C
Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 56.
1
‘My mother was an ill woman,
In fifteen years she married me;
I hadna wit to guide a man,
Alas! ill counsel guided me.
2
‘O Warriston, O Warriston,
I wish that ye may sink for sin!
I was but bare fifteen years auld,
Whan first I enterd your yates within.
3
‘I hadna been a month married,
Till my gude lord went to the sea;
I bare a bairn ere he came hame,
And set it on the nourice knee.
4
‘But it fell ance upon a day,
That my gude lord returnd from sea;
Then I did dress in the best array,
As blythe as ony bird on tree.
5
‘I took my young son in my arms,
Likewise my nourice me forebye,
And I went down to yon shore-side,
My gude lord’s vessel I might spy.
6
‘My lord he stood upon the deck,
I wyte he haild me courteouslie:
Ye are thrice welcome, my lady gay,
Whae’s aught that bairn on your knee?’
7
She turnd her right and round about,
Says, ‘Why take ye sic dreads o me?
Alas! I was too young married,
To love another man but thee.’
8
‘Now hold your tongue, my lady gay,
Nae mair falsehoods ye’ll tell to me;
This bonny bairn is not mine,
You’ve loved another while I was on sea.’
9
In discontent then hame she went,
And aye the tear did blin her ee;
Says, Of this wretch I’ll be revenged
For these harsh words he’s said to me.
10
She’s counselld wi her father’s steward
What way she coud revenged be;
Bad was the counsel then he gave,
It was to gar her gude lord dee.
11
The nourice took the deed in hand,
I wat she was well paid her fee;
She kiest the knot, and the loop she ran,
Which soon did gar this young lord dee.
12
His brother lay in a room hard by,
Alas! that night he slept too soun;
But then he wakend wi a cry,
‘I fear my brother’s putten down.
13
‘O get me coal and candle light,
And get me some gude companie;’
But before the light was brought,
Warriston he was gart dee.
14
They’ve taen the lady and fause nourice,
In prison strong they hae them boun;
The nourice she was hard o heart,
But the bonny lady fell in swoon.
15
In it came her brother dear,
And aye a sorry man was he:
‘I woud gie a’ the lands I heir,
O bonny Jean, to borrow thee.’
16
‘O borrow me, brother, borrow me?
O borrowd shall I never be;
For I gart kill my ain gude lord,
And life is nae pleasure to me.’
17
In it came her mother dear,
I wyte a sorry woman was she:
‘I woud gie my white monie and gowd,
O bonny Jean, to borrow thee.’
18
‘Borrow me, mother, borrow me?
O borrowd shall I never be;
For I gart kill my ain gude lord,
And life’s now nae pleasure to me,’
19
Then in it came her father dear,
I wyte a sorry man was he;
Says, ‘Ohon, alas! my bonny Jean,
If I had you at hame wi me!
20
‘Seven daughters I hae left at hame,
As fair women as fair can be;
But I would gie them ane by ane,
O bonny Jean, to borrow thee.’
21
‘O borrow me, father, borrow me?
O borrowd shall I never be;
I that is worthy o the death,
It is but right that I shoud dee.’
22
Then out it speaks the king himsell,
And aye as he steps in the fleer;
Says, ‘I grant you your life, lady,
Because you are of tender year.’
23
‘A boon, a boon, my liege the king,
The boon I ask, ye’ll grant to me;’
‘Ask on, ask on, my bonny Jean,
Whateer ye ask it’s granted be.’
24
‘Cause take me out at night, at night,
Lat not the sun upon me shine,
And take me to yon heading-hill,
Strike aff this dowie head o mine.
25
‘Ye’ll take me out at night, at night,
When there are nane to gaze and see,
And hae me to yon heading-hill,
And ye’ll gar head me speedilie.’
26
They’ve taen her out at nine at night,
Loot not the sun upon her shine,
And had her to yon heading-hill,
And headed her baith neat and fine.
27
Then out it speaks the king himsell,
I wyte a sorry man was he:
‘I’ve travelld east, I’ve travelld west,
And sailed far beyond the sea,
But I never saw a woman’s face
I was sae sorry to see dee.
28
‘But Warriston was sair to blame,
For slighting o his lady so;
He had the wyte o his ain death,
And bonny lady’s overthrow.’
B.
4. The MS indicates that this is the nurse’s speech.
51. whan struck out, as written over.
8. has struck out, ‘s substituted.
102. stay struck out, be substituted.
103. Originally handkerchief; hand struck out.
Kinloch has made several changes in printing:
71. has gane.
83. Fy! gar.
84. some brae.
93. gud wife. He gives as in 51; be in 102; handkerchief in 103.
C.
64. Whase. Perhaps, Wha’s rather than Whae’s.
195
LORD MAXWELL’S LAST GOODNIGHT
A. ‘Lord Maxwell’s Last Goodnight,’ communicated to Percy by G. Paton, 1778.
B. ‘Lord Maxwell’s Goodnight,’ Glenriddell MSS, XI, 18, 1791, Scott’s Minstrelsy, I, 194, 1802; II, 133, 1833.
First published in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, “from a copy in Glenriddell’s MS., with some slight variations from tradition.” I understand this to mean, not that the variations were derived from tradition, but that the text of the Minstrelsy departs somewhat from that of the manuscript.
A and B agree entirely as to matter. The order of the stanzas, not being governed by an explicit story, might be expected to vary with every reciter.
In the year 1585, John, Lord Maxwell, having incurred the enmity of the king’s favorite, the Earl of Arran, was denounced rebel, on such charges as were always at hand, and a commission was given to the Laird of Johnstone to pursue and take him. A hired force, by the aid of which this was expected to be done, was badly routed by the Maxwells in a sharp fight. Johnstone made a raid on Maxwell’s lands; Maxwell burnt Johnstone’s house. Finally, in one of their skirmishes, Johnstone was captured: “the grief of this overthrow gave Johnstone, shortly after he was liberated, his death.”
After some years of feud, the two chiefs, “by the industry of certain wise gentlemen of the Johnstones,” surprised all Scotland by making a treaty of peace. On April 1, 1592, they entered into a bond to forget and forgive all rancor and malice of the past, and to live in amity, themselves and their friends, in all time coming. A little more than a year after, a party of Johnstones, relying, no doubt, on the forbearance of their new ally, then warden of the West Marches, “rode a stealing” in the lands of Lord Sanquhar and of the knights of Drumlanrig, Lag, and Closeburn, carried off a large booty, and killed eighteen men who endeavored to retrieve their property. (See No 184, ‘The Lads of Wamphray.’) The injured gentlemen made complaint to Maxwell as warden, and also procured a commission directing him to proceed against the Johnstones. Maxwell was in an awkward plight. To induce him to take action, several of the sufferers engaged to enter into a bond of manrent, or homage, to Maxwell, by which they should be obliged to service and he to protection. “Maxwell, thinking this to be a good occasion for bringing all Nithsdale to depend upon him, embraced the offer.” But this bond, through negligence, came to the hands of Johnstone, who, seeing what turn matters would take, made a league with Scotts, Eliots, and others, and in a battle at Dryfe Sands, by superior strategy, defeated Maxwell, though the warden had much larger numbers. This was in December, 1593. “The Lord Maxwell, a tall man and heavy in armor, was in the chase overtaken and stricken from his horse. The report went that he called to Johnstone and desired to be taken as he had sometime taken his father, but was unmercifully used, and the hand that he reached forth cut off. But of this,” says Spotiswood, “I can affirm nothing. There always the Lord Maxwell fell, having received many wounds.” Drumlanrig, Closeburn, and other of the Nithsdale lairds of Maxwell’s faction, barely escaped with their lives.
