The Legendary Ten Seconds: “Loyaulté Me Lie” (2014) CD Review

Last year, The Legendary Ten Seconds’ Tant Le Desiree was reissued, this time with the narration by Sandra Heath Wilson, which had been left off the earlier digital release. The album, originally released in 2014, was the second in the group’s series of discs focusing on Richard III and the War of the Roses. The first, Loyaulté Me Lie, was released earlier that year. There was a renewed interest in Richard III at the time the album was being recorded. As you probably recall, in 2012 his remains were discovered under a parking lot (or car park, as it’s called in England) in Leicester. And folks were eager to learn what his remains might reveal about the accuracy of the physical depiction of the king in William Shakespeare’s play. Most of us have drawn our image of Richard III from that play and that play alone, but in the centuries since the play’s initial performances, people have raised questions about its historical accuracy, especially with regards to Richard’s involvement in the deaths of the princes in the tower. This question is obviously one of some fascination to Ian Churchward, who began The Legendary Ten Seconds and wrote or co-wrote all the tracks on this album. He provides the lead vocals, and plays guitar, 12-string guitar, bass and mandolin. Mike Zarquon (who goes by the name of Lord Zarquon) plays mellotron, organ and keyboards. Percival Thirlwall is on drums, and Elaine Churchward provides backing vocals. There are also some guests joining them on a few tracks. The album’s title means “Loyalty binds me,” which was a motto of the king, its first known use dating back to 1483. Unlike Tant Le Desiree and 2015’s Richard III, Loyaulté Me Lie does not include narration.

The music, as on the other albums, is a mix of medieval and modern sounds and elements. “York City Fayre,” the opening track, begins in a pleasant place, recalling the fair: “The sunshine, the laughter, we hadn’t a care/The flags and the bunting, the stalls and the carts/The cries of the hawkers all gladdened our hearts.” The song then shifts to scenes of battle, while thinking back to those easier times, creating an interesting mood. Mike Middleton plays bass on this track. “York City Fayre” was written by Ian Churchward and Elaine Churchward. We then move to “The Battle Of Barnet Song,” the battle taking place in April of 1471, when Richard was only eighteen years old. He fought alongside his brothers Edward IV and George, and apparently this was his first major battle. The music takes us to that time, the song told from the perspective of soldiers who are riding to the battle: “The three sons of York are our lords/For them we do raise our swords/To the Battle of Barnet we ride/The White Rose of York is our pride.” I like that the person telling us the story is at least as interested in drink as he is in battle. “A drink of ale would be good/Then no more, am I understood?/All right, one more drink, I agree/Then the battle we will surely see.” That really helps to place us there, to make it all feel real. There is a bit of humor to the song, especially at the end, when our storyteller complains of a headache while the sounds of battle rage around him. Phil Helmore and Tom Churchward provide backing vocals on this track. It was written by Ian Churchward and Mike Zarquon.

“Loyalty Binds Me” is essentially the album’s title track. Though, as I understand it, the earliest written example of the motto is from 1483, this track takes place a decade earlier when Edward IV was still king, and it mentions the Battle of Barnet: “Loyalty binds me to my brother, the king/In victory we will rejoice and sing/At Barnet and Tewkesbury we won the day/Loyalty binds me with my faith on display.” There is a rather sweet and pretty air to this song, a gentleness, and it mentions his marriage to Anne. This song was written by Ian Churchward. Then “Lord Anthony Woodville” begins with an ominous beating of the drum, seeming to announce war, or at least trouble. Lord Anthony Woodville was the brother of Elizabeth, who married Edward IV. Interestingly, as is the case with Richard III, there are questions surrounding him, especially regarding his arrest by Richard and his execution for alleged treasonable activities. “Lord Anthony Woodville, were you right?/In the joust you took such delight/Lord Anthony Woodville, you weren’t wrong/In the House of York you did not belong.” This track ends as it began, with the drum, indicating that the troubles continue.

