Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (printed in 1639), act third, scene third,
Dyce, VII, 364. The subject is the winning of the crown of England from
Richard III by Henry VII, and the parties on both sides, though some of
them are sometimes called by their proper names, are mostly indicated by
their badges or cognizances,[203] which were perfectly familiar, so that
though there is a “perpetual allegory,” it is not a “dark conceit.”
The red rose of Lancaster was rooted up by a boar, Richard, who was
generally believed to have murdered Henry VI and his son Edward, the
Prince of Wales; but the seed of the rose, the Earl of Richmond,
afterwards wore the crown. The sixth stanza gives us to understand that
the young Earl of Richmond was under the protection of Lord Stanley at
Lathom before his uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, fled with him to
Brittany, in 1471; but this does not appear in the histories. The Earl
of Richmond came back to claim his right (in 1485), and brought with him
the blue boar, the Earl of Oxford, to encounter, with Richard, the white
boar. Richmond sends a messenger to the old eagle, Lord Stanley, his
stepfather, to announce his arrival; Stanley thanks God, and hopes that
the rose shall flourish again. The Welshmen rise in a mass under Rice ap
Thomas and shog on to Shrewsbury. Master Mitton, bailiff of Shrewsbury,
refuses at first to let Richmond enter, but, upon receiving letters from
Sir William Stanley of Holt Castle, opens the gates. The Earl of Oxford
is about to smite off the bailiff’s head; Richmond interferes, and asks
Mitton why he was kept out. The bailiff knows no king but him that wears
the crown; if Richmond shall put down Richard, he will, when sworn, be
as true to Richmond as to Richard now. Richmond recognizes this as
genuine loyalty, and will not have the bailiff harmed. The earl moves on
to Newport, and then has a private meeting at Atherstone with Lord
Stanley, who makes great moan because the young eagle, Lord Strange, his
eldest son, is a hostage in the hands of the white boar. At the battle
Oxford has the van; Lord Stanley follows ‘fast’! The Talbot-dog (Sir
Gilbert Talbot) bites sore; the unicorn (Sir John Savage) quits himself
well; then comes in the hart’s head (Sir William Stanley), the field is
fought, the white boar slain, and the young eagle saved as by fire.[204]
How the Earl of Richmond compassed the crown of England is told at more
length in two histories in the ballad-stanza, ‘Bosworth Field’ and ‘Lady
Bessy.’ The first of these (656 verses) occurs only in the Percy MS.,
Hales and Furnivall, III, 235. It is on the whole a tame performance.
Richmond is kept quite subordinate to the Stanleys, kneeling to Sir
William, v. 371, and “desiring” the van of Lord Stanley, who grants his
request, 449–51. The second exists in two versions: (1) Harleian MS.
367, printed by Mr Halliwell-Phillipps, Percy Society, vol. xx, 1847, p.
43, and Palatine Anthology, 1850, p. 60; Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall,
III, 321 (each of about 1100 verses); (2) Percy Society and Palatine
Anthology again, p. 1, p. 6, and previously by Thomas Heywood, 1829
(about 1250 vv). In this second poem the love, ambition, and energy of
Elizabeth of York sets all the instruments at work, and the Stanleys are
not so extravagantly prominent. It is a remarkably lively narrative,
with many curious details, and in its original form (which we cannot
suppose we have) must have been nearly contemporary. ‘Bosworth Field’
borrows some verses from it.
17^2, 22^4. This affirmation of the trustworthiness of the chronicle
occurs in ‘The Battle of Otterburn,’ No 161, 35^2, and again in ‘Flodden
Field,’ No 178, appendix, 121^4.
1
Throughout a garden greene and gay,
A seemlye sight itt was to see
How fflowers did flourish fresh and gay,
And birds doe sing melodiouslye.
2
In the midst of a garden there sprange a tree,
W_hi_ch tree was of a mickle price,
And there vppon sprang the rose soe redd,
The goodlyest _tha_t euer sprange on rise.
