Grooving On Down The Highway

Grooving on down the highway
I really didn't want to know
When four square tons of groceries
Appeared there in the road

Crash, bang, thank you man
Federal State Inter jam
Waiting for an hour or two
Got to find my way to the other side of here 

You Comin' In?

Can you see me, make out my form
You can see my body but you can't see me at all
Whispering winds on the out road say that you're on the way
Ya comin' in?

Julie was seventeen, her mind had gone out for tea
She didn't want to spend the time
But she found she couldn't draw the line
She spent nights and nights wondering about an old stoned world
But now she's free and she's comin' in

Can you see me, make out my form
You can see my body but you can't see me at all
And it's a long, long slide down the rainbow bridge
But we can get there by sundown
If you want to go

Red men at the manor
Old wives in the hall
They just aren't communicating
The maids do it all
Often as not I'm sat at home sinking
Drowned out by their glasses chinking
That it's me
One Two Three

Can you see me, make out my form
You can see my body but you can't see me at all
And it's a long, long slide down the rainbow bridge
But we can get there by sundown
If you want to go

Walking with no shoes on
Some say it's a sin
Often as not it's raining
But it's all right you can come in
You'll find what you thought was murky dark mires
Is really a ladder to help you climb higher
You comin' in?

If you come out, give us a shout
Twizzle your eyes a bit, shake it about
Scratchy ink doodles in notebooks at midnight
Are giving me the clue to why your'e so uptight
You coming out?

Can you see me, make out my form
You can see my body but you can't see me at all
And it's a long, long slide down the rainbow bridge
But we can get there by sundown
If you want to go

Epos Propagandum (part 4)

This was the time for treachery on a high level

So who was for real could be hard to tell

There were imposters whom I shall describe

Who feigning a heritage their real birth-lines hide

Let's talk of one King Sigismund of Luxemberg

Who was other than said his silvern words

It was he who first assumed the line

In 1408 he announced his family was entwined

With the Royal House of Anjou

Of course it was not true

But he said it was his

And founded the Societas Draconis

Falsly claiming direct British Elven Descent

Can you see what this meant?

Now if you thought that was phony

What about his vampire cronie?

Vlad Draculae or Basarrab

Was invited to the club

To him the descent also wrongly dubbed

Was to the Egyptian Sobek crocodile cult

The power base was thus affirmed

It looked the same but was upturned

They determined the route for Kings to take

That left blood and deception in it’s wake

Stole the robe that denotes the descent

Not at all what the true line meant

To promulgate about the world

This fraud a new banner unfurled

Proclaiming persecution for the fey

And anyone else who doesn’t pay

A clear departure from the way

Intended by the original crew

Of course none of this was that new

Persecutions were rife against those of true knowing

Like the Cathars and the Templars who kept it going

Such knowledge these families held deep in life

Was the reason for their much and arduous strife

Yet falsehood is another gambit than this

What seems like love is a poisonous kiss

Lacking soul but looks the part

Wears the suit but has no heart

Detesting life they suck you dry

You cannot live you cannot die

HUNDRED YEARS WAR p118

The Hundred Years war game had been raging

Since 1337 between England and France campaigning

For the terratory of Aquitaine

Plus Edward had a French throne to claim

Using innovative and deadly new technology

Of the Longbow that skewered horribly

Agincourt was won and Crecy and Poitiers

By the English though it didn’t stay that way

After many a naval skirmish in the channel

Many a raid and siege and battle

Joan d’Arc at just seventeen

Rallied the French and at the siege of Orleans

Turns the tide of the English invasions

She acted from divine persuasions

Visions told her to take her French homeland

Back from dominating English hands

And from that point, though she died at nineteen

Bit by bit the English did leave

Later she was captured at Compiegne

And was used in a political smear campaign

To undermine the French King by association

In a fix-up trial for heresy against the papal persuasion

They burnt her at the stake

And burnt her again to make no mistake

Causing the executioner to fear being damned

Geoffroy Therage felt he’d killed a holy woman

Under Henry the Sixth

England’s French grip truly slipped

Twenty five years from Orleans

Save for Calais the English were gone

Called the Hundred Years War by history

This sequence of wars ended in 1453

A couple of years on and it’s the Wars of the Roses

Where were all the faeries one supposes?

p.119

WARS OF THE ROSES ACCORDING TO SHAKESPEARE

1455 to 1485 was the English silly season for usurping

Drawing to an end the line of Plantagenet Kings

Two sides of a family fighting it out for succession

It wasn’t like this when the Tuatha were in session!

They were mad for it to rule the land

With power of military command

This form of sucession was not always so

As my little bardery has tried to show

Long before it was by female consent

That determined how it went

Not this game of eldest son

So relatively recent begun

Shakespeare dubbed it the Wars of the Roses

And it only goes to show

How a family divided all England to uncivil war

All to sort out their claim line, I ask what for?!?

It’s my own perogative and my propagandum too

To muse on alternative ways to rule

Richard the Second

May or may not have got to heaven

But I hear his court was a riot

He didn’t try to keep the satirists quiet

Lampooning was allowed

In fact spoken out loud

As part of the Royal amusements

In quite some profusement

Geoffrey Chaucer

Our father of literature

Had great daring if you read him

And consider what he put in

To some of his witticisms

Church and state criticisms

Like the Friars who live up Satan’s arse

Numerous as swarming bees what class

To know these things Geoff was well qualified

For many court offices he had occupied

This accepting mood was not to last

Under Bolingbrooke it had to exit fast

What happened to Chaucer noone knows

No records of death with could just show

He was done in secretly because of his position

His insightful stories seen as sedition

So it was war and more war

One ends another is an open door

That was chosen to step through

Rights to rule to proove

The power hungry drool

War is the perfect tool

For taking what is not yours

A King authenticates the cause

Surely the case here adopted

But Boling brooke was not popular

He became Henry the Fourth

And was tolerated because

Richard 2 had been so disliked

(In spite of his Court which sounded nice)

Henry 4 was John Gaunt’s son the 3rd son of Edward 3

But his name was not the first up on the family tree

It should have been descendants of Lionel of Antwerp Edward the Thirds’s 2nd son ,

