MƒH Queen Anne Boleyn 1536

Part I

The ‘humble’ Cleric

1536

What is this medium
That do driveth us to imagine?
To imagine friendships
Where no friendships
e’er hath existed at all?
 
What is this medium?
this demon?
… that do convinceth the soul
of the propinquity of love
 
And yet thy soul
hast not cast an eye
upon the lover’s soul,
Nor feign wouldst even recognizeth
As, through the market place,
we do stride?
 
What is the medium
that demandeth self-praise?
And delusional accompaniment
of lofty pronouncements,
of declarations 
of fame and fortune
thus approaching?
 
Surely, as it thus be written,
Such trifling thoughts
do marry up with that trumpet call
from Aeons Past
The Trump of GOD no less …
 
All is emptiness, all is emptiness
Saith the LORD!
 
Surely, did the ecclesiast 
knoweth his business …!
… as he didst set blæc to skine
And thence for good measure
proclaimed not he that wast inspired
so to write … God forbid!
But rather with great schemes afoot
One greater than he!

Happy to be, doth he foreswareth,
but a humble cleric
who followeth the spirit, he dost argue
And, moreover, not his spirit
But That Ghost that doth stand separate
from the halls of Men …
A flame upon their heads anointing,
he doth meekly but cheekily proclaim!

Besideth wot …
Kanst the Ploughboy understandeth such reasoning?
No! For by God’s mercy
dost the ordinary Man putteth their
fullest truste and confidences in him
the humble cleric and his scribes
 
The scribe, hands hidden,
Flowing robes of inglorious self-importance
Ah-ha! He gloateth ...
 
The pen is mightier than the sword [i]
in any Age
 
And we do use this mechanical device,
My cohorts and me, my clerics,
to aid and abet our personal endeavours
Saying things for oursrelves that which,
Unbeknownst to us
the greater populace do refrain from even thinking,
unless of course, there is a killing in it for us!
Ploughmen, weevle-spinners
blacksmiths, carverers and carpenters
His Word is locked in safety
and in those pure languages
ancient Greek
and Modern Latin
… and, well, we do holdeth all the keys
 
For tasked we art
to explanation offerest
of this wide universe
 
Why?
We are learn-ed!

Why doubtest thou?
God forbid thine arrogance sir!
Doubt is but a step from stocks
Stocks a mere trifle to the wrack,
For out of thine rebellious soul
we shall stretcheth the truth of
that diabolical confession that
we know too well
do lie within your petrid bosom
 
Thou art bereft,
or holding your gifts
as mere men of toil … the common herd!
Who but can plant your ignominous cross
as thy mark against thine name
that only we can set in letters …
 
And there it is!
Thou canst in no wise
understand the workings of this Realm
 
We alone must offer
Gyddance, Wisdome and Direktion
 
We alone, Bachelors it mattereth not,
do proclaim with fullest conviction
that a woman’s miscarriage
bodes ill
For it doth venture to suggest
Displeasure by The Almighty

That He doth cast down upon 
this hapless creature
this woman of former renown
and now of ill repute
this luckless monarch
this lady that hath incurred
His, the King’s grave displeasure
His righteous anger
His surety of judgment
and thereby
incurred too
the Displeasure of That Royal King of kings
Yey! It is indeed. Christ the Lord
doeth express afresh
His grave displeasure
His righteous anger
His surety of judgment

erm … and betwixt, dear Lady

erm …moreover, if
this be objectionable to thee
then we approacheth such arrogance
as dost merely confirm
this is the devil’s work

And thus it is indeed
of no mean wrong
for my Lady
formerly the Queen
to be thus dishonoured
and judged
and separated head from torso …
 
Tis a scientific thing
and we dost know in our Studious Occupations
that we art most sure right
to advise thee
and thus feel no compunction
to call upon vain-glorious
breast-beating

And that in our Learned Opinion
be an End to That!

Part II

Two Students

2017

 

In a separate Age
some five hundred years on
Alexander pondered
while Jonathan reasoned,
their examinations looming
and the calls of Oxford
or the hallowed 
precincts and spires
of Cambridge
 
Jonathan, how on earth
could people be so duped?!?
 
