[In the following essay, Hauser argues that The Spider and the Fly becomes more comprehensible when read as social commentary rather than a historical allegory.]

Heywood's magnum opus has been a constant source of bewilderment to readers attempting to pinpoint its allegorical referents. The confusion has arisen from these lines near the end of the poem:

I have, (good readers) this parable here pende:
(After olde beginning) newly brought to ende.
The thing, yeres mo then twentie since it begoon.
To the thing: yeres mo then ninetene, nothing doon.
The frewte was grene: I durst not gather it than,
For feare of rotting: before riping began.(1)

The poem was published in 1556, and thus the poet presumably began the work about 1536. Two views based on this statement have been tentatively set forth as the keys to the allegory: Heywood was either writing about the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536,² or he had begun by satirizing Wolsey's activities but was thwarted by the chief minister's death in 1530, and had allowed the manuscript to rest for nineteen years until the Rebellion of 1549 once again provided a historical situation which might be adapted to his allegory.³ Both these approaches assume that the poet was stating a fact in the above lines, and consequently that the poem was totally obsolete when finally published. Furthermore, it has been asserted that, because of the years intervening between the beginning and conclusion, the poem lacks coherence and is not a unified whole.

But the only real justification for such interpretation is the poet's statement. When we look at the poem itself, we find that its allusions pertain more directly to circumstances at a period later than 1530 or 1536. In Chapter 60 the most important single clue to the dating of the spider-fly entanglement is found:

From the beginning: it is in bookes to show.
When flies (against spiders) have thus rebelled,
They: either had miserable over throw:
In rebelling, or streight after refelled.
Namelie one: the which generallie swelled.
In flies against spiders, the time past six yeare,
Which one (were there no mo) showth this case cleare.
This time: sondrie. But chieflie, two flockes of flise.
For religion: with sum other thing to that,
One sort by east, an other by west: did rise.
Of opinion, contrarie: as fer and flat,
As in distance, ech far from other in plat,
Thone sort of both: to be in right faith elect.
All flies (faithfullie) did beleve or conject.
Those flies did much harme: six or eight weekes
          anoying:
Which time: spiders had small rest, and those flies
          lesse.
Spiders copwebs: went to wrack. by distroying:
And flies welth wasted: to begerie from richesse
Forestore lasht out, in excreable excesse.
Frutes then growne, much lost for helpe to get them
          in.
How lookte flies here? to thend ere they did begin.
But what was the end of this? for soth even this.
The captayns, most hanged. Soldiers many slaine.
The rest (ought worth) geven in praie for pilagis.
So that (to this daie,) they did fie on the gaine.
Thus were these two sortes: of opinions twaine,
On of the twaine: in the right way to be thought,
Both brought to one end, and both brought to nought.(4)

This passage is an accurate description of the Rebellion of 1549. Social conditions for the agrarian classes had been so oppressive that revolt was imminent, but imposition of the ‘new religion’ had caused just as great resentment in some parts of England. The igniting spark was provided by the law which required that the Mass be read in English throughout the country (“for religion: with sum other thing to that”). There was bitter fighting in Yorkshire (“one sort by east”), and an army from Devonshire seriously threatened London before being defeated (“an other by west”). The actual hostilities lasted from July through August (“six or eight weekes”), which would be the harvest season (“frutes then growne, much lost for helpe to get them in”).⁵

But the most important point about the passage is that the rebellion described is not in the immediate present, but occurred “the time past six yeare”; within the framework of the poem's dramatic action the speaker, the old fly, is using past history as an exemplar to caution the younger flies against the futility of rebellion. From this passage it would seem as if the actual setting of the poem is meant to be much closer to its publication date than Haywood would have us believe. The battle between the spiders and the flies which takes place in Chapter 66 represents neither the Pilgrimage of Grace nor the Rebellion of 1549, but an uprising nearer 1555. There are other instances within the poem where reference is made to contemporary rather than past history, as, for example, the undoubtedly conscious parallel both in content and tone between the chief spider's death speech and Northumberland's advice to his sons just before his execution for instigating the illfated coup of 1553.⁶

Why then did Heywood state that his poem was written many years earlier? In the sixteenth century, of course, it was common practice for the poet to disclaim his work as the folly of youth, thereby casting off any responsibility. But in this case there is a more pertinent reason for such action. In the first months of Mary's reign her counselors could not agree on policy; Froude succinctly illustrates the situation.⁷ Heywood's poem might easily irritate them because of the fact that the ills described there had not been cured. Indeed, in the cross-currents of advice, Mary had taken no steps to rectify conditions. Heywood was a prudent man, as his record as a Catholic at court throughout two anti-Catholic reigns indicates.⁸ It would be politic to avoid making any direct reference to contemporary situations. The poet could easily veil his allegory, since the superficial details might well refer to a period twenty years removed.

If we allow the possibility that Heywood was not constructing a strictly historical allegory, but a dramatic presentation of social conditions and the lessons to be learned from history, then the spider-fly battle need not correspond to factual rebellions at all. The concept of rebellion had been so heavily emphasized that it was ideally suited to convey connotations of injustice, social inequality, and instability. Looking at the poem in this light, we find, not a lack of unity among parts as some critics have maintained, but a continuous dramatic portrayal of the failures of the law courts, the economic grievances of agricultural workers, and the lack of any real temporal or spiritual authority.⁹ The conflict within the poem is resolved through the agency of the maid of the house, who brings order out of chaos. In the same manner, the poet is saying, Mary has the strength of character which will produce harmony in England. The conclusion of the work, in which the forthcoming marriage of Mary and Philip is celebrated, serves only as explicit recognition of what is implicit in the poem. The action builds up to and climaxes in the advent of Mary; the entire poem is a panegyric on the promise of her reign.

Notes

1. John Heywood, The Spider and the Flie, ed. A. W. Ward, Spenser Society (Manchester, 1894), p. 450. All further references will be to this edition.

2. Cf. Ward's introduction; Robert Bolwell, The Life and Works of John Heywood (New York, 1921), pp. 143-150; Alice Price, “The Spider and the Flie,” unpublished Johns Hopkins University M. A. thesis (Baltimore, 1923).

3. This latter view is best expressed in Jacob Haber's The Spider and the Flie (Berlin, 1900), and John Berdan's Early Tudor Poetry (New York, 1920), pp. 105-107.

4. Pp. 267-268.

5. The best accounts of this are found in Arthur Innes, England Under the Tudors (London, 1911), pp. 198-201, and James A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth (New York, 1870), IV, 165-207.

6. Cf. Heywood, pp. 426-433 and Chronicles of Queen Jane, Two Years of Mary and Especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat, ed. John Gough Nichols, Camden Society Pub. No. 48 (London 1850), pp. 6-22.

7. IV, 58.

8. See Bolwell, pp. 18-41 for the details of his life in this period.

9. Miss Price's study is mainly concerned with the legal background of the period. For the best account of social conditions see E. P. Cheyney, Social Changes in England in the Sixteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1895). For references in the poem to the problem of justice see esp. chapters 7-9, 14, 24, and 91; on social inequalities see chapters 24, 33, 44, 79, and 82; on authority see chapters 27, 38, 44, 88, and 95.