"News of the Maker" in Thomas Nashe

• Published in: ANQ (Lexington, Ky.) Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 2 - 7
• Main Author: Roberts, P. B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Heldref 01.01.2009; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Literary criticism; Middle Ages; Nash, Thomas (1567-1601); Poetry
• ISSN: 0895-769X; 1940-3364
• DOI: 10.3200/ANQQ.22.1.2-7

Subsequently, having alluded to the legends circulating among "the simpler sort in England about king Edward the sixt [. . .] of his arising from death"-rhetorically asking "what counterfet suborned marchants of base parentage, have sithence ranged abrode in the countrie, presuming to terme themselves by the roiall name of king Edward?"-he concludes: "how facile or easie a matter it is to delude, and mislead the Comminaltie, or greater part of any Commonwealth, with a tale of the maker" (61).2 John Harvey mentions Reginald Scot's Discouerie of Witchcraft at one point,3 and the Discovrsive Probleme might be filed with the Discouerie as a blast of Protestant scorn for folk culture, superstitions, and various remnants of the Middle Ages. The following diatribe compares prophecies to the medieval romances and ballads so despised by Renaissance humanists: [W]ere not these extravagant prophesies, mostwhat invented and published to some such great holie effect as the tales of Hobgoblin, Robin Goodfellow, Queene Grogorton, king Arthur, Bevis of Southampton, Launcelot du Lake, Sir Tristram, Thomas of Lancaster, John à Gaunt, Guy of Warwike, Orlando furioso, Amadis du Gaul, Robin Hood and little John, Frier Tuck and maid Marian [. . .]