The

Scottish Historical Review

VOL. VI., No. 22

JANUARY 1909

Ballads illustrating the relations of England and Scotland during the Seventeenth Century

N a previous paper, printed in this Review,1 an attempt was made to illustrate from ballads published during 1638-40 the feeling of the English people with regard to the two campaigns of Charles I. against the Covenanters. In the present a larger task is attempted, namely, to show from the ballads and political poetry produced in England between 1603 and 1688 how the political events of the period affected for good or ill English feeling towards Scotland.

The accession of James I. in March, 1603, and the union of the two crowns of England and Scotland was the signal for an outbreak of congratulatory verse of every kind addressed to the new king. The very poets with their idle pamphlets promise themselves great part in his favour,' wrote Chamberlain to Carleton on April 12, 1603 (Court and Times of James I. i. 7.) Specimens in plenty of their productions are reprinted in volume one of Nichols's Progresses of James I., and some others may be found in the second series of Fugitive Tracts written in verse, privately printed by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in 1875, and in (iii. 544; x. 342) Park's edition of the Harleian Miscellany. But while so many of these poetical tracts survive, time has dealt hardly with the similar compositions produced by the balladmongers and printed in broadside form. The registers of the Stationers' Company give the titles of many. A thinge in verse called King James proclaimed (March 30, 1 Scottish Historical Review, iii. 257.

1603); The Joy and ready preparacion of the nobles and states of this Land for the enterteyninge of the Kinge (June 11); A Song of Joy for the Kinge's coronacion on Sanct James Day Last (Aug. 1); A joyfull newe ditty made of our most gracious and nowe crowned King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland (Aug. 1)'; and there are nearly half a dozen more either on the coronation itself or the entertainments which followed it. Yet of all the ballads on this event one only has survived: 'An excellent new ballad shewing the petigree of our royal King James, the first of that name in England,' which is reprinted in Roxburghe Ballads, viii. 758, and in Sherburn Ballads, p. 315.

Eyght hundred myles his Empyre goes
in length, in spight of all his foes.
From Cornewall to past Calidon

Is knowne to be King James own.'

This is a fair specimen both of the author's verse and his reflections. More interest attaches to a small set of ballads illustrating the ill-feeling which the favour James showed to his Scottish followers caused in England. A popular rhyme on this subject is quoted in Osborne's Traditional Memoirs' (Secret History of James I. ed. Scott, 1811, i. 217). This nation,' says Osborne, was rooted up by those Caledonian bores, as these homely verses do attest, which were everywhere posted, and do containe as many stories as lines . . .'

'They beg our lands, our goods, our lives,

They switch our nobles, and lye with their wives;
They pinch our gentry, and send for our benchers,
They stab our sargeants and pistoll our fencers.'

The last half line refers to the well-known case of Lord Sanquhar's trial for hiring two ruffians to murder the fencingmaster, Turner. Sanquhar was hanged on June 29, 1612, and on July 5 there was entered to William Burley 'a ballad of the Lord Sanquire,' called 'Bloodshed revenged' (Arber, Stationers' Registers, iii. 490). Unluckily this ballad has not survived.

Another incident, the duel between Sir James Stewart and Sir George Wharton on November 8, 1612, in which both the combatants were killed, is celebrated in a ballad reprinted in the Roxburghe Ballads, vii. 595, and copies of the broadside are to be found in six English collections besides the

Roxburghe. Mr. Ebsworth, in his introduction to the reprint, describes Wharton as 'a pestilent swaggerer and insufferable nuisance' who well deserved chastisement. Another version of this ballad, held by Mr. Ebsworth to have been altered and sophisticated by Hogg, is to be found in Scott's Border Minstrelsy (ed. 1810, ii. 296) and also in Maidment's Scottish Ballads, Historical and Traditionary, ii. 164. A lighter side of national rivalry appears in a unique ballad called the Leaping of the Lords' (Roxburghe Ballads, viii. 135). Three Scotch lords proudly challenge the peers of England to leap against them for a bet of £7000. The contest takes place in the presence of King James and Prince Charles, the latter offering to wager £10,000 on the English champion. The Earl of Southampton, the English champion, leaps six yards and full two foot' easily defeating his competitor. King James, alluding to the fact that Southampton was a prisoner in the Tower for complicity in Essex's plot when he came to the throne, tells him that he leapt a far greater leap when he leapt from the Tower. Your Grace did more, interposes Lord Derby, 'you leapt a greater leap from Scotland's gates to wear our English crown.' The ballad ends amicably, and with boasts of the agility and vigour of the English peerage.

The tables are turned in the next ballad which requires mention. It is entitled 'Blew Cap for me,' and the substance of it may be gathered from the second verse:

There lives a blithe lass in Faukeland towne,

And shee had some suitors, I wot not how many;

But her resolution shee had set downe
That shee'd have a Blew-cap gif e're she had any :
An Englishman when our good king was there
Came often unto her, and loved her deere :
But still she replide, "Sir, I pray let me be
Gif ever I have a man Blew-cap for me.'

(Roxburghe Ballads, i. 75.)

The ballad was registered March 22, 1634, and was clearly suggested by Charles the First's visit to Scotland in 1633. Five others entered in 1633 entitled 'A princely Progress,' 'Joyful newes from Scotland,' News from the North,' News of the Coronation,' and 'His majesties returne from Scotland,' referred to the same journey, but all have perished (Arber, Stationers' Registers, iv. 270, 271, 273, 274, 289).

The paucity of English ballads about events in Scotland, or