In Byways of Scottish History

The Story of the “Long-Tail” Myth

The 17th of December, 1566, was the christening day of Mary Stuart’s infant son. Amongst the festivities arranged in celebration of the event, there was a “great banquet”, to which the representatives of foreign sovereigns had been invited, and at which a foremost place had been assigned to Hatton and the Englishmen who had accompanied him to Scotland. To enliven the entertainment, George Buchanan had written a masque, in which the actors were satyrs who, whilst reciting his complimentary verses, were to bring various symbolical gifts to the royal infant. The performance of this interlude had been entrusted to a Frenchman named Bastien. As the meat was being brought through the great hall, on a “trim engine”, that seemed to move of itself, he made his appearance with a band of men disguised to represent the mythological monsters, and wearing long tails, in keeping with their assumed character. But he and his associates “were not content only to red roun”. Whether merely acting on a mischievous impulse or deliberately carrying out a preconcerted joke, the mummers, as they passed near the English guests, put their hands to their tails and began wagging them. Hatton and his party “daftly apprehending that which they should not seem to have understood”, and placing the worst construction on the silly and unseemly trick, chose to believe that it had been planned in derision of them and out of spiteful jealousy “that the Queen made more of them than of the Frenchmen”. To mark their sense of the insult offered them, “they all set down upon the bare floor behind the back of the board, that they should not see themselves scorned, as they thought”. In relating the incident to Sir James Melville, who records it in his Memoirs, Hatton added that, if it had not taken place in the Royal palace and in presence of the Queen herself, he would “have put a dagger to the heart of the French knave Bastien”.291

Coarse and unmannerly as was the satyrs’ by-play, it would hardly seem to have deserved to be taken so seriously and so ill by the English guests, if it were not remembered that it expressed in dumb show what had for centuries been looked upon by Englishmen as a deadly insult—a reference to the popular belief that they were distinguished from the natives of other countries by the physical monstrosity of bearing tails. That this was accepted as an actual and disgraceful fact there is abundant evidence to prove. In a medieval Latin poem292 devoted to an enumeration of the distinctive characteristics of the various nations of Europe, the unflattering lines that fall to the share of the English, jeer at them for this deformity, whilst not omitting to denounce the treachery so commonly and so spitefully attributed to them by their enemies:

A brute beast is the Englishman,
  For he doth bear a tail;
Beware, and treat him as a foe,
  E’en when he bids thee “Hail!”293

The anonymous satirist, however, was not original. He had not the merit, such as it might be, of having invented the slander which he flung as an insult at the people against whom he obviously entertained a bitter animosity. If, as there is reason to believe, he was a Frenchman, he merely repeated a gibe which had long been one of the commonplaces of vulgar vituperation amongst his compatriots. In the description which the thirteenth-century chronicler, Jacques de Vitry, gives of the depraved state of Paris in his day, and more particularly of the rude behaviour and coarse jests of the students who flocked to its famous university, he states that diversity of nationality aroused amongst them dissensions, hatred and violent animosities, to which they gave vent by indulging in all kinds of invectives against each other. As an example of their scurrility, he mentions that they called the English drunkards and “tailards”.294 To suppose, from the very absurdity of the imputation, that it was merely cast as a taunt, and that no actual belief lay behind it, would be to ignore all that medieval credulity was capable of. Moreover, the attitude taken up by the English themselves, implied shame at an alleged deformity fully as much as anger at a wanton insult. On this point evidence is supplied by the Dominican monk Etienne de Bourbon, a moralist who flourished about the middle of the thirteenth century. In a treatise which is devoted to the exposition of subjects suitable for the pulpit, and which abounds in quaint stories as well as in caustic commentaries on contemporary manners, he does not omit to deal with the inordinate love of dress displayed by women, and to denounce the prevailing fashion of wearing extravagantly long trains to their gowns. He rebukes them for impiously presuming to better God’s work, for doing away with the honourable distinction conferred upon them as human beings, and for deliberately assuming that which brings them down to the same level as brute beasts. As a climax, he inveighs against their shamelessness in making themselves what the English blush to be called—“tailards”.295

The events that were chiefly instrumental in bringing the English into either contact or conflict with Continental nations, during the Middle Ages, were the Crusades and the Hundred Years’ War. The chronicles that deal with these are not wanting in instances from which it may be gathered how readily the obnoxious gibe came to the lips of those that wished to show their contempt for the islanders. Richard of Devizes, who wrote one of the earliest and most authentic narratives of the reign of Richard I, with whom he was contemporary, describes how, in 1190, the inhabitants of Messina manifested their hatred for the strangers whom the King had brought to their shores, and how they tried to wreak vengeance on him and his “tailards”; for, explains the chronicler, the Greeks and the Sicilians gave the name of “tailards” to all who followed the English monarch.296

Another very early reference to the use of the term “tailard” as an opprobrious synonym for “Englishmen” is that which occurs in a metrical romance dealing with the same period and also recording, but with poetical freedom, the life and exploits of Richard Cœur de Lion. The exact date of the poem is unknown; but the fact of its being mentioned in the Chronicles of Richard of Gloucester and in those of Robert de Brunne, supplies evidence of its having been written earlier than the year 1300. It is confessedly a translation from the French; and that may account for the appearance in it of an insulting epithet which an English writer might have hesitated to use, even as an invective in the mouth of an enemy. The Second Book of this romance is devoted to a journey to the Holy Land, which the English King is supposed to have undertaken prior to the actual crusade, but which is, however, made to include the well-known incident of his capture. The poet tells how, when returning from Palestine, with “Sir Foulke Doyly of renown, and Sir Thomas of Multoun”, Richard was betrayed, captured, and brought as a prisoner before the King of Allemayne; and how, when he represented himself and his companions as pilgrims,

        “The Kyng callid Rychard be name,
And clepyd him ‘taylard’, and sayde him schame.”297

In the Sixth Book of the same poem, it is related how the English King, on his way to Acre, put in at Cyprus and sent messengers to the Emperor, and how that monarch “began to rage”, threw a knife at one of them, and followed this up by peremptorily ordering them out of his presence, with the words:—

“Out, ‘taylards’, of my paleys!
Now go and say your ‘tayled’ King
That I owe him no thing.”298

When the Emperor’s steward ventured to represent to his master that such treatment of honourable knights who came to him in the character of ambassadors was not justifiable, the furious but apocryphal potentate

“Carved off his nose by the grusle,
And said: Traytour, thief, steward,
Go, playne to English ‘taylarde’.”299

There is a further account of Richard’s journey to the Holy Land in a poem by a writer of whom we know that his name was Ambrose, and that he witnessed various historical events between 1188 and 1196. It would also appear from his narrative that he actually accompanied the Crusaders on the expedition which he records. He, too, refers to the hostile attitude assumed by the inhabitants of Messina towards the English King’s followers, and states that they jeered at the foreigners and called them “foul dogs”, an epithet which, in the light of the parallel texts, may be looked upon as an allusion to the tails which the English were commonly believed to bear.300

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, there is an instance of the use of the offensive gibe which shows to what purpose it was beginning to be turned by the literate class of the day. During the minority of Henry III, Louis VIII, continuing the aggressive policy inaugurated by his father, Philip Augustus, against the incapable administration of King John, made a vigorous effort to wrest Poitou from the English. Amongst the most noteworthy achievements of this campaign, was the capture of La Rochelle, in 1224. In celebration of this event, a poetaster of the day wrote some doggerel verses, which the Chronicle of Lanercost301 has preserved:—

’Tis our own native King, ’tis a stranger no more,
Who reigns in Rochelle, by the fortune of war;
And the fear of the English no longer prevails,
For he’s made them all harmless by breaking their tails.302

On the other side, however, it was not forgotten that, a few years earlier, in 1217, the same Louis, after being deserted by the discontented barons who had called him over, had suffered a crushing defeat at Lincoln. This supplied fair material for a retort in the same style:—

    We have dragged our French foes,
    Strung like larks in long rows,
And made fast to our tails with a rope;

    That it really was so,
    Why, there’s Lincoln to show,
And that won’t be questioned, I hope.303

The circumstances in which we next hear the contemptuous appellation of “tailards” applied to the English are particularly dramatic. It is in the course of the seventh crusade, that which was undertaken, in 1248, by Louis IX with an English contingent, and of which Matthew of Paris is one of the chroniclers. This time, however, it is not from the enemy that the insult comes. It is from an impetuous and overbearing ally, from the French King’s brother, Count Robert of Artois. The Count was jealous of William Longsword; and on one occasion, when the leader of the English was returning from a successful but unauthorized raid, he was arbitrarily deprived by his arrogant rival of the booty which he was bringing back to the camp. Having in vain appealed to Louis, who appears to have been quite powerless against his brother’s presumption, the English chief retired to Acre, with his two hundred knights; and the news of their departure drew from Artois the scornful exclamation that the army of the noble French was well purged of those “tailards”.304 Longsword was ultimately prevailed upon by the king to return; but it was not long before he had again to bear the brunt of Artois’ overweening pride and insolence. A difference of opinion had arisen between the rash and headstrong Count and the more cautious Master of the Templars, as to the advisability of following up a successful attack that had just been made on the infidels. Longsword was present and attempted to intervene as a peacemaker between the disputants; but he only succeeded in drawing on himself the anger of the hot-headed Frenchman, who put a climax to his violent invectives by insultingly referring to the pusillanimity of the timid “tailards”, and expressing a wish that the army might, once for all, be purged of tails and “tailards”.305 Even the dignified self-possession of Longsword was not proof against such jeers. “Count Robert,” he replied, “I shall certainly proceed, undismayed by any peril of impending death. We shall, I fancy, be to-day where you will not dare to touch my horse’s tail.”306 In the engagement thus recklessly forced on—it was the battle of Mansourah—both Artois and Longsword perished. But whilst the French prince lost his life when trying to swim his horse across a river, after ignominiously turning tail,307 the English knight fell fighting valiantly with his face to the overwhelming foe.

The chronicles which record the events that marked the closing years of the thirteenth century supply a grim illustration of the ignominious treatment which their reputation as “tailards” sometimes brought upon the English. The war which broke out about this time between Edward I and Philip IV of France had for its cause, or, perhaps more correctly, for its pretext, one of the brawls which frequently arose when the sailors of the two countries met in the ports on either side of the Channel. Whether rightly or wrongly, the Frenchmen represented the English as the aggressors. They brought the matter under the notice of their own king, and represented it as an insult to him and to the whole nation that they should have been so wantonly ill-used by the “tailards”. In the reprisals which followed, Philip’s brother, Charles, took a conspicuous part. Having a previous and personal grievance against the English, he vented his spite even on unoffending pilgrims and students. He hanged several of the poor wretches who fell into his hands; and, adding insult to injury, strung up dogs side by side with them, to intimate, says the Chronicle of Lanercost, the resemblance which he thought to exist between the two, or, as another record even more plainly puts it, to show that he made no difference between a dog and an Englishman. Amongst the State Papers relative to the history of Edward I, there is a document which very strikingly confirms the truth of this barbarous incident. It consists of a long roll containing an account of the various outrages committed by the French on English mariners and on inhabitants of the Cinque Ports. One of the charges brought against the Norman seamen is illustrated in the margin by a contemporaneous sketch representing a row of Englishmen hanging up, with a dog between each two.308

It is suggestive of the annoyance which the English felt at their opprobrious nickname that, when we find their writers noticing it, it is almost invariably under provocation and in a tone of indignant protest. One noteworthy exception to this is to be met with in a curious, half-literary, half-historical production, attributed to John of Bridlington. It is a political retrospect of the reign of Edward III, and consists of a supposed ancient text, in Latin verse, with a recent commentary on it. The poem itself purports to be a prophecy, whilst the notes indicate in what manner the predictions were fulfilled. As the leading event for the year 1356, the date of the battle of Poitiers, it is foretold that,

“The four cockrels shall learn what defeat is, that day
When the French meet the English in battle array,
And the big-buttocked bullies are shamefully routed
By the men whom as ‘tailards’ their ribaldry flouted”.309

The imaginary scholiast explains the meaning of this to be, that the brood of the Gallic cock, or, in other words, the French, will be vanquished by the English, whom they jeeringly call “tailards”; that the appellation which is here applied to them and which has been somewhat euphemistically translated by “big-buttocked”, is intended as a set-off against the ignominious term by which they commonly designate the English; and that the four cockrels especially referred to, are the king and his three sons. “And, indeed, these four,” it is added, “were actually vanquished in that battle, the King himself being captured with one of his sons, whilst the other two fled from the field.”310

After Poitiers, the invasion of France by Henry V is chronologically the next important event in the long medieval struggle between England and France. The initial success of the English, whilst embittering the animosity of their enemies, inspired a restraining respect; and there is an expression of those mingled feelings of aversion and of fear in the lines which a poetaster of the day addressed to the invaders, partly as a reproach, partly as an appeal:

“Perfidious race that perjured England breeds,
Whose evil nature shows in all your deeds,
Why must you still, with baneful purpose, seek
Your spite on righteous Frenchmen thus to wreak?
Christ’s servants they, and constant to the faith
Which twice from you has suffered wanton scathe;
Your words are fair, but yet in all you do,
The crooked paths of falsehood you pursue;
Cut off that poisonous tail you long have worn,
A byword to the nations, and their scorn!
For thee, their king, be not my warning vain,
And, in thy mem’ry let this truth remain:
That God who willed thou shouldst a ’tailard’ be
Has not denied his hallowing grace to thee.”311

But the fortune of war began to turn against the English on the death of Henry V in 1422; and the exultation caused by that event is voiced by Olivier Basselin, in one of his popular poems:—

“The King who sat upon the English throne
The crown of France claimed also for his own;
He strove to drive as outcasts from their land
The men that dared to stem the invading tide;
But, when death dashed the sceptre from his hand,
The alien host was scattered far and wide,
And France is now from English ‘tailards’ freed;
May curses light on all the recreant breed!”312

A few years later, possibly about 1430, a popular ballade, in which an unknown writer celebrated the exploits of Jeanne d’Arc, opened with a repetition of the old insult:—

“Back, English ‘tailards’, back!”313

And Enguerrand de Monstrelet, the Burgundian chronicler of the events that marked the latter half of the Hundred Years’ War, records another historical occasion on which the French gave utterance to their triumph in the traditional gibe at the alleged monstrosity of their old enemies. In his account of the evacuation of Paris, in 1436, he relates that, as the English retired from the city which they had held for sixteen years, the inhabitants hooted them with great cries of “Tails!”314

Coming down to the sixteenth century, we find that, in the early years of it, when hostilities broke out between Louis XII and Henry VIII, the old insult fell readily from the pen of the French versifiers who found subjects for their rhymes in the military incidents of the time. Thus, in the Dépucellage de la ville de Tournay, the town, referring to its ill-advised refusal of help when the English laid siege to it, is made to say:—

“To guard my ramparts from the foe’s attack
A ready offer from the King was brought;
But, I refused, and sent the answer back:
‘With men for watch and ward, no means I lack
To bring the “tailards’” enterprise to nought’”.315

But pride went before a fall. Tournay was occupied by the English in 1513.

