the play by comic devices borrowed from French models. In
parts, it manifests the special characteristics of modern comedy.
It inevitably does so by reason of the very specific character of
its satirical representation of contemporary manners. Though
>


## p. 124 (#146) ############################################

I 24
Sir David Lyndsay
hampered as a comedy by its morality conventions, it is a morality
play of a very advanced type: a morality play aided in its
dramatic action and relieved in its dramatic seriousness by a
strong infusion of comedy, and by the intermixture of interludes
of a strikingly realistic character. The strictly morality portions
are superior to the morality plays of Bale; and the interludes are
much more elaborate and finished specimens of comedy than the
interludes of Heywood. Lyndsay's knowledge of the ways of
the world and of the temper and characteristics of the crowd,
and the minute character of his zeal as a reformer, were impor-
tant elements contributing to his dramatic success. Neither in
this nor in other satires was he content with generalities. His
desire was to scourge the definite social evils of his time, and
he had therefore to represent them in living form, as manifested
in the speech, manner and bearing of individual persons
For this reason, the play is of unique interest as a mirror of the
Scotland of Lyndsay's time—when Catholicism was tottering to its
fall. It is an excessively long play, its representation occupying a
whole day, from nine in the morning until six in the evening; but
its length enables the playwright to present a pretty comprehensive
epitome of contemporary abuses and of contemporary manners and
morals. The flagrant frailties of the ecclesiastics are portrayed
with sufficient vividness in the speeches of representative types
and in the amusing exposition of their relations with allegorical
personages, good and bad; but it is in the tone of Lyndsay's wit, in
the character of the horseplay by which he seeks to tickle his
audience, in his method of pandering to their grosser tastes, in the
farcical proceedings of such persons as the soutar, the tailor and
their two wives, in the interviews between Pauper and Pardoner,
in the dealings of Pardoner with the soutar and the soutar's wife
and in the doings and speeches of Folly, that the peculiar social
atmosphere of the time is most graphically revealed.
The play is divided into two parts, and part I, which represents
the temptation of Rex Humanitas by Sensualitie, is divided into
two acts, with an interlude between them. Sensualitie is intro-
duced to the king by Wantonness, Placebo and Solace, in whose
company he then passes to a private apartment, after which Gude
Counsell makes his appearance. Gude Counsell declares his inten-
tion to ‘repois sometime in this place, but is immediately followed
by Flatterie and Falset, who, shortly after they have congratulated
each other on their happy meeting, are joined by their indispensable
companion Dissait; whereupon, the three resolve to introduce them-


## p. 125 (#147) ############################################

Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis 125
selves to the king under the guise respectively of Devotion, Sapience
and Discretion. Shortly afterwards, the king returns to the stage
and calls for Wantonness, who introduces him to the three vices;
and, after a conversation with him in their feigned characters, in
the course of which their proficiency in their several methods of
guile is admirably indicated, he gives them welcome as 'three men
of gude. Here the king, observing Gude Counsell standing
dejectedly at a distance, sends his new friends to bring him to
his presence; but, when they discover who he is, they hustle him
out of the place, threatening him with death should he dare to
return. They then inform the king that the person he saw was a
house-breaker whom they had ordered to be sent to the thieves'
hole. Gude Counsell having been expelled, the king is now entirely
in the hands of his evil companions, and sits down amongst the
ladies, who sing to him a song, led by Sensualitie. Here Veritie
makes her appearance carrying a New Testament, but is speedily
followed by the Spiritualitie—including the abbot and the parson
-who, at the instance of Flatterie, put Veritie in the stocks, after
she had offered up an impressive prayer, beginning:
Get up, thou sleepis all too long, O Lord !
And mak sam ressonibill reformatioun.
Veritie being disposed of, Chastitie makes her appearance,
whom, on her asking for ‘harberie, Diligence recommends to go
to a 'prioress of renown,' sitting amongst the rest of the Spiri-
tualitie. The prioress, however, asks her to keep her distance, the
Spiritualitie tell her to pass on, for they know her 'not, and even
Temporalitie informs her that, if his wives knew she were here, they
would 'mak all this town on steir. ' With the sorrowful departure
of Chastitie from the company, act I ends. It is admirably con
ceived and written, the terseness and point of the satire being
accentuated by the very skilful management of the dramatic
situations.
Act 1 is followed by an interlude, relating the adventures of
Chastitie after her expulsion from high society. On introducing
herself to a tailor and soutar, she is cordially welcomed by these
worthies; but, while they are entertaining her, their wives enter,
and, after a boisterous scene, during which the wives set on their
husbands in savage fashion both with tongue and hand, Chastitie
is driven away; whereupon, after further dinging' of their
'gudemen,' the wives resolve to have a feast in celebration of
their victory, the tailor's wife sitting down to make 'ane paist,'
6