3
This rose was ffaire, ffresh to behold,
Springing w_i_th many a royall lance;
A crowned king, w_i_th a crowne of gold,
Ouer England, Ireland, and of Ffrance.
4
Then came in a beast men call a bore,
And he rooted this garden vpp and downe;
By the seede of the rose he sett noe store,
But afterwards itt wore the crowne.
5
Hee tooke the branches of this rose away,
And all in sunder did them teare,
And he buryed them vnder a clodd of clay,
Swore they shold neu_er_ bloome nor beare.
6
Then came in an egle gleaming gay,
Of all ffaire birds well worth the best;
He took the branche of the rose away,
And bore itt to Latham to his nest.
7
But now is this rose out of England exiled,
This certaine truth I will not laine;
But if itt please you to sitt a while,
I’le tell you how the rose came in againe.
8
Att Milford Hauen he entered in;
To claime his right, was his delight;
He brought the blew bore in w_i_th him,
To encounter w_i_th the bore soe white.
9
The[n] a messenger the rose did send
To the egles nest, and bidd him hye:
‘To my ffather, the old egle, I doe [me] commend,
His aide and helpe I craue speedylye.’
10
Saies, I desire my father att my cominge
Of men and mony att my need,
And alsoe my mother of her deer blessing;
The better then I hope to speede.
11
And when the messenger came before thold egle,
He kneeled him downe vpon his knee;
Saith, Well greeteth you my lo_rd_ the rose,
He hath sent you greetings here by me.
12
Safe ffrom the seas Christ hath him sent,
Now he is entered England w_i_thin:
‘Let vs thanke God,’ the old egle did say,
‘He shall be the fflower of all his kine.
13
‘Wend away, messenger, w_i_th might and maine;
Itt’s hard to know who a man may trust;
I hope the rose shall fflourish againe,
And haue all things att his owne lust.’
14
Then S_i_r Rice ap Thomas drawes Wales w_i_th him;
A worthy sight itt was to see,
How the Welchmen rose wholy w_i_th him,
And shogged them to Shrewsburye.
15
Att _tha_t time was baylye in Shrewsburye
One M_aster_ Mitton, in the towne;
The gates were strong, and he mad them ffast,
And the portcullis he lett downe.
16
And throug a garrett of the walls,
Ouer Severne these words said hee;
‘Att these gates no man enter shall;’
But he kept him out a night and a day.
17
These words Mitton did Erle Richmond tell
(I am sure the chronicles of this will not lye);
But when l_ett_res came from S_i_r W_illia_m Stanley of the Holt
castle,
Then the gates were opened p_re_sentlye.
18
Then entred this towne the noble lord,
The Erle Richmond, the rose soe redd;
The Erle of Oxford, w_i_th a sword,
Wold haue smitt of the bailiffes head.
19
‘But hold yo_u_r hand,’ saies Erle Richmond,
‘Ffor his loue _tha_t dyed vpon a tree!
Ffor if wee begin to head so soone,
In England wee shall beare no degree.’
20
‘What offence haue I made thee,’ sayd Erle Richmonde,
‘_Tha_t thou kept me out of my towne?’
‘I know no king,’ sayd Mitton then,
‘But Rich_ard_ now, _tha_t weares the crowne.’
21
‘Why, what wilt tho_u_ say,’ said Erle Richmonde,
‘When I haue put K_ing_ Richard downe?’
‘Why, then Ile be as true to you, my lo_rd_,
After the time _tha_t I am sworne.’
22
‘Were itt not great pitty,’ sayd Erle Richmond,
‘_Tha_t such a man as this shold dye,
Such loyall service by him done?
(The cronickles of this will not lye.)
23
‘Thou shalt not be harmed in any case;’
He p_ar_done[d] him p_re_sentlye;
They stayd not past a night and a day,
But towards Newp_or_t did they hye.
24
But [at] Attherston these lords did meete;
A worthy sight itt was to see,
How Erle Richmond tooke his hatt in his hand,
And said, Cheshire and Lancashire, welcome to me!