In Anatole de Montaiglon’s collection of fifteenth and sixteenth century verse, there is a poem which bears the title of Courroux de la Mort contre les Anglois, and which is in substance a bitter invective against the English generally. It is undated; but an allusion to the porcupine, the well-known emblem of Louis XII, points to its having also been written at this same period. In an apostrophe, the poet promises his countrymen an easy victory over the English:—

“In war your arms will speedily prevail
Against your foe, the King ‘that wears a tail’”.316

The fight of Guinegate, commonly known as the battle of the Spurs, can hardly have been looked upon by him as a fulfilment of his prophecy. It may rather, if that were still possible, have increased the animosity which inspired the two scurrilous lines in which he strung together as many opprobrious epithets as the measure of his verse would admit, and which duly included the traditional slander, linked, in this instance, with the equally popular nickname of “godon”, supposed to have originated in the frequent and profane use which the English made of God’s name:—

“Ye noisome, greedy, fetid braggarts, go!
Ye ’tailard’ godons, rid me of your sight!”317

So far, the use of the abusive term “tailard”, in French coué and in Latin caudatus, has been traced in immediate connection with events that brought the English into direct conflict with their enemies. There are not wanting instances, however, to show that no special provocation was required, and that from century to century it currently served the purpose of those whom national antipathy prompted to revile the English, or to hold them up to ridicule. To begin with Eustache Deschamps, the most prolific and versatile versifier of the late fourteenth and the early fifteenth centuries, we find him giving Englishmen and their tails a conspicuous place in his satirical verses. In a poem of which only a fragment remains, he describes how

“They swagger grandly down the street,
An awsome sight to all they meet”;

but how, in order not to mar the effect of the imposing appearance which they assume,

“Between their legs they hide with care
The tail which rumour says they wear”.318

The Englishmen’s tails also supply the subject of a rondeau in which Deschamps mockingly compares the strength of the French with that of the English, ironically proclaiming the superiority of the latter as proved by the greater mass of flesh they have to carry, and the additional appendage they are obliged to drag about with them:—

The English are more stout, ’tis clear,
Than any Frenchman you can meet.

Slight burdens only Frenchmen bear;
The English are more stout, ’tis clear.

Two butts they carry everywhere,
And eke a tail, so trig and neat,
The English are more stout, ’tis clear,
Than any Frenchman you can meet.319

In addition to this, Deschamps has a satirical ballade, in which he again drags in the English by the tail, professing concern for the inconvenience which it must cause them, and earnestly advising them to hold it up. “Billy”, the predecessor of John Bull, as a typical Englishman, opens the poem with a gibe at the “French dogs”, who “do nothing but drink wine”. “Frenchy” does not deny the soft impeachment, but retorts that he considers it better to indulge in the juice of the grape than to swill beer. Then, by an abrupt transition and, if with rhyme, without any special reason, he compares red-haired Englishmen to mastiffs. On the strength of that canine similitude, he impresses upon them the necessity for holding up their tails. He commiserates them on the additional burden which they have to carry, though not endowed with the physical vigour of Jacques Thommelin, the strong man of the day. He warns them against walking abroad in dirty weather; and if, in spite of the rain, they must take their corn to the mill or gather grapes in the vineyard, he bids them imitate their four-footed neighbours the dogs, and hold up their tails to prevent their trailing in the mud. The satire is not keen, nor is the humour brilliant; and the whole point lies in the rather scurrilous than apt refrain: —

  BALLADE
(Sur les Anglais)

“Franche dogue,” dist un Anglois,
“Vous ne faites que boire vin.”
“Si faisons bien,” dist le François,
“Mais vous buvez le henequin;
Roux estes com pel de mastin,
Vuillequot, de moy aprenez,
Quant vous yrez par le chemin:
Levez vostre queue, levez!

Vous n’estes pas de membres fais
Si comme est Jaques Thommelin
Qui porte si merveilleus fais
Que vous n’y pourriez mettre fin:
Ce sont deux tonneaulx de sapin,
C’est voir, et la queue delez.
Advisez-vous, dit Franchequin;
Levez vostre queue, levez!

N’alez a piet, par le temps frais,
Porter vostre blé au moulin;
S’il pluet, troussez vo queue prés,
Autel facent vostre voisin;
Et si vous pinciez le raisin,
Afin que vous ne vous crotez,
Soit en France ou en Limosin,
Levez vostre queue, levez!”320

Another ballade records an incident which is supposed to have happened in Calais. In company with Granson, a mercenary captain in English pay, but without the necessary safe-conduct, the poet entered the town, which was then in possession of the English. He was at once pulled up by two men-at-arms who addressed him in language of which he quotes such scraps as “dogue” and “goday”, “ride” and “commidre”. He, on his side, intimated his recognition of their nationality by exclaiming: “Oh yes! I see your tail!” Whilst Granson, who had led him into the trap, made off laughing and calling out that he had no wish to stand surety for him, Deschamps was told that he would be kept in durance, an announcement which again drew from him the taunt, “Oil, je voy vo queue!” Though confessedly blue with fright, he nevertheless summoned up enough courage to make a dash for liberty. Digging his heels vigorously into his cob, he made it rear with a suddenness that sent his captors sprawling; and whilst they lay helplessly on the ground, he hastily betook himself out of their reach, uttering the inevitable refrain:—

        BALLADE
(Récit d’une Aventure à Calais)

Je fu l’autrier trop mal venuz
Quant j’alay pour veir Calays;
J’entray dedenz comme cornuz,
Sanz congié; lors vint deux Anglois,
Granson devant et moy aprés,
Qui me prindrent parmi la bride:
L’un me dist: “dogue”, l’autre: “ride”;
Lors me devint la coulour bleue:
“Goday”, fait l’un, l’autre: “commidre”.
Lors dis: “Oil, je voy vo queue.”

Pour mal content s’en est tenuz
L’un d’eulx, qui estoit le plus lays,
Et dist: “Vous seres retenuz
Prinsonnier, vous estes forfais.”
Mais Granson s’en aloit adés
Qui en riant faisait la vuide:
A eulx m’avoit trahi, ce cuide,
En anglois dist: “Pas ne l’adveue.”
Passer me font de Dieu l’espite;
Lors dis: “Oil, je voy vo queue.”

Puis ay mes talons estenduz
De mon roucin, le serray prés,
Lors sault, si furent espanduz;
Delez Granson fut mes retrais
Là ne me vault treves ne pais,
De paour la face me ride,
De tel amour ma mort me cuide;
Au derrain leur dist: “Je l’adveue.”
“Chien, faisoit l’un, vez vous vo guide?”
Lors dis: “Oil, je voy vo queue!”321

Another writer of the same period, Olivier Basselin, refers to the Englishmen’s tails in a satirical poem, in which he alleges this physical deformity as his reason for not wishing to live in their country:—

“Do you think it’s a joke that I never would dwell
  ‘Mongst the English, as oft I declare?
Nay, believe me, my friend, ’tis the truth that I tell,
  For I hate the long tails that they wear.”322

In one of his minor poems, Jean Molinet, part-author of the Roman de la Rose, who also belongs to the fifteenth century, humorously goes one step further than his fellow satirists, and gives even animals of English race a share in the distinctive peculiarity which birth in England entailed on the human Islanders. Of a certain tom-cat he says:—

“This Cat for his mother had Cathau the Blue,
  To Calais he does not belong;
There’s something about him of English breed, too,
  And that’s why his tail is so long.”323

About the beginning of the sixteenth century, Crétin, a Norman poet, combines encouragement of the French with the usual abuse of the English:—

“Praise shall reward the doughty deeds you do,
And store of crowns, and golden angels, too;
And, in the ransom of the ’long-tailed’ crew,
Their flesh and bone shall be as gold to you.”324

As late as the seventeenth century, an echo of the gibe may still be heard. Larivey, in one of his comedies, Les Tromperies, makes a swaggering captain boast of the reputation which he has acquired by valiantly charging the English “tailards” when they attempted to land at Dieppe.325 Still nearer our own day, Saint-Amant, who, indeed, is so modern that he was one of the original members of the French Academy and figures in Boileau’s satires, has a reference to the English longtails in his Rome Ridicule. He incidentally claims for the French the strange merit of having rid their country of the goitre and of the king’s evil by making carrion of the English invaders:—

“The goitre now we never see,
And cruels, too, have ceased to be,
E’er since we slew our ’tailard’ foes
And made them food to gorge the crows”.326

By this time, however, the tradition had ceased to be popular; for in a note on this passage, Saint-Amant’s contemporary, Conrart, thought it necessary to give an explanation of the epithet “quouez”. According to him, it was justified by the fact that, in the case of the majority of Englishmen, the end of the os sacrum, called coccyx, actually protrudes and forms a tail!327

But, even yet, the old cry has not wholly died out. In the Island of Guernsey, that genuine bit of Normandy, where it was once so frequently heard, it is perpetuated by the country children. They have a custom of slyly throwing at passers-by a hairy, clinging weed, which grows abundantly by the wayside. If any of it catches on to the victims of their childish trick, these are made aware of it by hearing themselves jeered at with cries of “la Coue!” The words are the very same as those recorded by Monstrelet; and this identity seems to justify the belief that they are a survival of the medieval scoff.

The Scots, sharing as they did the feeling of animosity entertained by the French against their English foes, were no less ready than they to give it expression; and the insulting taunt which they had learnt from their continental allies was adopted as an effective means to that end. It is not, however, amidst the excitement of international strife that the cry is first heard. The earliest instance of its use in the North Country is given by Bower. Under the date of 1217, he has an account of the mission to Scotland, undertaken by the Prior of Durham and the Archdeacon of York, in connection with the interdict under which the kingdom had been laid. These two prelates made themselves very unpopular by the mercenary spirit which they displayed; and a monkish satirist voiced the irritation which they aroused, in a strongly worded Latin poem, containing amongst other terms of reproach and invective, a denunciation of them as “tailards”: —

“Those clerics, both in treach’rous England born,
Are of the breed by whom long tails are worn”.328

As regards the other instances supplied by the chroniclers, it is noteworthy that the insult was, in each case, avenged by the defeat of those who flung it at their enemies. The first occasion on which this is reported to have occurred was the battle of Dunbar, in 1296. The Castle, at that time one of the most important in Scotland, had been delivered over to the Scottish leaders by the Countess of Dunbar. Edward I at once sent John Plantagenet, Earl of Warrenne and Surrey, to recapture it. The garrison, conscious of its inability to hold out against the ten thousand foot and the thousand heavy-armed horse which the English leader commanded, agreed to surrender to him if it were not relieved within three days. In the meantime, John Baliol, anxious to retain so important a stronghold, sent his whole army of forty thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse to its succour. When the besieged saw this formidable force encamped on the heights above Spot, they felt confident of success; and in their premature exultation, they jeered at the English, calling them “tailed dogs”, and threatening not only to kill them, but also to cut off their tails. Their boasts were not justified by the result. In the engagement that followed, the rashness of the Scots in abandoning their favourable position proved disastrous. Ten thousand of them fell on the field or during the pursuit; and next day the Castle surrendered at discretion to Edward, who came up from Berwick with the remainder of his army.329

In the following year, Lord Robert Clifford made an incursion into Annandale, at the head of twenty thousand infantry, preceded by a body of only one hundred cavalry. On passing the Solway, it was proclaimed by sound of trumpet that every soldier might plunder for himself and keep his own booty. On hearing this welcome announcement, the infantry dispersed over the country, and the horse alone remained together and marched on Annan, where the Scots, thinking they had to do with a mere handful, received them with jeers and insults, as a pack of “tailed” dogs. But when it came to actual fighting, the heavy-armed cavalry proved too much for the dalesmen. They were driven into marshy ground, where they were easily overpowered by the infantry that had hurried up to reinforce the vanguard. Over three hundred of the Scots were slain, many prisoners were taken; and before the Englishmen returned to Carlisle with their booty, the destruction of ten villages had given the scoffers good reason to think less contemptuously of the “tailards”.330

At least once again the ill-omened cry was heard. It was on the eve of the battle of Dupplin, which was fought on the 12th of August, 1332, between Edward Baliol, with his English supporters, and the army of David II, under the Earl of Mar. Trusting to their superior numbers and to their advantageous position, the Scots were confident of success. They spent a part of the night in drinking and in singing songs that contained insulting reference to

“The English ‘tailards’, jeered at for their tails”, and they bragged that they would turn those same tails to practical use, by binding their wearers, and dragging them to the gallows with them.331 But the boastful Scots were beaten, and one of the chroniclers who record their defeat, reminds them of Seneca’s saying, that never did proud joy stand on a sure footing. “Now,” he adds, by way of moral, “you who, but the day before, declared you would make ropes of the Englishmen’s tails to bind them with, are yourselves bound in real fetters.”332

In Wright’s collection of medieval political songs, there are some doggerel verses, which are ascribed to this same half of the fourteenth century, and which probably refer to the driving out of the English from some of the strongholds which they had occupied. In his crabbed Latin, the writer, doubtless some monkish patriot, bids Scotland rejoice at the happy deliverance:

“The ‘tails’ appeared, a while they held their sway,
But now, at last, they’ve all been lopped away;
The ‘tails’ have gone, and fearlessly we may
Proclaim ‘O Scotland, hail the happy day!’”333

Those lines, such as they are, may serve as a connecting link between the historical instances of the use of the derogatory appellation and those which refer to no special incident, but are merely adaptations of the old scoff for the purpose of literary invective. The latter are not numerous; but one of them is interesting from the fact that it introduces the familiar “tails” under a new name. It occurs in The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, that remarkable production which, though probably nothing more than a jeu d’esprit, a kind of friendly sparring-match between two adversaries “who give each other plaguy knocks with all the love and fondness of a brother”, is assuredly one of the most astonishing instances of verbal scurrility to be found in literature. In this wordy tournament the two poets allude in uncomplimentary language to each other’s family history, and Kennedy reproaches Dunbar, who was a native of Lothian, with being descended from a traitor, from Corspatrick, who,

“Throu his tressoun brocht Inglis ‘rumpillis’ in”.334

John Skelton, a satirist of the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century, has preserved three Latin hexameters in which a Scottish scholar, George Dundas, at one time a professor at the University of Aberdeen, scoffs at the English in the familiar way, by alluding to their tails. The Englishman himself, after the battle of Flodden, had written against the Scots, with the scurrility which characterized him and which made him obnoxious even to his own countrymen; and it seems probable that Dundas’s lines occurred in a poem written as a retort. The only connection between them, however, consists in the repetition of the same idea in a slightly different form; and it is hardly possible to assume that they stood together, and are to be taken as an epigram. It may also be noted that the first of them is almost identical with one that is known to have been current at a much earlier date:

“An Englishman’s a dog, because we find
That, like a dog he bears a tail behind”.

“Thou English ‘tailard’, hold thy tail with care,
For fear it drop from thee, at unaware.”

