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Footnote 1:
The brother is Peter o Whitfield. ‘Jock o the Side,’ #A#, begins,
‘Peeter a Whifeild _he_ hath slaine, and John a Side he is tane.’ ‘The
great Earl of Whitfield,’ 10^3, seemed to Scott a corruption, and he
suggested ‘the great Ralph’ Whitfield; but Surtees gave him
information (which has not transpired) that led him to think that the
reading ‘Earl’ might be right. Whitfield, in Northumberland, is a few
miles southwest of Hexham, and about twenty-five, in a straight line,
from Kershope, or the border.
Footnote 2:
Nicolson and Burn, History of Westmorland and Cumberland, p. xxxi.
Footnote 3:
[I have received, too late for present use, three traditional copies
of ‘Hughie Grame’ from Abbotsford, two of which are varieties of #B#,
the third the original of #C#. #C# 2–5, 16, were taken from Ritson,
not without changes. One of the varieties of #B# has #E# 15 in a form
very near to No 169, #B b#, #c#.]
Footnote 4:
I do not know whether the document cited is extant or accessible, or
whether it was examined by Mr T. J. Carlyle for his paper on the
Debateable Land; he mentions no Hugh Grame, p. 13 f.
Though Grames are numerous (in 1592 they were considered the greatest
surname on the west border of England, R. B. Armstrong), I have found
only one Hugh out of the ballad. Hugh’s Francie, that is Hugh’s son
Francie, is in the list of the Grames transported to Ireland in 1607.
Nicolson and Burn, History of Westmorland and Cumberland, I, cxx.
Footnote 5:
Nicolson and Burn, I, lxxxi, II, 279 f. As for Bishop Aldridge’s
character, his being a trimmer does not make him a “limmer.”
Ecclesiastics are not infrequently accused in ballads, but no man is
to lose his reputation without better evidence than that.
Footnote 6:
Nicolson and Burn, I, x, xiii, xcii.
Footnote 7:
Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire, 1st Series, p. 50.
Footnote 8:
See also a paper by Dr Arthur Mitchell in the Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, XII, 260, June 11, 1877. Dr
Mitchell was with Mr Murray when he visited Sarah Rae, and he supplies
the date 1866. The last stanza of the ballad and the burden are cited
in this paper.
Footnote 9:
The innocent comments of certain editors must not be lost. “The whole
incident surely implies a very early and primitive system of manners,
not to speak of the circumstance of the court being held at Carlisle,
which never was the case in any late period of English history.”
(Chambers’s Scottish Ballads, p. 306.) “In our version [#E#] the scene
of the theft is laid at London, but Carlisle, we are inclined to
think, is the true reading. The great distance between Scotland and
London, and the nature of the roads in times of old, would render the
event an improbable, if not altogether an impossible, one to have
occurred; and we can easily imagine, when the court was at Carlisle,
that such a good practical joke was planned and carried into execution
by some waggish courtiers.” (Dixon, p. 93 f.)
Footnote 10:
So the Memorial referred to in the next note, p. VI. Sharpe, in his
preface, p. iv, says nineteen. #B# 9 is of course quite wrong as to
the duration of her married life.
Footnote 11:
A Memorial of the Conversion of Jean Livingston, Lady Waristoun, etc.,
printed from the manuscript by C. K. Sharpe, Edinburgh, 1827. An
Epitaphium Janetæ Livingstoune is subjoined. The record of Weir’s
trial is given in the preface: see also Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials,
II, 445 ff. The Memorial is powerfully interesting, but, in Sharpe’s
words, would have been a mischievous present to the world, whatever
one may think of the change of heart in this “dear saint of God,” as
she is therein repeatedly called. It may be noted that Jean
Livingston, when it was supposed her last hour had come, called for a
drink and drank to all her friends. Memorial, p. XIII: cf. “Mary
Hamilton.”
