Taliesin at the Court of Henry VIII:
Aspects of the Writings of Elis Gruffydd*
by Jerry Hunter, PhD
The Tale of Gwion Bach and Taliesin has attracted a great deal of attention over the past two centuries. From Thomas Love Peacock and Charlotte Guest to John Rh&Mac223;s, John Morris Jones, Ifor Williams, and, more recently, Juliette Wood and Patrick Ford, the narrative has appealed to novelists, translators and scholars from many generations and various backgrounds.1 Much of the scholarly interest has been characterized by the Celticist’s obsession with the very old and all things druidic, with John Rh&Mac223;s, John Morris-Jones, Ifor Williams and others being primarily concerned with the tale’s relationships to the medieval Book of Taliesin and ways in which it might relate to the pre-Christian period of Celtic cultural history.2 However, the earliest version of this narrative, the Ystoria Taliesin, is found in the sixteenth-century chronicle of Elis Gruffydd, several centuries removed from the Book of Taliesin, and well over a thousand years removed from any pre-Christian druidic Celts. Ironically, while the Ystoria Taliesin has attracted more attention than any other part of Elis Gruffydd’s work, it has only been used as a window on earlier times, beliefs and traditions, and has not been interpreted in terms of the life, times and work of Elis Gruffydd himself.
While primarily concerned with the relationship between the Ystoria and other Celtic narratives about poetic inspiration, Patrick Ford has also drawn attention to the importance of studying the tale in the context of Elis Gruffydd’s own work: ‘Elis has a fine eye for detail, and he is a gifted storyteller with a keen dramatic sense, whose narrative art compares very favourably with the best medieval and Renaissance Welsh prose.’3 My intention is to follow this lead and offer a better understanding of the Ystoria Taliesin by focusing, perhaps more sharply than others have done in the past, on the narrative’s immediate contexts, that is the work of Elis Gruffydd and what we know about the life and times of the man himself.
Known as ‘the soldier of Calais’, Elis Gruffydd spent the last years of his life as part of the English crown’s garrison in that town. He spent the early part of his life in Gronant Uchaf in Flintshire. It is generally assumed that he was born about 1490, and he was related to the Mostyns, a family with considerable wealth and influence. However, as his branch of the family had not prospered in recent times, Thomas Jones, Prys Morgan and others have suggested that these financial difficulties may account for the fact that the young Elis sought employment in the army of Henry VIII. He became a professional soldier, campaigning in Spain, the Netherlands and France. At some point the soldier from Flintshire came into the service of Sir Robert Wingfield, and in this capacity he found himself witnessing some of the major political events of the time such as the meeting between Henry VIII and the King of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.4
Between 1524 and 1529, Elis Gruffydd was living in London and looking after his master’s house, Wingfield Place. He witnessed events in Star Chamber, saw many of the major political players of the day at first hand, and apparently enjoyed life in the big city. At this time he composed the first of his surviving works, a manuscript now in the Cardiff Central Library collection, originally labelled Cardiff 5.5 The Cardiff 5 manuscript is a compilation of prose and poetry which looks back to the manuscript tradition of the late Middle Ages rather than to the newer ideas and styles which began to effect the Welsh literary tradition during the sixteenth century. By 1530 Elis Gruffydd had secured an appointment to the garrison of Calais, where his master, Sir Robert Wingfield, was deputy governor. It was in Calais that Elis wrote his other two surviving works, the first of which is a collection of Welsh translations of various medical works, known as Castell yr Iechyd.6
The other surviving work written in Calais is the text which contains the Ystoria Taliesin, Elis Gruffydd’s huge chronicle of world history. It is this text which, at least in my opinion, makes Elis one of the most important Welsh writers of the early modern period. This massive work is 2,400 large folio pages in length, and it covers the history of the world from Adam and Eve up to the year 1552. This chronicle represents a radical departure from the medieval Welsh historiographical tradition; in addition to the novelty of its sheer size, the work was in many ways modelled on non-Welsh texts, such as the English chronicles which were being printed and bought in considerable numbers by the middle of the sixteenth century. It contains a staggering amount of information gleaned from the oral and written traditions of Wales, England, and France, and the later part of the chronicle records events which Elis himself witnessed in London and Calais. Despite the eclectic and cosmopolitan nature of his chronicle, Elis Gruffydd wrote it in Welsh. This simple fact is of the greatest importance: while Elis Gruffydd lived most all of his adult life outside the land of his birth, he mitigated his self-imposed exile by writing extensively in Welsh for a readership back in Wales.