“By reason of their tails, the English race
Must bear about a burden of disgrace.”335

In whatever connection the lines may have appeared, they provoked “the noble poet Skelton”, as he styles himself, to a reply which has for its heading the statement that, “The most vile Scot, Dundas, alleges that Englishmen have tails”. Apostrophizing him as a “shameless, noxious, foul-mouthed, lying Scot”, he asks him how he dares utter such a slander. Then, dropping into macaronic verses, he adorns them with such flowers of vituperation as these:

This Dundas,
This Scottishe as,
He rymes and railes
That Englishmen have tailes.

Skelton Laureat
After this rate
Defendeth with his pen
All Englishmen
Agayn Dundas
The Scottishe as.
Shake thy tayle, Scot, like a cur,
For thou beggest at every mannes dur.
Tut, Scot, I sey,
Go, shake the, dog, hey!
Dundas of Galaway
With thy versyfyeng rayles
How they have tayles.336

Though recalled, some half a century later, by the insulting piece of by-play which it suggested to Mary Stuart’s French courtiers, and at which, as we have already recorded, Hatton and his countrymen waxed so wroth, the “tailard” taunt is not again heard in the story of the old feud between England and Scotland. From the sixteenth century to its final disappearance from use and even from memory, it seems to have remained as exclusively French as it doubtless was in its origin.

Part II

The use which some of the Latin chroniclers and verse-makers make of the words caudatus and cauda suggests that the former of these may have been intended to bear the sense of “cowed” or “coward”, and the latter to symbolize the evil qualities, more particularly, perhaps, the treachery ascribed to the English. Thus, in Matthew of Paris, one, at least, of Count Robert’s insulting outbursts, though hardly both, remains perfectly intelligible even if a figurative rather than a literal meaning be given to the epithet.337 And, again, when John Oxenedes, in his account of the battle of Lewes, fought, in 1264, between Henry III and the Barons, under Simon of Montfort, places it in immediate juxtaposition to “full of guile”, “false”, “unstable”, and “dispirited”, it seems more natural to interpret it as a reference to a moral defect than to take it as a taunt at a physical deformity.338 As regards the substantive, a symbolical sense, not, indeed, excluding the primary meaning, but rather taken in combination with it, is obviously consistent with the anonymous poetaster’s advice to “cut off that poisonous tail”.339 And the Annales Gandenses, the most noteworthy chronicle of the closing years of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, whilst doubtless alluding to the popular belief in a real caudal appendage worn by Englishmen, seem to employ the word metaphorically in the passage which records the incendiarism and the looting by which the troops of Edward I disgraced themselves in Ghent, where they had been cordially received and hospitably entertained by the inhabitants in 1298. “The English, like the most ungrateful men that they were,” says the Minorite author, “dragging after them their habitual tail, and eager to plunder the town of Ghent and to slay those that resisted them, set fire to it in four places, at the four corners, so to speak, in order that the people of Ghent, whilst endeavouring to extinguish the conflagration, should be less careful about the custody of their property.”340 In the Eulogium Historiarum, too, there is a passage where the word cauda occurs in such a connection as to make it quite clear that the literal acceptation would be out of place, the more so, indeed, from the circumstance that the “tail” is bestowed, not on an Englishman, but on a Scot, and on a Scot no less genuine than Robert the Bruce. Referring to the capture and punishment of the Scottish King’s adherents, the chronicler adds that Bruce himself found safety in flight and concealment, but that this did not in the least trouble Edward, who, now that his enemy’s tail was completely cut off, was quite willing that he should wander about, wherever he found it easiest to save his life.341 And if, in this instance, the amputation of the tail is a figure of speech intended to convey the notion of reducing to powerlessness, it might be argued, with some show of reason, that, even when applied to Englishmen, as in the lines which exultingly proclaim how the French King made them harmless by submitting them to similar treatment, the expression does not necessarily imply the actual possession of a real tail. This would add yet another passage to those which, if they stood by themselves, would justify some hesitation in accepting them as proofs of a serious conviction as to the alleged anatomical peculiarity of Englishmen. But when the fullest allowance has been made for all of them, they do not appreciably affect the evidence of the many witnesses who not only testify to the general acceptance of the phenomenon as an actual fact, but are also ready with a reason for its cause and an explanation of its origin. The first of these in age, and by no means the least in point of standing and respectability, is the biographer Goscelin. He is said to have been born at or near Terouanne, and was originally a monk in the monastery of St. Bertin, but was brought over to England, possibly as early as 1053, by Hermann, Bishop of Salisbury. Being a monk at Canterbury, he became interested in the founder of the see, and not only drew up an account of the translation of Augustine, a ceremony at which he was present, but also wrote a life of the Saint. He professes to have based this work on older records; and it may be assumed that it embodied local tradition as it existed prior to the Norman Conquest. It consists of two versions of the story of the life of the Apostle of England. One of them, known as the Historia Minor Sancti Augustini, is brief and compendious. The other, or Historia Major as it is called, which enjoys the distinction of having been selected by the Bollandists for inclusion in their Acta Sanctorum, whilst identical with it in substance, has that greater fulness of details which its title suggests.

Both texts relate an incident which is said to have taken place in the province of Dorset, in a little village which, for its heathenish impiety, is likened to the nether regions themselves. There, the devil-inspired inhabitants not only refused to give the messenger of the Gospel a hearing, but also raised a very storm of mocking and contumely against the Saint and his companions. In their shameless audacity, they fastened the tails of sea-fish to the garments of the holy men. Indignant at this sacrilegious outrage, the Spirit of the Lord, through the mouth of Augustine, condemned those who had committed it to perpetuate in themselves and in all their posterity the ignominy to which they had submitted the saints of God.342

Shorn of its miraculous and spiteful sequel, and presented in a form to which critical history is not compelled to raise objection, the same episode reappears about the middle of the twelfth century, that is, approximatively, a hundred years later, in the Gesta Pontificum of William of Malmesbury. The chronicler narrates how, at Cerne, in Dorsetshire, the infuriated inhabitants, at the instigation of the Evil One, attacked Augustine and his brethren, and expelled them from their midst, after having heaped insults upon them, and how they carried the indignity of their conduct so far as to fasten the tails of ray-fish, or skate, to the clothes of the holy missionaries. The attitude which William of Malmesbury credits Augustine with assuming in the circumstances seems less in keeping with what we elsewhere read of the Saint’s temper than does the vengeful sentence which Goscelin makes him pronounce against the offenders. William says of him that, for Christ’s sake, he bore their affronts patiently, modestly, and even joyfully, and shaking against them the dust of his feet, retired a distance of some three miles, as a precaution against further irritating the insane anger of the poor people.343

When next the story of the insult offered to Augustine reappears, the Divine vengeance, which Goscelin hardly does more than suggest, is unhesitatingly asserted, and is recorded with a fullness of details such as medieval credulity would readily accept as evidence of a genuine miracle. The writer to whom we owe the legend in this complete form is Robert Wace, of Jersey, the Anglo-Norman poet and author of the Brut, a rhymed chronicle written but a few years, probably not more than a decade, after William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Pontificum. Differing from his predecessors who referred to a small village as the scene of the incident, Wace lays it in Dorchester itself, although the conduct which he attributes to its inhabitants seems in keeping with rural coarseness rather than with the more refined civilization of a county town:

“Saint Austine came and to the heathen folk
He preached God’s law. Full earnestly he spoke;
But they, as men by nature vile and naught,
Were careless of the holy truths he taught;
And even as he stood before them, there,
—One sent by God, God’s precepts to declare—
They fastened to his garments tails of ray,
And with those tails they drove the Saint away.
Then Austine prayed that, for His servant’s sake,
The judgment of the Lord might overtake
The impious scoffers and His wrath proclaim
Against the men who did the deed of shame.
And so it was and shall be through all time,
In punishment of their detested crime:
For, sooth to say, to every man among
The rabble rout by whom the tails were hung
There grew a tail; and thus, for evermore
This token of disgrace the tailards bore;
And all their progeny, from sire to son,
Have suffered for the deed which then was done;
And so ’tis now, for all the kith and kin
Are tailards, too, in memory of the sin
Incurred by those who, lewd and reprobate,
Defiled the friend of God with tails of skate.”344

Some fifty years after Robert Wace wrote his Brut, Layamon translated, or rather, paraphrased and expanded the poem. In this Old English version of it, St. Augustine’s adventure is enriched by the addition of further details. Layamon’s most interesting contribution to the history of the development of the legend consists of the information that an exaggerated notion as to the extent of the Saint’s vengeance had, by this time, got abroad, and that foreigners now credited all Englishmen indiscriminately with the tails which the transgressors themselves and their posterity had alone been condemned to bear. That those tails were called “muggles”, and that the men whom they disgraced were nicknamed “mugglings”, are further circumstances for the knowledge of which we are indebted to Layamon. And the fact that, whilst one manuscript of his poem follows Wace with regard to the locality of the incident, another transfers it from Dorchester to Rochester, suggests a desire on the part of the scribe to exonerate the West Country, with which he may possibly have been connected.345 In Sir F. Madden’s prose rendering of the old English Brut, the whole episode is thus given:

“And so St. Austin drew southward, so that he came to Dorchester; there he found the worst men that dwelt in the land. He told them God’s lore, and they had him in derision; he taught them Christendom, and they grinned at him. Where the Saint stood, and his clerks with him, and spake of Christ, as was ever their custom, there they approached to their injury, and took tails of rays and hanged them on his cope, on each side. And they ran beside, and threw at him with the bones, and afterwards attacked him with grievous stones. And so they did him shame and drove him out of the place. To St. Austin they were odious, and he became exceeding wroth; and he proceeded five miles from Dorchester, and came to a mount that was mickle and fair; there he lay on his knees in prayer and called ever toward God, that he should avenge him of the cursed folk, who had dishonoured him with their evil deeds. Our Lord heard him, in heaven, and sent his vengeance on the wretched folk that hanged the rays’ tails on the clerks. The tails came on them—therefore they be tailed! Disgraced was all the race, for muggles they had; and in each company men call them mugglings, and every freeman speaketh foul of them, and English freemen in foreign lands have a red face for the same deed, and many a good man’s son, in strange lands, who never came there nigh, is called base.”346

The same occurrence is related in the English prose version of the Brut, with the addition of aggravating circumstances of violence and contumely. But what imparts special interest to the passage is the mention of the ingenious means adopted for the purpose of evading the hereditary curse:

“And in the menewhile that the peple turnede ham to God, seynt Austyn came to Rochestre and there prechede Goddis worde. The paynnemys therefor him scornede and caste uppon hym reyghe tayles, so that al his mantel was hongede ful of reyghe tailes; and for more despite thai keste uppon hym the guttis of reyghes and of other fysshe, wherefore the good man seynt Austyn was sore anoyede and grevede, and prayede to God that alle the childerne that shulde be borne afterward in that citee of Rochestre muste have tayles. And wherre the kyng herde and wiste of this vengaunce that was falle thurghe seynt Austynus praier, he lette make one howse in the honoure of God, wherein wymmen shulde have hire childerne, at the brugges ende: in whiche howse wymmen yette of the citee be delyveride of child.”347

The Story of Inglande, written by Robert Manning of Brunne, in 1338, contains a section which has the marginal summary, “Qua de causa Anglici vocantur Caudati”. In his explanation of the reason why Englishmen are called “tailards”, Manning closely follows Wace, some of whose lines, indeed, he translates with literal accuracy. He closes his narrative of the incident, however, in the same manner as does Layamon, with a protest against the unfairness of attributing to all Englishmen indiscriminately the degrading stigma inflicted on a few only of his countrymen:

“But there he stod them to preche
And ther savacion for to teche;
Byhynd hym on his clothes they henge
Righe taillis on a strenge.
When they had don that vyleny
They drof hym thenne wyth maistri;
Fer weys they gan hym chace;
Tailles they casten in hys face.
Thys holy man God bisought,
For they hym that vileny wrought,
That on them and on al their kynde
Tailled alle men schulde hem fynde;
And God graunted al that he bad,
For alle that kynde tailles had—
Taillis hadde and tailles have;
Fro that vengaunce non may them save;
For they wyth tailles the goodeman schamed,
For tailles al Englische kynde ys blamed;
In manie sere londes seyd
Of tho tailles we have umbreyde.”348

The Bibliothéque Nationale possesses a manuscript,349 which is ascribed by experts to the fourteenth century, and in which the legend of St. Augustine and the tails—no longer those of ray-fish, however—supplies materials for a quaint satire against the inhabitants of Rochester. It begins with a mock-serious discussion as to the species of animals to which they belong. That they are not men is quite clear, for they have tails, and Aristotle has conclusively established that men have no tails. And yet those strange animals have something human about them, too—they reason and have laws. For all that, however, there remains the stern fact that they bear tails, and this quite precludes the possibility of classing them as perfect human beings. In the course of the satire reference is naturally made to the outrage of which St. Augustine was the victim. After giving an account of the saint’s mission to England, the anonymous author continues: “As he went about from city to city, preaching, it happened that he preached in the city which is called Rochester. But, whilst he was preaching, the inhabitants of the city flocked together about him, and, deeming his words to be lies, subjected him to many insults. After reviling him with opprobrious words, they fastened tails of swine and of cows to the skirt of his garments, spat into his face, and drove him out of the city.”350 The saint prayed that they who had insulted him might be punished, to the end that the divinity of his mission should be brought home to them. At the conclusion of his prayer, he wept bitterly, but was comforted by receiving the assurance that his petition would be granted. And so, God, wishing to avenge the insult done to Him and to his servant, ordained that all who, from that time, might be born in the city of Rochester, should have tails, after the fashion of swine. And nothing could be done to prevent their having tails. From that day to this, the natives of Rochester have been tailed, and they shall remain tailed for ever. It is consequently evident that they are not human beings. Amongst the inconveniences resulting from this peculiarity of theirs, is that of not being able to sit down when they are angry; for, at such a time, their tails stand erect, as is the case with other animals.351

During the fourteenth century, too, the myth, in its restricted and local form, makes its appearance in Continental literature, other than that of France. It is referred to by Fazio degli Uberti, an Italian poet who lived between 1326 and 1360, and whom D. G. Rossetti deals with and translates in his work Italian Poets chiefly before Dante. In a description of England which Fazio gives in the Ditta Mondo, he says:

“Now this I saw not; but so strange a thing
It was to hear, and by all men confirmed,
That it is fit to note it as I heard,
To wit, there is a certain islet here
Among the rest where folk are born with tails,—
Short as are found in stags and suchlike beasts”.352

Fazio is probably Boccaccio’s authority for the statement, unaccompanied with any further details, however, that “certain Englishmen were born with tails”.353

The chronicle which is commonly known as Alexander of Essebye’s, and which exists in manuscript only, has been quoted as briefly stating that “when fish tails were despitefully thrown at him by certaine men of Dorsetshire”, St. Augustine “was so furiously vexed therewith that he called upon God for revenge and He forthwith heard him and strake them with tails for their punishment”. Greater interest attaches to the story as told in the English version of the Golden Legende. Though not less credulous than were his predecessors as to the punishment inflicted on the impious people who insulted the saint, the writer who interpolated the narrative—for it does not appear in the Latin original—prepares the way of the sceptic by limiting the duration of the penalty, and by testifying with an earnestness suggestive of personal knowledge to the immunity of some, at least, of those who were believed to be stricken for the transgression of their forefathers:

“After this Saynt Austyn entryd into Dorsetshyre and came into a towne whereas were wycked peple and refused his doctryne and prechyng utterly, and droof him out of the towne, castyng on him the tayles of thornback or like fisshes, wherefor he besought Almyghty God to shewe his jugement on them, and God sente to them a shameful token, for the children that were borne after in that place had tayles, as it is said, tyl they had repented them. It is sayd comynly that thys fyl at Strode in Kente; but, blessyd be God, at this day is no such deformyte.”354

By the middle of the fifteenth century, the legend of the tails had undergone important modifications. The original account of the outrage and of its punishment was still current; but, by the side of it, there existed several versions which affected not merely the circumstances of time and place, but also the individuality of the persons concerned in the incident. We are indebted to Walter Bower, who expanded and continued Fordun’s Scotichronicon, for an interesting passage in which the old story and its subsequent variants are presented together. The Scottish chronicler, taking Wace’s narrative as his starting-point, relates that when St. Augustine was preaching the word of life to the heathen, amongst the West Saxons, in the county of Dorset, he came to a certain town where no one would receive him or listen to his preaching. They opposed him rebelliously in everything, contradicted all he said, did their utmost to distort his actions, on which they put sinister interpretations, and, impious to relate, carried their audacity so far as to sew and hang fish tails to his garments. But what they intended as an insult to the holy father brought eternal disgrace on themselves and on their posterity, and opprobrium on their unoffending country. He smote them in the hinder parts and cast lasting shame upon them by causing similar tails to grow both on their own persons and on those of their offspring. And here the Abbot of Inchcolm becomes particularly interesting by reason of the wholly new information which he imparts. He states that there was a special name for the punitive tail. “Such a tail,” he says, “is called Mughel by the natives, in the language of their country; and because of this, the place where St. Augustine was thus insulted received the name of Muglington, that is, the town of the Muglings, and still bears it at the present day.” It is to be regretted that the topographical indication is not more definite. The modern map of England knows no Muglington. Wherever it may have been, it would seem that it did not stand alone as a monument of St. Augustine’s power and spite. According to Bower, it is also related that a similar indignity was done to him in the province of Mercia, by the inhabitants of a town called Thamewyth. But they were not allowed to go unpunished either; for, “as is known to all”, they were put to shame by the infliction of the like opprobrious punishment.

It is from its concluding part, however, that Bower’s account derives its chief importance and its value as a contribution to the history of the development of the myth. “Something similar,” he says, “happened at a later period, during the exile of St. Thomas, Primate of England, when the people of Rochester, intending it as an insult to him, docked his horse’s tail. But their iniquitous action was foiled of its purpose and recoiled on themselves; for it was found that thenceforth all the children born in that place were tailed.”355 From this we first learn that a new character had by this time assumed a part in the story. Hitherto, the responsibility for having endowed Englishmen with tails had rested with St. Augustine alone. And his monopoly of the doubtful honour had endured through four centuries. Henceforth, though he was not to disappear altogether, he was to have a rival.

In the case of Becket, as in that of his predecessor, there was a basis of historical fact on which to build up a legend.

The chroniclers Ralph de Diceto, Roger de Hoveden, and both William and Gervase of Canterbury,356 who record the murder of Becket, and whose proximity, in point of time, to the events that took place on those memorable December days of the year 1170, gives them indisputable authority, all agree in narrating, with such slight variations in matters of detail as serve to show that they did not merely repeat each other, an incident which happened to the Archbishop shortly before his death. They state that Robert Broc, a groom of the royal bedchamber, who, together with Nigel de Sacheville, incumbent of Harrow, was solemnly excommunicated by the Primate, on Christmas day, had cut off the tail of Becket’s horse, as an insult to its owner. According to the two brother-monks, the Archbishop made direct reference to this indignity in his interview with the four conspirators, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton. “The tail of a mare in my service,” he said, “has been shamefully cut off, as if I could be disgraced by the docking of a brute beast.”357 It was not, however, for this cowardly and contemptible act of spite that Broc was excommunicated, but because, being a layman, he had appropriated ecclesiastical revenues. And, though William of Canterbury records that the very dogs refused to be fed by the hand of the man whom the Prelate had banned, neither he nor any of the other chroniclers refers to the infliction of tails on him or his posterity. It was only at a later date, and when Broc had been lost sight of, as the perpetrator of the outrage, that the miraculous punishment was thought of.

Although there is the evidence of Bower to show that, in his day, Becket’s name had already begun to be connected with the legend of the tails, Augustine still continues to hold his own through the whole of the first half of the sixteenth century. It is he who figures as the hero, or the victim, in the account given by John Major, an account which is noteworthy by reason of the very cautious spirit in which it is written. It may be said to mark the beginning of a transition from unquestioning credulity to uncompromising scepticism. It also seems to imply that, so far as the author’s reading of the chroniclers extended, he found the English, if not yet ready to deny the supernatural punishment of the insult offered to the saint, at least convinced that it had not been perpetuated through the ages. The chapter in which Major recapitulates the old story, is mainly devoted to the outward form and appearance of the English, and contains a great deal about “skiey influence”. Thus, it comes of “skiey influence” that close by the Arctic pole people are of foul aspect. And, if in some parts of Africa men are born with the head of a dog, “this, too, is a matter of skiey influence and carries with it no other influence”. After this preamble the author proceeds to relate the conversion of Kent—how Augustine laboured so strenuously that, in a short space of time, he brought to the faith the king himself and almost the whole people; how, passing on to Rochester, he began there, too, to preach the word of God; and how the common people derided him, and threw fish tails at the holy man. “Wherefore Augustine made his prayer to God that, for punishment of this sin, their infants should be born with tails, to the end they might be warned not to contemn the teachers of divine things. And, for this reason, as the English chroniclers relate, the infants were born with tails; but for a time only, and to the end that an unbelieving race might give credence to their teacher, was this punishment inflicted.” The Scots and the Gauls, it is true, “assert the opposite”. But, Major “cannot agree with them”. And, further, the phenomenon having been only temporary, he gives it as his opinion that it had “very little to do with the skiey influence”.358

Nicole Gilles whose “very elegant and copious annals of Gaul” were published in 1531, being a French chronicler, is one of those who believe that the divine anger has not ceased to manifest itself, and that the descendants of the men of Dorchester, who mocked and derided St. Augustine, still have “tails behind, like brute beasts, and are therefore called tailed Englishmen”. It is worthy of notice that, owing, doubtless, to the misreading of some Latin text and to the intelligible confusion of raia or raria, both of which are used to translate “rayfish”, with the more familiar rana, Gilles makes the impious Dorchestrians hang frogs—“des raynes ou grenouilles”—to St. Augustine’s garments.359

Bellenden, who belonged to the next generation, took the liberty of introducing the Augustinian myth into his Scottish prose rendering of Hector Boece, although there was nothing in the Latin original to justify him in doing so.

“Quhen this haly man, Sanct Austine, wes precheand to the Saxonis in Miglintoun,” he says, “thay wer nocht onlie rebelland to his precheing, but in his contemptioun thay sewit fische talis on his abilyements. Otheris alliegis thay dang him with skait rumpillis. Nochtheless, this derisioun succedit to thair gret displesoure: for God tuke on thaim sic vengeance, that thay and thair posteritie had lang talis mony yeris eftir. In memorie heirof, the barnis that are yit borne in Miglintoun hes the samin deformite, but the wemen havand experience thairof fleis out of this toun in the time of thair birth and eschapis this malediction be that way.”360

Bower and the prose Brut are obviously the authorities for Bellenden’s statements, and it is not without interest to note that whilst drawing from the latter his knowledge of the subterfuge by means of which cunning mothers might secure for their children immunity from the consequences of the saint’s vindictiveness, it is from his Scottish predecessor that he takes the name of the town which witnessed the affront, and in which the punishment was perpetuated. And the question arises whether the chronicler’s apparently deliberate choice of Miglinton is to be taken as evidence that a place bearing that name, or rather nickname, really existed.

Though Dunbar’s brief reference to the insult offered to St. Augustine proves nothing beyond his acquaintance with the legend, it may be quoted, for the sake of completeness. It occurs in the Flyting with Kennedy, at whom his adversary flings the jeer,

    “he that dang Sanct Augustine with an rumple
Thy fowll front had”.361

The Frenchman Génébrard is the last of those who, as long as the story continued to be accepted or, at least, not openly scouted, connected it with Augustine. He confines himself to recording the outrage, and to stating, with due caution, that, because of it, the people of Dorchester “are said to have had tails like beasts”. His own belief in the prodigy does not appear to have been very firm.362

Of those who, after Bower, present St. Thomas as the central figure in the incident, the first in date is a foreigner, Wilwolt of Schaumburg. This German gentleman errant visited England about the end of the fifteenth century, and an account of his travels was published in 1507. He appears to have been greatly impressed by the story of St. Thomas of Candlwerg, as he calls him, and relates how “he left behind him a wonderful token which will perhaps endure to the day of judgment”. On one occasion, he says, riding like a pious and upright man, on his little ass, the holy man came to a certain village where he stopped to take some food. Here the country folk made fun of his lowly mount, and cut off the poor ass’s tail. Thereupon, the dear saint complained to Almighty God, and prayed to such purpose that, even to this very day, all the boys that are born in that village bring with them into the world little tails rooted to their hinder parts. From this circumstance has arisen the byword which so greatly annoys the English: “Englishman, show your tail!” And continues Wilwolt, “I should like to see the foolhardy man who dared to call out, ‘English tailard’ in that same village. He would have to take himself off very quickly if he did not wish to be beaten to death.” The German traveller also learnt how, at the right moment, women could avert from the expected child the grievous consequences of its forefathers’ fault. They only had to cross the water and go into the next village.363

Another and better known foreigner, no less a personage, indeed, than Polydore Vergil, continues, at the same time that he considerably restricts, the legend of the tails. As narrated by him in the Anglica Historia, published in 1534, Becket’s misadventure appears to have been one of the minor incidents in the quarrel between him and the king. It had become known that Henry had been moved to exclaim, “Wretched me! Can I not have peace in my own kingdom because of one priest? Is there none of all my subjects who will rid me of that annoyance?” And there were not wanting evil men who understood this to mean that, in his heart, he desired the death of the Archbishop who, in consequence, began to be generally neglected, despised, and hated. Such was the position of affairs when Thomas one day came to Stroud, on the Medway, near Rochester. There, the inhabitants, anxious to inflict some insult on the good father, now that he was in disgrace, did not hesitate to cut off the tail of the horse on which he was riding. By this act, however, it was on themselves that they brought lasting shame. For, by the judgment of God, it happened that the descendants of the men who had perpetrated this outrage were born with tails, like brute beasts. But if the learned Italian was superstitious enough to believe in the miraculous punishment of an offence which, at its worst, involved far less moral guilt than was incurred by the murderers of Becket, against whom no divine retribution was recorded, he was too intelligent not to see the absurdity of making it perpetual, and of inflicting it on the community at large, as earlier chroniclers had done. He admitted that the mark of infamy had not survived the family of the immediate offenders.364

The next and last writer of what may be called the period of credulity, though that credulity had begun to wane long before it reached its vanishing phase in him, was Guillaume Paradin, of Cuiseaux. He confesses to a suspicion that what tradition has handed down concerning the tails of Englishmen is mere nonsense, and apologizes for reproducing it, on the score that English chroniclers themselves report it quite seriously. The Becket legend which he thus introduces affords him an opportunity of adapting to the English the words of the Royal prophet, “He smote them in the hinder parts and put them to a perpetual shame”; and of perpetrating, at their expense, some doggerel lines of which he has the good sense not to acknowledge the authorship:—

Of old, some Britons docked the tail
  Of Becket’s nag, they say,
And that is why all Englishmen
  Have short tails to this day.365

By the middle of the sixteenth century, saints had ceased to command the same popular reverence as before, and their alleged miracles were put by many on the same level as the myths of antiquity. There is, consequently, from that date onwards an absolute change in the tone and temper of those who allude to the legend of the tails. Most of them, indeed, do so for the sole purpose of denying the miracle and of sneering at those who superstitiously gave it credence. The first and not least indignant of the denunciators is John Bale, Bishop of Ossory. After indicating the discrepancy between John Capgrave and Alexander of Esseby—that is, Ashby—who record that, “for castynge of fyshe tayles at thys Augustine, Dorsett shyre men had tayles ever after”, and Polydore Vergil, who “applyeth it unto Kentysh men at Stroude, by Rochester, for cuttynge of Thomas Beckett’s horse’s tayle”, the author of the Actes of Englysh Votaryes says: “Thus hath England, in all other landes, a perpetual dyffamy of tayles by their wrytten legendes of lyes, yet can they not wele tell where to bestowe them trulye”.366 In another passage he inveighs still more bitterly against “the Spiritual Sodomytes” who “in the legends of their sanctyfied sorcerers”, have “dyffamed the Englyshe posteryte with tayles”, and to whom it is due “that an Englishman now cannot travayle in any other lande by way of merchandyce or anye other honest occupyenge, but yt ys most contumelyousslye throwne in his teeth, that all Englishmen have tayles”. And concludes the Bishop in his wrath, “that uncomlye note and report have the nacyon gotten without recover, by these laysye and idell lubbers, the munkes and the prestes, whiche coulde fynde no matters to advance their canonysed Cayns by, or their Sayntes (as they call them) but manyfest lyes and knaveryes”.367

Bale’s Actes appeared in 1546. Seventy years later, William Lambarde published a Perambulation of Kent. Coming to Stroud, in this topographical and historical account of his native county, he eagerly avails himself of the opportunity offered him to record his protest against the attribution of tails, not only to the natives of that locality, but to the Kentish men generally, and that—unkindest cut of all—by their own fellow countrymen. He is evidently acquainted with several versions of the story; but whilst denouncing the authors of all of them, he is particularly incensed against Polydore, whom he quite unjustly accuses of “lashing out further” than his authorities, and of endeavouring “to outly the lowdest Legendaries”. It is bad enough that “the whole English nation should be earnestly flowted” with the “dishonourable note” of having tails; but what Lambarde obviously finds it more difficult to bear, and makes Polydore responsible for, is that “Kentish men be heere at home merily mocked”. In his most entertaining contribution to the history of the legend, the Kentish apologist says:

“A name, or family of men, sometime inhabiting Stroude (saith Polydore) had tailes clapped to their breeches by Thomas Becket, for revenge and punishment of a dispite done to him, in cutting of the taile of his horse. The author of the new Legend saith, that after St. Thomas had excommunicated two Brothers (called Brockes) for the same cause, that the Dogges under the table would not once take bread at their hands. Such (belike) was the vertue of his curse, that it gave to brute beasts, a discretion and knowledge of the persons, that were in danger of it. Boetius (the Scotishe chronicler) writeth, that the lyke plague lighted upon the men of Midleton in Dorsetshire: who because they threwe Fish tailes in great contempt at Saint Augustine, were bothe themselves and their posteritie, stricken with tailis, to their perpetual infamy and punishment. All whiche their reportes (no doubt) be as true, as Ovides Historie of Diana, that in great angre bestowed on Actæon a Deares head with mighty anthlers.