25
But now is a bird of the egle taken;
Ffrom the white bore he cannot fflee;
Therfore the old egle makes great moane,
And prayes to God most certainly.
26
‘O stedfast God, verament,’ he did say,
‘Thre p_er_sons in one god in Trinytye,
Saue my sonne, the young egle, this day
Ffrom all ffalse craft and trecherye!’
27
Then the blew bore the vanward had;
He was both warry and wise of witt;
The right hand of them he tooke,
The sunn and wind of them to gett.
28
Then the egle ffollowed fast vpon his pray,
W_i_th sore dints he did them smyte;
The talbott he bitt wonderous sore,
Soe well the vnicorne did him quite.
29
And then came in the harts head;
A worthy sight itt was to see,
The iacketts _tha_t were of white and redd,
How they laid about them lustilye.
30
But now is the ffeirce ffeeld foughten and ended,
And the white bore there lyeth slaine,
And the young egle is p_re_serued,
And come to his nest againe.
31
But now this garden fflourishes ffreshly and gay,
W_i_th ffragrant fflowers comely of hew,
And gardners itt doth maintaine;
I hope they will proue iust and true.
32
Our k_ing_, he is the rose soe redd,
_Tha_t now does fflourish ffresh and gay:
Confound his ffoes, Lo_rd_, wee beseeche,
And loue His Grace both night and day!
* * * * *
10^4. Then better.
12^1. him _is apparently altered from_ mim _in the MS.:
Furnivall_.
14^4. shogged him.
17^3. cane _for_ came.
26^2. 3.
29^3. They.
167
SIR ANDREW BARTON
#A.# ‘S_i_r Andrew Bartton,’ Percy MS. p. 490; Hales and Furnivall,
III, 399.
#B.# ‘The Life and Death of Sir Andrew Barton,’ etc. #a.# Douce
Ballads, I, 18 b. #b.# Pepys Ballads, I, 484, No 249. #c.# Wood
Ballads, 401, 55. #d.# Roxburghe Ballads, I, 2; reprinted by the
Ballad Society, I, 10. #e.# Bagford Ballads, 643, m. 9. (61). #f.#
Bagford Ballads, 643, m. 10 (77). #g.# Wood Ballads, 402, 37. #h.#
‘Sir Andrew Barton,’ Glenriddell MSS, XI, 20.
Given in Old Ballads, 1723, I, 159; in Percy’s Reliques, 1765, II, 177,
a copy made up from the Folio MS. and #B b#, with editorial emendations;
Ritson’s Select Collection of English Songs, 1783, I, 313. #B f# is
reprinted by Halliwell, Early Naval Ballads, Percy Society, vol. ii, p.
4, 1841; by Moore, Pictorial Book of Ancient Ballad Poetry, p. 256,
1853. There is a Bow-Churchyard copy, of no value, in the Roxburghe
collection, III, 726, 727, dated in the Museum catalogue 1710.
A collation of #A# and #B# will show how ballads were retrenched and
marred in the process of preparing them for the vulgar press.[205] #B
a-g# clearly lack two stanzas after 11 (12, 13, of #A#). This omission
is perhaps to be attributed to careless printing rather than to reckless
cutting down, for the stanzas wanted are found in #h#. #h# is a
transcript, apparently from recitation or dictation, of a Scottish
broadside. It has but fifty-six stanzas, against the sixty-four of #B a#
and the eighty-two of #A#, and is extremely corrupted. Besides the two
stanzas not found in the English broadside, it has one more, after 50,
which is perhaps borrowed from ‘Adam Bell’:
‘Foul fa the hands,’ says Horsley then,
‘This day that did that coat put on;
For had it been as thin as mine,
Thy last days had been at an end.’[206]
#A# has a regrettable gap after 35, and is corrupted at 29^2[207], 47^2.
