¹ Plowman, Piers, edited by W. W. Skeat, “Notes to Texts, A, B, and C” E.E.T.S., No. 67 (London, 1877), p. 91.—Tyrwhitt pointed out the date of the “Southwestern wind” in a note to the Advertisement of his Glossary to Chaucer.Google Scholar

² Cargill, Oscar, “The Date of the A-Text of Piers Plowman,” PMLA, xlvii (1932), 354–362.—I have further noted that Capgrave, writing a good half-century later, preserves a circumstantial account of the southwest wind although his chronicle is not over detailed; see Capgrave, Chronicle of England, edited by F. C. Hingeston, Rolls Series, No. 1 (London, 18S8), p. 221.Google Scholar

³ Skeat also suggests that the great pestilence referred to in the southwest wind passage (v, 10–20) is that of 1361. But this is of little value because it is arrived at by mere arbitrary dismissal of the other two great pestilences, that of 1348 and particularly that of 1369. Cf. W. W. Skeat, Piers Plowman, “A-Text” E.E.T.S., No. 28 (London, 1867), p. xxxi.—The abuses of the peasants mentioned in iv, 40 and the mere mention of papal provisors in n, 148 and iii, 142 are too general to point to any precise period.

⁴ Piers Plowman “A. Text,” p. 37. (Passus iii, lines 182–201) (On ouer-houep see B-Text). The readings of the various MSS as given by Skeat present no variation which affects this paper.

In the “B. Text,” E.E.T.S., No. 38 (London, 1869), p. 40, (Passus iii, lines 188–207) there are only twoslight changes : the first for clarity in line 191 (A-Text) : Maade hem murpe ful muche to I made his men muri; the second involving one word for greater emphasis in line 199 (A-Text) : Sopliche to Cowardliche.

In the “C. Text,” E.E.T.S., No. 54 (London, 1873), p. 54 (Passus iv, lines 230–265) the passage is much changed and enlarged.

⁵ Skeat, “Notes to Texts A, B, and C,” p. 68.—I wish to express my indebtedness to Professor Carleton Brown who called my attention to this note and its insufficiency. I cannot adequately thank him for his tireless assistance and thoughtful encouragement to me in preparing this paper.

⁶ Cf. Tout, R. F., Political History of England (London, 1905), iii, 397: “The vastness of the sum (3,000,000 gold crowns or £500,000) can be realized by remembering that the ordinary revenue of the English crown in time of peace did not much exceed £60,000.“

⁷ After the death of John of France in 1364, his less honorable but more astute successor abandoned any thought of the payments due under the treaty of Bretigny and began indeed to encroach upon the territory ceded to England. According to the Chronicon Angliœ, edited by E. M. Thompson, Rolls Series, No. 64 (London, 1874), p. 62, the action of the French amounted by 1368 to open defiance of the treaty. In May of the succeeding year, Edward summoned Parliament to consider what should be done to enforce the terms of the treaty. With full concurrence of Parliament he reasserted his claims to the entire realm of France. Plans were formed for the invasion of Normandy, and an expedition was dispatched in charge of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the Count of Hereford. This expedition, however, accomplished nothing, some chroniclers attributing its failure to the cowardice of the leaders and others to the inadequacy of the invading force. The former are represented by Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, edited by H. T. Riley, Rolls Series, No. 28 (London, 1863), Vol i, and the Chronicon Angliœ; the latter are represented by the more disinterested Froissart and The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333 to 1381 from a Ms. Written at St. Mary's Abbey, York, edited by V. H. Galbraith, Publications of the University of Manchester cxxxv, Series xlv (Manchester, 1927).—The command then passed to Robert Knolles, and he was supplied with 20,000 marks and certain manors and lands. Internal dissension between Knolles and his more noble born lieutenants resulted in the complete failure of this campaign also, and led to his removal. From the accounts of the chroniclers mentioned above, we gather that the campaigns were suffering from the lack of unified command. Edward's strong hand and commanding position were badly needed.

