2_The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 3 (of 5)

King Henrie was sent for, he came with all speed,

In a gownd of green velvet from heel to the head:

‘King Henrie, King Henrie, if kind Henrie you be,

Send for a surgeon, and bring him to me!’

The surgeon was sent for, he came with all speed,

In a gownd of black velvet from heel to the head;

He gave her rich caudle, but the death-sleep slept she,

Then her right side was opened, and the babe was set free.

The babe it was christened, and put out and nursed,

While the royal Queen Jane she lay cold in the dust.

. . . . . . . .

So black was the mourning, and white were the wands,

Yellow, yellow the torches they bore in their hands;

The bells they were muffled, and mournful did play,

While the royal Queen Jane she lay cold in the clay.

Six knights and six lords bore her corpse through the grounds,

Six dukes followed after, in black mourning gownds;

The flower of Old England was laid in cold clay,

Whilst the royal King Henrie came weeping away.

Macmath MS., p. 68. “From my aunt, Miss Jane Webster, 1886–1887. She

learned it at Airds of Kells, Kirkcudbrightshire, over fifty years

ago, from the singing of James Smith.”

‘Ye midwives and women-kind, do one thing for me;

Send for my mother, to come and see me.’

Her mother was sent for, who came speedilie:

‘O Jeanie, Queen Jeanie, are ye gaun to dee?’

‘O mother, dear mother, do one thing for me;

O send for King Henry, to come and see me.’

King Henry was sent for, who came speedilie:

‘O Jeanie, Queen Jeanie, are ye gaun to dee?’

‘King Henry, King Henry, do one thing for me;

O send for a doctor, to come and see me.’

The doctor was sent for, who came speedilie:

‘O Jeanie, Queen Jeanie, are ye gaun to dee?’

‘O doctor, oh doctor, do one thing for me;

Open my left side, and let my babe free.’

He opened her left side, and then all was oer,

And the best flower in England will flourish no more.

Notes and Queries, Second Series, XI, 131; sung by an illiterate

nursemaid “some forty years since” (1861).

Queen Jane lies in labour six weeks or more,

Till the women were tired, go see her no more:

‘Oh women, oh women, if women you be,

You’ll send for King Henry, to come and see me.

‘Oh King Henry, King Henry, if King Henry you be,

You’ll send for the doctor, to come and see me:

Oh doctor, oh doctor, if a doctor you be,

You’ll open my right side, and save my baby.’

They churchd her, they chimed her, they dug her her grave,

They buried her body, and christend her babe.

In pencil, in Motherwell’s handwriting, inside of the cover of what

appears to be a sketch of his Introduction to his Minstrelsy;

communicated by Mr Macmath.

Queen Jeanie was in labour full three days and more,

Till a’the good women was forced to gie her oer:

‘O guide women, gude women, gude women,’ quo she,

‘Will ye send for King Henry, to come and see me?’

Wi weeping and wailing, lamenting full sore,

That the flower of all Engl_and_ should flourish no more.

K_ing_ H_enry_ was sent for, wh_o_ came in g_reat_ speed,

Stand_ing_ weep_ing_ and wail_ing_ at Q_ueen_ Jeanie’s bedside;

Stand_ing_ weep_ing_ and wail_ing_, etc.

‘O King H_enry_, Ki_ng_ H_enry_, K_ing_ H_enry_,’ quo she,

‘Will ye send for my mothe_r_....

* * * * *

#B.#

3^1, 5^3. do _is to be pronounced_ dee.

#C. b.#

_Only six lines_: 2^{3,4}, 4^{1,2}, 5^{1,2}

2^3. This thing.

2^4. Straight open my two sides: save your.

4^1. The babie was.

4^2. But royal Queen Jeany lay low.

5^1. Then black were their mournings.

#E.#

_The first seven stanzas taken down October 15, 1886, and the last

sent on February 3, 1887._

_24th March, 1887._ “I can never remember them, sitting thinking

about them. Yesterday I was humming away, not knowing what I

was singing, until I sung this:

He opened her left side, Queen Jeanie’s life’s oer,

And the last rose of England will flourish no more.”