In the year 1476 a Portuguese squadron seized a richly loaded ship
commanded by John Barton, in consequence of which letters of reprisal
were granted to Andrew, Robert, and John Barton, sons of John, and these
letters were renewed in 1506,[208] “as no opportunity had occurred of
effectuating a retaliation;” that is to say, as the Scots, up to the
later date, had not been supplied with the proper vessels. The king of
Portugal remonstrated against reprisals for so old an offence, but he
had put himself in the wrong four years before by refusing to deal with
a herald sent by the Scottish king for the arrangement of the matter in
dispute. It is probable that there was justice on the Scottish side,
“yet there is some reason to believe that the Bartons abused the royal
favor, and the distance and impunity of the sea, to convert this
retaliation into a kind of piracy against the Portuguese trade, at that
time, by the discoveries and acquisitions in India, rendered the richest
in the world.” All three of the brothers were men of note in the naval
history of Scotland. Andrew is called Sir Andrew, perhaps, in imitation
of Sir Andrew Wood; but his brother attained to be called Sir
Robert.[209]
We may now hear what the writers who are nearest to the time have to say
of the subject-matter of our ballad.
Hall’s Chronicle, 1548. In June [1511], the king being at Leicester,
tidings were brought to him that Andrew Barton, a Scottish man and a
pirate of the sea, saying that the king of Scots had war with the
Portingales, did rob every nation, and so stopped the king’s streams
that no merchants almost could pass, and when he took the Englishmen’s
goods, he said they were Portingales’ goods, and thus he haunted and
robbed at every haven’s mouth. The king, moved greatly with this crafty
pirate, sent Sir Edmund Howard, Lord Admiral of England,[210] and Lord
Thomas Howard, son and heir to the Earl of Surrey, in all the haste to
the sea, which hastily made ready two ships, and without any more abode
took the sea, and by chance of weather were severed. The Lord Howard,
lying in the Downs, perceived where Andrew was making toward Scotland,
and so fast the said lord chased him that he overtook him, and there was
a sore battle. The Englishmen were fierce, and the Scots defended them
manfully, and ever Andrew blew his whistle to encourage his men, yet for
all that, the Lord Howard and his men, by clean strength, entered the
main deck; then the Englishmen entered on all sides, and the Scots
fought sore on the hatches, but in conclusion Andrew was taken, which
was so sore wounded that he died there; then all the remnant of the
Scots were taken, with their ship, called The Lion. All this while was
the Lord Admiral in chase of the bark of Scotland called Jenny Pirwyn,
which was wont to sail with The Lion in company, and so much did he with
other that he laid him on board and fiercely assailed him, and the
Scots, as hardy and well stomached men, them defended; but the Lord
Admiral so encouraged his men that they entered the bark and slew many,
and took all the other. Then were these two ships taken, and brought to
Blackwall the second day of August, and all the Scots were sent to the
Bishop’s place of York, and there remained, at the king’s charge, till
other direction was taken for them. [They were released upon their
owning that they deserved death for piracy, and appealing to the king’s
mercy, says Hall.] The king of Scots, hearing of the death of Andrew of
Barton and taking of his two ships, was wonderful wroth, and sent
letters to the king requiring restitution according to the league and
amity. The king wrote with brotherly salutations to the king of Scots of
the robberies and evil doings of Andrew Barton, and that it became not
one prince to lay a breach of a league to another prince in doing
justice upon a pirate or thief, and that all the other Scots that were
taken had deserved to die by justice if he had not extended his mercy.
(Ed. of 1809, p. 525.)