Easy Alex!
Religion has much to answer for
And as we study each period
We find on each and every occasion
that wars and insurrections break out,
that religion lies at the root
At the heart of every cause
And so it is THAT my friend
that has caused me to move away
and study afresh
and find the REAL truth
 
Fear not Alex
I still have my faith
But it is a very private thing
between my Maker and me
and that is an end to the matter
 
That’s good Jonathan
It has taken me aback
because you were zealous and fearless
confident and assured in your faith

No. Zealous and fearless, yes
Confident and assured in my religion
But aeons removed from faith
If you learn nothing else Alex from my u-turn
at least hold to this thought:
faith and religion
do not walk hand in hand
Religion is that large fist that
is determined to thrust and punch itself
into the smaller glove of faith, intimate faith.

I’m joining you mate
I can’t stand the horrors I see
all around us, this very week even,
in the name of religion

Liverpool

12 January 2015
All Rights Reserved

AFTERWORD

Composed on 12 January 2015,
I wrote this Comment on 1 June 2017,
adding the final paragraph on 12 May 2020.

2017

I

Part I, sees the poem written as if penned in 1537, the year following the execution on Anne Boleyn, Queen of England from 1533-1536.

The ruminations of the scribe and clerics who wrote the indictment at the King’s pleasure so as to remove from him yet another wife, another queen. But upon what charge?

Queen Anne was executed on charges of adultery, incest and witchcraft; but had also earlier incurred her husband’s disfavour - King Henry VIII - by miscarrying his son following the ‘disappointing’ birth of Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I. History, of course, records that the reign of Elizabeth I was altogether different from that of her father, and whilst her father’s reign seems to me to be one of infamy with little highlights along the way, his daughter’s reign saw a constancy and determination to thwart Spain.

In the Sixteenth Century, religious belief was literal.

Even today, literal belief often holds sway - and this applies to every religion - seizing minds and screwing up consciences, prompting people to inflict the most horrendous torture, abuse and methods of death, and all in the name of some deity they insist demands such retribution.

Hell and damnation awaited the curtain of death descending for such a person as Queen Anne - something to keep in mind when reading Queen Anne Boleyn’s public statement on the scaffold, having just watched the execution of five men, including her brother, regarding the charges of adultery, incest and witchcraft.

II

Religion could not resort to Science. Religion eschews science and physics, preferring superstition, threats and lies.

Religion saw fit to provide an explanation defined by the narrowness of interpreting sacred writings; writings that alas moved with each century according to the political dictates of the prevailing times. So what is accepted and in favour at one point on the timeline of history is, within a century, often less, the reverse.

And thus so remains today.

III

Part II fast-forwards 478 years to two students preparing for the Oxbridge Entrance Examinations.

Alexander is a good friend of mine with whom I have had many discussions over the years in our meetings in Liverpool; Jonathan is a loose reference to a world-famous Olympian.

The poem is written as a warning against the dangers of religious fundamentalism of any faith, but which, coincidentally, resonates with greater clarity this week in the wake of Paris.[ii]

It is a clarion call to all, to withstand the fanatics here in the UK who openly advocate using our democratic freedoms to work, as it were, a Trojan Horse, to destroy democracy from within and replace it with Theocracy, where, as reported in a chilling BBC News Documentary Panorama last evening - January 12, 2016 - its chief proponent bizarrely insisting that execution is the only way to deal with those who refuse to accept his idea of a theocratic government in this country.

The mind boggles.

All we can do is to test all things, hold fast to that which is good [iii] and not give up our freedoms, and also then see that the vast majority of British Muslims are peace-loving and desirous of keeping our country and institutions as they are, with all faiths, ecumenical, accepting of each other.

Transcribing my 2015 note, I’m very mindful today - June 1, 2017 - and one week on from the Manchester Suicide Bombing, and today’s even worse bombing in the Diplomatic Quarter of Kabul, of just how serious matters are.

2020

IV

Today, 12 May 2020, Daesh proclaims to the world that it was they who, earlier today, blew up the women’s ward in the hospital in Kabul run by Médecins Sans Frontières - Doctors Without Borders. This merely emphasises the thrust of this entire composition. It matters not that the world deals with Covid 19.

“The darkness of men’s minds knows no bounds in visiting inhumanity.”

— Kenneth Thomas Webb 12 May 2020

*

[i] attributed to the English novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu. Richelieu, chief minister to King Louis XIII, discovers a plot to kill him, but as a priest, he is unable to take up arms against his enemies.

[ii] Paris Attacks by three suicide bombers on November 13, 2015

[iii] 1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things, hold fast to that which is good …

18 April 2024
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LIVERPOOL

© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb

Last published 18 January 2023

Digital Art by © 2024 KTW © 2024 IBM unless otherwise credited