A Warning to Tyrants
Copyright 2005 by Jeff Suzuki
Here's another one inspired by blatant abuses of power, and another fast filk (it took me about a day to rough it out, and another day to polish). I'd like to think that songs like these will help stop abuses of power...but I'm a realist: it will take more than words to do that. (Words help, of course...but words alone can do little)
Medieval criticism of the government or those in power is a lot more common (at least in English culture) than you might expect, given the non-existence of the bill of rights; there are even diatribes against reigning kings (though they are understandably rare). The big difference the bill of rights makes is that you know what you can get away with; without it, you have to depend on the restraint of the individual. No doubt many of those in power took Nero's advise: Let them hate, so long as they fear.
More often the diatribes are directed against the king's policies (usually blamed on his advisors). If you wanted to be safe, you wrote about foreign kings (though this is dangerous, since you might find yourself writing about your own future king), and even better, dead ones (Herod and the Pharaoh were favorite targets). This one is written by my SCA alter ego, an Elizabethan living ca. 1600, at the end of Elizabeth's long reign.
You'll note that (except for John and Philip and the king against whom the men of Kent revolted) all those named are women. It was commonly believed in England that women could not and should not rule (the reign of Queen Matilda was much disliked). John Knox even wrote a treatise declaring that no woman should ever have a throne. His actual target was Queen Mary of Scotland, who was not only a woman, but was Catholic, while Knox was one of the leading figures in the Scottish Reformation. Misogynarchy (if that's the appropriate word for disliking female rulers) became unpopular when Elizabeth came to the throne and proved a ruler more capable than even her father. No prize if you can name the most powerful country in the world that has never had a female ruler. Here's a hint: it's not Russia, China, or India...
The music is Heart's Ease.
When bad king John ruled all the land, oppressed his people sore, When Israelites were trodden down by Bab'lon's painted whore, When Mary the Queen of Scots tried to bring traitors to these lands, The people one and all rose up to fight off the tyrant's hands No king or queen can take from us our ancient liberty To rule us well first earn respect as befits your nobility Said Queen Matilda I will win respect by force of arms, We proved her wrong and cast her down among the Wessex farms Said Mary Tudor I'll suppress dissent by Holy Fire, But we survived her wretched reign and proved she was a liar. The Men of Kent would not allow their rights to be denied, So up they rose against the King and forced his laws aside. When Philip sent his mighty fleet our island to oppress And take from us the freedoms given by our dear queen Bess, We sent his ships and sailors to their doom at Neptune's feet, And thus the same to all who would his foolish task repeat. If you would be a tyrant know before you take our throne That in this land no one shall rule by force of might alone.
The Footnotes
Please don't write to tell me that it wasn't “the people” who rose up against John, it was a coalition of barons interested in maintaining their own privileges. I know that as well as you do. However a patriotic Englishman in the time of Elizabeth would not necessarily distinguish between “the barons” and “the people.”
Queen Matilda was the daughter of Henry I. Her cousin Stephen swore an oath to recognize her as rightful heir to Henry's throne, but he broke the oath as soon as Henry died. A civil war followed. Despite her victories in the civil war, the English preferred Stephen over Matilda. Eventually she was defeated near Winchester (in Wessex), and relinquished the throne to England, though Stephen in turn acknowledged her son, Henry, as his heir.
Mary Tudor is of course known as “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestants; what made her intolerance particularly galling is that the harshest penalties were usually reserved for the middle and lower classes, while the nobles who were “guilty” of Protestantism managed to avoid the most severe punishment (execution). It would have taken an especially brave or foolhardy tunesmith to so criticize a recent monarch: Mary was, after all, Elizabeth's half-sister, and while Elizabeth had no love for Mary, this did not mean she would brook outright attacks on her. Even Thomas Deloney (see next note) would only go so far as to blame “Bloody Bonner” (Bishop of London) for the excesses of Mary's reign.
Would you believe that I completely forgot about the English word “was” when I wrote this line? I had the rather unsingable “and proved she be a liar” until someone pointed out the obvious alternate...
Thomas Deloney (d. 1599) wrote a song about the rebellion of the men of Kent against William the Conqueror to preserve the freedoms given to them by Edward the Confessor. It's worth pointing out that in the song, William was the rightful king of England (he had been crowned), whether or not you agreed with how he won the crown (by conquest).
So here's what hapens when you read too much: you learn words without knowing their pronunciation. Asimov referred to this a few times: he thought the name of the Greek hero was "AH-chills." Here the original word was “abridged” which, having only read it (and usually steered away from anything with that word on the cover), I thought was pronounced in such a way to rhyme with “obliged.” The same day I finished this song, in a totally unrelated conversation, I used the word (it was probably on my mind) and someone said “You mean abridged?” I went back and quickly changed the verse...
