Romancing Treason: The Literature of the Wars of the Roses by Megan G. Leitch (review)

Since John Bellamy’s The Law of Treason in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1970), book-length publications dealing directly with treason in the medieval period have been few and far between. Megan Leitch confronts this seemingly unexplainable paucity of work with a comprehensive analysis of treason in secular literature of the Wars of the Roses.

Developed from Leitch’s doctoral work and acknowledging the debt to her supervisor, Helen Cooper, Romancing Treason makes an important contribution to the field of fifteenth-century literary studies. In addition to references to Cooper’s contributions to the field, the work of James Simpson, David Wallace, Paul Strohm, Larry Benson, and Daniel Wakelin also inform Leitch’s study. However, Leitch rightly notes that literary works of the second half of the fifteenth century are less well represented in the historiography. Romancing Treason contributes to this gap in scholarship. Reading such works within the context of treason, Leitch also makes significant inroads into exploring the continuities between the literary cultures of the late-Lancastrian and Tudor periods.

Citing a haunting line from the Squire of Low Degree – ‘Treason walketh wonder wyde’ (p. 175) – Leitch remarks upon the way these words present an image of treason personified. The image is pervasive, cutting to the core of Romancing Treason’s argument, that in the period c. 1437–c. 1497 treason was everywhere, in text and beyond. Leitch asserts that the presence of treason in the textual culture of the Wars of the Roses created anxieties about community and identity while also offering a way through which these anxieties could be addressed. Looking closely at treason in Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur and also reading the Morte within the wider context of other contemporary prose romances and secular literature of the period, Leitch provides a multitude of instances of how this was so. These other contemporary sources include, for example, the prose Siege of Thebes, Siege of Troy, Melusine, Caxton’s prose romances, letters, bills, chronicles, and verse. Incorporated within this analysis is Leitch’s convincing argument for the literary complexity of some of these lesser-studied texts. In addition, questions of periodisation are tackled as Leitch suggests that the concept of treason provides a fruitful way of reading across the medieval and early modern periods. For example, in highlighting how fifteenth-century texts challenged ideas of providence, Leitch argues that, in this respect, the divide between medieval and early modern is not so pronounced. As Romancing Treason seeks to explore the anxieties surrounding treason in the literature of the period, to consider lesser-known texts of the period in this context, and to examine how treason can be used to map changes and continuities across time, the line, ‘Treason walketh wonder wyde’, also reflects the scope of this ambitious, yet successful, work.

The book progresses smoothly, signposted with many a subheading throughout. After a comprehensive Introduction (Chapter 1), the second chapter argues that treason was found across literary forms and ‘weighed heavily on people’s minds’ (p. 20). Beginning with the oft-cited, but perfectly chosen, 1460 letter of William Paston II recounting the exchange between Lancastrian and Yorkist lords at Calais, Leitch sets the scene for the themes of the chapter as she demonstrates that a shared mentality of treason and its associated anxieties extended from this Paston family letter to other genres of texts and to wider audiences.

The broadening of both genre and community leads nicely into Chapter 3 in which Leitch confirms the value of these lesser-read texts for literary analysis and demonstrates their well-suitedness to a reading through the category of treason, and understandings of it across time. Chapter 4 builds on the argument of the previous chapter to show how Malory’s Morte Darthur confronts social instability as it condemns treason and highlights the relationship between ‘lived and literary experiences’ (p. 131). Continuing the themes of audience...