Sedgemoor -52 poem collection by Malcolm Povey from 2006

                                                Interview with A Poet

Reading History 

 Here, on the beach, west of the Cobb,

They landed, Monmouth and 82 men.

Eager to free England, Not sure how,

A bit like Clinton in Kosovo.

Hoping for a rising;

Riding out of the West;

Hoping old Jamie Milosevice

Would do the decent, hand over 

His land to the Proddy dog,

Hoping. 

                          

In a previous post  I quoted from Malcolm Povey's  poetry collection 'Sedgemoor', from 2006, published by Smokestack Books . Malcolm also has another collection of poetry 'Missing' , about the illness and loss of his wife Jackie from breast  cancer ( 2016- also available from 'Smokestack') , and his most recent poems feature in the  magazine Acumen

Malcolm's poetry is stark, very visual , no word is wasted. Hard hitting with a great sense of humanity. And  ' Sedgemoor' looks at the events of 1685, and finds strange parallels with the early 21st century. I was very pleased to get an interview with Malcolm conducted via email. We don't always have the same approach to the Monmouth Rebellion but there is a lot to admire in Malcolm's work . 

1, An obvious one, why did you find the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 such a potent source for writing poetry in the 2000s? 

I read Chacksfield's 'The Dorset and Somerset Rebellion,' a vivid account of a rebellion I'd never heard of although I live in Dorset. It left with me with an image of a long line of men marching through the dark to attack the King's army, I wondered why on earth they took on such a brave, maybe foolhardy, task and decided to write a novel about it. I did a lot of research but to my surprise found I was writing poems which suggested clear parallels between the Rebellion and contemporary events, the Balkan Wars, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the state's use of bombing and torture in these wars. The radicalism of the rebels, their desire for freedom and equality also inspired me. I wasn't particularly interested in Monmouth but felt the men who fought so bravely for a better country deserved to be commemorated. I prefer to call it, as many do 'The Dorset and Somerset Rebellion' as calling it 'The Monmouth Rebellion' focuses on aristocrats instead of the working people who were the majority of the rebels. 

2. What do you say to people who although they may have some sympathy with the wretched plight of the captured rebels, feel that if the Monmouth Rebellion had been more successful in military terms, this may have led to a long drawn out ghastly civil war?

Most people, I think, would have been glad to see the back of James the Second. Whether there would have been a civil war or not never occurred to me, and no-one can say. 'Warning Shot' though raises the possibility that if the rebels had won, we might have had a repressive Puritan state emerge. On the other hand, 'Memorial' the last poem in the book, argues that we still live in a world of widespread poverty and inequality with no obvious indications that will change. In fact inequality is getting worse nearly everywhere. 

3. How far do you think  that anti-Catholic bigotry was manipulated by the Duke of Monmouth to gain support in 1685? 

I wouldn't call it bigotry. People didn't want to live in a Catholic state and it looked like the king wanted to establish one. If I could rewrite history, the republicans among Monmouth's supporters would set up a secular republic. Something that sadly has still not happened. 

The Bureaucracy of Pain 1

After the Battle of Sedgemoor,

To kill four rebels at Bath required;

Rope to throttle them;

Firewood to burn their bowels;

A furnace to boil their heads

And hacked off quarters;

Two pecks of salt for pickling,

And spears and poles on which to stick

The boiled and pickled product. 

4. Looking at  'The bureaucracy of Pain' sequence of poems, I am impressed by how you detail the simple mechanics of getting rebels executed in towns where the civil authorities were so ill prepared for such punishments. How far do you think that the Bloody Assizes were intended to intimidate or even punish the region as a whole? 

There's no doubt whatsoever that the Bloody Assizes were intended to intimidate and punish the whole region. And to frighten the rest of England. Why else would you display the body-parts of those who had been hanged, drawn and quartered in towns and villages all over the South-West, including at places like Wiveliscombe where no rebels have been identified but the population were compelled to watch the execution of William Luscombe brought in especially for the occasion and left hanging in the village for months as described in 'Pour Encourager les Autres'.

