"No willow wand will we have," quoth Robin,
"But the Buck's dead glassy eye;
And we'll shoot the length of the archer's wall,[23]
Seven hundred feet or nigh.
So Bearward lay the deer adown
On yon mossy boulder stone;
And he who lodges a shaft in his eye,
The fat buck shall have won."
The buck was laid on the boulder stone,
With his head towards the east;
And the yeomen tall, with their bows in hand,
To win the guerdon press'd;
The Keeper first with wary eye,
Took long and careful aim;
And hit the buck right yeomanly
In the middle of his wame.
"Well shot, well shot," bold Robin cried,
(But the outlaw laughed the while,)
"Right woodmanly that shaft is placed;
But a miss is as good as a mile."
With careless aim he drew his bow,
And let his arrow fly;
And lodged the shaft, both hard and fast,
In the dead buck's glassy eye.
So Robin he won the dainty Buck,
By the side of the archer's wall;
And left the tale to be sung or said
In Tower, and Bower, and Hall.
The old gray wall still stands on the hill,
Though the archer's marks are gone;
And the Boulder Rock is still kept in mind,
By the name of old Buckstone.
Sir Richard Whittington's Advancement:
Being an Historical Account of his Education, Unexpected Fortune, Charity, &c.
The rhyme and the story of "Whittington and his Cat" are perhaps as well known as any ballads in the language. Sir Richard Whittington, or "Dick Whittington," as he is commonly called, was of the same family as the De Whittingtons, Lords of Whittington, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire. He was, it is stated, youngest son of a Sir William Whittington. In 1393, when he must have been about forty years of age, he became a member of the Mercers' Company, and was, it is said, besides being a Mercer, a Merchant Adventurer. He was also about this year an Alderman, and also Sheriff, of London. In 1397 he was appointed Lord Mayor of London, by writ from Richard II., to serve in place of the deceased Lord Mayor. In 1398, in 1406, and again in 1419, he was elected to and served the office of Lord Mayor. Whittington married Alice, daughter of Sir Hugh Fitzwarren and Maude his wife. He died in 1423. Besides being "thrice Lord Mayor of London," his body was, it seems, thrice buried in the church he had himself erected,—St. Michael Paternoster: first, by his executors, who erected a monument over his remains; secondly, in the reign of Edward VI., when the minister, thinking that probably some great riches had been buried with him, had his body taken up and despoiled of its leaden covering; and, thirdly, in the reign of Mary, when the parishioners were compelled to again take him up, re-enclose him in lead, and re-erect the monument over his remains. At the great fire of London, in 1666, both church and monument were destroyed. His memory has been well preserved in the popular mind by ballad and story and tradition; and his noble charities and his munificent acts, of which so many evidences remain in London, form a prouder and more enduring monument than the one which the fire destroyed.
The following version of the ballad is perhaps the one most generally known:—
Here must I tell the praise
Of worthy Whittington,
Known to be in his days
Thrice lord-mayor of London.