The Reformation, sincerity, motives, loyalty, allegations, contrived, heresy, treason, flyting

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Ernest W. Dormer observes of such sycophantic outbursts by the combatants that “their repetitive servility discounts very largely the sincerity of their motives”. ²²⁰ The sincerity of both protagonists is suspect, but in terms of their accusations against one another, rather than in respect to their declarations of loyalty. The allegations of both men appear contrived. In A Treatyse Declarynge the Despyte of a Secrete Sedycyous Person, that Dareth not Shewe Hym Selfe Smyth claims that he is writing “for the truths sake”, and to dispel the lies that have been told about him by Gray (l.7). The truth is, however, exactly what both he and Gray appear to be concerned with evading. In this respect the poems are unusual instances of flyting in that both protagonists give the impression of inhibiting the full force of their animosity by signposting the flaws in their arguments. This is a reckless exercise in reverse psychology. The opponents avoid outright accusations of heresy and treason, which other flyters use without reservation, and they fail deliberately, so it seems, to rebut one another’s allegations effectively thus leaving considerable margin for the suspicion of heterodoxy.

In his An Aunswere to Maister Smyth Gray claims that Smyth’s rhetorical incompetence and intellectual weakness have led him to make an erroneous accusation against him, but he neglects to provide any particular evidence in his own defence:

Whether ye trolle in or els trolle out
Ye trolle vntruly; loke better about. […]
But blyndly haue ye sclaundred me, good maister Thomas Smyth
Scraping togither scriptures, your madnesse to mayntayne
Truly your rude rowsty reason, being so farre from the pyth
Had nede of suche a cloke, to kepe it from the rayne
For all the worlde may perceyue, how falsly ye forge and fayne
Yet styll you affyrme your falshed, as though ye knew thinges presysely. (proem and ll.36-41)

Gray highlights the spuriousness of his adversary’s affirmation, the limitations of his perspective

²²⁰ Dormer (1923), p.30.

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