In this paper I will suggest briefly two very different ways in which we can read the Ystoria Taliesin productively in terms of the broader context supplied by what we know about Elis Gruffydd and his work. I shall conclude by examining the tale synchronically within the context of the chronicle of which it is a part, focusing on thematic aspects. Before doing that, I shall first look at the tale diachronically (that is, the way in which the material changed through time), within the broader context of Elis Gruffydd’s entire career as writer and copyist.
The Construction of Ystoria Taliesin and Sixteenth-Century
Manuscript Culture
The Cardiff 5 manuscript, Elis Gruffydd’s first surviving work, is in fact extremely relevant to the study of the Ystoria Taliesin.7 As mentioned above, this manuscript is in many ways a medieval miscellany. Like so many Welsh manuscripts which predate it, it contains a considerable selection of poetry in the cywydd metre as well as genealogies, prophecies and various short prose texts. The prose tends to be of a religious or pedagogical nature, although it also contains a version of the Seven Sages of Rome, apparently translated by Elis himself.8 This early manuscript does not include any prose tale similar to the chronicle’s Ystoria Taliesin. On the other hand, the last pages of Cardiff 5 do contain verses associated with the legendary Taliesin figure, verses which, in fact, were later incorporated by Elis Gruffydd in the chronicle’s narrative version, that is, in the Ystoria itself. This simple fact bears rephrasing as it is of the utmost importance: the earlier manuscript does not contain the prose tale, but it does contain a collection of the poetry which punctuates the Chronicle’s prose-and-verse narrative.9
It is impossible to compare the Ystoria Taliesin with an earlier version of the prose tale for the simple reason that there are no earlier versions. However, it is possible to compare Elis Gruffydd’s earlier collection of Taliesin poetry with the verses woven into the chronicle’s narrative. They do, in fact, differ in several important ways.10 First of all, the language of the two bodies of poetry differs significantly. Many minor linguistic variations add up to point to one general conclusion: the poems found in the earlier manuscript are closer to spoken Welsh, whereas the verses contained in the chronicle are more formal and literary. For example, final –f is left out in the earlier manuscript, and added in the Chronicle’s copy of the poetry; the verbal form wna’i, ‘I will do’, reflecting an oral or less formal linguistic register, is rendered more formally as gwnaf in the later work.11 Perhaps more significantly, in one of the poems found in both manuscripts, one couplet is repeated in the earlier version while it appears only once in the later text.12 This might suggest that this couplet represents a kind of chorus, hinting that the poetry contained in the earlier manuscript might be one step closer to oral performance (or to a manuscript tradition predicated more closely on oral performance), and that the chronicle’s version betrays a more self-consciously literary mindset.13 We can add here that there is also some external evidence as to the oral performance of Taliesin material in the sixteenth century.14
One of the most striking differences is found in the ‘Cerdd Amborth’, the ‘Supporting Song’ which Taliesin recites upon reaching the gate of Maelgwn Gwynedd’s court. While the poem is given in full in the Cardiff manuscript under the title Cerdd Amborth, in the chronicle’s narrative version the poem is only referred to in passing by its title (or genre name).15 In this later text Elis simply notes that: ‘Ynn ol hyn, megis ac J mae’r ysgriuen ynn dangos, J kannodd ef gerdd amborth ... ‘(‘After this, as the writing shows, he sung a cerdd amborth’).16 The poem is cited, but not included in the prose version. The fact that Elis Gruffydd cites yr ysgrifen, ‘the writing’, is of course extremely significant considering the suggestion that his chronicle betrays a more self-consciously literary milieu. Much more could be said about the differences between the poems in the two manuscripts, but this brief survey of divergences will have to do for now.