⁸ The chroniclers all consider the Treaty as marking a great triumph for Edward; for example, the Chronicon Angliœ:p. 49: “Rex Angliae . . . venit Westmonasterium ad parliamentum, in quo praesentibus omnibus qui interesse debent, proponitur concordia inter reges stabilita. Placuit igitur universis dictam (concordiam) recipere et tenere.” TheAnonimalle Chronicle, pp. 47 ff., represents the treaty as a good thing, but bemoans, in view of later developments, the fact that Edward should have fulfilled his agreement to the extent of ordering his barons to vacate castles, etc. seized in France. This apparently coincides with Lady Meed's criticism. But the contemporary opinion at the time of Edward's return is expressed thus in the description of Edward's army : “Venauntz a Loundres paise-blement loiauntz Dieu en lour bone esploit.“

Also, Edward's renunciation of the crown was in no way final, hedged in with clauses and reservations as it was. Indeed, as T. F. Tout, op. cit. p. 373, points out, the French considered it a diplomatic triumph to have the clause omitted in which Edward and John definitely renounced their claims. Cf. similarly Sir James Ramsay, Genesis of Lancaster (Oxford, 1913), i, 442 ff. For the text of the treaty and an excellent account of the negotiations, cf. E. Cosneau, “Les Grands Traites de Guerre de Cent Ans” in Collection de Textes pour Servir a L'Enseignement de L'Histoire, Tome 7. Note his remark on the sincerity of the signers, p. 38 : “Il est inutile d'insister sur l'importance de ces clauses. On sait que les renonciations definitives ne furent pas echangees et que ce fut la le pretexte de la reprise des hostilites en 1369.“

Edward III as well as the French Regent did not think of the treaty as binding in the eventuality of future advantage to be gained from violating it. The treaty was, in fact, nothing but a rather badly kept truce. Indeed, mismanagement in France from the time of the treaty to the final catastrophe in 1373 was what made Edward's claim to the throne untenable.

⁹ Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, i, 287.

¹⁰ For other representative accounts of the campaign as I have outlined it, see: Froissart's Chronicles, Chaps, ccv–ccxiv

The Anonimalle Chronicle, pp. 45–49.

Chronicon Angliae, pp. 40 ff.

Adam of Murimouth, Chronicon Sui Temporis, edited by Thomas Hog, English Historical Society (London, 1846), pp. 192 ff.

Higden's Polyckronicon, edited by J. R. Lumbey, Rolls Series, No. 41 (London, 1886), Vol. vin.

Eulogium Historiarum, edited by F. S. Haydon, Rolls Series, No. 9 (London, 1863), iii, 165 ff.

A clear account may be found in Sir James Ramsay, op. cit., pp. 436 ff.

H. Denifle, La Desolation Des Eglises, Monasteres et Hopitaux en France (Paris, 1899), Vol. ii, gives an account of the extraordinary extent of the ravages made by the English.

¹¹ The contemptuous expressions do not fit with the universal contemporary opinion of Edward as a great and fearless warrior king.—T. P. Dunning, Piers Plowman, An Interpretation of the A-Text (Dublin, 1937), pp. 94–95, argues that Conscience is a psychological attribute of the King which seizes on the panic caused by the storm to advance the cause of peace. Dunning is persuasive but fails to meet two primary objections: the clearly marked distinction made between King and Conscience and the difficulties involved in an attack on Edward (or the Conscience of Edward). Moreover, for Lady Meed to criticize the very person before whom she was arguing would have been a piece of stupidity not in line with her apparent powers of debate. With Dunning's opinion of the general allegorical character of conscience, I am in accord.

¹² The holding of Acquitaine was terribly expensive; so were the unsuccessful failures mentioned above (note 7). When in Lent, 1370, the King demanded the sum of 100,000 marks for the prosecution of the wars, he met with considerable opposition. The money was collected the next year, but only with the greatest difficulty : cf. The Anonimalle Chronicle, p. 67: “Et pur celle demaunde les ditz clergie et communes treterent longe temps pur contre estre celle grevouse raunsoun, mes au derrain graunterent la dite somme pur graunt manauce qils furent manasces encountre leur voluntes.

