A. Cotton MS. Vespasian, A. xxv, No 67, fol. 187, of the last quarter of the 16th century,[[271]] British Museum; Ritson’s Ancient Songs, 1790, p. 137; Böddeker, in Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Sprache und Literatur, XV, 126, 1876 (very incorrectly); Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1880–86, Appendix, p. 52[B], edited by F. J. Furnivall.
B. Percy MS., p. 34; Hales and Furnivall, I, 79.
C. Percy Papers, from a servant of Rev. Robert Lambe’s, 1766.
D. ‘Edom of Gordon,’ an ancient Scottish Poem. Never before printed. Glasgow, printed and sold by Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1755, small 4º, 12 pages. Ritson, Scotish Songs, II, 17.
E. ‘Edom o Gordon,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 384.
F. The New Statistical Account of Scotland, V, 846, 1845; ‘Loudoun Castle,’ The Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire, J. Paterson and C. Gray, 1st Series, p. 74, Ayr, 1846.
G. ‘The Burning o Loudon Castle,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 543.
First printed by the Foulises, Glasgow, 1755, after a copy furnished by Sir David Dalrymple, “who gave it as it was preserved in the memory of a lady.” This information we derive from Percy, who inserted the Dalrymple ballad in his Reliques, 1765, I, 99, “improved, and enlarged with several fine stanzas recovered from a fragment ... in the Editor’s folio MS.” Seven stanzas of the enlarged copy were adopted from this MS., with changes; 162,4, 30, 35, 36, are Percy’s own; the last three of the Glasgow edition are dropped. Herd’s copy, The Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 234, is from Percy’s Reliques; so is Pinkerton’s, Scottish Tragic Ballads, 1781, p. 43, with the omission of the seventh stanza and many alterations. Ritson, Scotish Songs, 1794, II, 17, repeats the Glasgow copy; so the Campbell MSS, I, 155, and Finlay, I, 85. The copy in Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 180, is Percy’s, with one stanza from Ritson. Of twelve stanzas given in Burton’s History of Scotland, V, 70 f., 3–6 are from Percy’s Reliques (modified by E, a fragment obtained by Burton), the rest from D,
During the three wretched and bloody years which followed the assassination of the regent Murray, the Catholic Earl of Huntly, George Gordon, was one of the most eminent and active of the partisans of the queen. Mary created him her lieutenant-governor, and his brother, Adam Gordon, a remarkably gallant and able soldier, whether so created or not, is sometimes called the queen’s deputy-lieutenant in the north. Our ballad is concerned with a minor incident of the hostilities in Aberdeenshire between the Gordons and the Forbeses, a rival but much less powerful clan, who supported the Reformed faith and the regency or king’s party.[[272]]
“The queen’s lieutenant-deputy in the north, called Sir Adam Gordon of Auchindown, knight, was very vigilant in his function; for suppressing of whom the Master of Forbes was directed, with the regent’s commission. But the first encounter, which was upon the ninth day of October [1571], Auchindown obtained such victory that he slew of the Forbeses a hundred and twenty persons, and lost very few of his own.” This was the battle of Tulliangus, on the northern slope of the hills of Coreen, some thirty miles northwest of Aberdeen. Both parties having been reinforced, an issue was tried again on the twentieth of November at Crabstane, in the vicinity of Aberdeen, where Adam Gordon inflicted a severe defeat on the Forbeses.[[273]]