Le Morte
Darthur is undoubtedly the last definitive
interpretation of the Arthurian myth before the dawn of the English Renaissance.
Yet the identity of its author, Sir Thomas Malory, the knight prisoner,
remains as elusive and as mysterious as the knights who inhabit his book.
How can the extoller of knightly honor, courtly love and chivalric duty
be himself accused of robbery, extortion, attempted murder and rape -- felonious
acts which belie those noble sentiments expressed throughout the pages of
the Morte? So the question arises -- who is the historical Sir Thomas
Malory and how can we account for the massive discrepancy between the man
and his work?
Sir Thomas
Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire "was born into a gentry family that
had lived for centuries in the English Midlands near the point where Warwickshire,
Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire meet. His father, John Malory, was
an esquire with land in all three counties, but was primarily a Warwickshire
man, being twice sheriff, five times M.P. and for many years a justice of
the peace for that county. John married Philippa Chetwynd... and they had
at least three daughters, and one son, Thomas, who was probably born within
a year either way of 1416" (Field 115).
Of Sir Thomas
Malory's early years, "almost nothing is known." As a young man of 23,
records reveal that he was a "respectable country landowner with a growing
interest in politics" (115). He "dealt in land, witnessed deeds for his
neighbours, acted as a parliamentary elector, and by 1441 had become a knight"
(115). As P.J.C.Field notes: "In late medieval England, taking up knighthood
could be expensive, and doing so may imply political and social ambition"
(115). Sir Thomas married Elizabeth Walsh of Wanlip in Leicestershire, who
later bore him a son, Robert. Perhaps something of the mythically infamous
rogue breaks through this concordant scene when in 1443, Malory was "charged
with wounding and imprisoning Thomas Smith and stealing his goods, but the
charge apparently fell through" (115). However, in 1445, he "was elected
M.P. for Warwickshire" and served "on commissions to assess tax-exemptions
in the county" (115).
The year 1449
"was a time of increasing division and unrest in the country, which was
eventually to lead to civil war" (116). Up to this time, Malory's life seems
to have all the markings of a traditional country gentleman, but then "with
the new decade," observes Field, "Malory's life, for no known reason, underwent
a startling change" (116). What this change entailed is obvious from the
following account, but the impetus behind it remains enigmatic, although
party politics, as usual, may have played a pivotal role.
On January
4, 1450, "[Malory] and 26 other armed men were said to have laid an ambush
for [the Duke of] Buckingham in the Abbot of Combe's woods near Newbold
Revel" (116).
On May 23,
1450, Malory "allegedly rapes Joan Smith at Coventry. The charge
is not of abduction but of rape in the modern sense: it says cum ea carnaliter
concubit,'he carnally lay with her.'?It was, however, brought not by
Joan under common law, but by her husband under a statute of Richard II
intended to make elopement into rape even when the woman consented" (121).
On May 31,
1450, Malory "allegedly extorts money by threats from two residents of Monks
Kirby" (121).
On August 6,
1450 Malory "allegedly rapes Joan Smith again and steals 40 pounds worth
of goods from her husband in Coventry" (121).
On August 31,
1450, Malory "allegedly commits extortion from a third Monks Kirby resident"(121).
On March 5,
1451, a warrant is issued for his arrest, and a few weeks later "he and
various accomplices were alleged to have stolen cattle in Warwickshire --
7 cows, 2 calves, 335 sheep, and a cart worth 22 pounds at Cosford, Warwickshire
(116-22). Buckingham, taking with him 60 men from Warwickshire, attempts
to apprehend Malory, but "in the meantime Malory apparently raided Buckingham's
hunting lodge, killed his deer, and did an enormous amount of damage" --
500 pounds worth (116-22).
Malory was
finally "arrested and imprisoned at Coleshill, but after two days escaped
by swimming the moat [at night]. He then reportedly twice raided Combe Abbey
with a large band of [one hundred] men, breaking down doors, insulting the
monks, and stealing a great deal of money" (116-22). By January 1452, Malory
"was in prison in London, where he spent most of the next eight years waiting
for a trial that never came" (116).
Yet Malory's
adventures continued. He was "bailed out several times, and on one occasion
seems to have joined an old crony on a horse-stealing expedition across
East Anglia that ended in Colchester jail. He escaped from there too, 'using
swords, daggers, and langues-de-boeuf' (a kind of halberd), but was
recaptured and returned to prison in London. After this date he was shifted
frequently from prison to prison, and the penalties put on his jailers for
his secure keeping reached a record for medieval England" (116-7).
"During Henry
VI's insanity, when the Duke of York was Lord Protector, Malory was given
a royal pardon," which the court dismissed. Once the Yorkists invaded in
1460 and had expelled the Lancastrians, Malory was "freed and pardoned.
He was never tried on any of the charges brought against him" (117).
Malory repaid
his deliverers by taking "part in Edward IV and the Earl of Warwick's expedition
against the castles of Alnwick, Bamburgh, and Dunstanborough..., which the
Lancastrians had seized. The castles were taken, and Malory settled down
to a more peaceful life" (117-26).
Yet, Malory
seems to have "changed sides" once more. In 1468 and again in 1470, "he
was named in lists of irreconcilable Lancastrians who were excluded from
royal pardons for any crimes they might have committed. Most of those excluded
were at liberty; but the Morte Darthur shows us that Malory was in
prison, completing his work" (117).
In October
1470, when the Lancastrians returned to power, "among their first acts was
freeing those of their party who were in London prisons. Six months later,
Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel died and was buried under a marble tombstone
in Greyfriars, Newgate, which, despite its proximity to one of the jails
in which he had been imprisoned, was the most fashionable church in London.
On the day of Malory's death, King Edward landed in Yorkshire, and two months
later the Yorkists were back in power" (117).
Although "the
original tombstone was destroyed, ... its inscription survives in this early
sixteenth-century transcript, which calls [Malory] valens miles ('valient
knight') of the parish of Monks Kirby in Warwickshire and says he died on
14 March 1470, which (since the year began on 25 March) is what is now called
1471" (126). And so, the ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox which surround
the man remain.
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