404
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ s. x. -NOV. 22, 1902.
unique processes of romance adaptation so
consistently exemplified in the whole range
of his work. Upon it was engrafted, in the
similitude of a dream, not only the applica-
tion of the Nine Worthies (assuredly bor-
rowed, along with the entire scheme of the
vows and their treatment, from the ' Vceux
du Paon '), but also the historical borrowing
from the indictment of Roger Mortimer. For
the dream itself let me point out that, just
as in the ' Destruction of Troy ' (11. 2359-60)
Paris was hunting alone when his dream
came, and as in the ' Parlement of the Thre
Ages' that motive was repeated (1 4), so here
in 'Morte Arthure' the king tells that his
vision found him in the wood alone :
Me thoughte I was in a wode willed myn one.
'M. A., '3230.
In the dream woodland of the 'Parlement' the "wild swine" play a part (1 99), as they do in that of ' Morte Arthure ' (1. 3232). Sub- stantially the same woodland hunting dream motive appears in ' Wynnere and Wastoure,' accompanied there by gorgeously chivalric description and glorification of Edward III. For ' Morte Arthure ' he is an impossible critic who henceforth fails to recognize in its intrusions borrowed from Mordred(A.D. 1330} and Jeanne de Montfort (A.D. 1342) and Charles of Blois (1342-47), from the descrip- tions of Crecy (1346) and from the sea-fight of Winchelsea (1350) a series of allusions so distinct to the career of Edward III. as to make it certain that that monarch's Court, let us say in the spring of 1365, knew right well who was really meant when the philosopher prophesied
So many clerkis and kynges sail karpe of joure dedis And kepe joure conquestez in cronycle for ever.
'M. A.,' 3444-5.
By no gift of poetic prophecy could it have been seen, however, that of the chronicles of the Edwardian epoch none was so singularly to commemorate the conquests of its hero as this poem by its very indirectness does, weaving the victories of Edward III. into the fabric of literature with an art at once so courtly and so cryptic that the glory of the compliment to Edward is only revealed in the fulness of its lustre by intent scrutiny of the pattern of the romance.
If the poet adding to the banner of Arthur the " Gules charged with crowns or " of Ed- ward III. (11 3646-7, see August Antiquary), and giving to Lucius the sable eagle on a field of gold imperially borne by Charles IV. transposed and glorified in the entire corona- tion episode certain actual parts of the rather unheroic career of Charles IV. and assigned them to a victorious King Arthur, even this
intruded fancy has historical root. Above
all, note how the sire of Milan (11. 3134-49)
submits : he is the Viscount of Rome of
the poem, and the Visconti jof history. The
poet understood how to play at vice versd.
Edward III., still in the splendour of Crecy,
where he put Charles IV. to flight, had
in 1348 been chosen emperor by the dis-
satisfied body which had previously elected
Charles IV.; and although Edward, "fear-
ing perils, labours, and wars, refused*
the empire," an imperial coronation was a
splendia might-have-been not without its
aptness to embellish in poetical romance an
Arthur who already had in him so much of
Edward III., while not only was his con-
tinental enemy the emperor heraldically
identified with Edward's enemy Charles IV.,
but the domestic traitor Mordred also, with
the white lion passant, was heraldically
identified (see August Antiquary) with the
arch-traitor of Edward's reign, Roger Mor-
timer. "The Emperourt of Almayne" of the
years between 1346 and 1356 demands, im-
perially, an audience in the hall of romance
of the alliterative King Arthur. Nor may it
be forgotten, as vital to the conception of
the baulked coronation, that the mystic voice
of seeming prophecy, quickened perhaps by
the doings of the English companies in Italy,
had said that Edward III. should be emperor.
GEO. NEILSON.
GEORGE I. : CORONATION CELEBRATION AT
LEGHORN, 1714. The interesting articles ante,
pp. 225, 313, as to the contradictory dates of
- Mutii ' Germanorum Chronicon,' sub anno 1348.
t There is no Emperor of Germany in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Borrowings from history in 'Morte Arthure ' referable to Charles IV. include, besides the arms, the position Luxembourg ani Metz occupy in the poem, the Italian journey, the allusions to the Viscount of Rome and the lord of Milan, the sym- bols and ceremony of imperial coronation, and the design for that ceremony being performed at Rome. There are others, of which probably the most striking is the ambiguous allusion : Theemperour of Almayne and all theiseste marches We sail be overlynge of all that on the erthe lenges.
LI. 3210-11.
The context of this may denote (reading back) that "theemperour of Almayne" treated evidently as the first gentleman of Europe is a hostage of Rome in the hands of Arthur, and thus a type of the glory of Arthur's conquest, or (reading forward) more probably that, as emperor himself, Arthur is "over- lynge of all." Either reading completely counten- ances my suggestion of a vice verm motive in the Italian journey and the unaccomplished coronation. A heraldic point requires separate notice, for which meantime see the Athenceum of 15 November regard- ing the Viscount of Rome.