¹³ Skeat's rendering “laughed” is not borne out by the forms in the N.E.D.

¹⁴ Cf. G. C. Macaulay, Works of John Gower, i, xlii; Tatlock in his Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works, Chaucer Society (1907), p. 220; Kittredge in his Date of Troilus and Other Matters, Chaucer Society Publication, 2nd Series, No. 43, p. 79.

¹⁵ Gower, op. cit., lines 22811 ff. Compare: Qe femme en terre soit regnant, etc. with Piers Plowman (see below p. 24) per heo is wel withpe kyng wo is pe Reame.

¹⁶ Ibid., lines 22921 ff.

¹⁷ “John of Bridlington” in Political Poems and Songs, edited by Thomas Wright, Rolls Series, No. 14 (London, 1859) p. 169 ff. The whole prohecy consists of short verses followed by long and detailed commentaries probably written by the “prophet” himself. The whole is divided into three “distinctions,” and they into chapters, each containing verse and commentary. Wright, the editor, pp. xxx ff., assigns the probable date of ca. 1370 to the poem. He feels that the point of view expressed in it is that of the years which led up to the Good Parliament. There is, also, a particular allusion to an irregular deposition of an Archbishop, possibly that of Langham, in 1368. He explains logically enough that the prophecy is unhistorical after the year 1364 because the writer was deliberately trying to shield himself in obscurity as he advanced to the contemporary. The entirely obscure and fantastic nature of the prophecy throughout, and particularly the obscurity of all that is felt to be of genuine contemporary significance are facts which support Wright's contention: and inescapable to a scientific view of the matter are the presence of the references, veiled and guarded, of course, to the Langham affair and to a renewal of the Norman wars. There are many allusions in the poem that are hopelessly obscure to the modern reader. What to the Fourteenth Century was as clear as a modern newspaper's mention of our “two most romantic lovers” is now lost completely to us. We can never hope to date a poem like this with absolute accuracy, because the writer was determined that it should not be possible even at the time of writing, but we can see the main currents of criticism, as the poet was anxious his readers should, and they, as Wright feels, point to a period not very like that of the termination of a war with honor and great financial return.—It is proper to say that G. C. Taylor, in his Political Prophecy in England (New York, 1911), pp. 51 ff., would date it no later than 1364. He bases his argument solely on the fact that there is almost no historical material in the prophecy after that date. But this fact Wright accounts for. Taylor does not handle Wright's real argument.

Sister H. M. Peck in a University of Chicago unprinted doctoral dissertation, Latin Prophecy of John of Bridlington, 1930, pp. 44 ff. (part of the dissertation is mimeographed, Univ. of Chi. Libr., 1931), agrees with Mr. Taylor and enters into a discussion of the date in more detail, but, in the end, has failed to deal with Wright's contention that the poem is expressive of the viewpoint of a liberal in the early seventies. She too argues on the basis of certain historical inaccuracies, which is a little unsatisfactory in a work which is designedly full of them. But she cannot explain the mulier who has taken absolute and complete sway over Edward except weakly by supposing that there might have been someone whom we don't know anything about: a thing not very likely when we must then suppose that the only persons who knew anything about this woman are the Bridlington poet (and Langland?). We can find nowhere any suggestion that before the death of Phillippa and the advent of Alice Perrers, Edward was under the complete domination of a mistress to the utter distraction of his rule. Sister Peck errs in saying that there are no references to the continuation of the Norman wars, for there is one chapter almost entirely devoted to “surmises” on the renewal of hostilities (chap. 4 of the 3rd Distinction); and such surmises must be regarded with suspicion by anyone studying the poem scientifically. It might also be mentioned that Sister Peck is incorrect in saying that the prophet expresses a dislike for the Treaty of Bretigny, for we do not get that impression from the following “explanation” of the lines which deal with Edward's return from France: “(Edward) non venit propter defectum auri, sicut multotiens solebat, sed afferet et reportabit secum aurum ad Angliam.” (2nd Distinction, 10th Chap.) This is certainly not a dislike of the treaty as such and certainly no lament for the loss of glory. There may be in it a suggestion of post facto criticism of the final results which led to a renewal of more expensive campaigns than ever. Interesting is the fact that the sentiment here is exactly similar to that of the “brass-bearing” Unes in the Norman War passage of Piers Plowman (iii, 188–189).

