A snarky poet and a Moorish ‘queen’: the bitter rivalry in James IV’s court

What was it like being a writer at the court of James IV of Scotland? Probably not so different to trying to make your living as a freelancer today. Scotland’s “renaissance king”, who ruled from 1488-1513, was a celebrated patron of the arts; his court was stuffed with poets, performers, musicians and players. Very few of them were on a regular wage. Instead the records of the Scottish treasury show occasional one-off payments, sometimes lavish, sometimes merely flattering to the ego – the gift of royal attention and not much more. William Dunbar (born c.1460) was one such “makar”, or poet. He’s one of the very few whose poetry has come down to us from this creatively crowded court. Dunbar wrote numerous poems complaining about his competition or berating the king for failing to realise his worth and pay him a decent wage. He was a writer who could skilfully evoke the mundane horror of a headache or compose formal verses extolling the virtues of Scotland’s new queen, Margaret Tudor of England. His snarky rebukes to the patron who never pays him are an entertaining insight into the plight of a poet who longs to make a living from writing and writing alone. 

I could identify with him. The patronage a modern writer pursues is not usually royal but the juggling act – to make your work fit the current “market”, satisfy some new cultural initiative, please the people who actually have money to give – is all too familiar. A playwright or poet now might mix writing days with teaching or editing or take a gig running round an Amazon warehouse. Dunbar did secretarial work or legal work and occasionally moonlighted as a priest. When I came to write Queen of the Fight, the fourth in my series of “James Plays”, I recognised Dunbar’s professional woes and I was startled by the power and contemporary resonance of many of his poems, especially those evoking his fear of mortality. But the starting point for my research for the play itself was another poem by Dunbar. This one is usually called “Ane Blak Moor”. It describes a woman who was the centre of royal tournaments, “The Queen of the Fight”. It’s one of the first references to anyone from the global majority in Scottish literature, and it is racist and horrible. 

The poem itself can be found in any anthology of his work. It is often referenced because of its historical significance. Its descriptions of this unnamed woman’s physicality, with similes like “tar barrel”, are uncomfortable reading for a modern audience. The “defence” that Dunbar was a product of his time only explains why the poem was considered acceptable, even popular at that date; it doesn’t explain the impulse that led an apparently humane and empathetic writer into a monstrous act of othering.

I think the explanation can be found in the Treasury records, in the entries relating to the costume and adornments provided to the woman who was the centre of the royal tournaments. This was at a time when the wealth of queens is listed in an inventory of their clothes and jewels. The Queen of the tournament was a very wealthy woman. 

She was probably a recent arrival at the court of James IV. We know that a number of people of Moorish origin arrived there around 1504 when the Portuguese ship that was taking them to the court of Henry VII of England was “diverted” by Scottish privateers and brought instead to Leith. The common assumption for generations of historians has been that these were people who were at best “semi-enslaved”. It’s often suggested they were from North Africa. The brief glimpses of them within Treasury records – payments as performers, nursemaids and royal attendants – are usually conflated to suggest a very small number of multi-tasking women, often just two “Moorish lassies” who are credited with doing everything from child care for royal bastards to commanding stadium shows.

One of the challenges of fictionalising history is taking events stated as facts in secondary sources and trying to imagine their reality. Working from the confidently repeated origin stories in so many history books, I was struggling to make their description of two isolated young children, plucked from lands beyond Europe, credible as the protagonists of the scenarios we know definitely occurred. I wrestled with this for some time until I was lucky enough to receive the insights and advice of the writer and academic Dr Onyeka Nubia. He is one of the very few contemporary historians who are giving serious attention to original source material concerning global majority people within the British Isles. This led me to the belief that there were probably far more than two Moorish women at the court. Rather than coming from North or West Africa they most probably originated in the Iberian peninsula, where black and brown people had lived for centuries. Originally Muslim, this population was now overwhelmingly Christian since the “reconquesta” of these Moorish kingdoms by Christian monarchs. Royal servants and performers from these countries were coming from a place of cultural and technological sophistication far beyond that of 16th-century Scotland or England. They brought a sparkle of global sophistication to any monarch who hired them.

We know that one such man, Peter Morian or Peter the Moor, was paid as a close attendant of James IV from 1500. He organised and staged royal entertainments that by implication featured other Moorish performers. The new arrivals in 1504 were easily and rapidly absorbed into court life and at least three women, and probably more musicians and performers, were part of the lavish royal tournaments, demonstrations of national wealth and power.

I found the explanation that felt credible for Dunbar’s nasty put-down or “flyting” of the Black Queen. She was the star of these displays. Dunbar’s reaction to her elevation is horribly familiar – the bitter resentment of those who have not had the big break, the huge financial opportunity, towards those who have. Dunbar was bumping along on a few Scots pounds a year, while this woman was receiving emeralds. In his eyes she had achieved “easy” success on the back of her foreign glamour, whereas he had been struggling for years to receive the fame he felt his talent deserved. When his rage and frustration were expressed in verse it was the pettiest, basest expression of jealousy he could write.

I thought through the practicalities that woman would have needed to command attention in a huge tournament arena, before lighting, before amplification. She must have been an amazingly gifted performer. None of that is visible in Dunbar’s description. Instead, his nasty put down has become her historical legacy.

My intention when I first started writing the series that’s become known as “The James Plays” was to make invisible history visible. That is pretty much all medieval Scottish history. It’s not taught in schools; where it’s known at all it has survived in folk tales, in ghost stories, in pockets of fiercely preserved local traditions, like the common ridings in the Scottish Borders. As history is the foundation on which our contemporary culture is built, it seems sensible to use our imagination to examine those foundations from time to time, to learn the lessons we can find there. However, making invisible history visible is often uncomfortable, as it challenges our certainties about who we are. 

My next play, Mary, which opens at Hampstead Theatre in London at the end of October, presents another uncomfortable idea – the suggestion that the reformed protestant government of Scotland, the regency that began in 1567, was made possible by the abuse and assault inflicted on Mary Queen of Scots. Again, I have sought out primary sources and tried to apply a writer’s imagination to make the events described credible, in terms of the character’s actions. As with Queen of the Fight, I was not working from new discoveries or unknown events, simply facts that have acquired a new and startling visibility to the modern eye.

Reinterpretation of history is a fluid and constant process as we constantly re-read the past with the insights and prejudices of our present. It’s always a subjective thing, and a writer of fiction such as myself can spin speculatively off the known facts in ways an academic or professional historian would never give themselves licence to do. 

However, in the case of the court of James IV, the primary sources strongly suggest two facts that, in my opinion, should be known when we look at Scottish history. People of the global majority were part of Scottish history in far larger numbers and in far more powerful and influential roles than has previously been assumed. And the type of professional bitterness that is a poison in so many creative contexts today was evidently just as destructively present in the 16th century.

James IV tours Scotland until 12 November; capitaltheatres.com. Mary is at the Hampstead Theatre, London, from October 21 until November 26: hampsteadtheatre.com