“Much are the Western men bound (as you see) to Polydore, who taking the miracle from Augustine, applieth it to S. Thomas, and removing the infamous revenge from Dorsetshire, laieth it upon our men of Kent. But little is Kent, or the whole English nation beholding, either to him, or his fellowes, who (amongst them) have brought upon us this ignominie and note with other nations abrode, that many of them believe as verity, that we have long tailes and be monsters by nature, as other men have their due partes and members in usual number. Polydore (the wisest of the companye) fearing that issue might be taken upon the matter, ascribeth it to one speciall stocke and family, which he nameth not, and yet (to leave it the more uncertain) he saith, that, that family is worne out long since, and sheweth not when; he goeth about in great earnest (as in sundrie other things) to make the world beleave he cannot tell what: he had forgotten the Lawe whereunto an Hystorian is bound, ‘Ne quid falsi audeat, ne quid veri non audeat’. That he should be bold as to tell the trueth, and yet not so bolde as to tell a lye.”

To his credit, however, Lambarde does Polydore the justice of admitting that his history, “without all doubt”, is “a worthy work”, in places not blemished with such follies. But, seeing that he does insert them often and without discretion, he must be read with great suspicion and wariness. “For, as he was by office Collector of the Peter pence to the Popes gaine and lucre, so sheweth he himselfe throughout by profession, a coveteous gatherer of lying fables, fained to advance the Popish religion, kingdome and myter.”368

In the seventeenth century, the story of the tails, which, by that time, however, had ceased to be attributed to Englishmen at large and were humorously regarded as distinctive of Kentish men alone, was incidentally referred to by several poets. It supplied Sir John Mennis, the author of Musarum Deliceæ, with a coarse joke. Andrew Marvel, in his Loyal Scot, cites it in illustration of the danger incurred by provoking the anger of a prelate:—

“There’s no ‘Deliver us’ from a Bishop’s wrath:
Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales,
Never, for Burnet’s sake, the Lauderdales;
For Becket’s sake, Kent always shall have tails.”369

In Drayton’s Polyolbion, the “Blazons of the Shires”, as set forth by Helidon, open with the lines:

“Kent first in our account, doth to itself apply
(Quoth he) this Blazon first, ‘Long tails and Liberty!’”370

Butler, in his Hudibras, has a couplet which declares that:

      tails by nature sure were meant
As well as beards, for ornament.

According to an annotator, “Mr. Butler here alludes to Dr. Bulwer’s Artificial Changeling”, where, besides the story of the Kentish men, near Rochester, who had tails clapped to their breeches by Thomas à Becket, he gives an account, on the authority of “an honest young man of Captain Morris’s company in Lieutenant-General Ireton’s company”, of how “at Cashell in the County of Tipperary, in the province of Munster, in Carrick Patrick church, seated on a hill or rock, stormed by the Lord Inchequine, and where were neare 700 put to the sword and none saved but the Mayor’s wife and his son, there were found among the slain of the Irish, when they were stript, divers with tailes near a quarter of a yard long. The relator being very diffident of the truth of this story, after enquiry was ensured of the certainty thereof by forty souldiers, that testified upon their oaths that they were eyewitnesses, being present at the action.” With such testimony in support of his assertion that “the rump bone among brutish and strong-docht nations doth often spread out with such an excrescence or beastly emanation”, Dr. Bulwer is not disinclined to believe in the possession of tails by the inhabitants of Stroud.

In the Church History of Britain by Dr. Bulwer’s contemporary, Thomas Fuller, modern scepticism again asserts itself. Quoting from Hierome Porter, in the Flowers of the Lives of the Saints, to the effect that when the villagers in Dorsetshire beat Augustine and his fellows, and in mockery fastened fish tails at their backs, in punishment hereof, “all that generation had that given them by nature, which so contemptibly they fastened on the backs of these holy men”, Fuller adduces this to show that “most of the miracles assigned unto Augustine, intended with their strangeness to raise and heighten, with their levity and absurdity do depress and offend, true devotion”. In equal contempt of those who relate such a story as that of the Dorsetshire folk and of those who accept it, the author exclaims, “Fie for shame! He needs an hard plate on his face that reports it, and a soft place in his head that believes it”.371

In his Worthies of England, the same writer discusses at some length the origin of the nickname applied to the Kentish men. “Let me premise,” he says, “that those are much mistaken, who first found the proverb on a miracle of Austin the Monk, for the scene of this lying wonder was not laied in any part of Kent, but pretended many miles off, nigh Cerne in Dorsetshire.” His own opinion is that the saying is “first of outlandish extraction and cast by Forrainers as a note of disgrace on all the English, though it chanceth to stick only on the Kentish men at this day”. In support of this view, Fuller relates the incident of the quarrel “betwixt Robert, Brother of Saint Louis, King of France and our William Longspee, Earle of Salisbury”. Continuing his disquisition he says:—

“Some will have the English so-called from wearing a pouch or poake (a bag to carry their baggage in) behind their backs, whilst probably the proud Monsieurs had their lacquies for that purpose; in proof whereof, they produce ancient Pictures of the English Drapery and Armory, wherein such conveyances doe appear. If so, it was neither sin nor shame for the common sorte of people to carry their own necessaries; and it matters not much whether the pocket be made on either side, or wholly behind. If any demand how this nickname (cut off from the rest of England) continues still entailed on Kent. The best conjecture is, because that County lieth nearest to France, and the French are beheld as the first founders of this aspersion. But if any will have the Kentish men so-called from drawing and dragging boughs of trees behind them, which afterwards they advanced above their heads, and so partly cozened, partly threatened, King William the Conqueror to continue their ancient customes; I say, if any will impute it to this original, I will not oppose.”372

The incident upon which Fuller bases the explanation which he considers most plausible, without, however, expressing himself dogmatically with regard to it, is related by the chronicler Willam Thorne, and also forms the subject of an old ballad quoted by Thierry. So modern an historian as Lappenberg thinks that “perhaps the tradition is not unfounded, that the Kentish army, advancing under the covering of branches from the trees, might have appeared to the enemy as a wood, until, standing in face of them and casting down their leafy screen, they at once appeared threatening with sword and spear”. Freeman rejects the story altogether. But even its truth, which Fuller may be excused for accepting, would hardly support his theory. The only credit which it deserves is perhaps the negative one of being a little less fanciful than that put forward by Fynes Moryson, who states that “the Kentish men of old were said to have tayles, because trafficking in the Low Countries, they never paid full payments of what they did owe, but still left some part unpaid”.373

The author of the early sixteenth-century Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow, contributes no less than three other explanations, of which one bears considerable resemblance to that favoured by Fuller. After relating how he dropped into an alehouse, whilst travelling in “that noble county of Kent”, he continues:—

“The ale being good, and I in good company, I lapt in so much of this nappy liquor, that it begot in mee a boldnesse to talk and desire of them to know what was the reason that the people of that country were called Long-tayles. The hoast said, all the reason that ever he could heare was, because the people of that country did use to goe in side-skirted coates. There is (sayd an old man that sat by) another reason that I have heard: that is this. In the time of the Saxons’ conquest of England there were divers of our countrymen slaine by treachery, which made those that survived more carefull in dealing with their enemies, as you shall heare. After many overthrowes that our countrymen had received by the Saxons, they dispersed themselves into divers companies into the woods, and so did much damage by their suddaine assaults to the Saxons, that Hengist, their king, hearing the damage that they did (and not knowing how to subdue them by force) used this policy. Hee sent to a company of them and gave them his word for their liberty and safe returne, if they would come unarmed and speake with him. This they seemed to grant unto, but for their more security (knowing how little hee esteemed oaths or promises) they went every one of them armed with a shorte sword, hanging just behind under their garments, so that the Saxons thought not of any weapons they had: but it proved otherwise, for when Hengist his men (that were placed to cut them off) fell all upon them, they found such unlooked a resistance that most of the Saxons were slain, and they that escaped, wond’ring how they could do that hurt, having no weapons (as they saw), reported that they strucke downe men like lyons with their tayles; and so they, ever after, were called Kentish Long-tayles. I told them this was strange, if true, and that their countries honor bound them more to believe in this, than it did me. Truly, Sir, said my hoastesse, I thinke we are called Long-tayles, by reason our tales are long, that we use to passe the time withall, and make ourselves merry.”

Du Cange considered the problem more seriously, without, however, being able to find a satisfactory solution. He suggests that the epithet “tailed” may have been applied to Englishmen because of the excess to which they carried the fashion of wearing toes of extravagant length to their shoes, but admits that the explanation does not greatly appeal to him. With still more diffidence he hints at the possibility of considering the Latin “caudatus” as equivalent to either “foppish” or “cowardly”. But whilst none of the cited instances of its use justifies the former of these interpretations, there are only a very few of them that can be strained into imparting even slight plausibility to the latter. Neither does there appear to be anything to support Professor Wattenbach’s suggestion that Englishmen may have been called “tailed” because of the way in which they wore their hair. Finally, a work entitled England under the Normans has a chapter on the measurement of land, in which the author states that “there was a mile peculiar to Kent, as well as a customary field admeasurement”, and that “these ‘long tales’ are possibly the ‘long tails’ of which the county used to be so proud”. The history of the medieval myth does not lead to the belief that either Englishmen generally, or, as here stated, Kentishmen in particular, ever looked upon the nickname otherwise than as an insult.

The attempts that have been made to fix upon some actual fact as originating the attribution of tails to Englishmen seem as uncalled for as most of them are fanciful and absurd.374 They are all based on the hypothesis that the epithet “caudatus”, “coué”, and “tailard” was first applied for some reason other than the belief in the existence of a tail, and that only subsequently, if, indeed, ever, was it taken literally. But our investigation has proved that there is nothing to warrant this assumption. It has been shown that, on the contrary, the actual monstrosity was accepted as a fact from the outset. Nor does it seem impossible to explain how this came about. Given the insult offered to St. Augustine, about which there is no room for scepticism, it only requires a knowledge of the medieval spirit to account for the sequel. Impressed by the sanctity of the apostle of England and by the greatness, or, indeed, the divinity of his mission, the early biographer looked upon it as inevitable that the sacrilege of those who dishonoured him should draw down upon them the wrath of Heaven. Was not the disrespect of the children who called the Prophet “bald head” visited upon them? The conviction that this should be the case easily led to the assumption that it was. And a very slight effort of imagination sufficed to devise a punishment suited to the offence. It was suggested by the very nature of the impious deed. And what, to the chronicler, seemed the application of an obvious principle—that the transgression should fall back upon the transgressor—was accepted by the credulity of the age. Then there was the animosity of other nations, of France in particular, and of Scotland, her ally. If, at home, the manifestation of divine anger and of saintly power was thought to be limited to the kith and kin of the offenders, such nicety of distinction was ignored abroad. It suited the enemies of England that all Englishmen should be “tailards”, and “tailards” they were universally and indiscriminately called.

Footnotes

Mary, Queen of Scots

1 For an account of this poem, Maister Randolphe’s Fantasie, see pages 91-98.

2 As bearing on the subject of Mary’s personal appearance and the fidelity of her portraits, the following passages from an article contributed to the Glasgow Herald, as a review of Mr. J. J. Foster’s work, Concerning the True Portraiture of Mary Queen of Scots, may here be reproduced: “Mr. Foster points out ‘in some cases a slight but perceptible squint’. We have noticed this in one or two instances only, and in portraits which, though they may be authentic, are technically inferior; and we are consequently more inclined to attribute the defect to the artist than to nature. The majority of the most trustworthy portraits agree in making the upper eyelids thick, with an uninterrupted curve, in setting the arched, well-marked eyebrows wide apart, and in giving an exceptionally broad space between the eyes and the ears. The oval face, the high cheek-bones, the round, well-proportioned and capacious forehead, the long but shapely Greek nose, are features with regard to which there is practical unanimity. Even if Sir George Scharf had not pointed it out, it would hardly be possible to overlook the peculiarity of the compressed lips. They are not thin, however, though, on the other hand, they are very far from possessing that fulness which physiognomists look upon as an indication of sensuality. Another feature, so often reproduced as to be almost characteristic and distinctive, is the strongly-marked V depression in the middle of the upper lip. The cheek is full in its lower part, but not unduly so. The chin is well-developed, but is neither cloven nor dimpled.... Prince Labanoff declared that, with the exception of one portrait—and that of dubious authenticity—none renders even youth or average beauty. Quite recently Major Martin Hume wrote of Mary that ‘a contemplation of her known authentic portraits, even those taken in the best years of her youth and happiness, does not carry conviction that her physical beauty alone can have been the cause of the extraordinary influence she exercised over the men who came within the sphere of her attraction’. And now we have Mr. Foster admitting that ‘scarcely any of the so-called portraits of Mary Stuart bear out the reputation of her beauty’; and that ‘all her pictures entirely lack that indefinable charm which captivated everyone brought in contact with her’. He seems to attribute this, in some measure, at least, to the imperfections of the artists of the time. He might perhaps have added, to the unfavourable circumstances under which they worked. For, as M. Dimier tells us, ‘the oil-painting was never attempted from life. The artist brought away from his model nothing but the crayon and some written notes concerning the complexion, colour of hair, and of the eyes; he handled the colours only in his studio, and finished the work at his leisure’. We know, too, of Mary Stuart, in particular, that she ordered portraits of herself to be painted in France, fourteen years after leaving the country.”

3 Œuvres, vol. ii, p. 1172.

4 Memoirs, p. 124.

5 Brantôme, t. v, p. 94.

6 Memoirs, p. 123.

7 T. Wright’s Queen Elizabeth and her Time, vol. i, p. 311.

8 G. Chalmers, Life of Queen Mary, vol. i, pp. 443-4.

9 Œuvres, vol. ii, pp. 1172-4.

10 Melville’s Memoirs, p. 124.

11 T. v, p. 86.

12 Œuvres, l. c.

13 History of the Reformation, vol. ii, p. 381.

14 Teulet, Papiers d’État, t. ii, p. 883.

15 T. v, pp. 83-4.

16 Rhétorique Françoise, Paris, 1555.

17 Latin Themes of Mary Stuart, published by Anatole de Montaiglon.

18 Letter from Randolph to Cecil, 7 April, 1562.

19 Brantôme, t. v., p. 84.

20 Inventories of Mary Queen of Scots. Bannatyne Club, p. 179 et seq.

21 Inventories, p. cv.

22 “Concionero de Romances”, Inventories, p. cxlvi.

