+The Text+ is taken from the Percy Folio MS., but the spelling is
modernised. There is another version, extant in broadsides to be found
in nearly all the large collections; this, when set beside the Folio MS.
text, provides a remarkable instance of the loss a ballad sustained by
falling into the hands of the broadside-printers. The present text,
despite the unlucky hiatus after st. 35, is a splendid example of an
English ballad, which cannot be earlier than the sixteenth century.
There is a fine rhythm throughout, and, as Child says, 'not many better
passages are met with in ballad poetry than that which tells of the
three gallant attempts on the mainmast tree (stt. 52-66).'
+The Story+ told in the ballad is a piece of history, and belongs
originally to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Andrew Barton was
one of three sons of John Barton, a Scots trader whose ship had been
plundered by the Portuguese in 1476; letters of reprisal were granted to
the brothers Barton, and renewed to them in 1506 'as no opportunity had
occurred of effectuating a retaliation.' It seems, however, that this
privilege was abused, at least by Andrew, who was reported in June 1511
to Henry VIII. as seizing English ships under the pretext that they were
Portuguese. The king did not send Lord Charles Howard, as the ballad
states--Lord Charles was not born till twenty-five years afterwards--but
Sir Thomas and Sir Edward Howard set out against the pirate by Henry's
leave. They took two ships, not one, the meeting with Henry Hunt
(st. 18) being the ballad-maker's invention. Lord Charles's fraudulent
use of the 'white flag' in st. 37 is supported by Bishop Lesley's
partisan account of the engagement, written _c._ 1570. The time-scheme
of the ballad is unusually vague: it begins 'in midsummer-time,' and the
punitive expedition starts on 'the day before midsummer even'--_i.e._
June 19, which agrees with the chronicles. The fight takes place within
the week; but Lord Charles does not get home until December 29 (st. 71).
Hall's chronicle says that they returned on August 2.
Lord Charles Howard was created Earl of Nottingham in 1596; but the
adoption of this into the ballad (st. 78) dates only our text. It is
quite probable that it existed in a previous version with names and
facts more correctly stated.