It should be noted that Elis Gruffydd’s Cardiff 5 collection is by no means the only manuscript which contains a collection of this Taliesin poetry without the associated prose narrative. In his detailed study of these texts, Gruffydd Fôn Gruffydd concludes that 270 poems are attributed to Taliesin in a total of 259 manuscripts.17 Analysing this wealth of manuscript evidence suggests that two of these poems were more popular than the rest, perhaps because they seem to encapsulate what we might call the core of the verse-narrative tradition. The first of these is ‘Dyhuddiant Elphin’ (‘Elffin’s Consolation’), beginning, Elphin teg, taw a’th wylo (‘fair Elffin, stop your crying’).18 The second, and the most popular, of the two is the one beginning Prifardd Cyffredin ydwyf i Elffin, ‘I am Elffin’s chief-poet’, with the adjective kyffredin, ‘common’, perhaps meaning ‘at wages’, ‘on hire’, or something like ‘the chief-poet normally found in Elffin’s court.’19
Gruffydd Fôn Gruffydd has recorded 68 separate manuscript copies of this poem, and he notes that 25 of these versions include the title ‘Hanes Taliesin’ (‘The Story [or History] of Taliesin’). 20 This, in fact, is the title given by Elis Gruffydd in Cardiff 5.21 Perhaps significantly, this is also the first poem which Elis included in that manuscript’s collection of Taliesin poetry. It is by no means the first poem occurring in the Ystoria Taliesin (that is the Chronicle’s narrative version), but the reason for using it to introduce the other verses in the earlier manuscript is clear. As stated above, it was the most popular of the Taliesin poems, the one commonly given a title indexing the entire tradition, ‘Hanes Taliesin’. Moreover, the actual subject matter of the poem provides the basis for the narrative, tracing Taliesin’s legendary shape-shifting lineage and referring to his previous incarnation as Gwion Bach. It thus also establishes his status as all-knowing prophet and his powers to transcend the confines of time and space. Finally, this poem links Taliesin to Elffin and the associated troubles at Maelgwn Gwynedd’s court. In other words, the poem called ‘Hanes Taliesin’ does, in fact, give a compact version of the history or story of Taliesin. We are thus justified – on the basis of external as well as internal evidence – in calling it the main poem of the Hanes Taliesin tradition.
Following the trajectory of this material diachronically through Elis Gruffydd’s career as copyist and writer is an extremely rewarding venture. While Elis was familiar with the tradition in which this poem alone was known as ‘Hanes Taliesin’ (after all, he used that very title in Cardiff 5), he decided to call his later prose-and-poetry version ‘Ystoria Taliesin’. The change in title from Cardiff 5’s ‘Hanes Taliesin’ to the Chronicle’s ‘Ystoria Taliesin’ may seem insignificant, as both words can mean ‘history’, ‘story’ or ‘tale’. However, this apparently insignificant rewording is, I think, noteworthy as it is linked to the changing manuscript contexts in which the Taliesin material is found.
To bring the manuscript evidence together, we know first of all that the Hanes Taliesin poetry was very popular in sixteenth-century Wales, especially the poem given that very title. We also have evidence that this particular poem circulated orally and in manuscript, and can infer that the same is true for some or all of the other ‘Tale of Taliesin’ poems. Secondly, we know that, while the associated prose narrative circulated in manuscript after the appearance of Elis Gruffydd’s chronicle, his version is in fact the earliest. The third general conclusion is the simple but revealing fact that Elis Gruffydd first sat down to collect the poetry in the earlier manuscript, Cardiff 5, only later to weave versions of these same poems into an extended prose-and-verse narrative, the chronicle’s Ystoria Taliesin. It would thus not be incorrect to say that Elis Gruffydd in a very real sense is the author of Ystoria Taliesin; he wove it out of the existing tradition of the Hanes Taliesin poetry, a tradition which was dually transmitted by manuscript and by oral performance. It has been assumed in the past that the narrative reached Elis orally, and that the adjective he uses in referring to the tale, ‘sathredig’, meaning ‘current’ or ‘common’, is to be taken as referring to oral tradition. However, Elis cites ‘yr ysgrifen’, ‘the writing’, at least three times in the body of the narrative (‘yn ol yr ysgrifen’, ‘according to the writing’, is the usual phrase), and he once refers to the various and contradictory pieces of information found in ‘llyfre’, ‘books’ (meaning manuscripts). While it is also entirely possible that Elis heard oral performances of prose or prose-and-verse versions of the Taliesin tale, the evidence presented above suggests that we must be at least equally aware of the possibility that the narrative reached Elis by means of written channels.
The whole story may yet be even more complicated. Given the weight of manuscript evidence from the period, and given Elis Gruffydd’s own collection of Taliesin poetry in the earlier manuscript, it might well be that, in referring to ‘ysgrifen’ and ‘llyfrau’, he is actually referring to other written collections of the poetry, and not to another written version of the prose narrative (which is hypothetical, and now lost). Remember that, while Elis recorded the ‘Cerdd Amborth’ in Cardiff 5, he omitted it from the Chronicle’s Ystoria Taliesin, noting only that: ‘Ynn ol hyn, megis ac J mae’r ysgriuen ynn dangos, J kannodd ef gerdd amborth .....’ The word ysgrifen here could very well be referring to his own earlier written collection, the Cardiff 5 manuscript which, as I have already stressed, does in fact contain a full version of the ‘Cerdd Amborth’.
These conclusions might be very significant in terms of the relative status of traditional prose narrative within the changing parameters of Welsh manuscript culture, and it is certain that the way in which Elis Gruffydd treated similar material in different contexts at different times reveals a great deal about his historical trajectory as a writer. The Cardiff 5 collection is very much a medieval miscellany; everything about it bespeaks a late-medieval Welsh mindset, including the hand-writing itself. His earlier writing is closer to late medieval practice; indeed, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan has suggested that Elis was influenced by a north-eastern Welsh (monastic ?) school of writing during his early years.22 Later, as seen in his chronicle, Elis developed this medieval, or neo-medieval, hand into a more personalized, early-modern script. The chronicle also differs from the earlier manuscript in other important ways; though also ‘backwards-looking’ in some respects, it is very much a sixteenth-century work, entirely different in scope, organization and outlook from the earlier medieval miscellany. While it does rework elements of the medieval tradition, it is a text looking to English-language Tudor historiography for inspiration as much as to any earlier Welsh literary models.
Thus, in keeping with the medieval tradition of which the Cardiff 5 MS. was a part, or at least a very direct descendent, a prose story such as the Taliesin narrative simply was not written down. The poetry was worth recording, but the prose was not. This might be said to reflect an age-old Welsh bias favouring poetry (or particular kinds of poetry) over narrative prose (or certain kinds of narrative prose), perhaps still a cultural truism today. On the other hand, narrative was the very essence of the Tudor Chronicle. Narrative history – relating events at great length, verbosely in fact – is perhaps the greatest single stylistic feature of works such as the chronicles of Hall, Rastell, and Holinshed. It is in this context, and not in that of the medieval Welsh miscellany, that we find Elis writing, recording, or composing his ‘Ystoria Taliesin’. It is the shift from the medieval Welsh economy of prose (or this specific kind of ‘native’ narrative prose) to the copious prose narrative of the Tudor chronicle which accounts for the difference.23 This is the line of inquiry which, I believe, allows us to trace the construction of the Ystoria Taliesin through Elis Gruffydd’s career as a writer.
It is this, then, which accounts for the shift in titles from the ‘Hanes Taliesin’ poetry of the earlier manuscript to the ‘Ystoria Taliesin’ prose-and-verse composition. As Brynley Roberts has shown in detail, ystoria in Middle Welsh, in addition to meaning ‘history’ or ‘story’, tended to mean ‘a written history or story’.24 Elis Gruffydd’s own use of the term in other contexts strongly suggest that, for him, ‘ystoria’, meant ‘a written text’. The emphasis is on the writing. By calling his narrative ‘Ystoria Taliesin’, Elis Gruffydd perhaps meant ‘the written account of the Taliesin story’. The change from hanes to ystoria seems to reflect the movement of the narrative background normally taken for granted (and thus not recorded in manuscript) into the new literary context of the Tudor chronicle which privileged narrative history (thus prompting the recording of the prose narrative).
Reading Ystoria Taliesin as a Court Narrative
A diachronic look at Elis Gruffydd’s use of the Taliesin story shows that he was a writer working at a time of transition, negotiating the change from the manuscript culture of the medieval Welsh copyist to a new age defined by new horizons and influences. In recording the Taliesin narrative the chronicler was dealing to a great extent with traditional Welsh material, yet his own life experiences and literary tastes surely tempered his use of this material. By considering Ystoria Taliesin within the immediate context of Elis Gruffydd’s massive chronicle we can focus critical attention more precisely on this authorial process.
The Ystoria takes up only about 14 of the chronicle’s 2,400 pages, and a study of the narrative’s style and themes reveals that it has much in common with other aspects of the huge work of which it is a very small part. The Gwion Bach-Taliesin narrative spans the realms of Arthur and Maelgwn Gwynedd, and thus it should be read in terms of the chronicler’s treatment of these periods of history (or pseudo-history). Another productive approach involves tracing thematic currents evident in the Ystoria through other parts of the chronicle. The emphasis on prophecy is one example; an acute concern with the Welsh vaticinatory tradition characterizes many parts of the work.25 Taking yet another angle, the Ystoria is but one of many sections of the chronicle which we might classify as ‘court narratives’.
In writing the Ystoria Elis Gruffydd ensured that his readers would not forget that the majority of the tale’s events are located at court. The second half of the Gwion Bach-Taliesin story is introduced by explicit reference to the courtly setting: ‘Ynn yr amser ac Jr ydoe[d] Vaelgwn Gwynnedd yn kynnal J lys ynghasdell Dyganwy...’ (‘At the time when Maelgwn Gwynedd was holding his court in the castle of Dyganwy [or ‘at Castell Dyganwy’]).26 Elis also emphasizes the courtly context in introducing Elffin: ‘Ac J mae’r ysdori hon yn dangos bod J Wyddno vab a elwid Elffin vab Gwyd[d]no yr hwn a oedd mewn gwsanaeth ynn llys y brenin Maelgwn’ (‘And this story shows that Gwyddno had a son called Elffin fab Gwyddno who was in service in the court of the king Maelgwn’).27 He constructs Elffin’s character in such a way as to criticize courtiers as a group: ‘J mae’r ysgriuen ynn dangos J vod ef yn wr treulgar anwellynniog, megis ac J mae’r hran vwyaf o’r kowrttwyr’ (‘The writing shows that he was an unruly spendthrift, as are the majority of the courtiers’). Similarly, it is ‘certain of the men at court’ – ‘serttain o wyr y llys’ – who intercede on Elffin’s behalf when his unchecked spending impoverishes him.28
Gwion Bach is then discovered (and renamed Taliesin), and Elffin’s fortunes improve considerably, leading to one of the tale’s dramatic high-points, Elffin’s unwise boasting at the expense of the king. This episode takes place during Maelgwn’s Christmas feast, and Elis details the courtly scene:
[y] brenin [...] a oedd ynn kynnal llys agored ynnghasdell Dygannwy ar amser Nydolig a’i holl amdler arglwyddi o boob vn o’r ddwy radd, ysbrydol a bydol, gyda mawr lvosoglwydd niuer o varchogion ac ysgwieiriaid, ymhlith yr rhainn J kyuodes ymddiuan ....29
[the king [...] was holding an open court at Castell Dyganwy at Christmas time with all its abundance of lords of each of the two estates, both spiritual and worldly, with an exceedingly large number of knights and squires, amongst whom a discussion arose ....]
When Taliesin extricates Elffin from the first of a series of tangles caused by his boasting, Elffin amplifies his triumph with a rhetorical speech, beginning:
‘Gida’ch keniad chwi, Vrenin anhrydeddus, ynn wir nid ydwyf J ynn abyl mewn vn modd J wadu vy modrwy kanis J mae ynniuer o bobyl yn i hydnabod hi. Neithyr ynn wir, myui a wadaf yn gadarn na bu y byys J mae vy modrwy J ynn i gylch Jrmoedd wrth law vy ngwraig J, kanis ynn sickyr wir J mae arno ef dri ffeth nodedig yr hyn Jrmoed ni bu yr vn o’r tri ar yr vn o vysedd dwylo vy ngwraig J.’30
‘With your leave, honourable King, truly I am not able in any manner to deny that it is my ring, for there are many people who recognize it. Yet, truly, I can thoroughly deny that the finger which my ring is upon was ever attached to the hand of my wife, for certainly and truly it displays three things none of which were ever on any one of the fingers of my wife’s hands.’
The chronicler is recreating a courtier’s public performance in the presence of court and king; this is Elis Gruffydd’s version of the heightened register of courtly language (perhaps coloured with added satire).31 Similarly, Taliesin’s triumphant appearance at Maelgwn’s court is accompanied by an involved description of the ceremonial proceedings taking place there.32 Elis also seems to take great pleasure in describing in detail the court poets’ humiliation at the hands of the supernatural prodigy.33 Much more could be said about the depiction of life, ceremony and conflict at the court of Maelgwn Gwynedd; it is hoped that this short discussion is enough to justify using the term ‘court narrative’ in examining Ystoria Taliesin.
Elis Gruffydd’s interest in court narratives is manifest in many parts of the chronicle. These range in time and location from the Old Testament story of Joseph in the court of Pharaoh to the royal one-upmanship at the feast celebrating the marriage of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth to King John’s daughter.34 We can surmise that the chronicler used his own knowledge of court life in weaving stories involving a variety of historical (and legendary) kings and queens. All of these narratives, like the Ystoria Taliesin, show that Elis was an acute observer of court life and that he was fond of satirizing the self-important posturing of royal hangers-on.
The chronicle describes the origins of the Tudor dynasty by means of a well-crafted comic love story. This narrative, which provides a welcome change of pace from the surrounding descriptions of war and struggle, involves Henry V’s widow, Queen Catherine, and her servant Owain Tudur, introduced as ‘a squire from Gwynedd’. The tale begins as a kind of love triangle; Owain is in love with one of Catherine’s handmaidens, and the queen falls in love with Owain:
Ac ar ddiwyrnod garllaw llys y vrenhines ynn amser haaf, i digwyddodd j’r asgwier hwn vynnd i nouio i avon a oedd yn llithro gan ysdlys mur y llys, y neb a ganuu llaw vorwyn y vrennhines ynn vuan. Yr hon a ddang[os]es y matter j’r vrenhines, yr hon a ddoeth j ffennesdyr i edrych ar y gwyr yn nouio. Ymysc yr hrain i gwelai y vrenhines vn o’r gwyr ynn hragori i gymedeithon o degwch knawd.35
[And one day in summer time, near the queen’s court, it happened that the squire went to swim in a river which flowed past the wall of the court, and the queen’s handmaiden soon saw him. She related the matter to the queen, who came to the window and looked upon the men swimming. Amongst them the queen saw one of the men surpassing his companions in the fairness of his flesh.]
Catherine has the girl arrange a meeting with Owain in a dark corner of the court, and she herself goes to the tryst dressed in her handmaiden’s clothing. They converse in the darkness, but every time Owain tries to kiss her, she turns her cheek to him. Elis then says, ‘O’r achos j tybiodd ef nad yhi a oedd i gariad ef’ (‘because of that he supposed that she was not his love’). And then, ‘because of that, he bit her cheek with his teeth so that he could see who was mocking him in that manner’ (‘O’r achos yvo a vrathodd i grudd hi a’i ddannedd megis ac j gallai ef wybod a gweled ynn ysbys pwy a oedd ynn wattwar ef ynn y modd hwnw.’). Having marked the offending woman in this manner, Owain departs. The next day, Queen Catherine has her chamberlain ensure that Owain is waiting on her at table. As he is preparing the table, the queen gives him a nasty look, and places her finger on her injured cheek. Elis then says that Owain ‘lowered his head, admitting in his heart that it was the queen whose cheek he had bitten the night before’ (‘gosdyngodd ef i ben drwy adde ynn i galon mae y vrenhines a vrathassai ef i grudd y nnos ynn y blaen.’).36
To make a long story short, the two fall in love and the queen decides to marry Owain. However, she wants to know more about the Welshman’s family, so she sends one of her heralds to Wales to research Owain’s pedigree. The herald, having visited Owain’s mother in Wales, reports back to the queen, vastly exaggerating the Welsh family’s wealth. In describing the messenger’s return to the queen, Elis states that: ‘j’r hon i dangoses ef y tu tecka, megis ac j mae gwyr o’i keluyddydd wynt dyngedig’ (‘he showed her the fairest side, as men of their art are fated to do’). The chronicler never fails to satirize the exaggeration and excesses of courtiers, heralds and other such characters. As well as lampooning the royal hangers-on, his detailed account of the romance between Queen Catherine and Owain Tudur echoes several of his other court narratives in another significant way; it features a member of the lower echelons of court society triumphing. While the impoverished Elffin uses a combination of wit and supernatural ability in order to defeat the powers at court, the father of the Tudor dynasty romances his way to the top of court society.
Several stories or anecdotes found in the part of Elis Gruffydd’s chronicle dealing with contemporary history can also be classified as court narratives. In addition to recording events which he himself witnessed while serving Sir Robert Wingfield, Elis also recorded a good deal of information which came to him by way of rumour and gossip. When living in London, Elis was friends with servants at the royal court and other high places, and the chronicler was thus provided with inside information concerning the movements of figures such as Wolsey, the French ambassador, and even the king and queen themselves. Much has been written about court culture and courtly literature, but what we have in Elis Gruffydd’s court narratives is something rather unique: a servant’s-eye-view of court life. These narratives are often coloured with what might be termed, perhaps anachronistically, a distinct class consciousness, written so as to reflect dynamically the fact that Elis is presenting the ways in which the lower members of court society talk about those at the very top of that same society. It is also imbued with a distinct national, or ethnic, colouration, for it is often made clear that it is Elis’s fellow Welshmen who bring him information, rumour and gossip relating to the activities at court. This aspect of Elis Gruffydd’s chronicle provides a tantalizing glimpse of Welsh servants in Tudor London, gathering when off duty in their chambers or in the tavern to share gossip about the magnates whom they serve.