23 Unless it be he that is meant in the entry: “Danies Vgieri in Italian”, Inventories, p. cxliv.

24 Haynes’s Collection of State Papers, p. 509.

25 Sir H. Ellis’s Original Letters Illustrative of English History, First Series, vol. ii, p. 252.

26 Inventories, p. 179.

27 “Pantagruell in Frenche”, Inventories, p. cxlvi.

28 Œuvres de Ronsard, vol. ii, p. 1171.

29 For a full account of this literary forgery, see below, pp. 79-90.

30 The following scheme shows how these anagrams were formed:—

1 M

2 A

3 R

4 I

5 E

6 S

7 T

8 V

9 V

10 A

11 R

12 T

13 E

6 S

2 A

8 V

5 E

3 R

7 T

9 V

1 M’

10 A

12 T

4 I

11 R

13 E

8 S

2 A

7 T

9 V

1 M

5 E

3 R

4 I

12 T

13 E

11 R

10 A

6 S

31 “G. Conaei vita Mariae Stuartae, 1624”, in Jebb, vol. ii, p. 15.

32 Diary, 24 Nov., 1665.

33 Letter from Randolph to Cecil, 15 May, 1563.

34 P. 87.

35 Con, in Jebb, vol. ii, p. 15.

36 P. 125.

37 Ibid.

38 In Jebb, l. c.

39 Basilikon Doron, p. 125, edit. 1603.

40 Compotum Thesaurarii Reginæ Scotorum, 30 Nov., 1565.

41 Thomson’s Collection of Inventories, pp. 238-40.

42 Inventories, p. cxxi.

43 Letter to Cecil, in Haynes’s State Papers, pp. 509-10.

44 De Regno et Regali Potestate, edit. 1612, pp. 279-80.

45 Inventories, pp. xc, 141, 148.

46 Prince Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, t. iv, pp. 228-9.

47 Cf. “Le Vray Rapport de l’exécution faicte sur la personne de la Royne d’Escosse”, published by Teulet, Papiers d’Etat, &c., p. 884.

48 History of the Reformation, vol. ii, p. 373.

49 Inventories, p. lxix.

—THE FOUR MARYS—

50 Knox’s History of the Reformation, pp. 373, 374.

51 Writing to Cecil on the 31st of December, 1563, Randolph reports: “The frenche potticarie and the woman he gotte with chylde were bothe hanged thys present Fridaye”.

52 In Mr. Andrew Lang’s book, The Valet’s Tragedy and other Studies, pp. 291-311, there is an exhaustive discussion of the various points that arise in connection with the ballad of “The Queen’s Marie”.

53 Bishop Lesley’s History of Scotland, p. 209.

54 Brantôme, t. v, p. 74.

55 Knox’s History of the Reformation, book v, vol. ii, p. 495.

56 Annals of Scotland, p. 14.

57 Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 87.

58 Calendar of State Papers, Eliz., vol. ix.

—MARY FLEMING—

59 Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. ii, pp. 390-3.

60 Epigrammatum, lib. iii.

61 Calendar of State Papers, Eliz., vol. ix, No. 47 B.

62 Calendar of State Papers, Eliz., vol. x, Feb. 28, 1565.

63 Calendar of State Papers, Eliz., vol. x, 31 March, 1565.

64 Calendar of State Papers, Eliz., vol. x, 3 June, 1565.

65 Calendar of State Papers, Eliz., vol. xi, 31 Oct., 1565.

66 Inventories, p. 113.

67 Inventories, p. 124.

68 “A Flamy. Vne brodure dor esmaille de blancq et rouge contenante xxxvij pieces.
Vne brodure dorelette de mesme façon garnye de lj piece esmaille de blancq et rouge.
Vne cottouere de mesme façon contenante soixante piece esmaille de blanc et rouge.
Vng quarquan esmaille aussy de blancq et rouge garny de vingt une piece.
Vne chesne a saindre en semblable façon contenante lij pieces esmaillez de blanc et rouge et vng vaze pandant au bout.”—Inventories, p. 116.

69 Inventories, p. 69.

70 MS. Fragment in the Register House; cf. Inventories, p. 1.

71 Prince Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, t. v, p. 222.

72 Memoirs, p. 256.

73 Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. iii, p. 285.

74 G. Chalmers, Life of Mary Queen of Scots, vol. iii, p. 615.

75 Calendar of State Papers, vol. iv, p. 599.

76 Thomson’s Collection of Inventories, p. 193; cf. Calendar of State Papers, vol. iv, Oct. 19, 1573; and Inventories of Mary, p. clvii.

77 Printed in Letters from Lady Margaret Burnet to John, Duke of Lauderdale, p. 83. Bannatyne Club.

78 Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. iii, p. 313.

—MARY LIVINGSTON—

79 G. Chalmers’ Life of Queen Mary, vol. i, p. 109.

80 Inventories, p. 139.

81 Ibid., p. 145.

82 Teulet, Papiers d’Etat relatifs à l’Histoire de l’Ecoss, t. ii, p. 32.

83 Miss Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of Scotland, vol. iv, p. 95.

84 Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, vol. i, p. 204.

85 Ibid., p. 207.

86 History of the Reformation, vol. ii, p. 415.

87 Prince Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, t. iv, p. 341.

88 Inventories, pp. xlvii, 31, 65, 68, 70.

89 Ibid., p. xlvii.

90 Teulet, op. cit., p. 167.

—MARY BETON—

91 Inventories, xlviii.

92 Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, vol. i, p. 208.

93 Inventories, p. xlviii.

94 Inventories, p. 124.

95 Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, vol. ii, p. 825.

96 Inventories, p. 63.

—MARY SETON—

97 P. 42.

98 Inventories, p. lii.

99 Miss Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of Scotland, vol. vii, pp. 266, 271, 441.

100 G. Chalmers’ Life of Queen Mary, vol. i, pp. 443-4.

101 Labanoff, op. cit., t. vii, p. 123; t. iii, p. 116; t. iv, p. 215.

102 T. v, p. 98.

103 The original is written in French.

104 Labanoff, op. cit., t. iv, pp. 341-4, 377-81, 389, 390, 401, 402.

105 Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, vol. ii, p. 1014.

—THE SONG OF MARY STUART—

106 T. v, pp. 84, 85, 88-90, 123.

107 Périgueux, Cassard fréres.

108 Ibid.

—MAISTER RANDOLPHE’S FANTASIE—

109 Earl of Morton to the Earl of Bedford, 24 May, 1566.

110 Thomas Randolph to Sir William Cecil, 26 May, 1566.

111 Ibid.

112 Thomas Randolph to Sir William Cecil, 26 May, 1566.

113 Ibid.

114 Ibid.

115 Ibid.

116 Thomas Randolph to Sir William Cecil, 20 Aug., 1565.

117 Ibid. 9 Sept., 1565.

118 Ibid. 15 Dec., 1565.

119 Thomas Randolph to the Earl of Bedford, 30 Sept., 1565.

120 “Instructions for certain persons to be sent into Scotland to commune respecting... assaults upon Thomas Randolph.”—State Papers.

121 Thomas Randolph to the Earl of Leicester, 18 Oct., 1565.

122 Thomas Randolph to Sir W. Cecil, 19 Feb., 1566; the Queen of Scots to Queen Elizabeth, 20 Feb., 1566.

123 Ibid.

124 Queen Elizabeth to the Queen of Scots, 3 March, 1566.

125 Queen Elizabeth to the Queen of Scots, 15 March, 1566.

126 Thomas Randolph to Sir W. Cecil, 6 March, 1566.

127 Thomas Randolph to Sir William Cecil, 26 May, 1566.

128 Thomas Randolph to Sir William Cecil, Berwick, 7 June, 1566.

129 Queen Elizabeth to the Queen of Scots, Greenwich, 13 June, 1566.

130 Randolph to Cecil, 26 May, 1566.

131 Several years after this was written, the Fantasie was published in one of the volumes of the “Scottish Texts Society”. It has not, however, been thought necessary to alter the present, or any other, reference to the poem, or the documents bearing on it, as inedited.

132 State Papers. Scotland—Elizabeth, vol xi., 31 Dec., 1565.

133 fforweriéd, wearied out.

134 slipper, slippery.

135 pervse, employ, have recourse to.

136 scande, attended to.

137 When as, whilst.

138 decree, hold sway.

139 wone, wont.

140 perst, pierced.

141 mase, wild fancy.

142 rase the seige, carry on the siege with increased vigour.

143 regestreth the found pretence, shows the infatuation.

144 reporte, quote.

145 sturde, stirred up.

146 stiveling sture, stifling passion.

147 mufflled contre-packe, secret opposition party.

148 eche where, everywhere.

149 grated, sought with importunity.

150 curre favell, curried favour.

151 rowme, position.

152 powder it, create bustle or pother.

153 trade, course.

154 alludinge, deceiving.

155 vnlade, give free scope to.

156 brute, report.

157 to bear the freey in court—this expression, which is evidently intended to convey the idea of influence or exalted position, may be connected with the French faire les frais.

158 Randolph to Cecil, 31 Oct., 1565.

159 Randolph to Cecil, 4 July, 1565.

160 Ibid., 19 July, 1565.

161 Cecil’s Journal.

162 Randolph to Cecil, 12 Oct., 1565.

163 Diurnal of Occurrents.

164 Randolph to Cecil, 2 July, 1565.

165 Diurnal of Occurrents.

166 Knox’s History of the Reformation.

167 Queen Mary to Archbishop Beton, 1 Oct., 1565.

168 History of the Reformation, p. 383.

169 pirrye, peril.

170 incest, given rise to.

171 trades, course of action.

172 Gwyssian, belonging to the Guise family.

173 madlie, maidenly.

174 proport, proportion.

175 affatethe, proclaims.

176 Probably Sandyford, close to the river Cart, between Paisley and Renfrew. A tradition, still current in the neighbourhood, asserts that Mary once slept at Crookston Castle then belonging to the Lennox family. It may have been on this occasion, documentary evidence of any other opportunity for a visit to the Castle not being extant.

177 to wage, to raise.

178 trayns, bands.

179 Capt. Cokbourn to Cecil.

180 dome, judgment, opinion.

181 P. 135.

—THE FIRST “STUART” TRAGEDY—

182 Les Tragédies de Montchrestien, Paris, 1891, p. xxij.

183 Op. cit., pp. 72-3.

184 Op. cit., p. 80.

185 Op. cit., p. 87.

186 Op. cit., pp. 88, 89.

187 Op. cit., p. 92.

188 Op. cit., p. 93.

189 Op. cit., pp. 101, 102.

190 Op. cit., pp. 109, 110.

—LORETTO—

191 History of the Regality of Musselburgh, p. 95.

192 Item, for xxxvj elnis and ane quarter blechit bertane canwes to be thre albis, thre ametis, and thre altar towellis to oure Lady Chapell of Laureit, price of the elne iijs. iiijd.; summa......... vjli. xd.
Item, to be thre croces to the chesabillis and to paill the fruntale, v-1/2 elnis quhite satyne, price of the elne xxxijs.; summa......... viijli. xvjs.
Item, to be armes apoun the thre chesabillis and fruntell, ane quarter yallow satyne, price......... viijs.
Item, to be frenzeis to the fruntell, ij unces silk, price thairof......... xs.
Item, for bukrem, rubanis, making and uthir furnessing of the thre vestimentis, fruntell, stoill and parolis......... iiijli. vs.
Item, to the broidstar for brodering of the Kingis armes apoun the saidis thre vestimentis and fruntell......... xxvjs. viijd.
Item, for weving of the frenzeis to the fruntell, sewing of the albis, and croces to the towellis......... xxvjs. viijd.
—Vol. vi, pp. 200-1.

193 Accounts, vol. vi, p. lxij.

194 Accounts, p. 299.

195 Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteour, ll. 2661, et seq.

196 Ibid., l. 2665.

197 Ibid., ll. 2690-2.

198 “In these tymes there was besyde Mussilburgh, St. Allarit’s chapell, and in these tymes of ignorance and superstition, it was believed that if women that were in hard labour did sent ane offering to the Preist and Freirs there, they wold get easy delyverance.”—History of the Regality of Musselburgh, p. 101.

199 Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i, pp. 101-2. Another and less prejudiced account of this John Scott is given by Peder Swave, who visited Scotland in 1535, as Ambassador from Christian II of Denmark to James V: “On the 11th of May I met with a hermit, named John Scott, a person of noble rank, who had quitted a beautiful wife, and children, and all his household, and determined to live by himself in solitude. He ate nothing but bread, and drank nothing save water or milk. He is believed to have endured a fast of forty days and nights in Scotland, England, and Italy. He also says that, when impelled by a higher power, he could not perish by fasting, as by the kindness of the Holy Virgin he has already been able to prove; if he should wish to do this by way of wager or bargain, that he would fail. He declares that he has no sensation of hunger when he fasts, that he loses neither his strength nor his flesh, feels neither heat nor cold, goes about with head and feet naked equally in summer and winter, and that his manner of life does not induce the approaches of age. Asked by me why he left such a beautiful wife, he replied that he wished to be a soldier of Heaven, and that whether his wife determined to serve God or the world was a matter of indifference to him. By chance there was amongst us a canon regular who said that he had been asked by the hermit’s wife to reconcile them, but had taken the task upon him to no purpose.”—Hume Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland, p. 56.

200 Row, History of the Kirk of Scotland, Woodrow Society’s edition.

201 History of the Regality of Musselburgh, p. 106.

—THE ISLE OF MAY—

202 Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. iii, p. 84.

203 Sibbald, History of Fife, p. 101.

204 Hume Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland, pp. 68-69.

205 Hume Brown, Scotland before 1700, p. 78.

206 Breviar. Aberdonen., Pars Hyemalis, fol. lxii.

207 Book vi, c. 8.

208 Vita S. Kentigerni, pp. lxxxiii-iv.

209 Carte Prioratus Insule de May, Charters 12-18.

210 Records of the Priory of the Isle of May, p. xiv.

211 Carte Prioratus, Charter 24.

212 Carte Prioratus, Charter 25.

213 Charters 26, 27, 33.

214 Carte Prioratus, Charters 29, 30.

215 Charter 35.

216 Carte Prioratus, Charter 38.

217 Charter 39.

218 Records of the Priory of the Isle of May, p. xx and Charter 40.

219 Records of the Priory of the Isle of May, p. xxi and Charter 41.

220 Records of the Priory of the Isle of May, p. ix.

221 “Proceedings Relative to the Claim of the Abbot and Convent of Reading on the Priory of the Isle of May”, op. cit., p. lxxxv, et seq.

222 Op. cit., p. xxv.

223 Op. cit., p. lxxxiij.

224 Op. cit., p. xxviij.

225 Op. cit., p. xxvi.

226 Op. cit., pp. xcvij, et seq.

227 Pinkerton, History of Scotland, vol. i, p. 208.

228 Records of the Priory of the Isle of May, p. lxxvi, et seq.

229 Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott, chap. xxviii.