Richard had said that they were the ones

Who through progeniture should have put the crown on

Roger Mortimer, Lionel’s grandson that Richard had named while he still lived

Was as in Plantagenet lineage their heir presumptive

But Bolingbrooke saw not like this

And violently made it his

Being no heir apparent himself

He took it by stealth

Thus inciting many claims

Using Mortimer’s name

In Wales Cheshire and Northumberland

He got these under command

But didn’t live long to enjoy the gain

His son continued the militaristic reign

Bringing success in that French war game

So this Henry the Fifth was a popular Monarch

In a land where violence is so obviously honoured

But he died and it was the turn of Henry the Sixth

Who due to unstable mind was not really fit

To be England’s ruler over all

But there were more waiting in the stalls

Mortimer’s Daughter Anne

And Richard of Cambridge, her man

Begat Richard of York

Who when he grew up, King Henry would stalk

For Kingship him to challenge

Not that Henry was managing

He was loosing what was in France gained

And with these bouts of illness with his brain

Needed advisors and he got them bad

Edmund Beaufort Duke of Somerset he had

And William de la Pole Duke of Suffolk likely lads

Who dissipated further what control there was

A clear case for the York line of Richard because

The Royal House was in total dissarray

As was much of the country

Still smarting from Henry 4’s usurpery

With much disdaining of Royal authority

And fighting between long established noble families

And those minor nobility that Bolingbrooke had raised

Noteably between the established Northumbrian Percies

And brother-in law Richard Neville with little mercy

In Cornwall it was the Courtneys and the Bonnevilles

It was get your brother and kill kill kill

It was all the rage to go for broke

With wars big and small provoked

By ambiguity or downright illegality

Of the Royal descent

Wholesale carnage this all meant

As the Duchess in Wonderland said

We are painting the white roses red

With Royal confusion at its head

All classes of folk ended up dead

Because of the Kings mental instability

Richard of York set up a council of Regency

Imprisoning Lancastrian Edmund of Somerset

And setting his allies against Henry yet

The King revived from his malaise

And hindered Richard’s scheming ways

He was forced out of Court by Henry’s Queen

That being Margaret of Anjou who had seen

He was trouble but then so was she

And with the help of Lancastrian Nobility

Diminished Richards influence

Till it got him really incensed

And at St Albans hostilities flared

The first of the battles happened there

Richard removed Henry’s unsound advisers

That was his spin then in 1455

Edmund of Somerset and other leaders were dead

Richard was the victor but instead

Of raving on about it, both sides seemed shocked

That they had in war become locked

And made up to each other for a while

Richard resumed the role of Protector

As to the Queen he tried to reject her

When Henry lost it again

Margaret was demoted to look after the ailing King

They had a son Edward was his name

At it slowly kindled hostilities again

In Court Richard had the biggest influence

But Margaret would not yield to any inference

Suggesting her son would not be King

Such thoughts as these violence will bring

Though she waited while Richard had bigger armies

And set up Court over in Coventry

They were more popular there

Than in London where

Merchants were miffed by the loss of trade

Now that proper order had decayed

Somerset’s son was now the rising star of the Court

Things began to get more and more fraught

Margaret got Henry to strip York of his titles

And soon it would be down to where the fight was

Richard was sent back to his Ireland post

There were pirate raids on the South Coast

And as the Capitol slid into a messy situation

The King and Queen thought only of their continuation

She introducing conscription for the first time

Very aware of the tense political clime

Here Richard Neville Earl of Warwick

Had gained popularity and was in thick

With the Merchant classes, a powerful place to be

Soon there would be more hostilities

Richard returned from Ireland

To light the civil war firebrand

A battle in Staffordshire was the first blow

When a Yorkist army heading for Ludlow

Met with a large Lancastrian force

And at Blore Heath they fought of course

The Yorkists made it to the Castle as planned

But later the Lancastrians got the upper hand

After the battle at Ludford Bridge had passed

Richard of York’s eldest son Edward the Earl of March

Had to flee for Calais as did Salisbury and Warwick

Somerset was sent to evict them his efforts came to nowt

The Yorkists even sent ship-raids to knock them about

England was a messy chaotic situation

And in 1460 Warwick made a proper invasion

Got into Kent and London where they were loved

A Papal decree granted backing from above

And at Northampton push came to shove

King Henry was captured there was treachery done

And the Yorkists returned him to merry old London

Because he was victor Richard pushed for King

At first the Lords would not let him in

But York showed his family tree

Detailing more direct geneology

Descending from Lionel of Antwerp

I can see why he felt it would work

Untainted by collateral claimers

Fratricidal usurpers who left a trail of

Wars caused by imbalance of power

Allegiances split and at such an hour

An incapable King of questionable heredity

Causing uncertainty throughout the whole country Henry remained with a majority of five Lords

So they made this new Act of Accord

Disinheriting Henrys son Edward

Giving succession to Richard instead

Which suited him fine

He was next in line

And he governed anyway as Protector of the Realm

As you can see he had done quite well

Margaret was expelled with the child she went North

Lancastrians could not accept the Act of Accord

So rallying round her a large army formed

Amassing strength and brewing a storm

The Duke of York and Lord Salisbury departed

From London headed North to reckon with Margaret

Taking a position at Sandal Castle near Wakefield

And here comes the moment when fate deals

Misfortune to the Duke who had half as many men

As Margaret, attacked and never got up again

Slain, his head put on a spike

His son Edmund and Salisbury alike

Their heads were placed on the gates at York

It was in vain that Richard fought

According to the Accord York’s eldest Edward was heir

And Warwick the biggest landowner in the ar-ea

So Margaret asked the Scots for help against them

Queen Mary Gueldres agreed on condition

She got Berwick Town and her daughter wed Edward

They both agreed and the plan went ahead

Due to circumstances of having no cash

Mary said Margaret could trash

Anywhere below the river Trent

And that is just how it went

In the rich Southern Lands

Extensive pillaging began

Then at Mortimer Cross in Hereford

Edward thrashed Jasper Tudor good

And three suns seen at sunrise the Parhelion

Were said to symbolise York’s surviving three sons

Edward, Richard and George

And this Sunne in Splendour

Was made into their emblem

They were young men then

Warwick let news of Margaret’s plundering

Act as propaganda that helped bring

Southerners round to a Yorkist allegiance

When Coventry changed there was a chance

But too late and too few and with no Edward

At St Albans the Earl was caught off guard

By Margaret’s armies who made him flee

Only to find her Henry unharmed beneath a tree

Margaret headed for London Town

It’s people put the portcullis down

And raised the drawbridges refusing to feed

The Lancastrians who in their need

Pillaged nearby Hertfordshire and Middlesex

But when Edward and Neville arrived from the West

Margaret had North to Dunstable gone

And the Yorkists were let into London

London wanted Edward King

But before they could coronate him

Henry VI would have to be exiled or executed

Because he taken arms against the heir it suited

This was against the Act of Accord written down

It happened at the Battle of Wakefield Town

Edwards brother and father had met their killers

It had gone beyond Henrys bad councillors

Edward and Neville headed North to near York

And met with the large Lancastrian force

At Towton where was the biggest battle as yet

In one day twenty thousand soldiers met their deaths

Edwards victory saw the Lancastrians destroyed

Henry and Margaret fled North with their little boy

Many Lancastrian nobles that had survived

Now changed over to Edwards side

Others went North or to Wales with wounds

Many would be routed out quite soon

When Edward went to York he saw the rotting heads

Of Lord Salisbury his father and brother so instead

He stuck up heads of dead Lancastrian Lords

Including Edmunds executioner the notorious Clifford

Henry and Margaret were in Scotland

At the Court of James the Third ensconced

They conceded Berwick and attacked Carlisle

But they had no money and were trounced

Yorkist forces were wiping out Lancastrians

Where they had fled to the Borderlands

Edward was coronated

At least he had waited

And he ruled in peace for ten years

Resistance remained till 1464

The Percies fell at Alnwick and Bamburgh

There was Hedgely Moor and Hexham

Where Nevilles brother John neatly squashed them

When finally ended the seven year siege at Harlech

Edward had got the thing licked

Henry the deposed King and Margaret were found

And both were put in the Tower of London

Treated quite well it seems at first

Though things did turn out for the worse

There came a time when Richard ‘Kingmaker’ Neville

Earl of Warwick and King Edwards friendship chilled

Liz Woodville was a girl Edward secretly would wed

While Neville had got other plans for him instead

To marry a French girl for their allegiance

But Edward went for his romance

And Woodvilles became more favoured than Nevilles

Which naturally brought out all the devils

Neville was for allegiance with France but Edward was for Burgandy

Edward would not let his brothers Nevilles sisters marry

Neville joined with jealous George

Defeating Edward at Edgecot Moor

At Middleham Castle he was held

His Queens father promptly killed

Edward was forced to call a parliament

That would declare him illegitimate

The crown would go to George Duke of Clarence

As he was Edward’s heir apparent

Yet Richard his brother came to the rescue

With most of the nobles in the retinue

The King was freed a little later

Neville and George called traitors

And forced to flee to France out of the flack

Where exiled Margaret was planning a comeback

King Louis suggested the old enemies get together

Pool their skills to see whether

They could turn the tables

They married two of their children and invaded

This time Edward had to flee

John Neville returned his loyalty

To his brother and his armies caught Edward short

His army scattered but he was not caught

Made it to Holland then Burgandy

While Warwick reinstated Henry

Ed and Rich were the traitors now

When Neville planned invading Burgandy with Louis

Charles the Bold of Burgandy helped Ed with an army

Neville was defeated at the Battle of Barnet

After all that effort he must have thought darn it!

The Battle of Tewksbury did for the last Lancastrians

Henry VI and his heir Edward met their grizzly ends

Murdered to make the York line more strong

Just as murder would feature before too long

With Edward the Fourth back in the picture

Some would say that was the end of conflict sure

But he soon died and mayhem resumed

Because the Woodvilles recently assumed

Power in Court was resented by factions

And sooner or later would come the reaction

Though the families were all of the Yorkist line

There was dissension within at this time

Edward the Fifth was only twelve when coronated

This son of a Woodville was bound to be ill fated

Richard Duke of Gloucester Protector of the Realm

Was the ipso facto leader at England’s troubled helm

With William Hastings and Henry Stafford

Captured young Edward in Bucks at Stony Stratford

And in the Tower of London left him to reside

Soon joined by his brother Richard of York aged nine

What happened to them nobody knows

They were kept out of the way and neatly disposed

The Duke declared their parents’ marriage illegal

To which parliament agreed making Gloucester Regal

The Titulus Regius named him Richard the Third

Of which statute the next King would not read a word

Henry would have them destroyed so no one could trace

In the King business you could never loose face

Lancastrian hopes were for this Henry Tudor

Henry VI’s illegitimate half-brother but proved more

By marriage on his Mother Margaret Beaufort’s side

Her father was John of Beaufort who touched the line

He Edward the Third’s grandson by John of Gaunt

Was good enough lineage the Yorkists to taunt

Henry Tudor defeated Richard the Third

At the famous battle of Bosworth Field

To quickly become King Henry the Seventh

He marries Elizabeth of York who had the best descent

And fused the two roses into one

Hoping for a new peace to come

A red and white Tudor Rose

Containing symbolism to close

The Lancastrian Yorkist Wars

Though executing several more

Claimants was in store to keep the peace

A policy his son would keep

And then to coincide with families and their Royal taste

A demon was put there in Richard the Third’s place

A hunchback usurper according to Shakespeare

That his were Tudor times comes through very clear

After Henry became the Sixth was the Battle of Stoke

An event seemingly by a young man provoked

He was Lambert Simnel

A boy who resembled

The young Yorkist Earl of Warwick

But the plot didn’t stick

Warwick was alive in Henry’s custody

John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln was crushed duly

At Stoke wiping out Yorkist opposition

Simnel was pardoned and made work in the kitchen

Lastly Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard of York

Who was he? Henry just set the executioner to work

Epos Propagandum (part 3)

