George Cavendish: an Early Tudor Political Commentator?

George Cavendish: an Early Tudor Political Commentator? For all kynd of vice, shortly to conclude The worst ayeast God is ingratitude G.C., Verses George Cavendish, cl500-1561, is known to early Tudor historians and literary textual students as the author of two works which have received quite disproportionate attention. The well known Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey', cl557, received early notice. Before it appeared in print it was used in John Stowe's Chronicle of England. It passed from there to Holinshed and thence presumably to Shakespeare's late play, King Henry the Eighth, in which Wolsey was memorably left 'naked to mine enemies'. Opponents of Archbishop Laud first brought the work into print in 1641 as The Negotiations of Cardinal Wolsey, used as a convenient comparison of Laud with a proud ambitious prelate whose faU was just, as weU as inevitable. Care for exactness was not the point. Loose later editions followed until in 1825, S.W. Singer pubUshed his version of the best manuscript, B.L. Egerton 2402. Historical students sometimes used as more accesible the text in Christopher Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography 1810 in its 1852 edition, annotated by John Holmes. R.S. Sylvester's definitive text, from Egerton 2402, in the Early EngUsh Text Society series, 1959, now dominates the shelves. By comparison, Cavendish's verses have been neglected by historians and treated as second in every way to the prose life of Wolsey. Thefirstand only full printed text of the verses accompanied Samuel Weiler Singer's 1825 preDickensian edition of the prose life but was omitted in the 1827 edition. Eleanor Prescott H a m m o n d in 1927 edited the only painstaking version of Cavendish's verses available in print, but restricted herself to about one third of them. Her English Verse between Chaucer and Surrey provided ample specimens for exact study of a close range of seemingly connected poets not easy tofindand who thereby eluded collective study. Eleanor Hammond's Cavendish text was Egerton 2402, in which the verses followed the prose life. She cleared up some errors in that part of Singer's text she covered, and noted those arising from the mistake in binding up in an incorrect order some folios to produce the present leather bound manuscript A text of the verses in original spelling from the same M S has been edited, with an introduction, by M.R. Fisher for a Columbia University Ph.D. in 1967. The two manuscript texts share the lack of an authoritative title. The Egerton M S of the prose Ufe is missing itsfirstpage. R.S. Sylvester remedied 78 LJi. Gardiner ihe deficiency from Bodleian M S Douce 363 f.48, a copy no later than 1578. Sylvester quotes as his title, 'Thomas Wolsey late Cardinal!, his lyffe and deathe, Written by George Cauendishe, his gentleman Vsshar'. What title did Cavendish use? Early in the prose life he proposes to give 'some part of the proceedings of the said Legate and Cardinal Wolsey Archbishop of York and of his ascending and descending to and from honorous estate'. Wolsey's name must have appeared somewhere in the title, as 'the said Legate and Cardinal' is the first reference to Wolsey in the text. Elsewhere and in his last paragraph in the prose life Cavendish refers to 'this history'. The verses which follow in the Egerton M S have no title. Singer invented a name, The Metrical Visions', by which the verses have since been known. It is possible that this seeming quibble about the names of the works could be worthy of notice if presumed titles are used to evaluate the texts. The basic manuscript copy of Nicholas Harpsfield's The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, sometimes Lord High Chancellor of England also lacked a title. WilUam Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More first appeared in print in 1626 as The Mirror of Vertue in Worldly Greatnese or the Life of Syr Thomas More Knight, sometime Lord Chancellor ofEngland. It does not seem that thefirstpart of the title was Roper's. He referred to his setting forth of 'matters touching his [More's] life'. Still, we may wish...