Mastering Complaint: Michael Drayton'sPeirs Gavestonand the Royal Mistress Complaints

Abstract

Michael Drayton's poem Peirs Gaveston tells the story of Edward II's doomed lover and is modeled closely on the royal mistress complaint poems of the 1590s, and reading the poem through the genre is illuminating. The poem differs from its models significantly, however, in that the royal “mistress” of Drayton's poem is male. This difference signifies politically, and the poem demonstrates the dangerous power of male royal consorts who translate their erotic sway into active political power. Pointed parallels with the royal mistress complaint poems accentuate the consequences for rulers in taking male lovers, and Drayton makes connections between Gaveston's use of the penetrative sexual position with his increasing political power and authority over Edward II. In distinction, the female royal mistress poems in fact tend to minimize the political power the historical women actually wielded; whereas their power is contained by the complaint poems, Gaveston's is magnified. Gaveston frames his relationship in the language of humanist friendship, but he uses the rhetoric of friendship and its mirroring imagery as part of his strategy for achieving first equality and then dominance over the King. For Drayton, the royal mistress complaint genre functions as both precursor and foil to Peirs Gaveston. (K.Q.)