“The Lord Protector” is a more somber number about the death of Edward IV and his naming of Richard as Lord Protector. “And Richard, a man of honor/In a sea of treason was drowned/He was named the Lord Protector/Whom the Queen she had no faith/She feared the Duke of Gloucester/Would not keep her two boys safe.” This is followed by an instrumental track titled “Fanfare For The King.” Interestingly, it’s not as celebratory as you might expect from its title, at least not at first. It is almost hesitant as it begins, and then does build from there, with Ashley Dyer providing some good work on trumpet. That is then followed by “The Lady Anne Neville.” Whenever I read Shakespeare’s play or see a production, I have to wonder about Lady Anne, whom Richard woos basically over the corpse of her father-in-law. In that scene she goes from understandably loathing Richard (who had murdered not only her father-in-law but also her husband) to agreeing to become his wife. It’s a difficult scene, and so I love that this song begins with the line, “We will never know how she felt.” As I hear that line, I am thinking of that scene, but then we learn that this song is actually about her learning about the death of her son. “We can guess at the sorrow she felt/In the Chapel where she knelt/A message that her son had died.” The song goes on to mention Anne’s own death, but does not get into how she died. In the play, she is poisoned by Richard, but that is another point that is debated. It is believed she died of tuberculosis. And on that day there was a solar eclipse, which is mentioned in the song: “The sun went out on the day she did die/Blocked by the moon in the sky/A bad omen on the day she did die/The sun extinguished in the sky.” Ashley Dyer plays trumpet on this one too.

“The Wheat In The Field” is a song about Richard III’s impending death, and the hope of good things to come destroyed, trampled. “The men of Henry Tudor’s army/Trampling through the wheat fields/The men of Henry Tudor’s army/Marching off to Bosworth Field.” Bosworth Field is, of course, where Richard was to die. He was the last English king to die in battle. Interestingly, there is a rather upbeat feel to this track, and there is a bit of a Byrds feel to some of the guitar work. That’s followed by “Tudor Danse,” an instrumental track, as a way of showing that the story of Richard III is chronologically over and now the album will address some key aspects of the story. The next track, “House Of York,” begins by mentioning Richard’s death at Bosworth Field. This song covers a great amount of material, as you can tell from this stanza: “How he was mocked for his crooked spine/Shakespeare too, with the passage of time/Buried at Greyfriars Church/Now a car park is where she searched.” Yes, those lines take us from Shakespeare’s depiction to Philippa Langley’s search for Richard’s remains.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the main problems people have with the depiction of Richard III is his guilt regarding the deaths of the princes in the tower, for which there is no proof. The Legendary Ten Seconds devote a track to this question. Appropriately titled “The Mystery Of The Princes,” this one was written by Ian Churchward and Elaine Churchward. It has an understandably somber feel. Here is the first stanza: “A mystery whispers its way through the years/Murder or mercy, bloodshed or tears/What was the fate of the boys in the tower/When Richard of York came into power?” The song asks many questions, but does not presume to definitively answer them. It’s a powerful song, and is one of my personal favorites. After that, it makes sense to give us a breather with another instrumental track. And so that is what The Legendary Ten Seconds do, with “Sans Charger.”

“The Fellowship Of The Whyte Boar” gets into the more modern defense of Richard III. In 1924, The Fellowship of the White Boar was founded by Samuel Saxon Barton, and that was the beginning of the Richard III Society. This song is told from the perspective of the group’s members. “We do not accept Tudor slander/It really is quite absurd/All the lies, rumors and falsehoods/Of the life of Richard III.” This song could also be taken as the album’s theme and mission statement. It’s a pretty song. The album then concludes with a song about the discovering of Richard III’s remains, “The King In The Car Park,” written by Ian Churchward and Elaine Churchward. This one begins with drums, but with a very different tone from “Lord Anthony Woodville.” In this one, the drums are there to make an exciting and positive announcement. And yet of course there is something sad and demeaning in being found under a parking lot. “The King in the car park, no peace for poor Richard/Will York and Leicester dispute ever more?/Where to rest poor King Richard, a tourist attraction/King Richard of England, what crowds he could draw.”

CD Track List

1. York City Fayre
2. The Battle Of Barnet Song
3. Loyalty Binds Me
4. Lord Anthony Woodville
5. The Lord Protector
6. Fanfare For The King
7. The Lady Anne Neville
8. The Wheat In The Field
9. Tudor Danse
10. House Of York (Richard Of York)
11. The Mystery Of The Princes
12. Sans Changer
13. The Fellowship Of The Whyte Boare
14. The King In The Car Park

Loyaulté Me Lie was released in early 2014, though was made available digitally in December of 2013.