¹⁸ That the unspecified object of his attack, condemned for her distraction of the king, is not the queen is made evident, for example, in these lines:

“Simla lactata i. regina praedicta, vel alia mulier habens conditiones simiae lectatae, vel habens lac in uberibus . . . dicitur clunagitata i. supposita per regem vel alium qui cum ea concubit.”

“Si modo plus dicam. . . de muliere falsa scilicet de muliere praedicta, quasi diceret se applicarem ista praedicta ad reginam Anglia, seu ad praedictam mulierem, quod ipsa regem infatuat et decipit [note the present tense] sicut praedictae mulieres viros enarratos.”

“Scribitur in portus, meretrix est janua mortis . . . nota quod apparet hic auctorem invenire quod taurus concubit tunc cum alia muliere quam regina, quia aliter non diceretur scortum illud peccatum luxuriae, nee tantum ponderat illud factum cum uxore propria, nec tanta vindicta sequeretur quant innuit hic auctor.”

I have indicated in the previous note another link between the prophecy and Piers Plowman. Skeat sees a connection also; cf. Piers Plowman, “Notes to Texts A, B, and C,” p. 70.— Is it oversubtle to note that the word Calais, associated here with the Bridlington mulier, is what seems to start Lady Meed off on her attempt at self-justification? The word might well have had unfortunate associations. We must remember the immense popularity of the Bridlington prophecies and Langland's undoubted dramatic subtlety (cf. Miss Mildred Marcett, Uhtred De Boldon Friar William Jordan And Piers Plowman [New York, 1938] Chap. iv.) We might note, in this connection the word moylere (or mulier) in Langland's description of Meed, a word which is applied only to her in the poem so far as I can discover.

¹⁹ The line et latronem generabit, for example, is so explained in general terms, but I suspect that we have here another subtly implied reference to the Norman Wars. Alice Perrer's domination of the King has caused trouble for the people generally, but also indirectly has placed the command of the great campaign of '73 in the hands of John of Gaunt. As Edward's son and as the wicked leader of the disastrous campaign of 1373., the “robber” was “generated” by Edward in a two-fold sense, with one of which Alice was directly concerned in the minds of the people. (There is a later attack on an unspecified son of Edward, called leo in the Seventh Chapter of the Third Distinction.)

²⁰ During Queen Phillipa's lifetime, no such important scandal attaches itself to Edward: a peccadillo now and again—and very few of these, only two badly authenticated ones—certainly nothing which hindered Edward from active prosecution of his duties. Rev. W. Warburton, Edward III (New York, 1875), p. 260, points out: “that his reign was unusually free from such scandals—to which, indeed, the connection of his dotage with Alice Perrers is the chief exception—is perhaps mainly due to the admirable choice of a wife made for him by his execrable mother.“—Froissart's gossip about Edward and the Countess of Salisbury—at that, an unsuccessful flirtation of Edward's youth—is shown by William Longman, The Life and Times of Edward the Third (London, 1869), i, 200 to be open to the serious objection that Edward could not have been with the Countess at the time and place (her castle in 1342) which Froissart assigns. He also shows that the “garter story” lacks foundation. Cf. William Hunt, “Edward III” in D.N.B. (London, 1889).

