Politics Protest, Protest, and a New Piers Plowman Fragment: The Voice of the Past in Tudor England.

BL MS. Sloane 2578, “a hodge-podge of prophecy, protest, and propaganda,” contains a fifteen-line fragment of PPl conflated from B.6.321-31 and B.10.322-25, and elsewhere suggestive of Crowley’s 1550 print. Omission of yer after Eare V in the prophecy suggests 1555, notable for widespread political and religious protest against Queen Mary. The conflation of B.10 lines suggests the compiler’s interest in the tradition of hope for Edward VI’s miraculous restoration to the throne. Use of PPl is seen as part of the popular fifteenth- and sixteenth-century tradition of re-casting authoritative prophecies.