## p. 126 (#148) ############################################

126
Sir David Lyndsay
and the soutar's wife kilting up her clothes above her waist, that
she may cross the river on her way to the town to fetch a quart
of wine.
Diligence (the master of the ceremonies), who had found
Chastitie wandering houseless, late at night, at the beginning of
act II introduces her to the king; but, Sensualitie objecting to her
presence, she is put in the stocks by the three disguised vices.
She is, however, comforted by Veritie with the news that Divyne
Correctioun is 'new landit, and might be expected very soon.
Hereupon, Correctioun's varlet (or messenger) enters, on hearing
whose message Flatterie resolves to take refuge with the
Spiritualitie or hide himself in some cloister. He therefore bids
adieu to his two friends, who, before leaving, resolve to steal the
king's box, but quarrel over the division of the spoil and Dissait
runs away with the box through the water, just as Divyne
Correctioun enters. At the instance of Correctioun, Gude Counsell
and Veritie are set free from the stocks, and, accompanied by
Veritie, Gude Counsell and Chastitie pass to the king. On the
advice of Correctioun, the king then consents to the expulsion of
Sensualitie, who, on seeking the protection of the Spiritualitie, is
warmly welcomed by them as their dayis darling. By further
'
'
advice of Correctioun, the king then receives into his society Gude
Counsell, Veritie and Chastitie; and, on their confessing their faults
and promising to have no further dealings with Sensualitie,
Correctioun also pardons Wantonness, Placebo and Solace. Then,
after a speech by Gude Counsell, Diligence, by order of the king,
warns all members of parliament, both the Spiritualitie and the
Temporalitie, to appear speedilyat court. He then intimates that the
first part of the play is ended, and that there will be a short interval
—which he recommends them to employ in refreshing themselves
and in other ways not now mentioned in ordinary company.
Between the first part and the second there is an interlude, while
the ‘king, bishops and principal players are out of their places. '
It introduces us to a pauper, who is really a small farmer reduced
to poverty by ecclesiastical oppression, and on his way to
St Andrews to seek redress. When Diligence endeavours to
drive him away as ane vilde begger carle,' he climbs up to the
king's chair and seeks to seat himself in it. With some difficulty
Diligence succeeds in making him vacate it, but, struck by his sad
and respectable demeanour, asks him where he comes from and what
is his errand. Pauper then recites to him in moving terms the
story of his wrongs at the hands of the ecclesiastics, who have
6