Footnote 12:
Rolling in a spiked barrel is well known as a popular form of
punishment. For some examples later than Regulus, see Grundtvig, II,
174, No 58; Grundtvig, II, 547, No 101, A-D, Prior, I, 349, Afzelius,
No 3 (two copies), Wolff, Halle der Völker, II, 161; Grundtvig, III,
700, No 178, A-D, Prior, II, 160, Arwidsson, II, 62, No 80, and
Grundtvig, _ib._ p. 698; Hoffmann, Niederländische Volkslieder, 1856,
p. 19, No 3, Le Jeune, p. 87, No 3, Prior, II, 238; Pidal, Asturian
Romances, p. 163, No 36; Grimms, K.-u. H. märchen, Nos 13, 89, 135;
Asbjørnsen og Moe, p. 464. Sharpe, in his preface to the Memorial, p.
v, gives #B# 8 in this form, “partly from tradition:”
Up spak the laird o Dunypace,
Sat at the king’s right knee;
‘Gar nail her in a tar-barrel
And hurl her in the sea.’
Footnote 13:
The day before the execution Lady Wariston desired to see her infant
son. The minister feared lest the sight of him should make her wae to
leave him, but she assured that the contrair should be seen, took the
child in her arms, kissed him, blessed him, and recommended him to the
Lord’s care, and sent him away again without taking of any sorrow.
Memorial, p. IX.
Footnote 14:
Fraser, The Book of Carlaverock, I, 300. “John, ninth Lord Maxwell,
was born about the year 1586.” He was married in 1601, and imprisoned
for his papistical propensity in the same year. Either the date is too
late, or Maxwell was one of those avenging children who mature so very
fast: see ‘Jellon Grame,’ II, 303, 513.
Footnote 15:
Some sort of “agreement” had been made in 1605, as we see by the
“Summons” referred to further on, and Lord Maxwell mentions this
agreement in a conversation with Sir Robert Maxwell. Pitcairn’s
Trials, III, 36, 44.
Footnote 16:
In the indictment (“Summons, etc., against John, Lord Maxwell”), it is
said that Johnstone was shot through the shoulder with two poisoned
bullets. If there was evidence as to this aggravating circumstance, it
has not been made accessible. In his “Offers of Submission,” etc., by
which Lord Maxwell hoped to avoid the extreme penalty of the law, he
makes oath on his salvation and damnation that the unhappy slaughter
was nowise committed upon forethought felony or set purpose; and on
the scaffold, while declaring that he had justly deserved his death
and asking forgiveness of the Johnstone family, he protested that his
act had been without dishonor or infamy; meaning, of course, perfidy.
Footnote 17:
Spotiswood’s History, ed. 1655, pp. 338 f., 400 f., 504 f.; Historie
of King James the Sext, pp. 209 f., 297–99; Moysie’s Memoirs, p. 109
f.; Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, III, 31–40, 43–47, 51–53; Fraser, The
Book of Carlaverock, 1873, pp. 300 f., 314, 321; Taylor, The Great
Historic Families of Scotland, 1887, II, 10, 14–25.
Footnote 18:
In a petition presented to the Privy Council by Robert Maxwell in
behalf of his brother, the ‘sometime’ Lord Maxwell, by his attorney,
craves “forgiveness of his offence done to the Marquís of Hamilton
[his wife’s brother] and his friends.” Pitcairn, III, 52. Whether this
was penitence or policy, it shows that great offence had been taken.
Some verses inserted by Scott in his edition of the ballad, in which
his lady urges Maxwell to go with her to her brother’s stately tower,
where “Hamiltons and Douglas baith shall rise to succour thee,” are
quite misplaced.
Footnote 19:
Frendraught is in the parish of Forgue, Aberdeenshire, Rothiemay in
Banffshire; they lie on opposite sides of the Deveron.
Footnote 20:
A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland, 1813, pp. 412,
416 ff. Sir Robert Gordon’s book stops before the (inconclusive) legal
and judicial proceedings were finished. He seems to share the
suspicion of the “most part,” that the Leslies and Meldrum set the
fire.