171

THOMAS CROMWELL

Percy MS., p. 55; Hales and Furnivall, I, 129.

June 10, 1540, Thomas Lord Cromwell, “when he least expected it,” was

arrested at the council-table by the Duke of Norfolk for high-treason,

and on the 28th of July following he was executed. Cromwell, says Lord

Herbert of Cherbury, judged “his perdition more certain that the duke

was uncle to the Lady Katherine Howard, whom the king began now to

affect.” Later writers[243] have asserted that Katherine Howard exerted

herself to procure Cromwell’s death, and we can understand nobody else

but her to be doing this in the third stanza of this fragment;

nevertheless there is no authority for such a representation. The king

had no personal interview with the minister whom he so suddenly struck

down, but he did send the Duke of Norfolk and two others to visit

Cromwell in prison, for the purpose of extracting confessions pertaining

to Anne of Cleves. Cromwell wrote a letter to the king, imploring the

mercy which, as well as confession, he refuses in stanza five.

Percy inserted in the Reliques, 1765, II, 58, a song against Cromwell,

printed in 1540, and apparently before his death, and he observes, 1767,

II, 86, that there was a succession of seven or eight more, for and

against, which were then preserved, and of course are still existing, in

the archives of the Antiquarian Society.

* * * * *

. . . . . . .

‘Ffor if yo_u_r boone be askeable,

Soone granted it shalbe:

‘If it be not touching my crowne,’ he said,

‘Nor hurting poore com_m_inaltye.’

‘Nay, it is not touching yo_u_r crowne,’ shee sayes,

‘Nor hurting poore cominaltye,

‘But I begg the death of Tho_mas_ Cromwell,

For a false traitor to you is hee.’

‘Then feitch me hither the Earle of Darby

And the Earle of Shrewsbury,

‘And bidde them bring Thomas Cromawell;

Let’s see what he can say to mee;’

For Thomas had woont to haue carryed his head vp,

But now he hanges it vppon his knee.

‘How now? How now?’ the k_ing_ did say,

‘Thomas, how is it w_i_th thee?’

‘Hanging and drawing, O k_ing_!’ he saide;

‘You shall neuer gett more from mee.’

* * * * *

_Half of the page is gone before the beginning._

2^3. it it is.

172

MUSSELBURGH FIELD

‘Musleboorrowe ffeild,’ Percy MS., p. 54; Hales and Furnivall, I, 123.

The Protector Somerset, to overcome or to punish the opposition of the

Scots to the marriage of Mary Stuart with Edward VI, invaded Scotland at

the end of the summer of 1547 with eighteen thousand men, supported by a

fleet. The Scots mustered at Musselburgh, a town on the water five or

six miles east of Edinburgh, under the Earls of Arran, Angus, and

Huntly, each of whom, according to Buchanan, had ten thousand men, and

there the issue was tried on the 10th of September. The northern army

abandoned an impregnable position, and their superior, but ill-managed,

and partly ill-composed, force, after successfully resisting a cavalry

charge, was put to flight by the English, who had an advantage in cannon

and cavalry as well as generalship. A hideous slaughter followed; Leslie

admits that, in the chase and battle, there were slain above ten

thousand of his countrymen. Patten, a Londoner who saw and described the

fight, says that the one anxiety of the Scots was lest the English

should get away, and that they were so sure of victory that, the night

before the battle, they fell “to playing at dice for certain of our

noblemen and captains of fame” (cf. stanza 3), as the French diced for

prisoners on the eve of Agincourt. The dates are wrong in 1^{1,2}, 5^1;

Huntly is rightly said to have been made prisoner, 7^1.

6, 8. When the Scots were once turned, says Patten, “it was a wonder to

see how soon and in how sundry sorts they were scattered; the place they

stood on like a wood of staves, strewed on the ground as rushes in a

chamber, unpassable, they lay so thick, for either horse or man.” Some

made their course along the sands by the Frith, towards Leith; some

straight toward Edinburgh; “and the residue, and (as we noted then) the

most, of them toward Dalkeith, which way, by means of the marsh, our

horsemen were worst able to follow.”[244]

The battle is known also by the name of Pinkie or Pinkie Cleuch,

appellations of an estate, a burn and a hill (“a hill called

Pinkincleuche,” Leslie), near or within the field of operations.

