Talk:Sir Patrick Spens

message: All these verses are better suited to Wikisource. Goldfritha 23:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikisource

message: The entry supports the commonly held belief that the poem relates to the 13th century story of Queen Margaret, the 'Maid of Norway' and I thought I might add a few notes taken from an article on the ballad by the Scottish historical author Nigel Tranter which is based on a close reading of the poem.  All of the quotes below are taken from the Tranter article.
In an article in The Scots Magazine, February 1969 (pp. 420-427), the Scottish author and historian Nigel Tranter argued that Sir Walter Scott was responsible for the grand and highly romanticised reading of the Ballad both through his version of the poem in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border and in the historic notes Scott included which identified the poem as relating to the bringing of Princess Margaret of Norway to Scotland in the 13th century.  Tranter argued that the poems origins was as a satyre, possibly composed by the Master of Gray three centuries later.
Historical discrepancies:
Tranter admits to the Spens grave on Papa Stronsay as fitting into the ballad in some ways.  However, as has often been discussed, the identities of Sir Patrick Spens and the King who orders his sailing have no certain historic foundations.  There are many historical difficulties, for instance as Walter Scott himself acknowledged the idea of the Scottish King ordering that Princess Margaret of Norway be brought to Scotland makes no sense as the king was already dead, the reason the child was brought to Scotland was that Alexander the Third had been killed falling from a horse and there was a resulting crisis of succession. 
 
Style
Also even though Ballads are not expected to be an accurate reflection of history a close reading of the poem such as the description of the foundering of the ship with the Scots Lords fearing that their fashionable cork heeled shoes might get wet and eventually ending up with their hats wet as they drown suggests a comic reading, "Sheer comic stuff this" as Tranter himself puts it. 
16th century reading
Tranter's main argument is that the identity of the King of the Ballad is King James the Sixth of Scotland who also became King James the First of England and married a Danish Queen.  The reign of James bridges the 16th and 17th centuries, several hundred years after the Maid of Norway, but as Tranter points out firstly the style of the poem suggests a later writer and bears no resemblance in style to the writings of earlier 13th & 14th century Scottish chroniclers such as Barbour, Blind Harry or Fordoun; and secondly the various versions of the ballad bear such close resemblance to one another as to suggest an original source which was written rather than oral.  Also the description of Scots lords wearing cork heeled shoes and sleeping on feather beds suggests the aristocrats of the latter half of the 16th century, not the warrior knights of the 13th century. 
James VI as candidate for the king
James VI had a strong interest in Dunfermline in the years after the Reformation when Scots nobles fought over church lands and King James finally secured the lands of Dunfermline with it's great income for himself and bestowed the lands on his new wife, Anne of Denmark.  
Tranter argues that the surname Spens was probably not in existence in the 13th century but notes that there was a Spens connected to James VI, Sir James Spens of Wormiston, provost of Crail in Fife, who was sent to the King of Sweden as James's ambassador.
The Master of Gray as possible author?
Finally Tranter argues that a satyre requires a target and suggests James VI as the most likely candidate.  James was a figure of fun as well as fear at the Scottish court.  His alleged homosexuality and preference for young boys was known which fits with the alternative lines which appears in some versions of the Ballad in which :-
Up and spak a bonny boy,
Who sat at the king's right knee''
His lack of physical courage was also widely perceived.  After the failure of a Scottish embassy to secure the marriage of James to Anne of Denmark James took the surprising decision to sail to Denmark himself to secure the alliance, "the only great adventure in James's sadly humdrum and pedestrian life".  Tranter states that "This was utterly contrary to character, for James hated the sea, disliked strangers, was terrified of the unusual, and ever feared disaster."  On his return voyage with his newly won 15 year old bride his ship was struck by a storm at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, a not uncommon occurance, but one which James quickly attributed to the paranormal, leading to his vicious witch trials.  Thereafter "The king was to "dine out" on this epic tale, with embellishments, for the rest of his life - to the dire boredom of his court and associates."  
Tranter argues that as far as authorship is concerned it is likely to have been a courtier and in James's court (my note - a Renaissance court contemporary with the Elizabethan court of Shakeseare...I also wondered at similarities with Plato's Ship of State and the opening scene of Shakespeare's The Tempest) which produced such writers as Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, Lord Lyon King of Arms and the author of The Thrie Estaitis, although Tranter eliminates Lindsay as a possible author as he was born around 1490 and his writing career must have long pre-dated the events of James's voyage. Tranter does note some of the lines of Sir Patrick Spens as bearing some resemblance to the 16th century ballad The Bonny Earl o' Moray, and suggests that the anonymous author may have written both ballads.  Tranter goes on to make a very tentative suggestion as to the identity of that author, that The Bonny Earl o' Moray also hints at illicit relations between James's queen, the same Anne of Denmark, and the earl of Moray and that the courtier who had the skills to write such a ballad and the political reasons for doing so would be Patrick, Master of Gray.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamiemcginlay (talk • contribs) 20:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Identity of Author and nature of poem