²¹ Piers Plowman, A.-Text Pass, ii, lines 10–14, p. 17. The Roll of the Great Wardrobe 41/10, quoted from Notes and Queries, 7th Series, vu (1809), p. 450, gives us the description of five garments ordered for her in 1375, ‘76, ‘77, which will serve to illustrate Alice Perrer's magnificence of dress with particular reference to Langland's description: “A russet gown lined with white cloth” and “a cap of tanned kid leather, broidered with gold thread and bound with gold ribbon, furred with ermine. . . . For the Smithfield tournament, after Pen-tacost, but not completed, a cloth of gold tissue, lined with white and red taffata; a russet gown, lines with white, furred with ermine. . . . A scarlet gown furred with miniver, and reversed with ermine, with a hood; a sanguine cloak furred with gris; a sanguine gown and hood, furred with miniver.” Cf. also Issues of the Exchequer, edited by F. Devon (London, 1837), p. 193: Issue Roll, Easter, 46 Edward III Apr. 15, “to Alice Perrers £200 for other jewels against feast of the Nativity of our Lord last past,” p. 209: Issue Roll, Easter, 2 Rich. II May 21, “to Alan de Stokes, clerk of King's wardrobe, for the value of pearls of A.P. lately received by Simon de Byrgh, Wm. Blakemore, et al.

Cf. also Kingsford, C. C. “Alice Perrers” in D.N.B.—A further notion of her wealth and possessions, particularly of the grant to her of Phillippa's jewelry, may be gained from this partial list of grants made to her, taken from the Calendarium Rotulorum in Turri Londenensi (1802) :

42 Edw. III (1368) “. . . in foedo maner' de Ardington . . .“

Ibid. “. . . pro vita landam de Morton cum cooperto de Mortoscogh in foresta de Inglewood.“

Ibid. “. . . in foedo unam placeam terr' vocat' Many Lawes in com' Northumbr'. . .“

46 Edw. III (1372) “. . . in foedo unum messagium et unam shopam in parochia omnium Sanctorum in warda de Dougate London' ...“

47 Edw. III (1373) “. . . omnia jocalia bona et catalla quœ fuerunt ipsius Phillippae &c. ad suum proprium usum.“

49 Edw. III (1375) “. . . in foedo manerium de Praunford Specke cum advocatione Ecclesiae de Wemmeworth in comitatu Devon'...“

It must be emphasized that this is but a partial listing of grants made to her; there were very many others. There is evidence from these grants that Alice had caught the king's eye even before the death of Phillippa; certainly in 1368, a year before the Queen's death, there is a burst of grants which may betoken the blazing of the spark of the King's passion. But it is in 1373 with the giving of the Queen's jewels to Alice that we observe a really complete domination of the aged Edward by Alice Perrers. It is, then, during the period between 1369 and 1373 that we should suppose Edward's affair with Alice achieved notoriety. Cf. also Calendar of the Patent Rolls (London), Vols. 13–15.

^21a John Stow, A Survey of London, ed. by H. Morley (London, 1908), p. 351.

²² Piers Plowman, A. Text, Pass. II, line 11, p. 17.

²³ Ibid., Pass. II, lines 101–102, p. 22. Does cosyn have a double entendre?

²⁴ Ibid., Pass. III, Une 148, p. 36. Cf. note 15.

²⁵ Ibid., Pass. III, line 181, p. 37.

²⁶ Cf. Chronicon Angliœ, pp. 95 ff.

²⁷ Cargill, Oscar, op. cit., p. 360.Google Scholar

²⁸ Gower's Mirour de L'Omme, Vol. i in the Works of John Gower, edited by G. C. Macaulay (Oxford, 1899), lines 25573 ff., p. 283.

²⁹ Skeat, “Notes to Texts A, B, and C,” p. 44.

³⁰ Skeat points out this identification in his notes to the texts, op. cit., pp. 63, 68. It is sufficiently obvious to pass without question. The King cannot be Richard II because in the prologue to the B-Text he is introduced in the fable of the Rats as the “kitten.” He cannot be Edward II because in III, 122 his death and deposition are alluded to; cf. Skeat's notes, p. 64.

³¹ It is quite clear from all accounts that Acquitaine was rapidly becoming a lost province. It could be held only by great concessions to the Gascon nobles. Each year the French king was spreading his domain by conquest or by voluntary defection to him of nobles dissatisfied with English rule. It was a very difficult situation that John was left to face. Cf. S. Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt (1904), pp. 75 ff. Froissart gives a clear picture of this process of change. Cf. above, note 12.

