Anon The Oath at Beggars Bush c.1615

The Oath at Beggars Bush or to Make a Man a Fool is an unpublished manuscript poem collected in Wales. The poem contains advice to a countryman travelling to London. The phrase does not appear in the text. The usage in the title is mocking – the advice in the verse would lead the reader to look foolish and lose all credit. It is in keeping with other works which treated country people visiting London as foolish; “coneys”, “gulls” or “clowns”.

If any man ask you wheare you weare wont to lodge
in London say you are at white lion in the Southwarke
Att your first coming to London learne howe farre it is from
Fleet Street to Temple Barre and wch is the best waye
And how many miles by land is from Westminster to Lambeth and not to cross the Thames.
An also learne how farre it is from the bourse to the Royall Exchange

Usage

I have only reproduced the first verse as the character of the work is clear from this. The White Lion in Southwark was the Surrey county gaol; it was recorded by 1586. Temple Bar, a wooden gate with a gaol over it, marked the end of Fleet Street where it became The Strand. Westminster is on north bank of the river Thames and Lambeth is opposite on the south bank – a journey from one to the other without crossing the river was a very long way! The Royal Exchange was the “bourse”, built by Sir Thomas Gresham to rival those of Antwerp and Venice. It was known as such before the visit of Queen Elizabeth enabled it to take grander title.

There are several more paragraphs of advice to travellers under headings such as For the waye and At your Inn and Lodgings which are the opposite of good manners and good sense. For example;

• “In all companies you must never drinke to man if there be a woman to your liking” -which is risky anywhere but especially so at the time when Toasting was a well known cause of strife in the early modern period.

• “In every place where you room to avoid cosenage  you must feele the maid[ens] whether they be men or women” – which may have prevented being cheated, but only at the expense of provoking something worse.

• It should need no imagination to understand the foolishness of the advice that if on the road you catch a “goose see you keepe her [a]loft in your coddpiece”!

Text

The anonymous manuscript is part of a collection of mainly genealogical material The Bennett Pedigree Book compiled by the nineteenth century antiquary George Grant Francis. It is not dated but appears just after “Observations on the funeral of Henry Fredrick Prince of Wales . . . 1612” with other material of similar date. The collection includes a genealogical puzzle in the form of a riddle and another nonsense item “The arms of usurers and lawyers”. There is no further provenance.

Francis was born in Swansea, was one of the founders of the Royal Institution of South Wales in 1835, its librarian from 1840-1879, and later President. The Bennett Pedigree Book, contains pedigrees, charters, surveys and other materials relating to the history of Glamorgan and Gower for the period c.1606-1700. The original compiler is not known but the name and initials of William Bennett appear several times.

Source

West Glamorgan Archive Service, George Grant Francis Collection, Reference code(s): GB 0216 GGF The Bennett Pedigree Book

RISW GGF 2 pp. 3-4 The Oath at Beggars Bush or to make a man a fool n.d. c.1615 [2 papers, originally B1 p.3-4]

Posted: March 28th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Literary, proverb | No Comments »