Percy remarks upon 3^3: “It should seem from hence that there was

somewhat of a uniform among our soldiers even then.” There are jackets

white and red in No 166, 29^3. Sir William Stanley has ten thousand red

coats at his order in ‘Lady Bessy,’ vv 593, 809–11, 937 f, Percy MS.,

III, 344, 352, 358; Sir John Savage has fifteen hundred white hoods in

the same piece, v. 815.

On the tenth day of December,

And the fourth yeere of K_ing_ Edwards raigne,

Att Musleboorrowe, as I remember,

Two goodly hosts there mett on a plaine.

All that night they camped there,

Soe did the Scotts, both stout and stubborne;

But “wellaway,” it was their song,

For wee haue taken them in their owne turne.

Over night they carded for our English mens coates;

They fished before their netts were spunn;

A white for sixpence, a red f_or_ two groates;

Now wisdome wold haue stayed till they had been woone.

Wee feared not but that they wold fight,

Yett itt was turned vnto their owne paine;

Thoe against one of vs _tha_t they were eight,

Yett w_i_th their owne weapons wee did them beat.

On the twelfth day in the morne

The made a face as the wold fight,

But many a proud Scott there was downe borne,

And many a ranke coward was put to flight.

But when they heard our great gunnes cracke,

Then was their harts turned into their hose;

They cast down their weapons, and turned their backes,

They ran soe fast _tha_t the fell on their nose.

The Lo_rd_ Huntley, wee had him there;

W_i_th him hee brought ten thousand men,

Yett, God bee thanked, wee made them such a banquett

That none of them returned againe.

Wee chased them to D[alkeith]

* * * * *

1^1. 10^{th}.

1^2. 4[th :].

1^4. 2.

2^1. all night that.

2^4. horne _may be the reading_, _instead_ of turne.

3^3. 6[d :] p_ro_ 2.

4^3. 8[t :].

5^1. 12[th :].

7^2. 10000.

8^1. _Half a page gone._

173

MARY HAMILTON

#A. a.# ‘Marie Hamilton,’ Sharp’s Ballad Book, 1824, p. 18. #b.#

Communicated by the late John Francis Campbell. #c.# Aungervyle

Society’s publications, No V, p. 18.

#B.# ‘Mary Hamilton,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 337; printed in part in

Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 313 ff.

#C.# ‘Mary Myles,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 265.

#D.# ‘Mary Hamilton,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 267; Motherwell’s

Minstrelsy, p. 316.

#E.# ‘Lady Maisry,’ Buchan’s MSS, II, 186; Buchan’s Ballads of the

North of Scotland, II, 190.

#F.# Skene MS., p. 61.

#G.# ‘Mary Hamilton,’ MS. of Scottish Songs and Ballads copied by a

granddaughter of Lord Woodhouselee, p. 51.

#H.# ‘Mary Hamilton,’ Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 252.

#I. a.# ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ Scott’s Minstrelsy, 1833, III, 294. #b.#

Scott’s Minstrelsy, 1802, II, 154, three stanzas.

#J.# ‘Marie Hamilton,’ Harris MS., fol. 10 b.

#K.# ‘The Queen’s Mary,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 96.

#L.# ‘Mary Hamilton,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 280.

#M.# ‘Mary Hamilton,’ Maidment’s North Countrie Garland, p. 19.

Repeated in Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 164.

#N.# ‘The Queen’s Maries,’ Murison MS., p. 33.

#O.# ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ Finlay’s Scottish Ballads, I, xix.

#P.# Kinloch MSS, VII, 95, 97; Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p.

252.

#Q.# ‘Queen’s Marie,’ Letters from and to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe,

ed. Allardyce, II, 272, two stanzas.

#R.# Burns, Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 25 January, 1790, Currie, II, 290,

1800, one stanza.