Where to look where to begin

The Lotus Sutra was spoken to express

The life that is best

That radiates from the mind of Buddha

That one can make as good a

Go of things even in dire circumstances

Rencho thought this was the one

After many years of study he’d done

And that if you chanted it’s title, it’s name

There was great benefit to gain

His point really was that Amida was mind control

Dressed up to effect fealty to the Emperor

It upset the balance of karma

Praying to Amida

Because it did nothing to challenge our inner greeds

Being only a diversion that corruption feeds

A population with placatory words

That doesn’t help the world

Never cries justice to evil

Is too afraid even

To think differently

Because yes the authorities would see

So Rencho spoke the mantra we can all know

Which is Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo

Or I devote myself to the mystic law of cause and effect

Sanscrit and Vedic

Effective in a jam. Chant it if you can

When they first heard him do this mantra

The abiding priests had a tantrum

You can’t do this here or anywhere they said

Some actually wanted him dead

But Rencho escaped and changed his name

To Sun Lotus, which is ‘Nichiren’

He went around telling people to have no doubt

This little mantra was what it was about

A direct spiritual assault on the authorities

Whose Gods probably started quaking at the knees

The rest of his life this is what he did teach

The rest of his life he vexed heavy duty control freaks

But then he had heavy duty followers

Like Shijo Kingo a full power Samuria Warrior

Who was a healer as well

Who would have followed Nichiren to hell

This was his sentiment one time

When Nichiren’s life was really on the line

There was a beheading block and his head was on it

When overhead flew this flaming great comet

That lit up the sky to make night into day

Most of the monks there ran away

Soldiers bold were stricken with fear

But there were some that went near

To Nichiren because they saw who he was

Perceived something different through the fog

Of misconceptions about a man

Whose concern was simply for the Land

To be free and the people happy

It still wasn’t evidently

Executions could not take place in the sun

The Sage ordered Sake for everyone

They could catch him but never kill him

This was some prophesy fulfilling

Nichiren’s major concern was the Mongol Invasion

He said it would come

And they would wipe out everyone

Unless Amida and others similar

Ceased to be the State Creed

But the Government would not heed

He said it once twice three times in remonstrance

Yet the Government didn’t give it a chance

To which the Great Sage Nichiren saw

That it would be less slander to the Mystic Law

They wouldn’t be around to make more bad causes

If they were cut to pieces by the Mongol forces

He was exiled, he’d said his piece

The Mongols came but had storms at sea

That smashed them to bits on the cliffs

The invasion wasn’t a great success

It was Kublai Khan who had sent them there

Wishing vengeance on Japan from earlier

But maybe they overstepped themselves

There was much infighting as well

Ghengis Khan’s Grandson of the Pleasure Dome

As his travelling canvas palace was well known

Somehow touchs all places with inspiration flowing

But that’s not the Mongols that is the poem

Kublai Khan that I learnt in school

When I first touched those waters cool

That inspiration rings true clear

Say in bardic notions when one hears

The motion of this water

In ones inner caves

The shadow of a dome of pleasure

Floating midway on the waves

And maybe it is flowing with pure Awen

To brighten up our days

Maybe just illusion

Idealistic vision

Maybe the start of

A lifelong mission

What is the portent of such mirages?

It depends on who the judge is

Could it have been that one time

Life was lived as sublime

Not to say it was Utopia

Perhaps a different view on fear

And Death that is ever near

Living lives not yet formed

The concept of separation from

You or me or anything

It depends who is judging

In the crystal clear water vision

Can we see a time beyond

Crass trickery of war?

Surely tribes always fought

To protect their own

This is what history has shown

‘It’s human nature and it will never change’

I’ve known people gruffly explain

My friends know that history lies

To big up the bad guys

Twist it round

Faerie heritage gone underground

It was no place to be a faerie

To live in the thirteenth century

Kublai Khan

He of indomitable command

Ghengis his Grandfather

Who couldn’t have been harder

Also saw I believe

Through a magic prism

His rare Pleasure Dome

Those caves of ice Coleridge had known

Nichiren the Sage

Shogunate Japan all in the same age

As my telling of Kings

Which should quite nicely bring

Us to Edward the Second

Speaking of faeries

I don’t mean to be unkind

But he didn’t fit the mould

Of his belligerent line

He was a homosexual

Of another mind

His late father must have been

Grave-raging in perpetual spin

Edward II was inept in war

It was not what he adored

The Barons were infuriated

With Edwards gifts to men he rated

Saught to keep this Prince of Wales in check

Before he all of England wrecked

One Piers Gaveston from Gascony

Had been kicked out already

By Edwards father but he got back

Was a wayward influence on the lad

And siphened off too much power

It made the Barons glower

His Magnate imposed restrictions

And quite happily banished wily Gaveston

Until the barons kicked off and had him killed

Edward agreeing to more terms was hardly thrilled

Thomas Earl of Lancaster

Was brought by the Magnate

To help with the State

The King had fallen in with another outsider

His name being Hugh Dispenser

And together they executed Lancaster

After the battle of Boroughbridge York

Hugh and Edward ruled but there were revolts

Many were beheaded or exiled

Making enemies all the while

Then in Gascony sent on a mission

Edwards wife had a frisson

With Roger Mortimer an expatriate Baron

They invade England put Edward in prison

The King is killed a poker up the bum

Mortimer is ruling on the Throne is Edwards son

Edward the Third seemed much a Kings King

Nothing peculiar about him

His wife Phillipa gave him lots of children

His sexuality in court was less bewildering

He could kill made lots of war

That’s what God put him there for

Crowned at fourteen

He killed Mortimer

And exiled his Mother

Assuming control of the Government

His was the Hundred years war with France

Edward spoke of Chivalric Romance

With reality far more distanced. Gruesome

Death-mongering would be more truthsome

With Baliol he did in the Scots

Scotland again England got

Lines and alliances went back and forth

Concerning territory and allegiances troth

A naval battle called Sluys then at Calais and Cresy

Got the English on French soil, it was messy

Then came the Black Plague

Bubonic infections of great blue-black buboes

You don’t want to get one of them you know

Contact that and your dead in three days

Which took half of the population away

And foreign hostilities subsided a bit

People were not able to manage it

Then with the Black Prince, Edward’s son

They went and trounced everyone

With a big army surrounding Paris

Till was signed a treaty of Peace

Conceding lands in Bretingny

To English Sovereignty

But it was soon lost again

In the hundred years war game

A slow formation of history

Is what we see here

England’s moulding by the greedy

Yet also pressures of the times

The Merchant class was rising

Making money not surprising

From wool off of the backs

Of the poor peasants sheep

Merchants could speak in parliament

You can see that this meant

The poorer folk were spoken for

Not permitted in the door

The Feudal world was passing

The Merchant class was in

Meaning there were fewer landed barons

Now it was taxes of export and commerce not land

That fed the Royal purse a plenty

Which could then stretch to mercenaries

Replacing the vassals obligation of before

Treason was defined by statute of law

French ceased to be the tongue

That was spoken in Court

Sheriffs were given appointments

This was all done in Parliament

John of Gaunt had failed in France

The Plague had struck hard economic advance

Not everything was rosy

In the Court of Edward Three

John Wycliff made ecclesiastic reform

On Pope and Kings corrupt goings on

The Black Prince was ill

And Edward was dying

The Black Prince died

and Edward was crying

Too much tax had cost him the people’s faith

When his Mistress with William Chamberlain

And John of Gaunt

Ran the court in his dotage

They did things he didn’t notice

Edward ended his life feeling very bad

Was it punishment for the badness he had?