Footnote 21:
See Spalding, Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland and in England,
1624–1645, Spalding Club, I, 45–51, 420–23, 430–35, and the
continuator of Sir Robert Gordon, p. 474 f. Frendraught is generally
represented to have been utterly ruined in his estate, but that is
probably an exaggeration. His sufferings are thus depicted in the
Charges against the Marquis of Huntly and others anent the disorders
in the North (Spalding, I, 420): “Forasmuch as the Lords of Secret
Council are informed that great numbers of sorners and broken men of
the clan Gregor, clan Lachlan (etc.), as also divers of the name of
Gordon ... have this long time, and now lately very grievously,
infested his Majesty’s loyal subjects in the north parts, especially
the laird of Frendraught and his tenants, by frequent slaughters,
herships, and barbarous cruelties committed upon them, and by a late
treasonable fireraising within the said laird of Frendraught his
bounds, whereby not only is all the gentleman’s lands laid waste, his
whole goods and bestial spoiled, slain and maigled, some of his
servants killed and cruelly demeaned, but also the whole tenants of
his lands and domestics of his house have left his service, and
himself, with the hazard of his life, has been forced to steal away
under night and have his refuge to his Majesty’s Council, etc.” It was
reported that Frendraught obtained a decree against the marquis for
200,000 merks (Scots) for scathe, and another for 100,000 pounds (or
merks) for spoliation of tithes, but that he recovered the money does
not appear. (Spalding, I, 71, 115.) In 1636, through the exertions of
Sir Robert Gordon, Huntly and Frendraught were brought to submit all
differences on either side, “and particularly a great action of law
prosecuted by Frendraught against the marquis,” to the arbitrament of
friends. Huntly died before a decision was reached, but “the Laird of
Frendraught retired himself home to his own lands, and there lived
peaceably.” (Genealogical History of Sutherland, p. 479.)
Footnote 22:
Memorials, I, 17 ff., and the Appendix, p. 381 ff.
Footnote 23:
So John Gordon, Viscount Melgum, the second son of the Marquis of
Huntly, was indifferently called, though the title of Viscount Aboyne
belonged to his elder brother, George, and was not conferred upon
_him_ until after John’s death. Sir Robert Gordon says that the
Marquis of Huntly “ordained” for Melgum the lands of Aboyne, and
others. Melgum was married to Sophia Hay, daughter of the Earl of
Errol, as appears also in the ballad.
Footnote 24:
What manner of helping Frendraught could have given Spalding does not
“condescend upon.” The way down stairs was barred by fire, the windows
were barred with iron. [“But the stairs or monty being in fire, and
the windows grated with strong bars of iron, there was no moyen to
escape:” Blakhal’s Narration, Spalding Club, p. 125.] Ladders and
crowbars occur to us, but a tower with walls ten feet thick was not
expected to burn, the servants had not been drilled in managing fires,
people smoked from their beds at two in the morning are not apt to
have their wits about them, and the combustion was rapid.
Footnote 25:
All the documents will be found in the Appendix to Spalding. Dr John
Hill Burton, in Narratives from Criminal Trials in Scotland, 1852, I,
202 ff, leans hard against Frendraught. “With pretty abundant
materials, it is impossible, even at the present day, entirely to
clear up the mystery, but we can see by what machinations inquiry was
baffled.” “It will be seen that no evidence against him was received,
that it was considered an offence to accuse him.” “Frendraught, though
he had with a high hand averted even the pretence of inquiry on the
part of the government, did not go unpunished, _whether he was guilty
or not_.” Dr Burton speaks with more reserve in his History of
Scotland, VI, 209; little more is insisted on than a wish of the Court
to foster the Crichtons as a balance to the power of the house of
Huntly. It is clear that Frendraught had all the consideration and
help from the government which he could claim. Mr Charles Rampini, who
has discussed the affair in The Scottish Review, X, 143 ff., 1887,
concludes favorably to Frendraught’s innocence of the fire.
Footnote 26:
“Many years ago, when the well was cleared out, this tradition was
corroborated by their finding the keys: at least, such was the report
of the country.” (Finlay, I, xxi, citing a correspondent.) Of course
we should have had to believe everything against Lady Frendraught,
even that she had been so simple as to throw them in, if keys had been
found in the well; but the land-steward of the proprietor of the
estate informed the late Mr Norval Clyne that the draw-well was
searched, and no keys were found.