The scene is at the court of Mary Stuart, #A-N#, #Q#. The unhappy

heroine is one of the queen’s Four Maries, #A a# 18, #b# 14, #c# 1, 18,

23, #B# 19, #D# 21, #F# 3, 12, #G# 16, #H# 18, #I# 19, #J# 8, 10, #K# 8,

#M# 7, #N# 1; Mary Hamilton, #A a# 1, #b# 2, #c# 2, #B# 3, #D# 8, #G# 1,

#H# 4, #I# 1, #J# 6; Lady Mary, #F# 5, 6; Mary Mild, Myle, #C# 5, #M# 1,

#N# 1, also #A c# 6, Moil, #O#, but Lady Maisry, #E# 6. She gangs wi

bairn; it is to the highest Stewart of a’, #A a# 1, #A c# 2, #B# 3, #C#

5; cf. #D# 3, #G# 1–3, #I# 1–6, #L# 9, #P# 1. She goes to the garden to

pull the leaf off the tree, in a vain hope to be free of the babe, #C#

3; it is the savin-tree, #D# 4, the deceivin-tree, #N# 3, the Abbey-tree

(and pulled by the king), #I# 6.[245] She rolls the bairn in her apron,

handkerchief, and throws it in the sea, #A a# 3, #A b# 3, #A c# 4, #C#

4, #D# 5, 9, #I# 7, #K# 2, 4, #L# 5 (inconsistently), #O# 3; cf. #B# 7.

The queen asks where the babe is that she has heard greet, #A a# 4, #b#

4, #c# 6, #B# 4, 6, #C# 6, #D# 6, 8, #E# 6, 7, #F# 6, #G# 5, #H# 5, #I#

9, #J# 3, #L# 1, #M# 1; there is no babe, it was a stitch in the side,

colic, #A a# 5, #b# 5, #c# 7, #B# 5, #C# 7, #D# 7, #E# 8, #F# 7, #G# 6,

#H# 6, #I# 10, #J# 4, #L# 2, #M# 2; search is made and the child found

in the bed, dead, #E# 9, #F# 9, #H# 7, #J# 5, #L# 4, #M# 4 (and #A c# 8

inconsistently). The queen bids Mary make ready to go to Edinburgh (_i.