It was just after the Black Plague

There was all round reduced wages

But Parliament had not restricted prices

This of course had led to the Revolt

Richard the Second was the son of the Black Prince

And Joan the Fair Maid of Kent

What they say about his life is not

Nesicerily how it went

Made King at ten

He was fourteen when at Mile End

He met some people we now call peasants

With whom he agreed to concessions

They demanded he consent

Concerning certain ministers they did resent

Who had made their tax too steep

Risen from 4d to 12d

A levy of one fifteenth movable wealth

Was traditional and could be dealt

But this new tax was an unjust trickery

That and they were tired of villeiny

Contrary to the image that history gives us

It seems that these poor people were quite sussed

Were organised very well I have heard

From Essex and Kent to converge

In London with specific aims

To target those that from them gained

The exorbitant tax that was so hated

It seems that the authorities had not rated

Them with intelligence to take action

And were not fully prepared in reaction

(Though they knew how to deal with any rebel

The revolt didn’t take too long for them to quell)

The radical priest John Ball

Had made a sermon to them all

At Blackheath where his famous speech began

"When Adam delved and Eve span

Who was then the gentleman?"

He meant that when God the world began

He put no chains on man and woman

Implying that no man should be enslaved

A message that still echoes these days

This was spoken to the men of Kent

Whom Wat Tyler did represent

Over the London Bridge they marched

Into the cities very heart

Another leader, Jack Straw

Meanwhile brought many more

In from Essex way

They arrived at Stepney

And burnt the Savoy Palace of John Gaunt

Along with properties of the Knight’s Hospitalier Order

But it was all to do with targetting

Those who the hated tax had helped to bring

On the people disproportionate to their income

Yet this was not wanton violence they had done

But specific acts with particular aims

To stop the unjust unfair gain

Of ministers who an advantage used

With the King being such a youth

The people destroyed such records

Pertaining to the taxing they deplored

And this shows that some were literate

A fact that history tends not to iterate

Some people stormed the Tower of London

And there were several executions

Of prominent government ministers

Who had this tax administered

Such as Lord Chancellor Simon of Sudbury,

Archbishop of Canterbury

And Robert de Hales

Grande Prior of the Knight’s Hospitaliery

Both who met their end quite quickly

Richard had audience with the people

They wanted a King and they wanted Him

They thought him innocent which is believable

And he seemed to find their demands reasonable

For he bade that every one be pardoned

Not that he kept his side of the bargain

At Smithfield they all met again

Where Walter Tyler further proclaimed

Demands that no man be chained

By villeany or serfdom

There should be one King whose name was not John

The Church own no land and it’s authority gone

That the same be true of the Nobles

That they just handed their property over

And that there should be but one law

That being the Common Law of Winchester

It was better One King over all commanding

Than scores of Barons all squabbles and bickering

Tyler is said to have gone to parley

With the King and his Party but there was a fray

Out of the Common Peoples sight

So the version we hear is from only one side

Wat Tyler we are made to believe

To King Richard behaved discourteously

Grabbing him and drinking a pitcher of water so rudely

That Mayor Walworth killed Wat to reproove him

Richard rode out and addressed the nervy crowds

Though very young he was good at speaking out loud

Lying to them that Tyler had been made a Knight

That they should simply go home it was all alright

Yet in a fortnight the instigators were tracked

And under torture perhaps on a rack

Jack Straw confessed the names of revolutionaries

They were found and it didn’t help him any

He was killed and John Ball and more

It was a job for the executioner

Richard or his ministers revoked their reforms

And everything went on much as before

The tax was back

The poor still lacked

Perhaps they had been inspired to react

By reading or hearing the bardic tract

Of just published Piers Ploughman

And his Pilgrims Progress

Which spoke to the reality of their life’s stress

Which with other emerging troubadour tales

Blew around Europe senses to regale

With imaginings beyond what had been before

Opening up a new life’s door

The Limousin Troubadour Bertran de Boron

Had been bored

Back at the start of the Plantegenet Court

Hearing endless tales gory and violent

He thought it boorish and must have made comment

Henry the Seconds idea of high art

Was a leap a whistle and a fart

Such level of accomplishment

Thought this de Boron it is evident

Would be quite an embarrassment

In the Courts he had been

Which appealed to the Queen

Eleanor of Aquitaine surely knew what he meant

For she with troubadours her youth had spent

Her Grandfather had been Duke William the Ninth

The Count of Poitiers who had spent much of his time

Womanising in far lands of Crusade

And learning the songs of the age

Passing them on or making them new

And he was considered quite risque too

He composed love songs to women who were married

Which technically with it the death sentence carried

But it all helped to loosen things up

And Eleanor as I poeticised brought the cup

Of the Grail in tales passed down

Through her the line of troubadour found

To hear of that Grail that Percival achieved

Such a story to believe!

That Cretain de Troyes and Wolfram von Essenbach

Would also have tracked

Slowly filling the ears and minds of folk

Stories written with an imagination to evoke

Ethical and spiritual codes

Feelings suggest in a modern mode

To teach it and enrich daily life

To help people through their plight

And bring in new frames of mind

From the Eastern lands sublime

Which had a very big impact

To a boorish country that

Was not quite so far advanced as it thought

Inside a small and violent mind set caught

The tenets of Courtly Love

Were taught at Eleanor’s behest

And they stood the test

Of time through violent ages

With another form of persuasion

The world of Courtesans

Who diplomatically understand

Their role where marriage can cause

Both friendship and wars

By the time of Richard the Second

These ideas were well reckoned

And it is said he ran his Court

With a great deal of these thoughts

Terry Jones has said that there was magic

Too bad his ending was tragic

He was misrepresented by history he argues

I’ve heard it said how unpopular he was

But the fact he was topped was a loss

Maybe I can give Richard some dues

And say his court was refined

And he wasn’t out of his mind.

It was Bollingbroke, his cousin

Who gave him that reputation

Richard had given too much

To favorites he unwisely trusted

Michael de la Pole, Robert de Vere and others

Who with Thomas Duke of Gloucester

Formed the Lord’s Appellant

Who tried and convicted five of Richard the Second’s

Closest advisors. For this the King made parliament

Execute three Lords and give two banishment

But when Richard went to quell an Irish rebellion

One of the Lords returned to be crowned by parliamentary concession

This was Bollingbroke I should mention

Richard on return had no support and was imprisoned

He was killed of course

First casualty in the Wars

Of the Roses caught

Between the houses of Lancaster and York

Since the time of Edward the Third

As you have briefly heard

Epos Propagandum (part 2)

The third crusade ended, pious idealism as well

The crusades that were to come were pretty sick I tell

Forty years later Turks took Edessa State

So Pope Eugenius III called the second Crusade

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux made it seem vogue

The Eastern Latin speaking states to go

To protect the land from the infidels once more

To fight for the Catholics another holy war

Kings Louis of France and Conrad of Germany

Soon set off upon the merry way

To meet in Acre then set off for Damascus

But they couldn’t get on and results were disasterous

Turks killed them all and they never arrived

And that was the end of the second try

Twenty years after that

A Sunni Kurdish warrior lad

Called Salah ed-Din had

Somehow brought all Moslem sects

Together to reject

The western intrusions

But not with total exclusion

He became Sultan of Egypt

Was naturally equipped

With diplomatic savvy

Such good relations had he

With Syrians Egyptians and Turks

That all prepared never to shirk

In ridding the Middle East

Of ruling Popes and Priests

His wisdom was in tolerance

Of religious observance
Surely it was better for him

Not to have his servants fighting

Amongst themselves

Might as well

Not hassle the Shi’ites but let them pray

Then all fight together on the battle day

Moslem and Christian respected him

That warrior that we call Saladin

Had more of an innate chivilary

That the Knights had ever dreamed to be
Around this time King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
Died young of leprosy gruesome

