Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold

Subject: Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold
From: Santa
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 09:55 AM

Who is Michael in this line from Trelawny?

Edain has picked up this song, and threatens to sing it at the club. But we need to know the answer.

The only suggestion I can make is the Archangel: the Cornish will storm even the gates of Heaven to free their Bishop. However this seems just a little sacreligious....

Subject: RE: Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 10:10 AM

Here's the song, with a midi file.

Blasphemous or not, it seems to me pretty clear that the song is talking about storming the gates of Heaven, if need be.

After all the song (though it was the work of a parson (Parson Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstowe, in 1825) wasn't writtem until well over onme hundred yesars after Bishop Trelawny's fairly brief spell in jail for his opposition to King James's attempt to stop the persecution of Catholics.

Subject: RE: Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold
From: vectis
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 06:53 PM

St Michael's Mount is a small island off the Cornish Coast. A stronghold I think.
Mont Saint Michelle in Normandy is a similar island which has a church and small walled village on it.
I think that the song refers to St Michael's Mount. Trelawney was a bishop so maybe he had connections with the church on the mount.
He was freed so the uprising was a waste of time but it's a cracking good song all the same.

Subject: RE: Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold
From: Gareth
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 07:02 PM

Thanks for the link Kevin, but I think vectis has the nub of "Michaels Hold" - A hold was a main fortress, and yes St Michaels Mount or Island was originally a fortress.

BTW what had us Welsh done to offend "Cousin Jack" that they needed to cross the Severn on thier way to London ????

Gareth

Subject: RE: Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 07:48 PM

Yes, that suggestion by vectis makes sense. Storming the gates of hell might be fair enough, but storming heaven seems a bit radical for a parson. St Michael's Mount sounds more likely, and it looks the part too.

Yes, it does seem an odd sort of route. Maybe the idea is that they were thinking of crossing the Bristol Channel by boat and sneaking up on London from an unexpected direction, having maybe picked up a few Welsh mates on the way. Though in fact I think pretty well the whole idea of a mass Cornish rising on Trelawny's behalf was made up by Parson Hawker.

Subject: RE: Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 07:58 PM

Here's a page with the song, and some stuff about Parson Hawker.

He seems to have been a quirky sort of man: "His eccentricity was a by-word. He dressed in claret-coloured coat, blue fisherman's jersey, long sea-boots and pink brimless hat. He talked to birds, invited his nine cats into church, and excommunicated one of them when it caught a mouse on a Sunday."

Here is what he wrote about the song:
The history of that Ballad is suggestive of my whole life. I published it first anonymously in a Plymouth Paper. Everybody liked it. It, not myself, became popular. I was unnoted and unknown. It was seen by Mr Davies Gilbert, President of the Society of Antiquaries, etc., etc., and by him reprinted at his own Private Press at Eastbourne. Then it attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who praised it, not me, unconscious of the Author. Afterwards Macaulay (Lord) extolled it in his History of England. All these years the Song has been bought and sold, set to music and applauded, while I have lived on among these far away rocks unprofited, unpraised and unknown. This is an epitome of my whole life. Others have drawn profit from my brain while I have been coolly relinquished to obscurity and unrequital and neglect.

Don't we all know the feeling...

Subject: RE: Tho' London's Tower were Michael's hold
From: GUEST,Santa (at work)
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 05:01 AM

Seems to me that St. Michael's Mount would be rather less difficult for a Cornish army to storm than the Tower of London: the song only makes sense if "Michael's Hold" is the more difficult task. A clerical author would also be more likely to use spiritual metaphors than a lay author. Given that it was written well after any actual risk of action taking place, some inflationary language is not surprising!

So despite doubts, I think I'm holding to the religious interpretation.