Buchanan, about twenty years later, writes to this effect. Andrew
Breton[211] was a Scots trader whose father had been cruelly put to
death by the Portuguese, after they had plundered his ship. This outrage
was committed within the dominion of Flanders, and the Flemish
admiralty, upon suit of the son, gave judgment against the Portuguese;
but the offending parties would not pay the indemnity, nor would their
king compel them, though the king of Scots sent a herald to make the
demand. The Scot procured from his master a letter of marque, to warrant
him against charges of piracy and freebooting while prosecuting open war
against the Portuguese for their violation of the law of nations, and in
the course of a few months inflicted great loss on them. Portuguese
envoys went to the English king and told him that this Andrew was a man
of such courage and enterprise as would make him a dangerous enemy in
the war then impending with the French, and that he could now be
conveniently cut off, under cover of piracy, to the advantage of English
subjects and the gratification of a friendly sovereign. Henry was easily
persuaded, and dispatched his admiral, Thomas Howard,[212] with two of
the strongest ships of the royal navy, to lie in wait at the Downs for
Andrew, then on his way home from Flanders. They soon had sight of the
Scot, in a small vessel, with a still smaller in company. Howard
attacked Andrew’s ship, but, though the superior in all respects, was
barely able to take it after the master and most of his men had been
killed. The Scots captain, though several times wounded and with one leg
broken by a cannon-ball, seized a drum and beat a charge to inspirit his
men to fight until breath and life failed. The smaller ship was
surrendered with less resistance, and the survivors of both vessels, by
begging their lives of the king (as they were instructed to do by the
English), obtained a discharge without punishment. The Scottish king
made formal complaint of this breach of peace, but the answer was ready:
the killing of pirates broke no leagues and furnished no decent ground
for war. (Rer. Scot. Historia, 1582, fol. 149 b, 150.)
Bishop Lesley, writing at about the same time as Buchanan, openly
accuses the English of fraud. “In the month of June,” he says, “Andrew
Barton, being on the sea in warfare contrar the Portingals, against whom
he had a letter of mark, Sir Edmund Howard, Lord Admiral of England, and
Lord Thomas Howard, son and heir to the Earl of Surrey, past forth at
the king of England’s command, with certain of his best ships; and the
said Andrew, being in his voyage sailing toward Scotland, having only
but one ship and a bark, they set upon at the Downs, and at the first
entry did make sign unto them that there was friendship standing betwix
the two realms, and therefore thought them to be friends; wherewith
they, nothing moved, did cruelly invade, and he manfully and
courageously defended, where there was many slain, and Andrew himself
sore wounded, that he died shortly; and his ship, called The Lion, and
the bark, called Jenny Pirrvyne, which, with the Scots men that was
living, were had to London, and kept there as prisoners in the Bishop of
Yorks house, and after was sent home in Scotland. When that the
knowledge hereof came to the king, he sent incontinent a herald to the
king of England, with letters requiring dress for the slaughter of
Andrew Barton, with the ships to be rendered again; otherwise it might
be an occasion to break the league and peace contracted between them. To
the which it was answered by the king of England that the slaughter
being a pirate, as he alleged, should be no break to the peace; yet not
the less he should cause commissioners meet upon the borders, where they
should treat upon that and all other enormities betwix the two
realms.”[213] (History of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1830, p. 82 f.)
The ballad displaces Sir Thomas and Sir Edward Howard, and puts in their
place Lord Charles Howard, who was not born till twenty-five years after
the fight. Lord Charles Howard, son of William, a younger half-brother
of Thomas and Edward, was, in his time, like them, Lord High Admiral,
and had the honor of commanding the fleet which served against the
Armada. He was created Earl of Nottingham in 1596, and this
circumstance, adopted into #A# 78,[214] puts this excellent ballad later
than one would have said, unless, as is quite possible, the name of the
English commander has been changed. There is but one ship in the ballad,
as there is but a single captain, but Henry Hunt makes up for the other
when we come to the engagement. The dates are much deranged in #A#. The
merchants make their complaint at midsummer, the summer solstice (in
May, #B# 1), and here there is agreement with Hall and Lesley. The
English ship sails the day before midsummer-even, #A# 17; the fight
occurs not more than four days after (#A# 18, 33, 34; #B# 16, 31); four
days is a large allowance for returning, but the ship sails into Thames
mouth on the day before New Year’s even, #A# 71, 72, 74.[215] In #B# the
English do not sail till winter, and although the interval from May is
long for fitting out a ship, inconsistency is avoided. According to
Hall, the English ships brought in their prizes August 2d.