The marriages and romantic escapades of Henry VIII provided plenty of grist for the Welsh servants’ rumour mill. As Thomas Jones noted nearly half a century ago, Elis ‘records the coming of Ann Boleyn to court and the reaction of Queen Catherine to the rumours she heard about Henry’s plan to divorce her.’ 37 In presenting the royal love intrigue, Elis details the nature of the tensions between the king and queen, noting that the lack of a male heir intensified these problems as Henry blamed the queen for this ‘inadequacy’ while she, in turn, blamed his wanton ways. The chronicler then writes that Catherine would often visit the apartment of her Spanish friends, one ‘Master Phillip’, and his wife, to discuss her situation and ‘reveal many of her secrets’:
At which time I was closely acquainted with Master Philip’s servants, who were all men from the land of Wales. They would disclose to me many of the conversations which often took place between the Queen and their master and mistress in Spanish, a language which the servants were able to speak and understand with ease, especially a man called Dafydd ap Rhobert who had been born at Llangollen.38
This is an example of that servant’s-eye-view of court life described above: the Queen discusses her most personal problems with her Spanish friends while the Spanish-speaking Welsh servant, Dafydd ap Rhobert, eavesdrops, later to reveal this information to his fellow countryman, Elis Gruffydd, who would himself later record the gossip in writing.
Rumours and gossip reached Elis from other parts of court as well, enabling him to flesh out the story of the growing relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Another servant at court, whom Elis describes as ‘gwr krededun’, a ‘credible man’, told the chronicler of a conservation which took place between the king and Anne. The two were walking ‘in the garden between the palace and the river’ (‘ynn yr ardd hrwng y plaas a’r auon’), with the Welsh servant apparently shadowing their foot-steps.39 At this time Henry told Anne that ‘he would marry her before the end of a year from that day.’ According to the chronicler’s ‘credible’ source, this announcement disturbed Anne. She then explained her worries to him:
‘o hryngge vodd i chwi ddyalld ddangos o ysgolhaig o Baris i mi broffwydoliaeth yr hon ysydd ynn dangos J prioda ych [g]raas chwi vorwyn o raadd ac o genhedlaeth Jssel yr honn a losgid o vewn ychydig o amser ynn ol a dwy ddugies gidag yhi.’40
[‘if it please you, know that a scholar from Paris related a prophecy to me showing that your grace would marry a maiden of lowly lineage and status who would be burned within a short time along with two duchesses.’]
Elis then describes the king’s reaction:
Y chwedyl a gymerth y brenin o i ffen hi drwy ddywedud ynn y moodd hwn, ‘A ha [...] myui a glowaf ych bod chwi ynn hroddi koel ar broffwydoliaethau [...]. [Eithyr ni rh]aid J chwi gymerud pryder ynn y byd amdannaw, kanis ynn wir nid oes o vewn y dyrnas onid dwy ddugies, yr hrain a garaf J ynn gymaint a mi vy hun, kanis y naill ohojnaunt twy yw vy chwaer J a’r llaall ydyw dy uodrub di ynn y gyuraith [..]. [Ac] ynn wir, hryngof Ji a’r duwk dy ewythyr, di i tynnwn i lawer gwr hryngoch chwi ar ttaan.’41
[The king drove the story out of her head by speaking in this manner, ‘Aha [...], I hear that you place belief in prophecies [...]. [Yet] you need not let it worry you in the slightest bit, for truly there are but two duchesses in the kingdom, whom I love as much as myself, since one of them is my sister and the other is your aunt by marriage [...]. [And] truly, between me and the duke your uncle, we’d place many a man between you and the fire.’]
Elis Gruffydd coloured his story with a certain historical irony: Anne Boleyn’s marriage to the king would lead to her death, though not by fire.
This anecdote, in addition to presenting a tantalizing close-up view of the King’s romantic adventures, also seems to be concerned with the growing religious tensions of the times; that a Frenchman would predict the burning of Anne Boleyn could very well reflect her connections with religious reformers such as Cranmer and Tyndale. Indeed, later writers such as John Foxe would in fact portray Anne Boleyn as a heroine of the Reformation. Thus, by including this anecdote in his record of contemporary history, Elis Gruffydd was able to detail the personal affairs of the king while simultaneously hinting at the ways in which the forces of ‘Reform’ created a fertile environment for the spread of rumour.
