F
Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 1; from recitation.
1
Queene Eleanor was a sick woman,
And sick just like to die,
And she has sent for two fryars of France,
To come to her speedilie.
And she has sent, etc.
2
The King called downe his nobles all,
By one, by two, by three:
‘Earl Marshall, I’ll go shrive the Queene,
And thou shalt wend with mee.’
3
‘A boone, a boone!’ quoth Earl Marshall,
And fell on his bended knee,
‘That whatsoever the Queene may say,
No harm thereof may bee.’
4
‘O you’ll put on a gray-friar’s gowne,
And I’ll put on another,
And we will away to fair London town,
Like friars both together.’
5
‘O no, O no, my liege, my king,
Such things can never bee;
For if the Queene hears word of this,
Hanged she’ll cause me to bee.’
6
‘I swear by the sun, I swear by the moon,
And by the stars so hie,
And by my sceptre and my crowne,
The Earl Marshall shall not die.’
7
The King’s put on a gray-friar’s gowne,
The Earl Marshall’s put on another,
And they are away to fair London towne,
Like fryars both together.
8
When that they came to fair London towne,
And came into Whitehall,
The bells did ring, and the quiristers sing,
And the torches did light them all.
9
And when they came before the Queene,
They kneeled down on their knee:
‘What matter, what matter, our gracious queene,
You’ve sent so speedilie?’
10
‘O, if you are two fryars of France,
It’s you that I wished to see;
But if you are two English lords,
You shall hang on the gallowes-tree.’
11
‘O we are not two English lords,
But two fryars of France we bee,
And we sang the Song of Solomon,
As we came over the sea.’
12
‘Oh, the first vile sin I did commit
Tell it I will to thee;
I fell in love with the Earl Marshall,
As he brought me over the sea.’
13
‘Oh, that was a great sin,’ quoth the King,
‘But pardond it must bee;’
‘Amen! Amen!’ said the Earl Marshall,
With a heavie heart spake hee.
14
‘Oh, the next sin that I did commit
I will to you unfolde;
Earl Marshall had my virgin dower,
Beneath this cloth of golde.’
15
‘Oh, that was a vile sin,’ said the King,
‘May God forgive it thee!’
‘Amen! Amen!’ groaned the Earl Marshall,
And a very frightened man was hee.
16
‘Oh, the next sin that I did commit
Tell it I will to thee;
I poisoned a lady of noble blood,
For the sake of King Henrie.’
17
‘Oh, that was a great sin,’ said the King,
‘But pardoned it shall bee;’
‘Amen! Amen!’ said the Earl Marshall,
And still a frightened man was he.
18
‘Oh, the next sin that ever I did
Tell it I will to thee;
I have kept strong poison this seven long years,
To poison King Henrie.’
19
‘Oh, that was a great sin,’ said the King,
‘But pardoned it must bee;’
‘Amen! Amen!’ said the Earl Marshall,
And still a frightened man was hee.
20
‘O don’t you see two little boys,
Playing at the football?
O yonder is the Earl Marshall’s son,
And I like him best of all.
21
‘O don’t you see yon other little boy,
Playing at the football?
O that one is King Henrie’s son,
And I like him worst of all.
22
‘His head is like a black bull’s head,
His feet are like a bear;’
‘What matter! what matter!’ cried the King,
‘He’s my son, and my only heir.’
23
The King plucked off his fryar’s gowne,
And stood in his scarlet so red;
The Queen she turned herself in bed,
And cryed that she was betrayde.
24
The King lookt oer his left shoulder,
And a grim look looked he;
‘Earl Marshall,’ he said, ‘but for my oath,
Thou hadst swung on the gallowes-tree.’
A. a.
Queen Eleanor’s Confession: Shewing how King Henry, with the Earl Martial, in Fryars Habits, came to her, instead of two Fryars from France, which she sent for. To a pleasant New Tune. Both a and b are dated in the Museum Catalogue 1670? “C. Bates, at Sun & Bible, near St. Sepulchre’s Church, in Pye Corner, 1685.” Chappell.
101. thta ere.
142. disdover.
171. younders.
b.
Title the same, except came to see her.
163. Martial’s.
171. see then yonders.
201. his let.
c.
Title as in a.
43. whatsoever.
84. you shall.
162. catching of the.
163. Marshal’s.
171. see then yonders.
d.
Queen Eleanor’s Confession to the Two supposed Fryars of France.
14. To speak with her.
22. and wanting.
24. For wanting.
41. I’ll pawn my lands the King then cry’d.
43. whatsoere.
51. on a.
54. Like fryar and his brother.
63. they wanting.
74. you.
82. As I.
104. Beneath this.
111, 131, 151. That’s.
114. then wanting.
162. of the.
163. Marshal’s.
164, 174. And wanting.
183. Henry cry’d.
193. shriekd, she cry’d, and wrung.
204. Or hanged.
E.
144. loved; love in Kinloch’s annotated copy.
F.
101, 111, 201,3, 211,3. Oh.
157
GUDE WALLACE
A. ‘On an honourable Achievement of Sir William Wallace, near Falkirk,’ a chap-book of Four New Songs and a Prophecy, 1745? Johnson’s Museum, ed. 1853, D. Laing’s additions, IV, 458 *; Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 83.
B. ‘Sir William Wallace,’ communicated to Percy by Robert Lambe, of Norham, probably in 1768.
C. ‘Gude Wallace,’ Johnson’s Museum, p. 498, No 484, communicated by Robert Burns.
D. ‘Gude Wallace,’ communicated to Robert Chambers by Elliot Anderson, 1827.
E. ‘Willie Wallace,’communicated to James Telfer by A. Fisher.
F. ‘Willie Wallace,’ Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 114.
G. ‘Sir William Wallace,’ Alexander Laing’s Thistle of Scotland, p. 100; Motherwell’s MS., p. 487.
H. ‘Wallace and his Leman,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 226.
C is reprinted by Finlay, I, 103. It is made the basis of a long ballad by Jamieson, II, 166, and serves as a thread for Cunningham’s ‘Gude Wallace,’ Scottish Songs, I, 262.[[147]] F is repeated by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. 364, and by Aytoun, I, 54. A copy in the Laing MSS, University of Edinburgh, Div. II, 358, is C.
Blind Harry’s Wallace (of about 1460, earlier than 1488) is clearly the source of this ballad. A-F are derived from vv 1080–1119 of the Fifth Book. Here Wallace, on his way to a hostelry with a comrade, met a woman, who counselled them to pass by, if Scots, for southrons were there, drinking and talking of Wallace; twenty are there, making great din, but no man of fence. “Wallace went in and bad Benedicite.” The captain said, Thou art a Scot, the devil thy nation quell. Wallace drew, and ran the captain through; “fifteen he straik and fifteen has he slayn;” his comrade killed the other five.
The story of A-E is sufficiently represented by that of A. Wallace comes upon a woman washing, and asks her for tidings. There are fifteen Englishmen at the hostelry seeking Wallace. Had he money he would go thither. She tells him out twenty shillings (for which he takes off both hat and hood, and thanks her reverently). He bows himself over a staff and enters the hostelry, saying, Good ben be here (in C, he bad Benedicite, in the words of Blind Harry). The captain asks the crooked carl where he was born, and the carl answers that he is a Scot. The captain offers the carl twenty shillings for a sight of Wallace. The carl wants no better bode, or offer.[[148]] He strikes the captain such a blow over the jaws that he will never eat more, and sticks the rest. Then he bids the goodwife get him food, for he has eaten nothing for two days. Ere the meal is ready, fifteen other Englishmen light at the door. These he soon disposes of, sticking five, trampling five in the gutter, and hanging five in the wood.
F makes Wallace change clothes with a beggar, and ask charity at the inn. He kills his thirty men between eight and four, and then returning to the North-Inch (a common lying along the Tay, near Perth) finds the maid who was washing her lilie hands in st. 3 still “washing tenderlie.” He pulls out twenty of the fifty pounds which he got from the captain, and hands them over to the maid for the good luck of her half-crown.
G has the change of clothes with the beggar, found in F, and prefixes to the story of the other versions another adventure of Wallace, taken from the Fourth Book of Blind Harry, vv 704–87. Wallace’s enemies have seen him leaving his mistress’s house. They seize her, threaten to burn her unless she ‘tells,’ and promise to marry her to a knight if she will help to bring the rebel down. Wallace returns, and she seeks to detain him, but he says he must go back to his men. Hereupon she falls to weeping, and ends with confessing her treason. He asks her if she repents; she says that to mend the miss she would burn on a hill, and is forgiven. Wallace puts on her gown and curches, hiding his sword under his weed, tells the armed men who are watching for him that Wallace is locked in, and makes good speed out of the gate. Two men follow him, for he seems to be a stalwart quean; Wallace turns on them and kills them. This is Blind Harry’s story, and it will be observed to be followed closely in the ballad, with the addition of a pitcher in each hand to complete the female disguise, and two more southrons to follow and be killed. The first half of this version is plainly a late piece of work, very possibly of this century, much later than the other, which itself need not be very old. But the portions of Blind Harry’s poem out of which these ballads were made were perhaps themselves composed from older ballads, and the restitution of the lyrical form may have given us something not altogether unlike what was sung in the fifteenth, or even the fourteenth, century. The fragment H is, as far as it goes, a repetition of G.
Bower (1444–49) says that after the battle of Roslyn, 1298, Wallace took ship and went to France, distinguishing himself by his valor against pirates on the sea and against the English on the continent, as ballads both in France and Scotland testify.[[149]] A fragment of a ballad relating to Wallace is preserved in Constable’s MS. Cantus: Leyden’s Complaynt of Scotland, p. 226.
Wallace parted his men in three
And sundrie gaits are gone.
C is translated by Arndt, Blütenlese, p. 198; F by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 69, No 22.