Footnote 27:
This is, of course, the style of the kirk. The fifty-third psalm of
the Vulgate would not have been out of place for Lord John, who was a
Catholic; but no doubt Lord John is taken for a Presbyterian in the
ballad, and the ‘three’ is for rhyme. Father Blakhal maintains that
Frendraught burnt his tower, not to rid himself of Rothiemay, but out
of theological malice to Melgum “for his zeal in defending and
protecting the poor Catholics against the tyranny of our puritanical
bishops and ministers.” “As he [Melgum] was dying for the defence of
the poor Catholics, God did bestow upon him the grace to augment the
number at the last hour of his life, persuading the Baron of Rothiemay
to abjure the heresy of Calvin, and make the profession of the
Catholic faith openly, to the hearing of the traitor and all who were
with him in the court. They two being at a window, and whilst their
legs were burning, they did sing together _Te Deum_; which ended, they
did tell at the window that their legs being consumed even to their
knees, etc.... And so this noble martyr finished this mortal life, at
the age of four and twenty years.” A Brief Narration, etc., p. 124 f.
Blakhal, who is far from being a cautious writer, also tells us that
“the traitor,” Frendraught, “with his men,in arms, walked all the
night in the court,” to kill Gordon and Rothiemay, if they should
escape from the fire. There is a passage of the same purport in one of
Arthur Johnston’s two poems on the burning of Frendraught, “Querela
Sophiæ Hayæ,” etc.:
Cur vigil insuetis noctem traduxit in armis,
Cætera cum somno turba sepulta foret?
The other piece ends with a ferocious demand for the use of torture to
discover the guilty party. (Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum, Amsterdam,
1637, pp. 585, 587; or, A. I. Poemata Omnia, Middelburg, 1642, pp.
329, 331.)
Footnote 28:
Stanza 21 recalls the verses in Hume of Godscroft:
Edinburgh castle, towne, and tower,
God grant thou sink for sinne! etc.
Footnote 29:
Gordon’s History of Sutherland, p. 414; Spalding’s Memorials, I, 11,
21–23, 29 f., 43 f.
Footnote 30:
Gordon’s History, pp. 481, 460; Spalding, with details, I, 70.
Footnote 31:
Spalding, I, 141, 188, 244.
Footnote 32:
Gordon, History of Scots Affairs, II, 276–80; Spalding, Memorials, I,
209–11. Seton is called a bold, or brave, _baron_, in #A# 2, #B# 3,
not in the mediæval way, but as one of the gentlemen of the king’s
party. The Gordons and their associates “at this time were called the
Barons, and their actings, by way of derision, the Barons’ Reign.”
Gordon, p. 261. “Northern,” #B# 1^3, should be southern, as in #A#.
Footnote 33:
Gordon, II, 274; Spalding, I, 208; Napier’s Montrose and the
Covenanters, I, 284 f. The Hieland men, says Baillie, “avowed that
they could not abide _the musket’s mother_, and so fled in troops at
the first volley.” Letters, ed. Laing, I, 221.
Footnote 34:
History of Scots Affairs, II, 281, note: see also what is added to
that note.
Footnote 35:
“‘The deep, deep den’ referred to in the ballad is the Den of Airlie,
celebrated for its fine scenery and romantic beauty. It extends about
a mile below the junction of the Isla and the Melgum.” Christie,
Traditional Ballad Airs, II, 296.
Footnote 36:
Spalding’s Memorials, ed. 1850, I, 290–2; Gordon’s History of Scots
Affairs, III, 164 f.; also, II, 234; Gardiner, History of England,
1603–1642, ed., 1884, IX, 167 f. Both Spalding and Gordon say that
Montrose besieged Airlie but did not succeed in taking it. Argyle,
continues Spalding, “raises an army of about 5,000 men and marches
towards Airlie; but the Lord Ogilvie, hearing of his coming with such
irresistible forces, resolves to fly and leave the house manless, and
so for their own safety they wisely fled. But Argyle most cruelly and
inhumanly enters the house of Airlie,” etc. A letter of Argyle’s to
one Dugald Campbell (dated July, 1640) would seem to show that he was
not there in person during the razing and burning. “You need not let
know,” says Argyle, “that ye have directions from me to fire it.”
Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, IX, 364; reprinted by Gardiner.
Footnote 37:
Napier, Montrose and the Covenanters, 1838, I, 129.
Footnote 38:
In 18–21 the lady makes her lord not only forgive the abettors of
Jockie Faa, whom he was about to hang, but present ten guineas to
Jockie, whom he was minded to burn.
Footnote 39:
“Corse field may very possibly be Corse, the ancient seat of the
Forbeses of Craigievar, from the close vicinity of which the reciter
of this ballad came.” Burton, in Kinloch MSS, V, 334.
Footnote 40:
Recalling Carrick, of which Maybole is the capital. “The family of
Cassilis, in early times, had been so powerful that the head of it was
generally termed the King of Carrick:” Sharpe. But Garrick may have
come in in some other way.
Footnote 41:
#F# 7, if it belongs to the countess, gives her an unlady-like taste
for brandy.
Footnote 42:
“There is indeed a stanza of no merit, which, in some copies,
concludes the ballad, and states that eight of the gypsies were hanged
at Carlisle, and the rest at the Border:” Finlay, II, 43.
Footnote 43:
Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, III, 201, 307 f., 397–9, 559–62, 592–94;
Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, IV, 440.
Footnote 44:
Sharpe’s Ballad Book, ed. Laing, 1880, pp. 142, 154. I have unluckily
lost my voucher for Johnny Faa’s figuring in ‘The Douglas Tragedy.’
Footnote 45:
Finlay, II, 35; The Scots Magazine, LXXX, 306, and the Musical Museum,
1853, IV, *217, Sharpe; Chambers, Scottish Ballads, p. 143; The New
Statistical Account of Scotland, V, 497; Paterson, The Ballads and
Songs of Ayrshire, I, 10; Maidment, Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1868,
II, 179.
Footnote 46:
She had four children according to the Historical Account of the Noble
Family of Kennedy, Edinburgh, 1849, p. 44.
Footnote 47:
‘We were a’ put down _but ane_’ first appears in Herd, 1769.
Footnote 48:
These eight heads would correspond very neatly to the number of
gypsies executed in 1624. But in the circumstantial account given by
Chambers we are told that the house belonging to the family at Maybole
was fitted for the countess’s reception “by the addition of a fine
projecting stair-case, upon which were carved heads representing those
of her lover and his band.... The effigies of the gypsies are very
minute, being subservient to the decoration of a fine triple window at
the top of the stair-case, and stuck upon the tops and bottoms of a
series of little pilasters which adorn that part of the building. The
head of Johnie Faa himself is distinct from the rest, larger, and more
lachrymose in the expression of the features. _Some windows in the
upper flat of Cassilis Castle are similarly adorned; but regarding
them tradition is silent._”
Footnote 49:
Sharp, in Johnson’s Museum, 1853, IV, 218*; Paterson, in Ballads and
Songs of Ayrshire, I, 13. It is also clear from these letters that the
countess was a sober and religious woman. Some minor difficulties
which attend the supposition of this lady’s absconding with Johnny
Faa, or any gypsy, are barely worth mentioning. At the time when
Johnny Faa was put down, in 1624, the countess was seventeen years
old, and yet she is made the mother of two children. If we shift the
elopement to the other end of her life, there was then (so severe had
been the measures taken with these limmers) perhaps not a gypsy left
in Scotland. See Aytoun, 1859, I, 186.
Footnote 50:
John, seventh earl of Cassilis, son of the sixth earl by a second
wife, married for his second wife, some time before 1700, Mary Foix (a
name also spelt Faux): Crawford’s Peerage, 1716, p. 76, corrected by
the Decreets of the Lords of Council and Session, vol. 145, div. 2.
May this explain the Faws coming to be associated in the popular mind
with a countess of Cassilis? (A suggestion of Mr Macmath’s.) The lady
is even called Jeanie Faw in #C# 7, 11, first by the gypsy, then by
her husband. The seventh earl had _two_ children by Mary Foix.
