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 In
England, this week is significant because they celebrate (if that’s
the word) the anniversary of an attempt to blow up the Houses
of Parliament. The conspirators were Roman Catholics, and the
figure identified with the endeavor (which became known as the
Gunpowder Plot) was one Guy Fawkes. The Mediadrome includes, in
the First Person series, the Confession
of Guy Fawkes: here is the introduction:
"On
November 5, 1605 Guy Fawkes was discovered beneath the houses
of Parliament with a huge amount of gunpowder. He soon confessed
under torture and others were arrested. The Gunpowder Plot was
a conspiracy to advance the Catholic cause in England by blowing
up the Houses of Parliament on opening day, when the king would
also be present. The discovery triggered a wave of anti-Catholic
violence. Guy Fawkes and three of his co-conspirators were hanged,
drawn and quartered on January 31, 1606."
The annual
celebration involves the building of stacks of wood and other
combustibles on village greens – or the nearest equivalent. On
top of these is  placed
an effigy to represent Fawkes, and after dark the pyre is lit,
and he is burnt in effigy. There are also fireworks.
There is
also a poem, whose authorship is unknown, that appeared soon after
the event:
Please
to remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We know no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Our subject
this week is, therefore, failed plots.
John Dryden
(1631 – 1700) was an English poet, dramatist, and literary critic
who so dominated the literary scene of his day that it came to
be known as the Age of Dryden. He produced a number of celebratory
works following the restoration of Charles II in 1660 that so
pleased the King he appointed Dryden Poet Laureate in 1668. In
1685, after the accession of James II, it appeared that the King
was moving towards Catholic toleration, and Dryden was received
into the Roman Catholic church. However, the abdication of James
in 1688 destroyed Dryden’s political prospects, and he lost his
laureateship to his enemy, Thomas Shadwell.
 Dryden's
greatest poem was, perhaps, his satire Absalom
and Achitophel. This relates to what has been called the
Popish Plot, and essentially it involved a move by the anti-Catholic
Earl of Shaftesbury to bring about the ruin of the Duke of York,
a Roman Catholic convert and the brother of King Charles II. The
object was to remove the Duke from the line of succession in favor
of the King’s illegitimate (but Protestant) oldest son, the Duke
of Monmouth. Monmouth later was involved in the Rye House Plot,
which ended up with him being exiled to Holland. In 1685 he returned
to England and raised a rebellion against his uncle, who by then
was on the throne as James II. This failed, and he was beheaded
on Tower Hill.
The Popish
Plot itself was fabricated in 1678 by a renegade Anglican priest,
Titus Oates (1649 – 1705), together with a fanatical anti-Jesuit,
Israel Tonge. They alleged that there was a vast Jesuit plot to
assassinate Charles II, and replace him with his brother. It might
have been ignored as the ravings of zealots, but they managed
to persuade a prominent justice of the peace, Sir Edmund Berry
Godfrey, of the truth of their claim. Godfrey was murdered in
October 1678 and his death suggested to a wider public that perhaps
the plot was real. There was widespread panic, and 35 people were
executed.
 Dryden’s
poem was published in 1681, and it is based on an incident in
the Bible (II Samuel 13 – 19) in which King David’s favorite son,
Absalom, is persuaded by his false friend Achitophel to revolt
against his father. In Dryden’s poem, Monmouth is called Absalom;
Shaftesbury is Achitophel, and Charles II is David. England is
Israel; and Queen Catharine (who was unable to have children)
is Micah. Godfrey is Agag, and Oates is Corah.
Merriam-Webster’s
Enclopedia of Literature remarks that “Despite the strong anti-Catholic
tenor of the times, Dryden’s clear and persuasive dissection of
the intriguers’ motives helped to preserve the Duke of York’s
position.”
The poem
is in two parts, but Dryden wrote only the first part; the second
part was written by Nahum Tate, apart from 200 lines by Dryden,
although he did also correct Tate’s manuscript. Even the first
part is far too long to quote: in my edition of Dryden’s Poetical
Works it occupies 23 pages. However, I intend to use the opening
thirty or forty lines as my first poem of the week.
 Our
next plot was even longer ago. In 1381 the working classes in
England were being oppressed at the hand of Richard II, who at
that time was 14 years old. Heavy taxes were levied, principally
to fight a war with France whose purpose was to secure the throne
for Richard. Eventually, a large force of peasants marched on
London, under the leadership of Wat Tyler, John Ball, and Jack
Straw. The King and his entourage met them in Smithfield, and
Tyler was given an assurance of safety to come and speak to the
King on his own. Everyone was edgy and, after talking for a while,
he was assassinated by one of the King’s men, and the revolt collapsed.
John Ball and Jack Straw were captured and hanged, drawn and quartered.
The exact details are, of course, far from clear. Once again,
The Mediadrome has a First
Person report, this by the historian Jean Froissart. Here
is The Mediadrome introduction:
"Jean
Froissart (c. 1337 - 1410) wrote a history of Western Europe
covering the first half of the Hundred Years War. This account
tells of the end of Wat Tyler's rebellion. Tyler had marched
through England, gathering 30,000 tax protesters who then converged
on London. Most of the nobles ran, some were killed and the
country looked like it was on the verge of collapse. Richard
II was 14 years old at the time, yet managed to keep his head
and his throne. It was his finest hour, his reign ultimately
proved to be disastrous and he was eventually deposed."
Froissart’s
account was contemporary, of course, but the majority of the (many)
subsequent accounts were essentially similar, in treating the
revolt as a matter of rude yokels over their noble liege lord.
It is interesting that this was only 33 years after the Black
Death, which in effect destroyed the feudal system in England.
However, the rise of working class movements in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries was accompanied by the identification
of Wat Tyler as a heroic figure fighting against upper class tyranny,
and his name is on Trades Union banners in England to this day.
 Robert
Southey (1774 – 1843), one of the Lake Poets, shared, in his younger
days, their republicanism and their admiration for the early French
Revolution. In 1794, over a period of three days, he wrote Wat
Tyler; A Drama, which presents the rebels as sympathetic
figures. He did not, in fact, publish it; but a copy was later
published (in 1816) without his knowledge, principally to embarrass
him, because by that time he had become much more orthodox in
his ways. However, in 1837 he published his Collected Poems,
and included Wat Tyler: his introduction to this is interesting.
Southey has had bad press from commentators and critics, which
is very unfortunate. He appears to have been the kindest of men,
in sharp contrast to some of his more widely admired friends,
and in spite of a life-long shortage of money supported a number
of people, including the discarded wives and children of his colleagues.
His facility was greatly admired, and he worked incredibly hard
as what amounts to a journeyman writer. Nevertheless, in spite
of some notable infelicities, the quality of much of his work
is very high, and I recommend that you read some of his work.
I think it is worth trying to have a look at his own collection
of his poems and make up your own mind, rather than simply looking
at those poems which some anthologiser has decided to include.
My second
poem for this week is the closing
speech of John Ball in Wat Tyler: he has just been
condemned by Sir John Tresilian to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
He has been accused:
of preaching up strange notions,
Heretical and treasonous, -- such as saying
That kings have not a right from Heaven to govern;
That all mankind are equal; and that rank
And the distinctions of society,
Ay, and the sacred rights of property,
Are evil and oppressive.
Southey
was also deeply opposed to the slave trade, and wrote many poems
urging the ending of this. The fight to end slavery was led in
England by William Wilberforce; the first major success was achieved
in 1807, but the final abolition of the slave trade was not achieved
until 1833, one month after Wilberforce’s death.
 My
last episode is again from England. This was not a plot, precisely:
it was a protest against the impact of the depression of the 1930’s
on the working people in the north of England, and the use at
the time of a ‘means test’ to assess whether poor people qualified
for assistance. It was occasioned by the 1936 closing down of
a shipyard in the town of Jarrow, close to Newcastle, which threw
many people out of work. A petition requesting action from the
then National Government with over 11,000 signatures was to be
delivered to the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, and a group
of men was selected to march the 300 miles from Jarrow to London.
The marchers were carefully chosen. Men were medically examined,
and 200 fit men were appointed to march. Bearing blue-and-white
banners, the Jarrow men paraded at 8.45 each morning of their
25-day march. Many marched army style - 50 minutes to the hour
with 10 minutes' rest. One marcher described one day, with rain
'…belting down …cats and dogs …but we were still marching like
soldiers. There were people on the pavement, they were crying
you know…' A leader in the planning of the march was the local
member of Parliament, Ellen Wilkinson (1891 – 1947), a member
of the Labour Party; however, the Town Council, who contributed
£1000 towards the expenses of the march, were careful to
make it clear that it had the support of all the political parties.