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6
Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis 127
brought him to utter poverty by their greedy extortions on the
death of his father, his mother and his wife, which had successively
occasioned him the loss of his mare and his three cows; while even
the clothes of the deceased persons have been seized as perquisites
by the vicar's clerk. After telling his pitiable story, Pauper, with
the consent of Diligence, lays him down to rest; and there enters
Pardoner, who, unchallenged by Diligence, proceeds to make a
speech in which he rails at the 'wicket New Testament,' which
has greatly injured his trade, and exposed the craft which he had
been taught by a friar called Hypocrisy; bans Martin Luther,
Black Bullinger and Melanchthon; and expresses the wish that
Paul had never been born, or his books never read except by
friars. Then, placing his wares on a board, he proceeds to dilate
on their several merits, the picturesque recital being, on Lyndsay's
part, a masterpiece of mocking irony, full of grotesque allusions
admirably adapted to provoke the amused mirth of the rude crowd.
The soutar, who, meanwhile, has entered and listened to the recital,
now resolves to take advantage of Pardoner's arrival to obtain
a dispensation for separation from his wife. While he is in con-
ference with the holy man for this purpose, his wife appears, just in
time to hear his very plain-spoken description of her character and
doings; but, although furiously angry with him for libelling her as
he has done, she, in answer to Pardoner's query, affirms that she is
content with all her heart to be separated from him; and,
thereupon, Pardoner, on condition that they perform a mutual
ceremony too coarse for description, sends them away uncoupled,
'with Belial's best blessing. ' Then, after an interview between
Pardoner and his boy-servant Willikin, during which we obtain the
information that village middens are the chief hunting grounds for
Pardoner's holy relics, Pauper awakes from sleep. On Pauper
handing to the holy man his solitary groat, Pardoner guarantees
him in return a thousand years of pardons; but, since Pauper
cannot see the pardons and has no evidence that he has obtained
anything, he comes to the conclusion that he is merely being
robbed; and the interlude ends with a grotesque encounter
between the two, during which Pauper pitches both board and
relics into the water.
Part II deals more specifically with the evils of the time than
part 1 The three estates, in response to the previous summons,
now appear before the king; but they are shown us walking back-
wards, led by their vices—Spiritualitie by Covetousness and
Sensualitie, Temporalitie (the Lords) by Publick Oppression and


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128
Sir David Lyndsay
Merchant (the representatives of the burghs) by Falset and Dissait.
On Diligence, however, summoning all who are oppressed to come
and make their complaint to the king, John the Commoun Weill
makes his appearance, and, after a piquant conversation with the
king, denounces the vices of the three estates in no measured
terms, and requires that such scandalous persons should be put in
the stocks, which, at the instance of Correctioun, is immediately
done, Spiritualitie bidding Covetousness and Sensualitie a farewell,
the sadness of which is mitigated by the hope of soon meeting
them again. Then, at the instance of John the Commoun Weill,
who delivers an impressive address on the abuses of the adminis-
tration, the Temporal Estates repent of their conduct, promise
amendment and embrace John the CommounWeill. The Spiritualitie,
however, not only remain impenitent, but impudently seek to repre-
sent their doings as in the highest degree exemplary; the abbot,
the parson and the lady prioress, each in characteristic fashion,
seeking to show that their violation of their vows, so far from
being dishonourable, is rather to their credit than not, and that
their sins of omission are really condoned by the character of what
are usually deemed their sins of commission. This leads to a long
debate, during which Pauper, and also the soutar, the tailor,
a scribe and Common Thift, all add liveliness and point to the dis-
cussion. Then Common Thift—who had no other resource but to
steal—is induced by Oppressioun to go into the stocks in Oppres-
sioun's stead, on condition that Oppressioun will come again soon
and relieve him; but Oppressioun slinks away from the scene,
leaving Common Thift unsuccoured. Doctor, then, at the instance
of Correctioun, mounts the pulpit, and delivers a sermon amid
ill-mannered interruptions from the abbot and the parson. During
its delivery, Diligence spies a friar whispering with the abbot, and,
suspecting that he intends to 'set the town on steir' against the
preacher, has him apprehended; and, on his being brought in by
the sergeant and stripped of his habit, he is seen to be no other
than Flatterie. The lady prioress is then spoiled of her habit, and,
on being discovered to have been wearing under it a kirtle of silk,
gives her malison to her parents for compelling her to be a nun,
and not permitting her to marry. Flatterie is then put in the
stocks, and the three prelates are stripped of their habits, which
are put upon three sapient, cunning clerks. The prelates seek to
find comfort from Covetousness and Sensualitie; but these former
friends now renounce them, and they depart to earn an honest
living in secular occupations. Thereafter, John the Commoun
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