—EDINBURGH AND HER PATRON SAINT—

230 Pars Estiva, Folio xcvi.

231 History of Edinburgh, pp. 267-8.

232 History of Edinburgh, pp. 267-8.

233 History of the Reformation, pp. 95-6.

—THE ROCK OF DUMBARTON—

234 Sir W. Fraser, The Lennox, vol. i, p. 43.

235 Ware, Irish Antiquities, p. 108.

236 Sir W. Fraser, op. cit., p. 76.

237 Sir W. Fraser, op. cit., pp. 78 and 236.

238 Ibid., p. 77.

239 Wyntoun’s Orygynale Cronykil, vol. ii, p. 397.

240 Ibid., p. 398.

241 State Papers, Scotland: Elizabeth, vol. xviii, No. 45.

242 Bannatyne’s Memoriales, p. 196.

243 History of the Troubles in Scotland and England, vol. i, pp. 157, 158.

—JAMES VI AS STATESMAN AND POET—

244 Essay on John Hampden.

245 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. vii, p. xxvii.

246 Tytler, History of Scotland, p. 238.

247 Tytler, History of Scotland, p. 238.

248 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. vi, pp. 581-2.

249 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. vi, p. 594.

250 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. vii, p. xxv.

251 Westcott, New Poems by James I of England.

252 Westcott, New Poems by James I of England.

253 Ibid.

254 Ibid.

255 Op. cit., p. lxxx.

256 Op. cit., p. lxxxi.

257 Edited by R. P. Gillies, Edin., 1814; The Authour to the Reader.

258 Westcott, op. cit., p. xlv.

259 Calderwood, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. iii, Appendix, p. 784.

260 Op. cit., p. lxix.

261 Ibid., p. 15-16.

262 Op. cit., p. 39.

263 “In the Muses’ Welcome to King James, printed at Edinburgh in 1618, folio, the royal visitor greeted his Scottish subjects with a string of punning rhymes on the names of certain learned professors, which some of them were sagacious enough to turn into Latin. As a sample of the literary taste which prevailed at this academic visitation, these quibbling verses on the name of the college disputants are here subjoined:—

As Adam was the first of men, whence all beginning tak
So Adam-son was president, and first man in this act.
The theses Fair-lie did defend, which though they lies contain,
Yet were fair-lies and he the same right fairlie did maintain.
The field first entred master Sands, and there he made me see
That not all Sands are barren sands, but that some fertile bee.
Then master Young most subtilie the theses did impugne,
And kythed old in Aristotle, although his name bee Young.
To him succeeded master Reid, who though reid be his name
Neids neither for his disput blush, nor of his speach think shame.
Last entred master King the lists, and dispute like a King
How reason reigning as a queene should anger underbring.
To their deserved praise have I thus played upon their names;
And wills their colledge hence be called the Colledge of King James.”
          —Horace Walpole, Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors,
          Edit. 1806, vol. i, p. 125.

—THE INVASION OF AILSA CRAIG—

264 State Papers, Scotland: Elizabeth, vol. xlix, No. 51. Robert Bowes to Lord Burghley.

265 Calderwood, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. v, pp. 192, 193.

266 State Papers, Scotland: Elizabeth, vol. l, No. 30. Bowes to Burghley.

267 State Papers, Scotland: Elizabeth, vol. i, No. 62.

268 State Papers, Scotland: Elizabeth, vol. lx, Nos. 34, 80.

269 Ibid., vol. lxi, Nos. 12, i; 17; Register of the Privy Council, vol. v, pp. 393, 394.

270 Vol. v, p. 402.

271 Register of the Privy Council, vol. v, p. 394.

—THE STORY OF A BALLAD—“KINMONT WILLIE”—

272 Spottswood, p. 415.

273 Register of the Privy Council, vol. v, p. 761-2.

274 Register of the Privy Council, pp. 323, 324.

—A RAID ON THE WEE CUMBRAE—

275 Register of the Privy Council, vol. vi, pp. 279-281.

—RIOTOUS GLASGOW—

276 Register of the Privy Council, vol. vii, p. 141.

277 The official records bearing on “this commotioun of Glasgow” are to be found in the Register of the Privy Council, pp. 230-1, 233, 235, 240-7, 500, 501-2.

—THE OLD SCOTTISH ARMY—

278 Act Parl., vol. i, Coll. Frag., p. 752.

279 It has been suggested that Christis Kirk of the Grene, being “a jocund skit upon the ludicrous incapacity of the Scottish rustic to handle a bow”, may have been intended “to fortify the statutes of law by the aids of ridicule and satire” (Ross, Early Scottish History and Literature).

280 Act Parl., vol. ii, p. 8.

281 Act Parl., vol. ii, p. 10.

282 Act Parl., vol. ii, p. 45.

283 Act Parl., vol. ii, p. 48.

284 Act Parl., vol. ii, p. 100.

285 Act Parl., vol. ii, p. 346.

286 This was in accordance with the very first of the instructions embodied in the Bruce’s “Testamnt”, those fourteen lines of which Mr. Oman says that they “contain all the principles on which the Scots, when well advised, acted for the next two hundred and fifty years”.

“On fut suld be all Scottis weire,
By hyll and mosse themselff to reare.
Lat woods for wallis be bow and speire,
That innymeis do them na deire.
In strait placis gar keip all store,
And byrnen ye planeland thaim before.
Thane sall thai pass away in haist
When that thai find na thing but waist.
With wyles and waykings of the nyght
And mekill noyis maid on hytht,
Thaim sall ye turnen with gret affrai,
As thai ware chassit with swerd away.
This is the consall and intent
Of gud King Robert’s testiment.”

287 Reg. Priv. Coun., vol. i, p. 62.

288 “Victual” is the old Scots term for grain of any kind.

289 Reg. Priv. Coun., sub. ann. cit.

290 Reg. Priv. Coun., sub. ann. cit.

—THE “LONG-TAIL” MYTH—

291 Sir James Melville’s Memoirs, pp. 171-2.

292 Communicated by Professor Wattenbach, of Berlin, to the Anzeiger für Kunde der Deutschen Vorzeit, 1874.

293 Anglicus a tergo caudam gerit: est pecus ergo;
Cum tibi dicit “Ave”, sicut ab hoste cave.

294 La diversité des contrées excitait entre eux des dissensions, des haines et des animosités virulentes, et ils se faisaient impudemment les uns aux autres toutes sortes d’affronts et d’insultes. Ils affirmaient que les Anglais étaient buveurs et coués.—Jacques de Vitry, Traduction Guizot, p. 292.

295 Mirum est quomodo non erubescunt fieri similes jumentis insipientibus, ut videantur animalia caudata; nec sufficit eis honor creacionis, quod est quod inter cetera animalia eas Deus fecit sine cauda. In hoc caudatae contumeliam Deo faciunt, cujus opus imperfectum et insufficiens, quantum in ipsis est ostendunt, dum creacioni suae caudas addunt. Item, mirum est quod non erubescunt esse caudatae, cum Anglici erubescunt caudati vocari.—Tractatus de Diversis Materiis praedicalibus, Société de l’Histoire de France, vol. 60, p. 234.

296 Tota injuriarum de rege Anglorum et caudatis suis ultio quaeritur; Graeculi enim et Siculi omnes hunc regem sequentes Anglos et caudatos nominabant.—Richard of Devizes, English History Society, p. 20.

297 Richard Coer de Leon, Weber’s Metrical Romances, vol. ii, 31.

298 P. 83.

299 Ibid.

300 ... la Grifonaille
De la vile et la garçonaille,
Gent estraite de Sarazins,
Ramponouent noz pelerins;
Lor deiz es oilz nos aportouent
E chiens pudneis nus apelouent
E chascon jor nos laidissouent
E nos pelerins mordrissouent
E les jetouent es privees
Dont les oevres furent provees.
          —Monument. Germ., vol. xxvii, p. 535.

301 P. 95.

302 Rex in Rupella regnat, et amodo bella
Non timet Anglorum, quia caudas fregit eorum.

303 Ad nostras caudas Francos, ductos ut alaudas
Perstrinxit restis, superest Lincolnia testis.

304 Fertur etiam comes Atrabatensis super his dixisse cum cachinno, “Nunc bene mundatur magnificorum exercitus Francorum a caudatis”.—Matthew Paris, vol. v, 134.

305 Comes Atrabatensis rapiens verbum ab ore ejus, more Gallico reboans et indecenter jurans, audientibus multis, os in haec convitia resolvit, dicens, “O timidorum caudatorum formidolositas, quam beatus, quam mundus praesens foret exercitus, si a caudis purgaretur et caudatis”.—Id., vol. v, p. 151.

306 Erimus, credo, hodie, ubi non audebis caudam equi attingere.—Ibid.

307 According to another account, based on Joinville’s narrative, Artois “was slain in the town, and his surcoat with the royal French lilies was exhibited to the Moslems as a proof that the King of the Franks had fallen”.—Oman, The Art of War in the Middle Ages, p. 346.

308 The authorities for this incident are:—
(I) Rishanger, “Tunc accesserunt ad Philippum, Regem Franciae, quibus grata fuit regni turbatio; et ejus bilem contra Anglicos commoverunt, dicentes turpe fore sibi, gentique suae, ut a caudatis taliter tractarentur”, p. 130-1.
(II) The Chronicle of Lanercost, “Hoc anno orta est guerra in Neustria inter Francos et Anglos, apud Depe, dum cives illius loci inhumane Portuenses nostros caede et rapina afficiunt, occasione unius rudentis, quinimmo elatione sui principis provocati, videlicet, Karoli fratris Regis Franciae, qui odium conceperat gentis nostrae, eo quod non potuit fratrem proprium regno supplantare, Regis Edwardi consilio fulcitum in hoc parte. Nam, ut virus conceptum evidentius evomeret, multas peregrinis et scholasticis irrogavit molestias, quosdam etiam pauperes suspendio trucidavit, et canes vivos, eorum ut reputabat similes, lateribus eorum appendit”, p. 150.
(III) Henri Knighton, “Et cum (Normanni) die quadam sex naves anglicanas obvias habuissent, easdem hostiliter aggressi, duas ex ipsis continuo perimerunt, suspendentes homines in navibus ad trabes navium suarum, et sic per mare navigantes, nullam faciebant differentiam inter canem et Anglicum”, vol. i, p. 336.

309 Hoc quatuor cullos Gallorum tempore pullos
Vincent caudati, pro caudis improperati.

310 Wright, Political Poems and Songs (Rolls Series), vol. i.

311 O gens Anglorum, morum flos gesta tuorum,
Cur tu Francorum procuras damna bonorum,
Servorum Christi, quos tractas crimine tristi?
Et servant isti fidem quam bis renuisti;
Sub specie casti fraudem tu semper amasti.
Scindas annosam caudam quam fers venenosam,
Exaudi praesto tu praesul et memor esto:
Qui te caudavit Deus ipsum sanctificavit.
          —Wright, op. cit. vol. ii, p. 127-8.

312 Le Roy Engloys se faisoyt appeler
Le roy de France, par s’appellation;
A voulu hors du pays mener
Les bons Françoys horz de leur natyon.
Or est il mort à Sainct Fiacre en Brye.
Du pays de France ils sont tous deboutez:
Il n’est plus mot de ces Engloys couez.
Mauldicte en soyt tres toute la lignye.
          —Chanson xiv, Edit. L. Du Bois, p. 173.

313 “Arriére, Englois coués, arriére.” The poem was discovered by M. Paul Meyer, and published in Romania, 1892, p. 51.

314 (Les Anglais) s’en alérent à Rouen par eaue et par terre. Et a leur département, firent lesdiz Parisiens grand huée, en criant: “A la Keuwe!”—Chap. 198: De l’an 1436.

315 Le noble roy me voulut bailler garde,
Pour me garder que point ne fusse prise,
Que refusay, disant que n’avoye guarde,
Et que j’avois guect et arriére garde,
Pour desrompre des couez l’entreprise.
         —Arch. du Nord de la France, nouv. ser., i, 376.

316 Incontinant vous gaignerez la guerre
Contre le roy coué, vostre adversaire.
     —Poés. fr. des XV^e et XVI^e Siécles, vol. ii, p. 80.

317 Allez, infectz, gloutons, puans, punais,
Godons couez, que jamais ne vous voye.
          —Ibid., p. 82.

318 Car leur grandeur est droite orribleté
Quant on les voit aler par le chemin,
Mais leur queue mettent comme un mastin
Soubz leur jambes, que rumeur leur commande.
        —Œuvres complétes
          (Société des Anciens Textes), vol. v, p. 20.

319 RONDEL
  (Les Anglais out une queue)

Certres plus fors sont les Anglés
Que les Françoiz communement.

Les Françoiz portent petit fés;
Certres plus fors sont les Anglés.

Car deux tonneaux portent adés
Et une queue proprement.

Certres plus fort sont les Anglés
Que les Françoiz communement.
          —Œuvres, vol. iv, p. 130.

320 Œuvres, vol. v, p. 48.

321 Œuvres, vol. v, p. 80.

322 Hé! cuidez vous que je me joue,
Et que je voulsisse aller
En Engleterre demourer?
Ils ont une longue coue.—Chanson xviii, p. 177.

323 Ce Cat nonne vient de Calais,
  Sa mére fut Cathau la Bleue;
C’est du lignage des Anglois,
  Car il porte trés longue queue.

—Du Cange, sub voce caudatus.

324 Si acquerrez loz,
Rides, angelotz,
L’or, la chair, et l’os
Des Angloys couez.

325 Je scay que je suis monstré au doigt par les rues depuis que je chargeay si bien les Anglois couez qui descendoient et prenoient terre à Dieppe. —Act II, sc. 6.

326 Les goîtres et les écrouelles,
Aprés que des Anglois quouez
Nos corbeaux furent engouez,
Ont été mis par rouelles.
          —Rome Rid., st. xcvi.

327 La plupart des Anglais ont le bout de l’os sacrum, que l’on nomme coccyx, qui leur avance, ce qui fait une espéce de queue.—Quoted by Godefroy sub voce coé.

328 Sunt praedicti clerici nuncii caudati,
De terra perfidiae falsa procreati.—Lib. ix, cap. 32.

329 Venit exercitus multus a rege Scotorum missus, mille quingenti equitantium et XL millia peditum, per clivum montis descendens ex opposito de Dunbar, praeparatus ad bellum per turmas suas. Quod cum vidissent novi castrenses, et ex visione tali jam laeti effecti, mox eorum vexilla in propugnasculis castri erexerunt, clamantes ad nostras et eos probrose vocantes canes caudatos et talia quaeque, insuper comminantes in mortem et caudarum abscisionem. —Hemingburgh, II, 103.

330 Cumque venissent in mora juxta Anandiam, ecce incolae ejusdem provinciae adunati venientes improperabant eis, vocantes eos canes caudatos, et prae paucitate eos contemnentes, eo quod pedestres sui longe fuerant ab eis separati. —Id., II, 146-7.

331 (Scoti) quasi securi, non posuerunt de nocte vigiles, sed cum jocunditate vinum bibentes, propter paucitatem partis adversae eam parvipendio habuerunt, depromentes cantus et dicentes quod—

Anglici caudati pro caudis vituperati.