Footnote 51:
I have seen this piece only in Elizabeth Cochrane’s Song-Book, MS., p.
38, and in Buchan’s MSS, I, 220. Its contents agree with what is
alleged in W. Fuller’s “Brief Discovery of the True Mother of the
pretended Prince of Wales, known by the name of Mary Grey,” London,
1696, pp. 5 f, 11, 17 f, and it was probably composed not long after.
Footnote 52:
Afterwards inserted in the first volume of The Tea-Table Miscellany
(p. 66 of A New Miscellany of Scots Sangs, London, 1727, p. 68 of T.
T. M., Dublin, 1729), from which source it may have been adopted by
Sharpe.
Footnote 53:
Here from the original, Communications to the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland, vol. i, from a copy furnished by Mr Macmath.
Footnote 54:
The most of this account, and in nearly the same words, was given in
an earlier letter from Major Barry to James Cant, who printed (Perth,
1774) an edition of ‘The Muses Threnodie, by Mr H. Adamson, 1638’ (p.
19). The principal items of the story are repeated from Cant by
Pennant, Tour in Scotland, 1772, Part II, London, 1776, p. 112.
Pennant cites Cant’s book as the Gabions of Perth. “It seems,” says Mr
Macmath, who has extracted for me the passage in Cant, “that Adamson’s
work was sometimes known as Gall’s Gabions, the latter being a coined
word.”
Footnote 55:
An “old manuscript volume” cited in The New Statistical Account of
Scotland, X, 37; Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, 1858, II, 167.
Footnote 56:
The remark is made in The Scotsman, September 11, 1886.
Footnote 57:
In the manuscript cited in The New Statistical Account of Scotland, p.
37, we are told that, to prevent the spread of infection, “it was
thought proper to put those out of the town at some distance who were
sick. Accordingly, they went out and builded huts for themselves in
different places around the town, particularly in the South Inch
[etc.] and the grounds near the river Almond, at the mouth thereof, in
all which places there are as yet the remains of their huts which they
lodged in.” So, when this same pestilence was raging in the parish of
Monivaird, the gentlemen “caused many huts to be built, and ordered
all who perceived that they were infected immediately to repair into
them:” Porteous, History of the Parishes of Monivaird and Strowan,
MS., Communications to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. i,
printed in the Transactions, II, 72, 1822.
Footnote 58:
This is Wishart’s account. Another, by Covenanters, makes Montrose to
have been more on the alert, and has nothing of the two thousand horse
sent to take him in the rear. The royalists are admitted to have
maintained their ground with great resolution for almost an hour. The
numbers are as given by Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, II,
335 f.
Footnote 59:
T. Craig-Brown, History of Selkirkshire, 1886, I, 188.
Footnote 60:
Not 1829, as put in the reprint of 1869. “Written hurriedly, in supply
of the press, in April and May, 1832. J. R.”: Dr J. Robertson’s
interleaved copy of the undated first edition. #A c# is reprinted
(with some errors) in The Great North of Scotland Railway, A Guide, by
W. Ferguson, 1881, p. 163.
Footnote 61:
Jamieson writes to the Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 699: “The
Baron of Braikly begins,
O Inverey cam down Dee-side
Whistling and playing;
He’s landed at Braikly’s yates
At the day dawing.
Of this I have got a compleat copy, and the story is very interesting;
but I have got a fragment of it from another quarter, which, so far as
it goes, is superior.” Etc.
Footnote 62:
A market was established here in 1661 by an act in favor of William
Farquharson of Inverey, his heirs, etc. This William had a brother and
a son John. William Farquharson of Inverey younger, as “a person of
known trust and approven ability,” is appointed to keep a guard “this
summer for the sherifdom of Kincardine” against cattle-driving
Highlanders, July of the same year. Thomson’s Acts, VII, 18, I, 286:
pointed out to me by Mr Macmath.
Footnote 63:
Macfarlane’s Genealogical Collections, MS., in the Advocates’ Library,
I, 299 f; already cited by Jamieson, Ballads, I, 108.
Footnote 64:
See a little further on.
Footnote 65: