gardening metaphor, libeller, James I, Francis Bacon, statecraft
<< previous
next >>
56
discernment in matters of statecraft and is a common trope in proclamations. In this substitute proclamation, James’s employment of the gardening metaphor while failing to opt for such mediation seems more than simply an oversight and suggests a stubborn and intentional disregard for the more prudent and effective poetics of response available to him. As Bacon recognised, it was much more effective and appropriate to recruit a courtier, or some other loyal subject, to stand in and respond to libels upon their monarch’s behalf, just as the man/executioner mediates between the gardener/king and the weeds/traitorous subject. Theoretically, this might prevent the collapse of order and degree implicit in monarchs meeting their detractors on even ground. Notably, there exists a counter-response to James’s poem that not only ignores his exhortation to silence and to “Keepe euery man his ranke and place” by answering back, but perhaps undermines order and degree even further since it has been attributed to a woman (l.109).
102
The libeller singles out the undue stress that James places upon punishing treacherous subjects at the expense of considering those faithful to him, and accuses him of cultivating a culture of loyalty to the crown born out of fear, telling him, “Our heartes for ransome of our heades yow haue” (l.14). The ability to deal effectively with libels was an enduringly admired faculty of statecraft that James mismanages badly here.
103
His predecessor, Elizabeth’s answer-poem, ‘Doubt of Future Foes’ (1569-70) provides a particularly striking example of a scrupulous and canny proclamatory answer which, in contrast, appears to adhere closely to the proclamatory conventions associated with
102 The poem is found in Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Poet. MS. 26 (henceforth Rawl. Poet. 26),
f. 20r. It begins “Condemne not gratious king, our playntes and teares” and is headed “These are sayd to be done by a Lady”.
103 Later in the century Dryden pays homage to Augustus Caesar who “was not afraid of libels [...] yet he took all care imaginable to have them answered; and then decreed that for the time to come the authors of them should be punished”, Watson ed., (1968), p.134.
<< previous
next >>
Stumble It!
