Free Terry Jones' Medieval Lives by Alan Ereira Page B

that he had been Anne’s lover.
    Blame not my Lute!
    Farewell! unknown; for though thou break
    My strings in spite with great disdain ,
    Yet have I found out for thy sake ,
    Strings for to string my Lute again :
    And if, perchance, this sely rhyme
    Do make thee blush, at any time ,
    Blame not my Lute!
    The men named were arrested, providing the pretext that allowed Henry to dispose of Anne Boleyn and replace her with Jane Seymour. Wyatt was released; it may be that Henry had a soft spot for songwriters. He was one himself, and wrote a new arrangement and lyrics for an old tune, which he called ‘Greensleeves’.
    Alas, my love, you do me wrong ,
    To cast me off discourteously.
    For I have loved you well and long ,
    Delighting in your company.
    Any affection Henry might have felt for fellow-performers did not extend to Smeaton, who was tried for treason on 12 May 1536. He was not allowed to defend himself. He was hanged, cut down while still alive, his stomach was cut open and his intestines were pulled out in front of his still-conscious eyes. Then his body was butchered.
    The revels were ended, the Middle Ages had given way to the ruthless cruelty of Renaissance power.
    And what was left of the minstrels? Quite a lot; they had vanished as a class, but mutated into something far broader. The literature, poetry and drama of England now embraced and entertained the whole nation; and could weave together the most sublime and powerful emotions and delicate language, with the lowest comedy, to create a single, extraordinary experience. This was made evident later in the century, when Shakespeare’s work appeared. His colleagues in the high-minded enterprise of presenting high tragedy and sophisticated comedy included Will Kemp, a fellow-shareholder in the Globe Theatre – clown, dancer, singer, instrumentalist and a man who fully appreciated the audience appeal of a leap, a whistle and a fart.
    And the queen under whose rule they flourished, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, was said (very quietly) to bear more than a passing resemblance to Mark Smeaton.

CHAPTER THREE

    OUTLAW
    âŽ¯âŽ¯âŽ¯âŽ¯âŽ¯âŽ¯âŽ¯
    T HE OUTLAWS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND are still the stuff of legend. Heroes who bestrode the greenwood, fearlessly wearing only tights and little short tunics that hardly covered their bottoms – the figure of the medieval outlaw has come to represent freedom and justice for the common man.
    Outlaws inhabit a kind of border territory in our medieval myth, crossing back and forth between the pantomime vision of a jolly and well-ordered medieval kingdom and the dark image of horribly violent and barbaric lawlessness. Taking a cool look at reality not only reveals the truth and falsehood in both these images, but also clarifies what has emerged as a central theme of this whole book; the way in which medieval lives in England became different from those in the rest of Europe, as a distinct national society emerged.
    Perhaps the most surprising example of that distinctiveness is that in England, uniquely in Europe, bold robber outlaws were necessary for the effective functioning of the kingdom.
    This will all be explained as we investigate whether bandits like Robin Hood really existed, whether the forest was truly a place of freedom and escape, and, of course, the key question, did outlaws never wear trousers?
    There certainly were plenty of outlaws in the Middle Ages, in fact, more than one might imagine. By the end of the period, historians tell us, practically everyone got outlawed at some stage of their lives. It had become a minor inconvenience – a bit like having your credit card stopped.
    It is true that there were some other outlaws whose violence blighted society, but even there things are often not quite what one might expect.
    Take the drama that engulfed the little village of Teigh, in Rutland, one afternoon in 1340.
    A REAL-LIFE OUTLAW GANG
    A gang of armed men broke into the church, and