Several folios later in the chronicle, having described Henry’s divorce from Catherine, his marriage to Anne, and several other synchronized events of world history, Elis records another conversation which took place between Henry VIII and Anne, now queen:
Ynghylch y kyuamser yma, megis ac i klywais i wyr o’r llys yn dywedud, i digwyddodd J’r brenin yn kkellwair a’r vrenhines dywedud ynn y modd yma, ‘yn wir ped uai benpryd Dgian Semer ar dy gorf di, diogel ydiw na allaii ddynn yn y byd lunio gwraig na morwyn berffeithiach i ffryd a’i gwedd a’i hymddygiad no thydi.’ Y geiriau a gymerth y vrenhines ynn soredig Jawn Ac o hynn allan ni bu gymaint o gariad ac a viassai hryngthentt twy ynn y blaen.42
[About this time, as I heard men of the court say, the king was one day joking with the queen, saying as follows, ‘Indeed if Jane Seymour’s face were on your body, it’s certain that no one in the world could fashion a woman or maiden more perfect in form and shape and demeanour than you.’ These words distressed the queen greatly, and from then on there was not as much love between them as there had been before.]
While there is no reason to doubt Elis when he tells us that he heard this from ‘men of the court’, it is rather the veracity of his sources’ information which we should doubt. Instead of being an accurate account of a conversation overheard by a servant or courtier, what we have here is a bit of dark humour.
This is the sixteenth-century equivalent of a ‘sick joke’, obviously circulating after the beheading of Anne Boleyn; to paraphrase the anecdote, somebody claims to have overheard Henry telling Anne that she would be the most beautiful woman in the world if only she had Jane Seymour’s head on her shoulders! Indeed, the very next sentence in the chronicle begins describing Anne’s violent end: ‘Ac ymis Mai nesaf ar ol hyn yr hynny [...] J kaffwyd y vrenhines Ann ynn euogg ...’ (‘And the next May after that ... Queen Anne was found guilty ....’). 43 Rather than mistaking a joke for a piece of faithful court reportage, Elis Gruffydd is sharing the joke with his readers. He does not leave these matters to introduce other synchronized events in world history (as he so often does in the chronicle); the story of Anne’s downfall and beheading comes directly on the heels of what Henry is supposed to have said.
I have by no means exhausted all of the court narratives found in Elis Gruffydd’s massive chronicle, but I hope that the examples which I have briefly summarized are enough to suggest that he had an acute interest in such stories as well as a penchant for satirizing certain stock characters associated with court society. It might also be added that, while he consistently lampoons the courtly sycophant, Elis also had a tendency to find heroes in the lower levels of court society. This is no surprise, given the simple fact that what we have in the contemporary part of the chronicle is perhaps best described as a servant’s-eye-view of court.
In discussing the Tudor Court, historians and cultural critics have emphasized the importance of symbolic action, the way in which the court served as a forum for displaying power and articulating hierarchy. David Loades has described ‘the politics of appearance’ at the Tudor Court, noting that ‘the symbolism of what was done was frequently more important than the action itself’.44 The climaxes of Elis Gruffydd’s court narratives often coincide with these kinds of symbolic actions, and these events allow him to scrutinize the relationship between individuals and the social contexts in which they exist. Whether describing Maelgwn Gwynedd’s Christmas court, the marriage feast which King John provided for Llywelyn and Siwan, or a lunch served to Queen Catherine in her chambers, Elis uses the mine-field of court ceremony and etiquette as a testing ground for his protagonists’ personalities.
As David Loades says, ‘[i]n a sixteenth-century polity so much lay in the eye of the beholder and it was the function of the court to attract and train that eye.’45 Elis Gruffydd certainly had an eye for the details of court life. Whether witnessing events first-hand while working for Sir Robert Wingfield, recording the rumours and gossip sent his way by Welsh servants at court, or reading about the kings of the ancient Britons, Elis turned his observations on courts and courtliness into food for his reader’s eye. It is perhaps a cliché to state that any work of history is as much about its author’s own time as it is about the age it claims to discuss. However, it is fair to suggest that Elis Gruffydd viewed the activities of Pharaoh, King John and Maelgwn Gwynedd through the lens of the Tudor court. It is also worth noting that the relationship between past and present is a two-way street in the work of Elis Gruffydd; as I have discussed at length elsewhere, he used the medieval mechanisms of brut and brud in interpreting the political tangles of the Tudor present.46 If he viewed the past anachronistically in terms of the Tudor present, it can also be said that older Welsh traditions and ways of viewing the world informed Elis Gruffydd’s own life in London and Calais. As he travelled between Wingfield Place, the Star Chamber and other centres of power and prestige, it is quite possible that Elis Gruffydd’s reactions to the news and rumours coming from the court of King Henry VIII were in some way informed by the story of Taliesin’s triumph at the court of Maelgwn Gwynedd.