e._, from Holyrood), #A a# 6, #A b# 6, #A c# 10, #C# 8, #D# 11, #E# 10,

#F# 12, #H# 8, #I# 11. The purpose is concealed in #A#, #a#, #b#, #c#,

and for the best effect should be concealed, or at least simulated, as

in #B#, #D#, #G#, #I#, where a wedding is the pretence, Mary Hamilton’s

own wedding in #D#. The queen directs Mary to put on black or brown, #A

a# 6, #A b# 6, #A c# 10; she will not put on black or brown, but white,

gold, red, to shine through Edinburgh town, #A a# 7, #A b# 7, #A c# 11,

#B# 9, #C# 9, #D# 13, #E# 11, #H# 10, #K# 6, #N# 5, #O# 5. When she went

up the Canongate, #A a# 8, #b# 8, #c# 13, #L# 6, up the Parliament

stair, #A a# 9, #b# 9, #c# 14, #D# 16, up the Tolbooth stair, #C# 12,

#E# 14, #H# 15, #I# 17, came to the Netherbow Port, #G# 10, #I# 18, #M#

6, she laughed loudly or lightly, #A a# 8, #b# 8, #c# 13, #D# 16, #E#

14, #G# 10, #H# 15, #I# 18, #L# 6, #M# 6; the heel, lap, came off her

shoe, #A a# 9, #b# 9, #c# 14, #C# 12, the corks from her heels did flee,

#I# 17; but ere she came down again she was condemned to die, #A a# 9,

#b# 9, #c# 14, #C# 12, #D# 16, #E# 14, #H# 15, #I# 17; but when she

reached the gallows-foot, #G# 10, #I# 18, #M# 6, ere she came to the

Cowgate Head, #L# 6, when she came down the Canongate, #A a# 8, #b# 8,

#c# 13, the tears blinded her eyes. She calls for a bottle of wine, that

she may drink to her well-wishers and they may drink to her, #A a# 12,

#b# 10, #c# 17, #B# 14; cf. #D# 19, 20, #G# 13. She adjures sailors,

travellers, not to let her father and mother get wit what death she is

to die, #A a# 14, #b# 12, #c# 19, #B# 15, #C# 13, #D# 20, #F# 15, #G#

13, #H# 21, #I# 23, #L# 7, #M# 8, or know but that she is coming home,

#A a# 13, #b# 11, #B# 16, #C# 14, #D# 19, #E# 15, #F# 16, #G# 14, #H#

20, #I# 22, #L# 8. Little did her mother think when she cradled her

(brought her from home, #F# 18) what lands she would travel and what end

she would come to, #A a# 15, #c# 21, #B# 17, 18, #C# 15, #D# 17, #G# 15,

#I# 25, #J# 9, #N# 9, #R#; as little her father, when he held her up, #A

a# 16, #c# 22, #C# 16, brought her over the sea, #F# 17. Yestreen the

queen had four Maries, to-night she’ll have but three (see above);

yestreen she washed Queen Mary’s feet, etc., and the gallows is her

reward to-day, #A a# 17, #b# 13, #B# 20, #C# 17, #G# 11, 12, #H# 19, #I#

20, 21, #N# 8.

It is impossible to weave all the versions into an intelligible and

harmonious story. In #E# 10, #F# 12, #H# 8 the intention to bring Mary

to trial is avowed, and in #A c# 9, #B# 8^{5,6}, #F# 10, #K# 5, #M# 5

she is threatened with death. In #D# 12, #H# 9, #J# 7, #N# 4, the queen

is made to favor, and not inhibit, gay colors. Mary may laugh when she

goes up the Parliament stair, but not when she goes up the Tolbooth

stair. She goes up the Canongate to the Parliament House to be tried,

but she would not go down the Canongate again, the Tolbooth being in the

High Street, an extension of the Canongate, and the Parliament House in

the rear. The tears and alaces and ohones as Mary goes by, #A a# 10, #c#

15, #B# 10, #C# 10, #D# 14, #E# 12, #F# 13, #H# 11, #I# 16, are a

sufficiently effective incident as long as Mary is represented to be

unsuspicious of her doom, as she is in #D# 15, #G# 9, #I# 15, 16; but in

#A a# 11, #c# 16, #B# 11, #C# 11, #H# 12, 22, she forbids condolement,

because she deserves to die for killing her babe, which reduces this

passage to commonplace. Much better, if properly introduced, would be

the desperate ejaculation, Seek never grace at a graceless face! which

we find in #E# 13, #F# 14, #H# 13, #N# 7.

At the end of #B# the king tells Mary Hamilton to come down from the

scaffold, but she scorns life after having been put to public shame. So

in #D#, with queen for king.

In #A a# 4, #b# 4, 13, #G# 5 the queen is “the auld queen,” and yet Mary

Stuart.

#E#, from 16, #F#, from 19, are borrowed from No 95, ‘The Maid freed

from the Gallows:’ see II, 346. #G# 8 (and #I# 13, taken from #G#) is

derived from ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,’ #D a# 11, #e# 10, #g# 11: see

II, 187, 196, 197. The rejection of black and brown, #A# 7, #C# 9, #D#

13, etc., or of green, #K# 6, is found in the same ballad, #C# 10, #E#

16, #F# 12, 15, etc., #B# 20. #B# 21 is perhaps from ‘The Laird of

Waristoun:’ see further on, #A# 9, #B# 10, #C# 4. #I# 12, 14 look like a

souvenir of ‘Fair Janet,’ No 64.

There are not a few spurious passages. Among these are the extravagance

of the queen’s bursting in the door, #F# 8; the platitude, of menial

stamp, that the child, if saved, might have been an honor to the mother,

#D# 10, #L# 3, #O# 4; the sentimentality of #H# 3, 16.

Allan Cunningham has put the essential incidents of the story into a

rational order, that of #A#, for example, with less than usual of his

glistering and saccharine phraseology: Songs of Scotland, I, 348.

Aytoun’s language is not quite definite with regard to the copy which he

gives at II, 45, ed. 1859: it is, however, made up from versions

previously printed.

When Mary Stuart was sent to France in 1548, she being then between five

and six, she had for companions “sundry gentlewomen and noblemen’s sons

and daughters, almost of her own age, of the which there were four in

special of whom every one of them bore the same name of Mary, being of

four sundry honorable houses, to wit, Fleming, Livingston, Seton, and

Beaton of Creich; who remained all four with the queen in France during

her residence there, and returned again in Scotland with her Majesty in

the year of our Lord 1561:” Lesley, History of Scotland, 1830, p. 209.

