A godless truce – the scribe’s tale

This poem, from my last collection Guerrilla Country, takes the Magna Carta negotiations at Runnymede beside the Thames in 1215 as its starting point. Written in the sceptical – if not downright cynical – voice of one of King John’s scribes, the poem sets the scene and suggests that, like most ceasefires, everyone knows this won’t hold. (And so it proved, fighting between the king and the rebel barons resumed within weeks.)

The poem’s title, A godless truce, was formulated in opposition to the mediaeval idea of a ‘Truce of God’ (Treuga Dei), a temporary cessation of hostilities, called ostensibly for religious reasons.

Runnymede is thought to have been a traditional site of political negotiations since long before the Norman invasion, hence the reference to these bad faith negotiations dishonouring the location’s history.

Funny how an entirely contingent and – on its own terms – failed peace agreement nevertheless gave rise to what became such an important element of governance, fairness and the rule of law in the UK and far beyond. Unintended outcomes, eh?

A godless truce—the scribe’s tale
Runnymede, June 1215

Skylarks sound constant alarm,
two kites swoop low from heath beyond the hill,
attending scattered groups of noble men
who meet with power and protocol—
great lord to greater lord, and
greater lord to crown—while we look on.
But eye holds eye, beneath the heraldry,
as greater men look down on lesser king.

Five mornings, from their rival camps
upstream and down they’ve ridden here
to walk through new-mown hay
and sit beneath blue sky and alders
talking intermittently
of daughters, sons, alliances and land;
of England, too, and France—
unhappy compromise—
while grooms negotiate where mounts may graze,
slow barges ferry kitchens, cooks and clerks,
and feasts are prepared.

Behind the king, as he applies his seal
amid the smell of horses, woodsmoke, meat and hay,
and magnates kneel in turn, and swear
to withdraw their knights from London and give way,
the antlers of a leafless oak
at the foot of Cooper’s Hill
bring winter solstice to midsummer day.

We’ve staged this pageant artfully,
but all here know how long a solstice lasts, and know
the Thames will rise, run fast
and overtop its banks again
to flood these fields and shaws
and wash these nicely argued words
and its own course away.

Our lords abhor a rule by force and will,
but it is John’s, and not their force or will, they’d bind.
And John could no more live within
these bounds he’s sealed today
than rivers might—once and for all—be tamed.

This charter I’ve inscribed
in King John’s name on vellum lies.
It calls dishonour to a riverside
where rulers long ago
agreed and disagreed.
It claims a peace, but only brings
a moment’s ease to king and lords—
still less to us, condemned to follow them.
If freedom lives, it lives beyond this hill,
not here on land constrained by heath and slope and stream.

As king and lords and retinues depart,
the larks maintain alarm; the kites return,
twitching their tails to sweep the ground,
in search of entrails left behind.