The Female Body Politic and the Miscarriage of Justice in Athelston

The Female Body Politic and the Miscarriage ofJustice in Athelston Elizabeth Ashman Rowe Palo Alto, California A I. Intrcxluction thelston is a relatively short poem of 75 end-rhymed stanzas written during the last quarter of the fourteenth century. 1 Although classed with the Middle English romances, it is unusual in several respects. In addition to having no known source in French or Anglo-Norman, Ath­ elston is not a knightly narrative of arms, armor, and amor. Rather, it is a political fable that uses the metaphor of society as family to justify the authority of the dual patriarchal power structures of the monarchy and the church at a specific moment in English history. The confidence in human institutions ofjustice demonstrated in earlier English romances (e.g., Have­ lok the Dane, Bevis ofHamptoun, Guy ofWarwick, and Fulk Fitz Warin) had evidently broken down by the second half of the fourteenth century, for the figure of the king, once depicted as true to his coronation oath to uphold the law, has now become a tyrant who both swallows and speaks lies with equal ease.2 In Athelston only divine intervention in the form of a miracu­ lous ordeal-a "trial" without oaths or any other corruptible language-1 The standard edition isA.Mel.Trounce, ed., Athelston: A Middle English Romance, Early English Text Society, vol. 224 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951; rpt., Kraus, 1987); quotations are from this edition by stanza and line number. Opinions vary about the state of the text, Kevin Kiernan calling it "well preserved" ("Athelston and the Rhyme ofthe English Romances," MLQ 36 [1975}: 340) and Trounce (following Julius Zupitza, "Die Romanze von Athelston," EnglischeStudien 13 (1889}: 331-414, and 14 [1890}: 321-44) identifying two lacunre and numerous irregular stanzas. The defects in the text are not easily remedied, for the text is found in only one manuscript and has no source to which it can be compared. The problem of dating the poem is discussed in the concluding section of this article. 2 More specifically, thevetyearlyKing Horn relies on divine providence, while Havelok the Dane, along with the later romances listed above, depicts institutions of human justice as relatively trustworthy. The fairly late Tale of Gamelyn, like Athelston, reveals a loss of confidence in the law. See Susan Crane, InsularRomance: Politics, Faith, andCulturein Anglo­ Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1986), pp. 48, 54. 79 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER reveals the absolute truth that enables the king's injustice to be redressed. The poem appears to reflect the particular tyranny of Richard II, at the end of whose reign I believe the poem was composed, but I would suggest that it has an even more nuanced political perspective---one that on closer ex­ amination proves to be anti-Ricardian without being antiroyalist. I conjec­ ture that Athelston is Lancastrian propaganda created to help legitimize Henry IV's claim to the throne. The poet justifies a near-absolutist royal authority by means of his underlying metaphor, that of society as family. His choice is of interest not only for historical reasons (this theorization of society was not a common one at the time, as I discuss later) but also because it represents the political subject (perhaps uniquely for this period) .as female and maternal. In a move that parallels his use of a miracle to redeem the monarchy without conceding the necessity for Parliament, the poet eventually silences the vocal, resisting mother by replacing her with a second woman, who, as the mother of a saint, is not likely to be anything other than a "good" political subject. II. Synopsis of Athelston The king's cousin, Athelston, swears brotherhood with three men: Alryk, Egeland, and Wymound. When he becomes king, he makes Alryk the Archbishop of Canterbury , Egeland the Earl of Stone, and Wymound the Earl of Dover. Egeland has become the father of two sons, and his wife, Edyff (Athelston's sister), is about to give birth to a third child, when Wymound maliciously tells the king that Egeland is plotting against him. Athelston has Egeland and his family arrested and condemns them to death. Athelston's queen, who is...