De caudis eorum, ut dixerunt, funes sibi facerent ad seipsos Anglos in crastino vinciendos.—Bower, II, 304-5. The Book of Pluscarden represents the Scots as saying “quod Anglicos caudatos per eorum caudas ad suspendium traherent”.—Lib. ix. cxxvii.

332 Bower, loc. cit.

333 Caude causantur, regnarunt, apocopantur,
Privantur caude, fas fandi, “Scotia plaude”.
          —Wright, Political Songs, p. 375.

334 Ross, The Book of Scottish Poems, vol. i, p. 173.

335 Anglicus a tergo caudam gerit; est pecus ergo.
Anglice caudate, cape caudam, ne cadat a te.
Ex causa caudae manet Anglica gens sine laude.

336 Skelton, vol. iii, p. 186 et seq.

337 See above, p. 262.

338 Illo tempore baronibus illuxerat dies sanctificatus, ibi quicunque fugerat Anglicus est caudatus, plenus versutiis, fallax et instabilis et exanimatus.—P. 223.

339 See above, p. 266.

340 Anglici enim, sicut ingratissimi homines,... consuetam trahentes caudam, et villam dictam spoliare cupientes et sibi resistentes trucidare, eam in quatuor locis, quasi in quatuor angulis, incenderunt, ut sic Gandenses nitentes ignem exstinguere, circa custodiam bonorum suorum essent minus cauti.—P. 7.

341 Prostrati sunt autem omnes Scotti et per undique sparsi ac desolati, decollati, incarcerati, suspensi, distracti, destructi, membratim separati, nisi ille solus fugitivus Robertus le Bruys, qui in latibulis circumvagat, sicut latro vel vispilio. Rex vero de eo nihil curans ipsum permittit errare ubicumque melius vitam suam possit salvare, quia cauda sua penitus amputatur.—Vol. iii, p. 191.

342 As Goscelin is the first writer in whom there occurs mention of the insult offered to St. Augustine and of its punishment, and as it consequently seems to be with him that the “tail” myth originated, both his versions of the incident are here given:—“Hinc divertens dux verbi Domini, successit tandem cuidam profanae villulae in Provincia quae dicitur Dorseta; ubi daemoniaca plebicola Sanctos Dei omnibus opprobriis ac ludibriis dedecoravere; adeo ut (quod etiam referri injuria est) productas piscium caudas ingererent. Unde indignatus Spiritus Domini in hujus auctores sceleris et in omnem progeniem illorum suum dedecus per os Augustini vatis perpetualiter sententiavit; et pravis propriam ignominiam, Sanctis vero perennem gloriam refudit” (Anglia Sacra, II, p. 67).—“Cumque (Augustinus) provinciam quae Dorsete appellatur, attigisset, et ubique ut Angelus Domini reciperetur, simulque auditorum fide quos pasceret pasceretur, incidit in quamdam villam, velut in tartaream Plutonis sedem. Ibi plebs impia, tenebris suis excaecata, et divinam lucem exosa, non solum audire nequibat vivifica documenta, verum tota ludibriorum et opprobriorum tempestate in Sanctos Dei debacchata, longe proturbat eos ab omni possessione sua; nec manu pepercisse creditur effraenis audacia. At Dei nuntius, juxta Dominicum praeceptum et apostolorum exemplum, excusso etiam pulvere pedum in eos, dignam suis meritis sententiam (non maledicentis voto, quia omnium salutem optabat; sed divino judicio et Eliae typo) atrocibus injecit, quatenus Sanctorum contemptores tam in ipsis quam in omnibus posteris suis, debita poena redargueret, qui vitae mandata repulissent. Fama est, illos effulminandos, prominentes marinorum piscium caudas Sanctis appendisse; et illis quidem gloriam sempiternam peperisse, in se vero ignominiam perennem retorsisse, ut hoc dedecus degeneranti generi, non innocenti et generosae imputetur patriae” (Bollandists, Acta Sanctorum, vol. for May, p. 375).

343 “Aggrediuntur ergo virum et sotios furiatis mentibus incolae, et magnis dehonestatum injuriis, ita ut etiam caudas racharum vestibus ejus affigerent, impellunt, propellunt, expellunt. Patienter ille et modeste gaudensque pro nomine Jhesu contumeliam tulit, et, ne magis miserorum irritaret insaniam, excusso pedum in eos pulvere, longe quasi miliariis tribus recessit.”
—De Gestis Pontificum, lib. ii, § 84.

344 Sains Augustins les sermona
Et la loi Deu lor preeça.
Cil furent de male nature
Que de lor sermon n’orent qure.
La ou li sains lor sermonoit
Et la loi Deu lor anonçoit,
A ses dras de tries lor pendoient
Keues de raies qu’il avoient;
Od les keues l’on envoiérent
Et bien longement le cachiérent.
Et il proia nostre signor
Que d’icele grant deshonor
Et de cele grant avilance
Ait en ax s’ire et demostrance.
Et il si orent voirement
Et aront pardurablement,
Car trestot cil qui l’escarnirent
Et qui les keues li pendirent
Furent coë et coës orent,
Ne onques puis perdre ne’s porent.
Tot cil ont puis esté coé,
Qui furent de tel parenté;
Keues ont de tries en la car,
En ramanbrance de l’escar
Qu’il firent al Deu ami
Qui des keues l’orent laidi.
       —Wace, Brut, ll. 14165 et seq.,
         B. M. copy, vol. ii, p. 251.

345 The obnoxious tail appears to have been passed on to Cornwall. In his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Mr. Baring Gould states that, as a child, he firmly believed, on the authority of his nurse, that all Cornishmen were born with tails. It required the solemn assurance of a native to convince him of the contrary.

346 Lines 29,544 et seq.

347 Early English Text Society, Part I, p. 97.

348 Lines 15,193-15,212.

349 Printed by Wright in his Reliquiae Antiquae.

350 “Cumque de civitate in civitatem praedicando transiret, contigit ut in civitate quae Roucestria dicitur semel praedicaret. Ipso autem praedicante, concives civitatis accesserunt, et verba ejus mendacia reputantes, multa ei obprobria intulerunt. Post multorum vere obprobriorum angustiam, caudas porcorum et vaccarum fimbreis vestimentorum ejus alligantes, in faciemque ejus conspuentes, ipsum de civitate ejicerunt.”

351 “Volens igitur Deus de obprobrio sibi servoque suo illato
vindictam assumere, instituit ut omnes qui ex tunc in civitate Roucestriae nascerentur caudas ad
modum porcorum haberent.... Non tamen potuit auferri quin caudas haberent; ex tunc enim et adhuc et in aeternum existent caudati.... Quod autem univoce homines non sunt, ex quo caudas habent manifestum est.... Cum igitur caudas habent, contigit ut cum irascuntur caudas erigunt, quapropter cum irascuntur sedere nequeunt.”

352 I’ nol vidi, ma tanto mi fu nova
  Cosa ad udir, e per tutti si avvera,
  Che di notar, come l’udii, mi giova,
Che fra le altre una isoletta v’era,
  Dove con coda la gente vi nasce
  Corta, qual l’ha un cervo o simil fera.
          —Lib. iv, cap. 23.

353 Quoted by Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française, from Boccace, Nobles malh., vi, 9, f. 153, ed. 1515.

354 The Lyf of Saynt Austyn, Golden Legende, clxxxiiii, ed. 1483.

355 “Cum apud occidentales Saxones, in pago Dorsetensi, beatus Augustinus verbum vitae gentilibus praedicaret, venit in vicum quendam, ubi eum nemo suscipere vel ejus praedicationem audire voluit. Sed cùm in omnibus ei rebelles existerent, et cunctis quae ab eo dicebantur contradicerent, et omnia sinistrâ interpretatione obnubilare conarentur, quod dictu nefandum est, caudas piscium in ejus vestibus suere et supendere non timuerunt. Sed quod ipsi in Sancti patris injuriam facere crediderunt, sibi et suis posteris in dedecus sempiternum, et innocenti patriae verterunt in opprobrium. Nam percussit eos in posteriora, opprobrium sempiternum dans illis, ita ut in partibus pudendis, tam in ipsis quàm eorum successoribus, similes caudae nascerentur. Vocatur autem hujusmodi cauda ab indigenis patriâ linguâ Mughel; unde et villa, in qua beato Augustino hujusmodi irrogata est injuria, nomen sortita est Muglington, id est villa Muglingorum, usque in praesentem diem. Fertur etiam quòd, eorum exemplo, in provincia Merciorum, in villa quae Thamewyth dicitur, beato viro ab incolis loci simile dedecus factum fuerit; sed non impune: quia tam ipsi quam eorum posteri, sicut omnibus notum est, pari poena et opprobrio verecundati sunt. Simile postea accidit tempore exilii beati Thomae primatis Angliae, quod ad ejus opprobrium, ut aestimabant, sed mentita est iniquitas sibi, illi de Rocestria deturpaverunt et absciderunt caudam caballi ejus; unde et posteri eorum illic nati inventi sunt caudati.”—Joannis Forduni Scotichronicon cum Supplementis et Continuatione Walteri Boweri, lib. ix, cap. 32; ed. Edin., 1747.

356 Ralph de Diceto, i, 342; Roger de Hoveden, ii, 14; Gervase of Canterbury, i, 225; William of Canterbury, Materials for History of Thomas Becket, i, 130.

357 Jumentum in nominis mei contemptum, tanquam in diminutione bestiae dehonestari possim, cauda truncatum est.

358 B. ii, c. ix.

359 “En l’an cinq cens iiii^xxxix, Sainct Augustin fut par Saint Grégoire, lors pape de Romme, envoyé en Angleterre pour prescher et publier la foy de Jesu-christ, et à sa prédication se firent baptizer Eldret, roy d’Angleterre, et sa gent. Et advint que ledit Sainct Augustin alla pour prescher en ung territoire qu’on appelle Dorocestre, auquel lieu les gens d’icelluy territoire, par mocquerie et dérision luy attachérent à ses habillemens des raynes ou grenouilles. Et depuis ce temps, par pugnition divine, ceulx qui naissoient audit territoire out des queues par derriére comme bestes brutes, et les appelle on Anglois couez.”—Les trés élégantes et copieuses Annales... des Gaules; ed. 1531, fol. 27.

360 Bellenden’s Boece, B. ix, c. 17.

361 Dunbar’s Poems, ii, p. 15.

362 “Cum Augustinus juxta Dorocaestriam predicaret, gentes illius loci caudas Rariarum vestibus illius appendebant. Hinc ipsi et eorum posteri caudas sicut pecudes referuntur habuisse.”—Ed. 1609, B. M. copy.

363 “Nit unbillich wirt der selbig lib heilig (Sant Thomas von Candlwerg) wert gehalten, zu dem das man in seiner heiligen legend, lumpartica historia, wie eins reines säligen lebens er gewesen, hat er auch ein merklich zaichen, das vielleicht bis an den jüngsten tag wert, hinter im verlassen; den in seinem leben reit er auf ein zeit als ein gerechter, frommer man, auf seinem eslein, auf ein dorf zu essen. In dem spotteten die baurn seiner reuterei und schnitten seinem esl den schwanz ab. Darumb beklagt sich der lib heilig, das noch auf den heutigen tag alle die knaben, die in dem dorf geboren werden, schwenzlein, das sie zegelein nennen, ob dem hindern an der wurzln an die welt bringen. Daraus ist das sprichwort entsprungen, das die Englosen hoch vertreust: Engelman, den sterz her! Und ich wolt den fraidigen gern sehen, der in dem selben dorf ‘Englsterz’ schreien dörft. Er müst sich kurz austreen, wolt er nit erschlagen werden. Wölicher frauen aber, der lust oder zeit in irer geberung wirdet, das sie nit mer, dan über das wasser, in das ander dorflein kumbt, gebürt ir kint an (ohne) schwanz.”—Die Geschichten und Taten Wilwolts von Schaumburg, in the Publications of the Stuttgart Literary Society, vol. for 1859, p. 78.

364 “Haec et talia eiusmodi ita regem Henricum moverunt, ut ira vehementer accensus, aliquando exclamavit: ‘Me miserum, non possum in meo regno pacem cum uno sacerdoti habere? Nec quisquam meorum omnium est, qui hac molestia liberare velit?’ Ex huiusmodi vocibus, fuerunt improbi nonnulli, quibus visa est occulta voluntas regis esse, ut Thomas é medio tolleretur, qui propterca velut hostis regis habitus, jam tum coepit sic vulgo negligi, contemni, ac odio haberi, ut cum venisset aliquando Strodum, qui vicus situs est ad ripam Medueiae fluminis, quod flumen Rocestriam alluit, eius loci incolae cupidi bonum patrem ita despectum ignominia aliqua afficiendi, non dubitarint amputare caudam equi, quem ille equitaret, seipsos perpetuo probro obligantes; nam postea, nutu Dei, ita accidit, ut omnes ex eo hominum genere, qui id facinus fecissent, nati sint instar brutorum animalium caudati. Sed ea infamiae nota jampridem una cum gente illa eorum hominum, qui peccarint, deleta est.”—Ed. 1610, p. 214.

365 “Anglos quosdam caudatos esse. Suspicabar quod de Anglorum caudis traditur, nugatorium esse, nec hoc meminissem loco, nisi ipsi Anglicarum rerum conditores id serio traderent: nasci videlicet homines, instar brutorum animalium caudatos apud Strodum Angliae vicum, ad ripam fluvii Medueiae, qui Roffensem, sive Rocestrensem agrum alluit. Narrantque ejus vici incolas, jumento quod D. Thomas Canthuariensis episcopus insideret, per ludibrium caudam amputasse, ob idque divina ultione adnatas incolis ejus loci caudas, ut in hos fatidici regis carmen torqueri possit: ‘Percussit eos (inquit) in posteriora eorum, opprobrium sempiternum dedit illis’. De hujusmodi caudis quidam in hunc modum lusit:—
Fertur equo Thomae caudam obtruncasse Britannos,
Hinc Anglos caudas constat habere breveis.”

—Angliae Descriptionis Compendium, per Gulielmum Paradinum Cuiselliensem, 1545, p. 69.

366 Ed. 1546, pp. 29-30.

367 Pp. 76-77.

368 Ed. 1576.

369 P. 91.

370 Song 23.

371 Church History, p. 67.

372 P. 63.

373 Itinerary, vol. iii, p. 53.

374 As bearing out this opinion, the following passage from Tylor’s Primitive Culture may be quoted: “But these apparently silly myths have often a real ethnological significance. When an ethnologist meets, in any district, with the story of tailed men, he ought to look for a despised tribe of aborigines, outcasts, or heretics, living near or among a dominant population who look upon them as beasts, and furnish them with tails accordingly.... The outcast race of Cagots, about the Pyrenees, were said to be born with tails; and in Spain the medieval superstition still survives, that the Jews have tails, like the devil, as they say. In England the notion was turned to theological profit by being claimed as a judgment on wretches who insulted St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Canterbury.”—Vol. i, pp. 346-7.