- J. R. Lander,“Bonds, Coercion and Fear: Henry VII and the Peerage,”Crown
and Nobility, 1450 – 1509 (London, 1976 ), 267 – 300 ( 282 ). - B. P. Wolffe,The Crown Lands, 1461 to 1536 : An Aspect of Yorkist and Early
Tudor Government(London, 1970 ), 51 – 75. - A view that has survived several vicissitudes: see David Grummitt,“Henry VII,
Chamber Finance and the‘New Monarchy’: Some New Evidence,”Historical
Research 72 ( 1999 ), 229 – 43 ( 241 ).
22 .M.M.Condon,“Ruling Elites in the Reign of Henry VII,”Patronage, Pedigree and
Power, ed. Charles Ross (Phoenix Mill, 1979 ), 109 – 42 ( 127 ). Arthurson notes the
intelligencing value of the royal Issue Books (“Espionage and Intelligence,” 143 ). - David Starkey,“The King’s Privy Chamber”( 1973 ), 357 – 65.
- Grummitt,“Household, Politics and Political Morality”which appeared too
late for me to take full advantage of it, outlines a reading of Henry VII’s court
style close to the one I offer here, drawing on Paul Strohm,Politique: Languages
of Statecraft between Chaucer and Shakespeare(Notre Dame, 2005 ). Grummitt
tellingly notes that“the physical space of the court acted as a place where the
king could keep watch on his subjects”( 401 ). See, too, Hasler,“Allegories of
Authority”, 39 – 45. My own reading of Skelton’s poem has been much assisted
by Marc Shell’s comments on power, secrecy and money: seeThe Economy of
Literature(Baltimore, 1978 ), 13 – 48. - A copy ofL’Abuzéwas owned by Thomas Kebell,“kynges seriaunt at Lawe,”
who died in 1500 : see Eric W. Ives,The Common Lawyers of Pre-Reformation
England: Thomas Kebell, A Case Study(Cambridge, 1983 ), 367. - Stephen Dickey,“Seven come Eleven: Gambling for the Laurel inThe Bowge
of Courte,”Yearbook of English Studies 22 ( 1992 ), 238 – 54 ( 253 ). - Pearsall,John Lydgate, 58 – 59.
- Alongside these lines, Ebin cites the Prologue toIsopes Fabulesas the only place
in his output at which Lydgate“explicitly articulates the theory of poetry as a
veil”(“Lydgate’sViews,” 96 note 37 ). This is not strictly accurate; Lydgate’s
reference here is to poeticfictions as“blak erþe”( 22 ) concealing jewels, and
“muscle shellys blake”( 27 ) within which pearls lie:The Minor Poems,ii.Lydgate
also refers to“a manere / lyknesse and ffigure, / Dirk Outward / mysty for to
see...As it were seyd / in Enigmate”in theSecrees of Olde Filisoffres( 729 – 30 ,
732 ). It remains true that the trope is rare in his work when compared to the lexis
of illumination and aureation; see, too, Meyer-Lee,Poets and Power, 183.
29 .The Curial made by Maystere Alain Charretier, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS ES 54
(London, 1888 ). All references are to this edition. - For a similar suggestion, see Spearing,Medieval to Renaissance, 265.
- Augustine,De doctrina Christiana CCSLxxxii, ed. I. Martin (Turnhout, 1962 ),
iii, vii, ix.
32 .L’Abuzé en court, ed. Roger Dubuis (Paris, 1973 ), 103 , lines 41 – 42. - Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius,Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed.
Iacobus Willis (Leipzig, 1970 ), 1. 2. 19 – 20. The translation is taken from
W. H. Stahl (ed., intro. and trans.), commentary on theDream of Scipio
(New York, 1952 ), 87.
Notes to Pages 46 – 50 191