Chevy Chase is here preferred to Otterbourne as appealing more directly to Englishmen. The text is Percy's, and the movement like that of all the English ballads, is jog-trot enough. Sidney's confession—that he never heard it, even from a blind fiddler, but it stirred him like the sound of a trumpet—refers, no doubt, to an earlier version than the present, which appears to date from the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Compare The Brave Lord Willoughby and The Honour of Bristol (post, pp. [60], [73]).
[XXVI]
First printed by Percy. The text I give is, with some few variants, that of the vastly better version in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802–3). Of the ‘history’ of the ballad the less said the better. The argument is neatly summarised by Mr. Allingham, p. 376 of The Ballad Book (‘Golden Treasury,’ 1879).
skeely skilful white monie silver gane would suffice half-fou the eighth part of a peck gurly rough lap sprang bout bolt twine thread, i.e. canvas wap warp flattered ‘fluttered, or rather, floated’ (Scott) kaims combs
[XXVII]
Printed by Percy, ‘from an old black-letter copy; with some conjectural emendations.’ At the suggestion of my friend, the Rev. Mr. Hunt, I have restored the original readings, as in truer consonancy with the vainglorious, insolent, and swaggering ballad spirit. As for the hero, Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby of Eresby, described as ‘one of the Queen's best swordsmen’ and ‘a great master of the art military,’ he succeeded Leicester in the command in the Low Countries in 1587, distinguished himself repeatedly in fight with the Spaniards, and died in 1601. ‘Both Norris and Turner were famous among the military men of that age’ (Percy). In the Roxburgh Ballads the full title of the broadside—which is ‘printed for S. Coles in Vine St., near Hatton Garden,’—is as follows:—‘A true relation of a famous and bloudy Battell fought in Flanders by the noble and valiant Lord Willoughby with 1500 English against 40,000 Spaniards, wherein the English obtained a notable victory for the glory and renown of our nation. Tune: Lord Willoughby.’
[XXVIII]
First printed by Tom D'Urfey, Wit and Mirth, etc. (1720), vi. 289–91; revised by Robert Burns for The Scots Musical Magazine, and again by Allan Cunningham for The Songs of Scotland; given with many differences, ‘long current in Selkirkshire,’ in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The present version is a rifaccimento from Burns and Scott. It is worth noting that Græme (pronounced ‘Grime’), and Graham are both forms of one name, which name was originally Grimm, and that, according to some, the latter orthography is the privilege of the chief of the clan.
[XXIX]
First printed in the Minstrelsy. This time the ‘history’ is authentic enough. It happened early in 1596, when Salkeld, the Deputy Warden of the Western Marches, seized under truce the person of William Armstrong of Kinmont—elsewhere described as ‘Will Kinmonde the common thieffe’—and haled him to Carlisle Castle, whence he was rescued—‘with shouting and crying and sound of trumpet’—by the Laird of Buccleuch, Keeper of Liddesdale, and a troop of two hundred horse. ‘The Queen of England,’ says Spottiswoode, ‘having notice sent her of what was done, stormed not a little’; but see the excellent summary compiled by Scott (who confesses to having touched up the ballad) for the Minstrelsy.