5. In the poem 'After Sedgemoor' I like how the 'cream teas' view of the West Country is juxtaposed with local people in 1685 having to walk past the body parts of executed rebel friends and relatives. Do you want to say more about the poem and how the aftermath of the Rebellion impacted on the region?

I don't like the heritage industry and how it glosses over the savagery of the past. It also ignores England's long radical tradition. I don't know the West Country very well at all but my impression is that people are more independent-minded than those in the Home Counties seen perhaps in their support for Liberal Democrats and more admirably in their dethroning of the Colston statue. But then again, some of them voted for Rees-Mogg. One reason the Rebellion failed is that many of the powerful men who had promised support stayed at home once they realised their property and lives were at risk. I suppose the answer is that some were glad the Rebellion failed and some were heart-broken. I read somewhere that for many years the Queen's Regiment, descended from the Guards who won at Sedgemoor, did not dare recruit at Taunton because of the bad feeling against them. 

6. The poems in the collection do not seem to say much about the transportation of convicted rebels. Is there a reason for this ?

They do mention it and draw a parallel between transportation and rendition, eg the last line of 'Aftermath' refers to the "rendering to the Caribee" but it's not a major theme. 'Sedgemoor' is a book of poems, not a history, and poems come as they will. I didn't then know much about the lives of the transported would have faced and still don't.

7. What books/dramas/ poems would you recommend that reference the Duke of Monmouth and the Monmouth Rebellion?

When I began writing, I didn't know of any literary treatment of an event which I thought should be much better known. Once underway, I discovered that 'Lorna Doone' (1869) by R D Blackmore deals with it, but only as context for the romance. 'Micah Clarke' (1889) by Arthur Conan Doyle is a much fuller historical novel, very good on the religious passions but with some mistakes .

There are many history books. The most inspiring to me were :

Chacksfield, I Merle. 'The Dorset and Somerset Rebellion' (1985-Dorset Publishing Co.) A brief, vivid account of the rebellion which triggered the image of the men marching through the dark which led to the poems.

Earle, P, 'Monmouth's Rebels' ( 1977, Weidenfeild and Nicholson) . Earle corrects the patronising dismissals of the rebels and their actions found in earlier historians.

MacDonald Wigfield, W;  'The Monmouth Rebels 1685' ( 1985, Somerset  Record Society) A detailed list of nearly 4000 rebels compiled from court and official records, giving names, occupation, villages or towns and sentencing and transportation details. It's very moving and thought provoking. 

Clifton, R ; 'The Last Popular Rebellion' ( 1984, Morris Temple Smith) . A scholarly analysis of the economic, historical and political context.

Norbrook, David ; 'Writing the English Republic' ( 1999, Cambridge University Press) Norbrook argues that the republican tradition in English poetry and prose has been 'written out' by conservative critics. 

INTERVIEW ENDS

Memorial 

The land stretches wide and flat and lush.

Beneath a sky shifts from grey to pearl to grey 

Corn grows unbloodied in the humid rush,

Though Chedzoy corn sopped red that day.

The flatness runs for miles until the low flanks,

Of the Polden Hills, and, three hundred years back,

Men raced for miles across that flat, ranks

Broken, fleeing from their failed attack.

Only a plaque reminds, not far beneath your feet,

Is the mass-grave of hundreds who didn't reach those hills....

The collection 'Sedgemoor' costs £7.97 plus £3.00 postage & packing Smokestack Books catalogue

Thank you to Malcolm Povey for being interviewed and for giving permission to quote from his poetry.  

Appreciate all visits to this blog and hope that all readers will stay safe and well during these troublesome times. 

More 17th century related history can be found here on the other blog that I am working on. 

A Burnt Ship 

Michael Bully 

Brighton 

10th July 2021. 

 Currently working on Bleak Chesney Wold  Charles Dickens /'dark' Victoriana blog , Monmouth Rebellion research on hold for the present. Michael Bully , March 2023