And Saladin much wanted the Crusader States

He went to the desert and stung Tripoli first

He goaded them out and they died of thirst

Acre was next

And then all the rest

Till Jerusalem

Was taken by Saladins’ men

Once he had victory

Ed-Din felt no need

To kill all his conquered

Like the Catholics did

I imagine them shuffling sheepishly home

Embarrassed at how the Crusades were going

Or maybe some stayed and learned quite a lot

Of what ways this strange eastern culture had got

Pope Gregory VIII called for the third crusade

To win back Jerusalem again

In Jesus’s holy name

There was King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany

Also King Phillip II of France

And it’s here where Richard the Lion Heart

Makes his dramatic entrance

Raping and pillaging in Normandy

Had made up most of his youthful days

Yet this was a man brought up with troubadours

And he wrote and sang a bit as well y’all

Especially when needing a ransom

Yes and of course he was handsome

Eager to crusade he sold much property

To finance his armies properly

Would have sold London if he had someone to buy

He once said that you know I don’t lie

He fell out with Phillip his friend on the route

Frederick drowned at Tarsus and then there were two

Who were not getting on and the Germans dispersed

Richard and Philip split up at first

Philip failed at Acre but Richard took Cyprus

Then they came together and were really quite decisive

Acre fell with no Saladin there to rally his men

Richard took the prisoners and just killed them

At which point Philip left saying he was ill

His French troops would follow French Richard still

But the chivalry of Saladin could only go so far

And he came with three times his foe in war

Yet Richard charged and soundly routed them

Then set off for Jaffa destination Jerusalem

But the French without their King would not follow through

So Richard captured Ascalon for something to do

Then set off again for Jerusalem but still could not win it

The Hospitalier and Templar Knights advised not to begin it

Saying even if it was took it could not be kept

A lesson today’s leaders would do well to recollect

Gazing from afar at the city Richard screens his eyes with a shield

Knowing he could not win it back or make the Persians yield

Yet he smashed Saladin at Jaffa with not that many men

Went on to claim a strip of coast but never Jerusalem

At which point they’d both had enough

For each other they were too tough

Saladin was sick of war

Richard wanted home once more

For he’d heard John his own kin

Was up to a bit of throne nicking

A peace treaty was writ and Richard kept his strip

Of Tyre to Jaffa plus Antioch and Tripoli

Muslems kept Jerusalem but Christian pilgrims could go there

Acre became the head crusader state and this is where

The third crusade ended, pious idealism as well

The crusades that were to come were pretty sick I tell

These Knightly jaunts to nab the land

Of turban wearing Saracans

Was to reconcile Byzantium

And Roman Churches into one

That’s what Urban II desired

But it seemed the plan backfired

The fourth Crusade was the coffin nail

Hammered in to make it fail

This time Pope Innocent III

Commissioned armies to go by sea

From Venice through the Med to Egypt

But they never achieved it

The chief Magistrate Doge of Venice

Said Hungary is a menace

They’ve taken our town of Zara

We don’t want them to get farther

If you go and use your sword blades

To Egypt I will give you free passage

So Zara was seized and given the sack

When the Pope heard this his mood turned black

He excommunicated the Crusaders and the Doge as well

For actions like that they would go to hell

Whilst in Zara the Byzantium King Alexius came by

Who wanted to be restored, with father to his pride

Of position in Constantinople

He wondered if they were noble

Enough to help them get set up as Kings

If they did it was quid’s in

Of course they obliged

But tensions ran high

And though the two were made co-emperors

The Crusaders just kicked in the Royaldoors

It seemed that no cash was forthcoming

So they smashed up the Palace and running

Round town they sacked the whole place

It was humanities worst disgrace

Citizens were massacred

Surely every acre bled

Looting rioting rape and fire

This was not a purpose higher

This was Constantinople’s new Latin Empire!

Never yet has the church split been mended

Down the centuries so many men dead

Causes no healing possible to make

What kind of message shall we take?

Pope Innocent called for a fifth Crusade

But died before it got underway

This time they got to Egypt and took port Damietta

But striving to realise their long spun vendetta

Many died of disease in the Nile Delta

Then were trapped en route to Cairo where fate dealt a

Telling but not so cruel blow

A truce returning Damietta and they all could go!

These Muslims did not want to kill for the sake of it

They must have had another take on it

A culture much grander had made them more wise

They saw not just power and carnage with their eyes

And news of this was breaking through

Into thick western skulls, who give them their due

Had never seen nothing like the east at all

And so bits of this knowing would change the whole world

The Sixth was a curious turn of events

And ones which could lead to no regrets

Pope Gregory IX made the call this time

Emperor Fred of Germany said he would. Fine

But he never set sail and the Pope had enough

Excommunication he gave from heaven above

But Fred sailed to Palestine and drew not his sword

Achieving a great deal with diplomatic words

Yes for a span of ten years duration

Nazareth and Bethlehem and Jerusalem

Were given as Crusader nations

From further east the Mongol Tribes

On tiny quick ponies west were riding

Over Asia to Bagdad with Genghis Khan

Khwarismian Turks turned tail and ran

In their turn they did Jerusalem it was 1244

Pope Innocent IV called for Crusade once more

And Saint Louis IX King of France

Said he’d give it a chance

Getting to Egypt it was Damietta again

Which he quite easily claimed

But heading for Cairo he was captured on the way

To free up the army a huge ransom had to be paid

Near Nazareth Muslim Mamluks stamped out the Mongols

Captured the Christian towns Caesarea and Jaffa and on to

Antioch which they Muslim made

This little action led to the eighth crusade

Which Louis IX took on but died of disease

When they had only reached as far as Tunis

Edward of England a chivalrous prince

Of all this fighting wasn’t convinced

Thought it all corrupt and Louis was gone

Thought diplomacy better and wasn’t wrong

He brokered ten years of truce

With those Egyptian Mamluks

Waited for his wife Eleanor to give birth

Back in England was crowned Edward the first

That was the end of the Crusades to the Holy Land

What a mockery of God’s holy plan!

Two other crusades remain

These not to the Holy Land

One was to Occitania in southern france

The Cathars were Christian but did their own thing

And this the weight of the State on them did bring

The North was wanting to extend its power

So dubbed them heretics and on them glowered

Till the Albigensian Crusade of 1209

Had them all exterminated in double time

More times soldiers set of on these parades

But I’ll end with the sad Children’s Crusade

Three thousand children both French and German

Set off to conquer the Holy Land

Nick and Steve were their military guides

They were all sold as slaves or died

Richard got called the Lionheart ‘Coeur de Lion’

Because he proved it beyond

Any doubt in the Holy Lands

Yet things didn’t go as planned and

Heading back home

Leopold the fifth of Austria

Accosted him somehow or other

Letting Byzantine Holy Roman Emperor brother

Henry the Sixth slam him in jail

This caused English complexions to pale

As the ransom was a third of the countries wealth

A special tax levied at the poor was dealt

And Eleanor had to make sacrifices of her own

While Richard composed and thought of his throne

When he got out he crushed the coup

That John had been trying to do

Also regained lands lost to Philip once his friend

Though that friendship had long met it’s end

A brutal and arrogant King of great violent force

The ‘Good King’ of children’s books of course

Was slain by a child with a crossbow bolt

In dying Richard bewailed that he was at fault

Had remorse for undutifulness to his Father Henry

Wishing they might be reconciled when he

Saw him in the next world fast approaching

So Richard the Lionheart was buried close to him

His half brother John

Had been dying to get on

That Throne

Now it was his own

‘Bad King’ is how he is usually stereotyped

Certainly wasn’t liked

For he taxed to the max

And abused the fine administration

From when his dad ruled the situation

Richard had taken the Throne

Which Henry never condoned

But John was never appeased with gifts of terratory

He had failed to rule in Ireland temporarily

But now he was King he could do anything

But his actions caused many changes to ring

He did have a hard time John the Bad

But I don’t think I’ll feel too sad

He teamed up with Philip to little avail

Could not corrupt his taxmen when Richard was in jail

Saw to the murder of his nephew

Lost his French Lands too

Spending years trying to get them back

Was called John Lackland ‘cause land he lacked

Excommunicated for not accepting the papal candidate

John was steadily sealing his fate

The barons were fed up with John’s dismal campaigns

Incurring some new tax they had to pay

So revolted, took London then some time after

Drew up a thing called the Magna Carta

This was in Runnymeade by the Thames

A piece of paper as a means to an end?