Sir James Johnstone soon made his peace with the king, whose warden had been slain while acting under royal authority. The heir of the slain warden, John, the ninth Lord Maxwell, is said to have been only eight years old at the time of his father’s death.[[14]] If this was so, he became very early of age for all purposes of offence. The two clans kept up a bloody and destructive private war. Both chiefs were imprisoned and proclaimed rebel or traitor; Maxwell twice, first in 1601, as favoring popery, and again in 1607, for his extravagant turbulence; and in each case he made his own escape, the second time by the use of violence. At length, influenced perhaps by a conviction that his defiance of the law had gone too far for his safety, Maxwell seemed to be seriously disposed to reconcile himself with his inveterate enemy.[[15]] Sir James Johnstone, as it happened, had already asked Sir Robert Maxwell, who was his brother-in-law and cousin to Lord Maxwell, to speak to his kinsman with that view. Sir Robert had no wish to meddle, for his cousin, he said, was a dangerous man to have to do with. Lord John, however, spontaneously sent for Sir Robert, and said to him, You see my estate and the danger I stand in. I would crave your counsel as a man that tenders my weal. The result of much conference and writing (in which Sir Robert Maxwell, evidently feeling imperfect confidence in his cousin, acted with great caution) was that Lord Maxwell proposed a tryst with Sir James Johnstone, each of them to be accompanied by one person only, and no others to be present except Sir Robert, and faithfully promised, with his hands between Sir Robert’s hands, that neither he nor the man he should bring with him should do any wrong, “whether they agreed or not.” Johnstone accepted the terms and made corresponding promises. The meeting came off the 6th of April, 1608. Johnstone brought Willie Johnstone with him, and Maxwell Charlie Maxwell, a man that Sir Robert strongly disapproved, but his chief undertook to be answerable for him. Sir Robert required the same guaranty on the part of Johnstone for his follower, and these men were ordered to keep away from one another. The two principals and their mediator between them rode off, with their backs to their men, and began their parley. Looking round, Sir Robert saw that Charlie Maxwell had left his appointed place and gone to Willie Johnstone, at whom, after some words between them, he fired a pistol. Sir Robert cried to Lord Maxwell, Fie, make not yourself a traitor and me both! Lord Maxwell replied, I am blameless. Sir James Johnstone slipped away to see to his follower’s safety. Lord Maxwell followed Sir James, shot him in the back, and rode off.[[16]]
Lord Maxwell fled the country, but was tried in his absence and sentenced to death, with forfeiture of his estates. He came back to Scotland after four years, was basely betrayed into the power of the government by a kinsman, and was beheaded at Edinburgh May 21, 1613.[[17]]
“Thus was finally ended,” remarks Sir Walter Scott, “by a salutary example of severity, the ‘foul debate’ betwixt the Maxwells and Johnstones, in the course of which each family lost two chieftains: one dying of a broken heart, one in the field of battle, one by assassination, and one by the sword of the executioner.”
A 1, 2, and passim. The very affectionate relations of Lord Maxwell and his ‘lady and only joy,’ are a fiction of the ballad-maker. His wife was daughter of the first Marquis of Hamilton. Maxwell instituted a process of divorce against her, and she died while this was pending, before he fled the country in 1608. By his treatment of his wife he made her brother, the second marquis, and the Hamiltons generally, his enemies.[[18]]
5, 6. Carlaverock castle had from far back belonged to the Maxwells, and is theirs still. They had a house, or castle, at Dumfries, and the custody of the “houses” of Lochmaben, Langholm, and Thrieve.
9, 10. Douglas of Drumlanrig, Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, and Grierson of Lag fled in the sauve qui peut of Dryfe Sands, and the partisans of Lord Maxwell, who there lost his life, would naturally describe them as deserting their chief. They (or two of them) had entered into a “band” with Maxwell, as aforesaid. The ballad-maker seems to intimate that they were in a band with each other, or with somebody, to betray Maxwell.
11, and B 1. ‘Robin in the Orchet,’ ‘Robert of Oarchyardtoan,’ is properly Sir Robert Maxwell of Orchardton, Lord John’s cousin, but it is evident, from the conjunction of mother and sisters, that the person here intended is his brother Robert, to whom, some years after the execution and forfeiture of Lord John, the estates were restored.
14. Maxwell’s wife, as said above, was no longer living. The “offers” which he made, to save his life, contain a proposal that he should marry the slain Sir James Johnstone’s daughter, without any dowry.
“Goodnight” is to be taken loosely as a farewell. Other cases are ‘John Armstrong’s last Goodnight,’ and the well-known beautiful fragment (?) of two stanzas called ‘Armstrong’s Goodnight;’ again, Essex’s last Goodnight, to the tune of The King’s last Goodnight, Chappell, Roxburghe Ballads, I, 570, and Popular Music, p. 174. The Earl of Derby sings a Goodnight (though the name is not used) in ‘Flodden Field,’ No 168, III, 356, stanzas 36–58. Justice Shallow sang those tunes that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his Fancies, or his Good-nights: Second Part of Henry IV, III, 2. Lord Byron, in the preface to Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, says “the good-night in the beginning of the first canto was suggested by Lord Maxwell’s Goodnight in the Border Minstrelsy.”