GOWER'S "VOX CLAMANTIS" AND USK'S "TESTAMENT OF LOVE"

Abstract

If any connection between John Gower and Thomas Usk is conceded by literary critics it is usually the view that Gower knew the Testament of Love, but that his amusement or disdain on reading it led to his playful urging of Chaucer to get on with making his own `testament of love'.1 These words of Gower's, therefore, have long been viewed as a possible satirical reference to Usk's alignment of himself in the Testament with Chaucer as a fellow servant of love, an alignment which may not have been to Chaucer's liking.2 This account fits neatly with recent discussions about the insular nature of London's literary scene at this time, which existed as reading circles or coteries, embracing clerks, lawyers, merchants, civil servants, and scribes.3 Yet, there possibly exists a further connection between John Gower and Thomas Usk, and more particularly between the Vox clamantis and Usk's Testament. It seems that Usk knew and consciously alludes to the Vox clamantis, something which appears to have previously escaped notice. The importance of this connection is that it throws further light on the way in which the Testament should be read, its political nature, and its possible intended audience, and it augments the view that, through London's close-knit literary environment, Usk hoped to advance his career. In the Testament, Usk narrates his disastrous past involvement in London politics of the early 1380s. He had turned from being a scribe to a political activist for his employer John Northampton, mayor of London, who hoped that various forceful measures would win him re-election as mayor in 1383. However, these measures failed, and his party's continued conspiratorial attempts at regaining power led to the arrest in 1384 of its key members including Usk.4 Usk was imprisoned by Northampton's opponent, Nicholas Brembre, who was now mayor of London and whose party were keen royal supporters, providing considerable financial backing for the King. It was while he was imprisoned that Usk decided to give evidence against Northampton, exposing through a personally written deposition or 'appeal' the subversive activities of his party, and becoming chief witness for the crown at the trial of Northampton.5 Though Usk implicated himself in these activities, he hoped for the King's mercy in return for what he revealed.' To an extent he received this, for on z4 September 1384 he was granted a royal pardon, and by 1386 he was employed in the King's service as a sergeant-atarms, receiving further royal favour in 1387, when he was made under-sheriff of Middlesex.7 The Testament was most likely to have been written during 1385-6 following Usk's 1384 royal pardon (as this is mentioned in the text), and while he awaited 'reward' for his actions against Northampton.8 Usk possibly sought to woo this, as it was long in coming, by penning the Testament, a work of selfpropaganda and self-exoneration designed to appeal to Brembre's royalist party. Throughout book I he makes reference to his loyalty to Northampton's party, his realization that his allegiance is misplaced, his subsequent actions against Northampton, his royal pardon, the slander he suffers, and his ensuing hopes and disappointments;10' this opening book is, therefore, sometimes viewed as Usk's political apology.11 Usk's personal history of alleged political misguidedness and correction is first relayed obliquely in an allegorical mode. The 'Shippe of Traveyle' episode12 tells how 'thinkinge alone' he walked out one winter in a wood reminiscent of Dante's selva oscura, when suddenly he was frightened by `grete beestes ... and herdes gonne to wilde'. He is so alarmed that, nearing a `see-banke', he cries out to a passing ship, and is helped aboard by several allegorical figures: Sight, Lust, Thought, and Will. The ship - which Usk names the 'shippe of Traveyle' - enters a storm, but eventually is driven to an island's safety, where Love waits on the shore, and where Usk discovers the finest of pearls, the Margarite, and where he determines to remain, avowing his eternal service to the Margarite. …