³² Walsingham, op. cit., p. 314.

³³ Cf. The Anonimalle Chronicle, pp. 59 ff.; Chronicon Angliœ, pp. 62 ff.; and above, note 7.

³⁴ Armitage-Smith, op. cit., p. 99; cf. James Ramsay, op. cit., ii, 32 ff.

³⁵ Cf. Froissart, Chaps. cccx-xii.

³⁶ Armitage-Smith, op. cit., p. 113; cf. Rotuli Parliamentorum ii, 316a; James Mackinnon, The History of Edward the Third (London, 1900), pp. 551 ff.

³⁷ Cf. Grandes Chroniques de France, vi, 339.

³⁸ Armitage-Smith, op. cit., p. 116; Ramsay, op. cit., ii, 32 ff.; James Mackinnon, op. cit., p. 552: “Before the crushing news reached England, Parliament had again (on the 29th of November) granted, though with many murmurs, a fifteenth for two years, and renewed the wool subsidy and the grant of tunnage and poundage for the same term, on the assurance that the campaign was proceeding successfully. What must have been the dismay of the people when the grim truth leaked out, and the hopes which England had built on this splendid army gave way before the sense of inevitable failure.” Cf. also E. M. Thompson, “John of Gaunt,” in D.N.B.

³⁹ Froissart, Chap, cccxi.

⁴⁰ The Anonimalle Chronicle, pp. 73 ff. (Italics mine.)

⁴¹ Walsingham, op. cit., p. 315. (Italics mine.)

⁴² This is the meaning made necessary by the close approximation of the lines of the Piers Plowman passage to those in Bridlington and the Miroir which attack Alice Perrers for her part in preventing the king from taking active command.

⁴³ Lancaster was accused, as we have seen, of having entered the truce with the French through cowardice: indeed, he was suspected of false and underhand dealings. The curious phrase, “little silver,” may refer to these suspicions as well as to the treaty of Bretigny, which the catastrophe of 1373 finally stamped as having been a defeat for the English. The reference is not clear for reasons connected with the poet's concern with his own safety. Cf. Armitage-Smith, op. cit., p. 142; James Mackinnon, op. cit., p. 553: “Lancaster returned . . . to England, leaving the cause of Edward hopelessly discredited, and followed by malicious rumours of having sacrificed his honour and his army to his greed of French gold.” The phrase, taken with the lines about the “pilour's selling of brass at Calais” may possibly further suggest the accusations, raised in the Good Parliament, of graft in the handling of war funds. Cf. Chronicon Anglio, pp. 75 ff.

⁴⁴ The reading, “Ur Fader Adam heo falde,” is not supported in the other manuscripts, three of which give the correct reading. growing senility of his father and the incapacitation of the Black Prince. The full significance of this identification rests in the political situation in England in 1374 when Lancaster returned. The struggle between the reactionary and popular forces for the control of the government had begun, but John remained an equivocal figure until after the Good Parliament. (Cf. Armitage-Smith, op. cit., p. 123 ff.) He had made a botch of foreign affairs, but his domestic policies were untried and unknown. Would he align himself with the Black Prince in supporting the cause of reform or with the profiteers and the court favorites in the cause of reaction. Would he drive the hated Alice Perrers from his father's side, the mistress of the king who in 1374 flaunted her power by parading through the streets of Cheapside? (Cf. above p. 50.) These were real questions to every thoughtful Englishman, and the public-spirited must have cherished a strong hope that John would decide for the right when they remembered that the Black Prince had had enough confidence in his brother to leave him in charge of the difficult situation in Acquitaine.

⁴⁷ This is very similar to the line, “et latronem generabit,” from Bridlington, which is explained above, note 19.

⁴⁸ See, for example, the Anonimalle Chronicle, pp. 79 ff. Characteristic statements about the wasted expenses of the negotiations (in 1375) are: “et demurrerent . . . a excessive costage saunz profit. . . A quel tretee le dite duk fist graunt despens et graunt riot. . . et despendist passaunt xx mille li saunz ascune esploit profitable de les biens Dengleterre.“