In 1974,
the English musician Alan Price wrote a song recalling the Jarrow
march. Price was born on April 19th, 1941 in Fairfield, County
Durham, in the north-east of England close to Jarrow. He first
became famous as a member of The Animals; he left them in 1965
and subsequently has had a varied and interesting career. The
Jarrow Song was included on his album Between Today and Yesterday.
This is the opening verse and the chorus; ‘Geordie’ is a general
name for men from the Newcastle-on-Tyne area; ‘bairns’ is the
local dialect word for ‘children’.
My name
is Geordie MacIntire,
And the bairns don’t even have a fire,
So the wife says “Geordie, go to London town!
And if they don’t give us half a chance,
Don’t even give us a second glance,
Then Geordie, with my blessings, burn them down!
Come on,
follow the Geordie boys!
They’ll fill your heart with joy,
They’re marching for their freedom now!
Come on, follow the Jarrow lads,
They’ll make your heart feel glad,
They’re singing now, yes now is the hour!
Actually,
the general tone of the march was not, apparently, violent or
revolutionary in character: its importance as a social statement
has been recognized in the succeeding years.
 The
last example of plots is going to be Irish (who said “Of course!”?)
and the event which is of particular interest involves the life
of Charles Stewart Parnell (1846 – 1891). Parnell came from a
Protestant family in County Wicklow. He was involved in the Irish
Home Rule movement in the latter part of the nineteenth century,
but eventually was disgraced as a result of his adultery with
Katherine O’Shea and the subsequent divorce proceedings brought
by her husband in 1889. Parnell married Katherine in June, 1891,
but died at their home on October 6th of the same year.
Parnell’s
early rise had been a result of the oppression of the Irish Republican
Brotherhood (the Fenians), and the intense nationalist feelings
this had engendered in even moderate Irishmen. In 1870 a new group,
the Home Rule League, was created, and in 1874 it returned 56
candidates to Parliament. Parnell was elected to Parliament for
Meath in April 1875, and quickly distinguished himself. In September
1877 the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain elected Parnell
as its president. In 1879, following an agricultural crisis which
suggested a possible return to the famine of the 1840’s, a new
party, the Irish Land League, was created by Michael Davitt, a
Fenian. This was opposed by most moderates, but Parnell embraced
it, becoming its first president.
After the
General Election of 1880 Parnell organized massive land agitation,
and obstructed Parliamentary business to the extent that ultimately
36 Irish members were suspended. In 1881, Gladstone’s Land Act
passed, which was a political triumph for the Land League, but
fell short of what the more extreme members wanted. Parnell pursued
a delicate political dance which ended up with him being sent
to Kilmainham Jail, Dublin. This was followed by the suppression
of the Land League, and a winter of sporadic local terror. Parnell
was seen as the only person who could bring some kind of order,
and his release was negotiated (by Captain William O’Shea – yes,
the husband of Parnell’s mistress!) in early 1882. The murder
in Phoenix Park, Dublin, of the Chief Secretary and the Permanent
Undersecretary by nationalists a few days after Parnell’s release
caused sufficient alarm to enable Parnell to bring the nationalist
extremists under control again. Later, a letter surfaced, which
was published by The Times on April 18th, 1887, purporting to
have been written by Parnell, condoning the Phoenix Park murders:
he denounced it as a forgery, and nearly two years later the forger,
Richard Pigott, collapsed under cross-examination and subsequently
committed suicide. This had a very positive effect on Parnell’s
standing in the eyes of the English liberals; but it was only
a couple of years before his death.
This is the
context which is the background to our last poem of this week,
Parnell’s
Funeral, by William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939). This is
from his collection A Full Moon in March.
So there
we are. A succession of plots and protests: sometimes the only
possibility for the poor and oppressed. If they succeed, the plotters
become heroes; if they fail, they are marginal figures in history.
Or they are burned in effigy every November 5th.
Treason
doth never prosper – What’s the reason?
If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
Sir John Harington (1561 –
1612)
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