It all shows John up as an appaling King

Yet modern constitutions stem from this thing

It declared the rights of Feudal times

Here’s the briefest of outlines

1. The Church would elect it’s own people

2. Large sums had to be given under consent

3.No man to be punished exept under common law

John grudgingly signed but delayed

Biding time for French to invade

The Barons offered French Louis the Throne

But were kicking off quite well on their own

In the midst of this chaos John died

Invasion and revolts going off on all sides

His son Henry was only nine

And was put on the Throne at this time

When rebellion caused by John

Was with the barons in the North going on

London and the south east

Were controlled by the French Dauphin Louis

Though the Henry was not very old yet

He had loyalty from the Midlands and South West

William the Marshall , Henry’s first Regent

Teamed with Barons and got Louis out the Region

Louis favoured too many Frenchmen in his Court

A big battle at Lincoln was how Louis’ lesson was taught

He went back to France to be King

Where it was less hassle for him

William governed followed by Hugh de Burgh when the Marshall died

And Henry III ruled in earnest from age twenty five

The land owning barons were keen

That things didn’t carry on as they had been

Kept on about the Magna Carta

Always to make it harder

For the King to have such total control

And by the same feudal rules be held

Nobles Barons and freeman felt the same

They wished perceptions rearranged

To see England as a community lot

Rather than just bits and bobs

Of independent principalities

Patchwork quilt localities

Of Manors owned by a few

And villages scattered through

Barons also wanted a say

In matters of state

Called a great council together

Kicked out the Chancery and the Exchequer

So the power of the King

And the government machine

Was answerable to their new councillors

Saying the State couldn’t tax too much or

Act irresponsibly with it’s power

Hoping that this would allow a

Broader governance than before

With wise council and restricting laws

The Barons thought this would be a tonic

But still Henry wound them up something chronic

By installing Frenchmen in the government

And Italians in the church meant

Regular English couldn’t get a place

It was quite some disgrace

And that wasn’t half of it

The Church had grown a bit

Corruptly covering Europe

So had plenty of scope

For extorting money

From all and sundry

For instance the English had to finance

A myriad officials working all over Christendom

Had to provide work and parishes

For any Italians who to England had come

The Barons were right peeved at this

Acquiescense to papal control buisness

And asserted national independence

In 1258 things had come to a point

When failed campaigns in France and Wales

Meant Henry had to put his land up for sale

And somehow pay for loads of new churches

Rome punched in the purse where it hurts yes

The last straw was financing the Pope versus Sicily

Another dismal failure actually

The Barons demanded reform there and then

Henry was forced to make a bargain

Something called the Provisions of Oxford was signed

That the Barons had designed

Letting them control the Realm

Henry was still at the helm

But could do nothing without it being known

This was OK at first

But gradually got worse and worse

Till bickering brought it low

And cracks began to show

Then Henry asserted himself

Stuffed the Provisions where it hurts

And caused a Civil War

Henry’s son Edward I lost it in Lewes in 1264

The baronial winner was Simon le Montfort

Brother in Law to Henry in the Angevine Court

For both King and Son it was imprisonment

Whilst de Montfort had the government

He went down well because of his family

And because he took reform seriously

Simon knew smaller landowners needed a say

As well as the substantially more moneyed

So summoned Knights burgesses and baronial gents

To the world’s prototype parliament

Where high and low could speak their mind of words

In House of Commons and House of Lords

It didn’t strictly mean that the poor had a voice

They were spoken for and had no choice

This was what it lead to though not formalized yet

The idea was just settling when up came a new threat

Gloucester’s Earl dropped out and Edward did escape

Those two got together and to arms they did take

Simon de Montfort was at Evasham slain

Henry was released and resumed his reign

Though it was Edward who had the power

His father was old now and maybe a bit sour

A failed soldier, politician and what bites to the core

His era was Kingship restricted by Law

Edward by contrast seemed to grasp

The modern notions and take to task

The letter of the Law decreed

Which called a King supreme

Judge and legislator yet also deemed

His subjects to be protected

(This last bit his father had rejected)

The King should rule with advisers

To council on all matters arising

Apparently he did so good for him

Cared for his subjects did this King

Though he was shrewd with the cash flow

And made a mobile retinue

Comprised administrators judges clerks

Magnates who went as part

Of a King’s household and council

That anytime anyplace could fill

In forms and have a deep chat

Find out where it was at

And what to do for the best

When it came to England’s interests

His refining of laws decreased feudal holdings

As more and more land the crown was owning

And the King alone could make you a vassal

No more could you take your house to church and sell

The land was getting turned into commodity

Inch by inch was given to the Monarchy

People might have felt protected by their Lord

But on these fine points might have felt unsure

Writers report that he did very well

Certain it was that his coffers did swell

For those not his subjects foreign policy was aggressive

He walloped the Welsh to give them the message

King Lywelyn ap Gruffydd died and lost his country all

Wales was placed under English civil law

Edward built new castles there

And English Royals since then declare

Their eldest sons to be hailed

As mercy me, the Prince of Wales

He had small success in Celtic Ireland

Negotiated France but was drawn to stand

Against incursions from Philip of Gascony

Yet in the end made a peace treaty

And retained the land won in parley

That he had before the fight

Gentlemen’s agreement, alright

Scotland in the lowlands was feudal

And in the mountains it was tribal

Edward saught through negotiation

For Margret of Scotland to marry his eldest son

She was the legitimate heir

But died on the way there

Edward had cleverly got a right to intercede

As the Scots feudal Lord, can you believe!

So could choose from claimants and chose John Baliol

Who as Lord took Edward on

But the Scots would not fight for the English King

Who invaded and soundly kicked them in

Causing Baliol to abdicate

And Edward to take his place

The Scots well hated this

And William Wallace

Incited rebellion most stirring

And defeated the English at Stirling

The next year however Edward fought back

Defeating Wallace at Falkirk

For several years the resistance went on

Till Wallace was caught and faced execution

He died but others took up the bitter fight

Robert the Bruce an heir’s grandson had the might

Had some victory but nothing outright

Then Robert some tricks from a spider learned

And smashed Edward for good at Bannockburn

Thus for many centuries

Scots hated Sassanacks almost entirely

Foreign policy had cost Edward sore

So he instituted taxes to pay for these wars

The Great Council meetings now called Parliament

Now showed Edward what justice meant

In the Magna Carta there is the clause

That says no King is above his Laws

And that taxes are levied only with consent

Of the Realm as spoke for by Parliament

While all this was happening, over in Japan

There happened the birth of a remarkable man

Born in Awa Province to seaweed farmers

His name was Zennichimara

Which changed at 16 when he took his tonsure

The guy wanted to be a monk for sure

And Rencho was the name he took

His big question

For the Japanese nation

Was why if so many practised

So much to so many Buddhist

Gods then why was there everywhere war

Why was life so demeaned what was the cause

Of the earthquakes and disasters and marshall law

Did they truly portent doom for all

Why when the prayers were made

Did they not do their job and save

Why were streets so often full of corpses

Pestilence crime murder and disease

A year before his birth in 1221

A struggle had broken out that affected everyone

The Imperial Court had tried to break free

From the Regent Hojo Yoshitoki. Not so easy

The Shogunate military heavies did a coup

Deposed the Emperor and got someone new

People prayed much to a Buddha called Amida

He lived to the East in a realm far

Too far away to reach in this lifetime

But in the next one you’d be fine

Rencho studied all he could find

Read every text to fill his mind

With knowledge of Sutras Treatise and Law

Looking for truth searching for flaws

That compromised Shakyamuni’s original wish

He wanted to accomplish this

And grasp the kernel that transmits

The Buddha nature surely within

Epos Propagandum (part 1)

It was a sign of the times

At war with sons in France

He burnt the town of Mantes

Was injured as his horse

Stumbled in the smoking ruins

He was carried to Rouen

And was buried at Caen

Having died at St. Gervas

Along the way

He left four sons

Of which two became Kings

Had several daughters as well

His wife’s name was Matilda

Daughter to Count Baldwin of Flanders

So the House of Normany was underway

Such a plight it must be

For this plain butchery

Done with the divine right of kings

With god on their side

And violence and lies

More violence and killing it brings

Yet let us still look

At these legitimate crooks

And bear one more line that Bob sings

'Steal a little and they'll

Put you inside a jail

Steal alot and they'll make you a king'

The way things were divided led to problems

When William the first at last did die

William Rufus the Red got all of England

Normandy was Robert’s piece of pie

Henry youngest of the children

Just got five thousand bits of silver

This led to avarice and arrows in the eye

William the Red was cross and blasphemous

He taxed the Church for all it was worth

With his cunning minister Ranulf Flambard

They foxed the barons of their land and wealth

Robert was favoured as King by those barons

But didn’t show up for the show down

They rebelled but were quelled by William’s men

Robert wanted out of town

So he pawned off his Dukedom to Will boy

And went off to Crusade the Holy Lands

What occurred next seems inevitable

Very low and underhand

William was hated by everyone

For he taxed all right up to the hilt

Of course there is contraversy surrounding

The way in which he was killed

An arrow in the eye whilst out hunting

With Henry in the retinue

Perhaps seems a little bit obvious

But nobody really knew

His brothers not around

Henry picked up the crown

Right there and then without delay

He promised good reforms

A hope of course forlorn

When Robert returned in some dismay

In the fight that then ensued

It was Robert that did loose

At the Castle Tinchebrai

Much to his dismay

He was put in prison till his dying day

Now Henry was quite clever

And excelled in the endeavour

Of monetary reform for the crown

Because he was so sharp

He was nick named the ‘beauclerc’

