libel, king, adversary, traitor, Mowbray, Richard, trial, treason, rhetoric, royal, patronage

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110

of domestic courtly flyting in England:

Henrie, duke of Hereford, accused Thomas Mowbraie duke of Norfolke of certeine words […] sounding highlie to the kings dishonor. And for further proofe thereof, he presented a supplication to the king, wherein he appealed the duke of Norfolke in field of battell, for a traitor, false and disloiall to the king, and enimie vnto the realme. This supplication was red before both the dukes, in presence of the king; which doone, the duke of Norfolke tooke vpon him to answer it, declaring that whatsoeuer the duke of Hereford had said […] he lied falslie like an vntrue knight as he was. And, when the king asked of the duke of Hereford [he replied] “that Thomas Mowbraie, duke of Norfolke, is a traitour, false and disloiall to your roiall maiestie, your crowne, and to all the states of your realme”. Then the duke of Norfolke being asked what he said to this, he answered […] “that Henrie of Lancaster, duke of Hereford, like a false and disloiall traitor as he is, dooth lie. ²⁰¹

Here Holinshed describes the protagonists’ reciprocated accusations of treason as happening in a very similar scenario to that of returning the lie, found in the verbal duels examined in Chapter One. What distinguishes this episode and domestic courtly flyting from libel is the invitation for the king to adjudicate the dispute, and the appeals made by the protagonists in which they attempt to prove their loyalty to the king by exposing their adversary as a traitor, or at the least, unworthy of royal patronage. Bolingbroke and Mowbray appeal to Richard to undertake the sort of “trial by combat” that emerged in the mid-fourteenth century as a form of trial for treason, ²⁰² and the retention of the formalities of this trial in the domestic flyting is perhaps meant to confer a degree of legitimacy, by way of an indigenous historical precedent, upon what is otherwise a highly fractious and antisocial exchange of abuse. Of all the types of antagonistic verse exchange the flyting is the most elaborate, accomplished and prestigious display of verbal aggression and the most intimately connected with the court since the protagonists’ objective is to gain the king’s recognition of their mastery of vituperative rhetoric.

Beyond these few perfunctory formalities domestic flytings, like their cross-cultural

²⁰¹ Holinshed’s Chronicle as Used in Shakespeare’s Plays, ed. Allardyce and Josephine Nicoll (London and Toronto: Dent; NY: Dutton, 1927), pp.20-1.
²⁰² Peltonen (2003), p.97 (Peltonen discusses Shakespeare’s representation of this incident as a

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