We still hear of the Four Maries in 1564, Calendar of State Papers

(Foreign), VII, 213, 230; cited by Burton, IV, 107. The ballad

substitutes Mary Hamilton and Mary Carmichael for Mary Livingston and

Mary Fleming; but #F# 3, 12 has Livingston. #N#, of late recitation, has

Heaton for Seton and Michel for Carmichael.

#D# 4, etc. In ‘Tam Lin,’ No 39, Janet pulls the rose to kill or scathe

away her babe; #A# 19, 20, #F# 8, #I# 24, 25 (probably repeated from

#A#). In #G# 18, 19, the herb of 15 and the rose of 17 becomes the pile

of the gravil green, or of the gravil gray; in #H# 5, 6 Janet pulls an

unspecified flower or herb (I, 341 ff).

We have had in ‘The Twa Brothers,’ No 49, a passage like that in which

Mary begs sailors and travellers not to let her parents know that she is

not coming home; and other ballads, Norse, Breton, Romaic, and Slavic,

which present a similar trait, are noted at I, 436 f, II, 14. To these

may be added Passow, p. 400, No 523; Jeannaraki, p. 116, No 118;

Sakellarios, p. 98, No 31; Puymaigre, 1865, p. 62, Bujeaud, II, 210

(Liebrecht); also Guillon, p. 107, Nigra, No 27, #A, B#, pp. 164, 166,

and many copies of ‘Le Déserteur,’ and some of ‘Le Plongeur,’ ‘La ronde

du Battoir.’

Scott thought that the ballad took its rise from an incident related by

Knox as occurring in “the beginning of the regiment of Mary, Queen of

Scots.” “In the very time of the General Assembly,” says Knox, “there

comes to public knowledge a heinous murder committed in the court, yea,

not far from the queen’s own lap; for a French woman that served in the

queen’s chamber had played the whore with the queen’s own apothecary.

The woman conceived and bare a child, whom, with common consent, the

father and the mother murdered. Yet were the cries of a new-born bairn

heard; search was made, the child and mother was both deprehended, and

so were both the man and the woman damned to be hanged upon the public

street of Edinburgh.”[246] “It will readily strike the reader,” says

Scott, “that the tale has suffered great alterations, as handed down by

tradition; the French waiting-woman being changed into Mary Hamilton,

and the queen’s apothecary[247] into Henry Darnley. Yet this is less

surprising when we recollect that one of the heaviest of the queen’s

complaints against her ill-fated husband was his infidelity, and that

even with her personal attendants.” This General Assembly, however, met

December 25, 1563, and since Darnley did not come to Scotland until

1565, a tale of 1563, or of 1563–4, leaves him unscathed.

Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in his preface to #A#, Ballad Book, 1824, p.

18, observes: “It is singular that during the reign of the Czar Peter,

one of his empress’s attendants, a Miss Hamilton, was executed for the

murder of a natural child.... I cannot help thinking that the two

stories have been confused in the ballad, for if Marie Hamilton was

executed in Scotland, it is not likely that her relations resided beyond

seas; and we have no proof that Hamilton was really the name of the

woman who made a slip with the queen’s apothecary.” Sharpe afterwards

communicated details of the story[248] to Scott, who found in them “a

very odd coincidence in name, crime and catastrophe;” Minstrelsy, 1833,

III, 296, note. But Sharpe became convinced “that the Russian tragedy

must be the original” (note in Laing’s edition of the Ballad Book, 1880,

p. 129); and this opinion is the only tenable one, however surprising it

may be or seem that, as late as the eighteenth century, the popular

genius, helped by nothing but a name, should have been able so to

fashion and color an episode in the history of a distant country as to

make it fit very plausibly into the times of Mary Stuart.

The published accounts of the affair of the Russian Mary Hamilton differ

to much the same degree as some versions of the Scottish ballad. The

subject has fortunately been reviewed in a recent article founded on

original and authentic documents.[249]