But his skills did not please the papistry

The church it had been rising

A thought perhaps not surprising

Considering monies it received

From rich and poor

Clergical appointments

Henry saw fit to sell

This holy privatising

Didn’t go down well

Pope Pascal the second

Threatened excommunication

Henry wouldn’t get to heaven

If he carried on like this

The King said he would change

But only his words rearranged

And went on much as he had before

In conferring sacred offices

He rescinded his authority

That is the Divine Right of Kings

The Pope reckoned him as secular

And subservient nothing more

An uneasy split from a greedy flaw

Henry’s only son was drowned

When the White Ship went down

So he had no male heir to make a King

His daughter by wife Adelaide

Was the only card that could be played

So he recalled her from Germany

And married her to Geoffrey of Anjou

A political move of course

Because with France he was at war

With King Louis the Fourth

He could placate or give defiance

With an Angevine alliance

But when Geoffrey wanted castles

He said no

So began a second stupid inbred war

This one with a his own brother in law

Henry died is it not sad

To have so much and end so bad

What is it with these Kings

See what it is their action brings

At war with relatives and sons

Cannot be the best one

The result of all this killing

Surely is not soul fulfilling

That there seemed no other way

No little hints of life more fey

Where oh where could it be

Such is our sad history

Emperess Matilda or Maude

Must have felt like a political pawn

She was married off to two men

Nowhere near her age

The first was Henry the Fourth

Of Germany this was

He was titled Holy Roman Emperor

When he died she had to go back

To England because it lacked

Any other heir to the Throne

To Geoffrey the Fourth Count of Maine and Anjou

Her father made her say I do

Though he was eleven years her junior

And they had to proceed with due care

His emblem featured the planta genesti

The Broom plant the Plantegenet crest see

Of which I would ask please take good note

It’s one of the reasons for which I wrote

They didn’t get on at first

But things got better not worse

She did three sons begat

All were pleased at that

Their names were Henry Geoff and Will

When her father met the children

He argued with their dad

And that is what led to their little war so sad

When her father died

She probably did cry

But soon she had to lead the country on

Yet usurping his oath

Her cousin Steven no sloth

Was quick to steal what was not his

Probably at this while

She was pregnant with child

In Anjou unable England to go

But as soon as she could

She made well and good

And a long civil war began did ensue

Robert of Gloucester helped Matilda

Or her cousin would have killed her

And at Beverston Castle they did win

This was up in Lincon

Steven they imprisoned him

The title Queen she did not wish

But ‘Lady of the English’

Or Empress but the Pope did not like that

But she was haughty and arrogant

Which the English couldn’t tank

Manners maketh man and woman it seems

Even if you are a King or a Queen

So her rule came to not much at all

Steven later got free

Causing Matilda to flee

Oxford in a white cape in the snow

She went to Wallingford

She’d made such escapes before

Such as disguised as a cadaver

In their Civil war palava

When she had to flee Devizes

A girl full of surprises

But Rob of Gloucester soon was dead

She had to go to France instead

Steve of course took the Throne and sat there

Yet Maude’s eldest showed up the natural heir

He had an army in tow

Which changed things so

The Treaty of Wallingford was written down

Stating who would wear the one Royal Crown

Matilda went back to her own court in Rouen

Maybe she just couldn’t stand it too long

When she died she was buried in the Cathedral

Here’s what is written if go there you will

‘Here lies the daughter mother and wife of Henry’

And as epitaphs go it’s much better than many

These Queens were hardcore they lived it to the max

Giving birth to dynasties and dealing with the cracks

In their hearts or in the courts that they had made

There lives had held much fear and joy also love and dismay

Is it a bit of dragon line coming from old Anjou

Does it stare us in the face as I tell their tale to you?

Born at le Mans to Matilda and Geoffrey

Was Henry first King of the Plantagenet line

He married Eleanor of Aquitaine

And added her empire to his own tracts of land

The barons were trying to overcome Royalty

So he tore down their castles and smashed the revolt

Now a Knight could still show his loyalty

He could pay scutage and be a vassal of court

Mercenaries were bought when Knights themselves off

Now this was what the armies were made of

There was much quelling of Normandy

Fighting with the Queen’s ex the King of France

After years of Norman style Trial by Combat

Trial by jury once more had a chance

Textbook common law it was invented

Which very much the church resented

Because their power was undermined

There was a dispute big time

Thomas a Becket was the church spokesman

Once friend to Henry and Chancellor

Also Archbishop in Canterbury Town

In the end he was killed by assassins

In his own Cathedral cut down

Henry had been angry but never wanted this

Four over eager knights did the job

Excommunicated but he got back in again

Was penanced by the church

Who set their terms to work

Henry pilgrimaged to Normandy

Was flogged nude in public in his own town Avranches

Henry had sired many sons on many women

And there were problems with what to give them

With the legitimate ones it was very hard

Henry wanted John for King yet Eleanor was for Richard

Geoffrey was jealous and went for his brothers

He failed and Richard attacked Henry

Who died somewhat miserable that Richard had the crown

Not here to underestimate that great lady of Europe

Let us spend some time with her now

Elaine of Aquitaine

Was quite a free spirit it is said

Which makes a difference with this lot

The Crusades were underway by this time

And bringing new ideas over from Palestine

One of these might well be this ‘Courtly Love’

Of which evidence is scant enough

The rules seem to change or to be ad lib

Coming from the troubadours trouvers and poets lips

Breathing words of this fantastic love

Into a court ready to receive it’s fancy

Fantasy to relieve the tedium perhaps

With adultery or near it

Of a most chivilrous kind

Of high action from high mind

Of humility and courtesy refined

A wild times methinks I would suppose

Henry had so many women Eleanor probably lost count

Her mood it was ambivulant which leaves me little doubt

She half recalled an echo in that trouver’s silken song

That entertained a notion of a world not quite so wrong

Or restrained behind the bars of court imposed marriage

Of love that could go on in someone else’s carriage

Realistic probably consid’ring what was going on

Eleanor had listened to those troubadours for long

I see her sat listening to them telling tales of Peredur

Enthralled by the romance of it always wanting more

Hearing of the graal that Parzifal once dreamed

All in a magic landscape with nothing as it seems

Robert de Boron wrote down the tales already old

In Eleanor’s lifetime at the court they were told

It popularised the tale in a new era reborn

For the stories had origins in pagan times before

When the woman was the one who permitted Kings to be

And marriage was not a thing of eternity

How they must have sighed

And laughed and corred and cried

Flirting with les yeux d’amour

It was considered love’s highest form

Eleanor allowed the Grail to shine

Revealed it to us for all time

She heard how Joseph brought it

After years of imprisonment

To Glastonbury where a church set up

First communion with the blessed cup

Resonating through the years

The Grail responds as we revere

Purification with this vase

Was needed if a court decays

The Grail was symbol of holy grace

For God to heal you face to face

Eleanor’s life was long and crazy

With five sons she wasn’t lazy

Imprisoned fifteen years

For plotting against Henry

She grew sick of his philandering

Wasn’t having any

Went all the way to Spain across the Pyranees

When she was in her seventies

Outlived most of her sons

She really was a one

There had been unrest for decades

Infidels from Persia causing outrage!

Constantine’s mother Helena was

Convinced she had found the original cross

At the site Golgotha where Jesus was crucified

This indeed was a place to be sanctified

So was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built

In Jerusalem pilgrims could travel as they willed

For Constantine protected the terrain

He had made everyone Christian

Yet about the time of Artur in the West

So Mohammed also did rise to the East

In 638 Islamic Champions took Jerusalem

Antioch and Alexandria where Caliphs became

Controllers who to begin with were tolerant

To the Christians they behaved most clement

It could have been a risky road for to tread

But Caliph Harun al-Rashid gave pilgrims a bed

With Muslim tolerance a hostel did provide

Yet the next Caliph was not so inclined

Hakim destroyed the church persecuted all non Muslims

Said that there was one God and it was him

Persian Seljuk Turks were invited to Bagdad

To all pull together and be big and bad

To become Sunnite Islamic Champions

And take on the Shi’ite rulers Egyptian

Byzantium fell (That’s Istambul now)

Asia minor was closely followed

Soon Jerusalem was taken by Turkish men

Into this new Seljuk Syria of Saracens

Alexius Comnenus took the Byzantiam throne

A cunning man I think he to be shows

By playing one Turk off on another

In power games so he didn’t have to bother

They made their own wars amongst themselves

This for Christian pilgrims didn’t bode well

The treacherous road was now much worse

With bandits and infidels interspersed

But it came to the attention of the church

Who of course could not leave them in the lurch

Something had to be done

Hearts and minds to be won

Inspired by St. Augustine’s idea

Of penitential warfare

Pope Gregory the Seventh

Said Knights could kill and still get to heaven

God would see that you were let in

By setting up a Holy war to absolve the sin

The plan was to reunite the Eastern Byzantium Christians

With the Roman Catholic Church end the schizm

Between Constantinople and Rome

You can see where it’s going

Rome spoke latin it was greek in the east

How can an Empire run with two main seats

Doctrinally aided slow strangulation

Led to a mutual excommunication

East and west disparate Christians

Could be united in a common mission

Brought together to save the Holy Land

From that horrid different Turkish man

That Pope pledged he would lead himself

An army of Western Knights to help

Byzantium, (by then Constantinople that is)

By force to get rid

Of those un christian hordes

That were so deplored

Soon to the council of Piacenza

The King Alexius sends a

Message that military aid is needed

This Pope Urban II conceeded

And comes up with this prime propogandum

Carefully worded murder absolution

‘Deus le volt’ cried the mesmerized crowd

‘God wills it’ Now they were allowed

Back along William the Conqueror

Had had to do penance for

All the raping and pillaging

Not forgetting all the killing

That made the Norman Conquests

But the Crusades brought out the best

Solution to all that belligerant testosterone

In need of soul guidance

Now violence was penance

If you slaughtered a Persian

And this new version

Brought them in like hordes

It was perfect the church needed a way

To say that violence was OK

Because the knights and kings were mad for it

The clergy could not call it interdit

There was too much to gain for one thing

But you couldn’t besmirch the Name and bring

Dishonour and property loss to the Christian Church and State

And those Turks were worse than Heathens for goodness sake

The point was that the church was split in its’ power base

Between Byzantium and Rome in this case

The Vatican must have felt rather insecure

By preaching they whipped up a Holy war

Which is now called the first Crusade

Let us survey the some of the mess they made

Crusaders converged in Constantinople

Answering the Authority of the Pope’s call

Alexius shipped them over the Strait of Bosporus

They had the Anatolian Mountains to cross

But first sieged Nicaea it was a Turk stronghold

But Alexius wouldn’t let them take full control

Dorylaeum they routed with a hard knock

Then over the crags in the push to Antioch

They split up different routes to take

Each a little Holy war would make

Once through Asia Minor they were in Palestine

And so began the pentinance divine

Edessa was captured by Baldwin of Boulonge

He had come through Armenia and purloined

A Princess from there, was made King

The people seemed to want him

This was the first Crusader State

Almost handed like on a plate

Antioch took nine months of siege

And bribery before it was siezed

All Turks were slain

And there were still lain

When the armies of Mosul came and besieged

The besiegers and diseases

From rank hacked corpses

Put pay to some and brought morale low

Just then it seemed that Christ himself did show

That Holy Lance that pierced his side

Beholden to Bishop Adhemar of Puy’s eyes

In the Church of Saint Peter

That first patriarch believer

That preached in Antioch

Right here on the spot and in that plot

As true as Matthews gospel was written hereabouts

It must have come into his mind and given him no doubt

It was a sign from God of divine will

That they must their Crusades fulfill

And bearing that Lance he rallied them all

Till they rode in tight charges from those castle walls

Routing again their objects of hate

And after much squabbling made Antioch State

Adhemar died and was sorely missed by the men

Raymond of Toulouse pushed on for Jerusalem

Through Tripola and Lebanon to the mountains

Where he met the Maronites who were Christians

Who had resisted the Turks

Then on with the work

Jerusalem stood strong and tall

They couldn’t breach it at all

Till a priest had a vision of Adhemar

Who said for the Crusaders hard

To atone by fasting going barefoot round the city

Which they did and pretty quickly

Had taken Jerusalem and killed all Muslims and Jews

It was their way it was what they knew

Ironically Urban died two weeks after that

Never hearing of his coup d’etat

Most Crusaders went home having done their bit

Leaving the problem of how to run it

Jerusalem’s Crusader state was made

And so it wouldn’t fade

Knights Hospitalier and Templar were founded

To protect Pilgrims and run around

Protecting all the Holy ground

From infidel of an other faith

Yet it wasn’t all one way

Solomon’s Temple was of eight

Sided shapes

This design the Templars did take

And place all over Europe

And in Malta too

This sacred geometric tool

I have heard it said that the Western crew

Knew not what high culture they had blown into

Raymond went and did Tripoli

Which made four states and lots of lolly

So the first crusade was complete

But there were to be repeats

Forty years later Turks took Edessa State

So Pope Eugenius III called the second Crusade

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux made it seem vogue

The Eastern Latin speaking states to go

To protect the land from the infidels once more

To fight for the Catholics another holy war

Kings Louis of France and Conrad of Germany

Soon set off upon the merry way

To meet in Acre then set off for Damascus

But they couldn’t get on and results were disasterous

Turks killed them all and they never arrived

And that was the end of the second try

Twenty years after that

A Sunni Kurdish warrior lad

Called Salah ed-Din had

Somehow brought all Moslem sects

Together to reject

The western intrusions

But not with total exclusion

He became Sultan of Egypt

Was naturally equipped

With diplomatic savvy

Such good relations had he

With Syrians Egyptians and Turks

That all prepared never to shirk

In clearing the Middle East

Of ruling Franks and their Priests

Yet his wisdom was in tolerance

Of religious observance
Surely it was better for him

Not to have his servants fighting

Amongst themselves

Might as well

Not hassle the Shi’ites but let them pray

Then all fight together on the battle day

Moslem and Christian respected him

That warrior that we call Saladin

Had more of an innate chivilary

That the Knights had ever dreamed to be
Around this time King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
Died young of leprosy gruesome

And Saladin much wanted the Crusader States

He went to the desert and stung Tripoli first

He goaded them out and they died of thirst

Acre was next

And then all the rest

Till Jerusalem

Was taken by Saladins’ men

Once he had victory

Ed-Din felt no need

To kill all his conquered

Like the Catholics did

I imagine them shuffling sheepishly home

Embarrassed at how the Crusades were going

Or maybe some stayed and learned quite a lot

Of what ways this strange eastern culture had got

Pope Gregory VIII called for the third crusade

To win back Jerusalem again

In Jesus’s holy name

There was King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany

Also King Phillip II of France

And it’s here where Richard the Lion Heart

Makes his dramatic entrance

Raping and pillaging in Normandy

Had made up most of his youthful days

Yet this was a man brought up with troubadours

And he wrote and sang a bit as well y’all

Especially when needing a ransom

Yes and of course he was handsome

Eager to crusade he sold much property

To finance his armies properly

Would have sold London if he had someone to buy

He once said that you know I don’t lie

He fell out with Phillip his friend on the route

Frederick drowned at Tarsus and then there were two

Who were not getting on and the Germans dispersed

Richard and Philip split up at first

Philip failed at Acre but Richard took Cyprus

Then they came together and were really quite decisive

Acre fell with no Saladin there to rally his men

Richard took the prisoners and just killed them

At which point Philip left saying he was ill

His French troops would follow French Richard still

But the chivalry of Saladin could only go so far

And he came with three times his foe in war

Yet Richard charged and soundly routed them

Then set off for Jaffa destination Jerusalem

But the French without their King would not follow through

So Richard captured Ascalon for something to do

Then set off again for Jerusalem but still could not win it

The Hospitalier and Templar Knights advised not to begin it

Saying even if it was took it could not be kept

A lesson today’s leaders would do well to recollect

Gazing from afar at the city Richard screens his eyes with a shield

Knowing he could not win it back or make the Persians yield

Yet he smashed Saladin at Jaffa with not that many men

Went on to claim a strip of coast but never Jerusalem

At which point they’d both had enough

For each other they were too tough

Saladin was sick of war

Richard wanted home once more

A peace treaty was writ and Richard kept his strip

Of Tyre to Jaffa plus Antioch and Tripoli

Muslems kept Jerusalem but Christian pilgrims could go there

Acre became the head crusader state and this is where