B. ‘The Baron of Brackley,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 379; in the handwriting of John Hill Burton.
C. a. ‘The Baron of Braikly,’ Jamieson-Brown MS., Appendix, p. viii. b. ‘The Baron of Brackley,’ Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, 1806, I, 102.
D. ‘The Baron of Breachell,’ Skene MS., p. 110.
First printed by Jamieson (C b) in 1806, who says: “For the copy of the ballad here given I am indebted to Mrs Brown. I have also collated it with another, less perfect, but not materially different, so far as it goes, with which I was favored by the editor of the Border Minstrelsy, who took it down from the recitation of two ladies, great-grandchildren of Farquharson of Inverey; so that the ballad, and the notices that accompany it, are given upon the authority of a Gordon [Anne Gordon, Mrs Brown] and a Farquharson.”[[61]] A c is also a compounded copy: see the notes.
The text in The Thistle of Scotland, p. 46, is C b. That which is cited in part in the Fourth Report on Historical Manuscripts, 1874, p. 534, is A c. The ballad is rewritten by Allan Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, II, 208.
A. Inverey comes before day to Brackley’s gate, and calls to him to open and have his blood spilled. Brackley asks over the wall whether the people below are gentlemen or hired gallows-birds; if gentlemen, they may come in and eat and drink; in the other case, they may go on to the Lowlands and steal cattle. His wife urges him to get up; the men are nothing but hired gallows-birds. Brackley will go out to meet Inverey (both know it is he, 12, 19), but these same gallows-birds will prove themselves men. His wife derisively calls on her maids to bring their distaffs; if Brackley is not man enough to protect his cattle, she will drive off the robbers with her women. Brackley says he will go out, but he shall never come in. He arms and sallies forth, attended by his brother William, his uncle, and his cousin; but presently bids his brother turn back because he is a bridegroom. William refuses, and in turn, but equally to no effect, urges Brackley to turn back for his wife’s and his son’s sake. The Gordons are but four against four hundred of Inverey’s, and are all killed. Brackley’s wife, so far from tearing her hair, braids it, welcomes Inverey, and makes him a feast. The son, on the nurse’s knee, vows to be revenged if he lives to be a man. (Cf. ‘Johnie Armstrong,’ III, 367, where this should have been noted.)
The other versions agree with A a in the material points. Inverey’s numbers are diminished. In B 10, C 11, Brackley has only his brother with him, meaning, perhaps, when he leaves his house. The fight was not simply at the gates, but was extended over a considerable distance (A 33, B 11), and other men joined the Gordons in the course of it. In B 12 we learn that the miller’s four sons (D 10, the miller and his three sons) were killed with the Gordons (and William Gordon’s wife, or bride, in A 25, is ‘bonnie Jean, the maid o the mill’). In B 15, D 12, Craigevar comes up with a party, and might have saved Brackley’s life had he been there an hour sooner. In A a, b, C, D, Brackley’s wife is Peggy (Peggy Dann, wrongly, D 14, 15); in B 19 (wrongly) Catharine Fraser. D makes Catharine the wife of Gordon of Glenmuick (Alexander Gordon, A a 35), who rives her hair, as Brackley’s wife does not (14, 15, 18, 19). In C, Peggy Gordon, besides feasting Inverey, keeps him till morning, and then shows him a road by which he may go safely home. C b adds, for poetical justice, that Inverey at once let this haggard down the wind.
This affray occurred in September, 1666. The account of it given by the Gordons (the son of the murdered laird and the Marquis of Huntly) was that John Gordon of Brackley, having poinded cattle belonging to John Farquharson of Inverey, or his followers, Inverey “convoked his people, to revenge himself on Brackley for putting the law in execution; that he came to the house of Brackley, and required the laird to restore his cattle which had been poinded; and that, although the laird gave a fair answer, yet the Farquharsons, with the view of drawing him out of his house, drove away not only the poinded cattle but also Brackley’s own cattle, and when the latter was thus forced to come out of his house, the Farquharsons fell on him and murdered him and his brother.”
A memorandum for John Farquharson of Inverey and others, 24 January, 1677, “sets forth that John Gordon of Brackley, having bought from the sheriff of Aberdeen the fines exigible from Inverey and others for killing of black-fish, the said Brackley made friendly arrangements with others, but declined to settle with Inverey; whereupon the latter, being on his way to the market at Tullich,[[62]] sent Mr John Ferguson, minister at Glenmuick, John McHardy of Crathie, a notary, and Duncan Erskine, portioner of Invergelder, to the laird of Brackley, with the view of representing to him that Inverey and his tenants were willing to settle their fines on the same terms as their neighbors. These proposals were received by Brackley with contempt, and during the time of the communing he gathered his friends and attacked Inverey, and having ‘loused severall shotts’ against Inverey’s party, the return shots of the latter were in self-defence. The result was that the laird of Brackley, with his brother William and their cousin James Gordon in Cults, were killed on the one side, and on the other Robert McWilliam in Inverey, John McKenzie, sometime there, and Malcom Gordon the elder.” The convocation of Inverey’s friends is accounted for in the same document by the fact that Inverey was captain of the watch for the time; that he and his ancestors had been used to go to the market with men to guard it; and that it is the custom of the country for people who are going to the market to join any numerous company that may be going the same way, either for their own security or out of “kindness for the persons with whom they go,” and also the custom of that mountainous country to go with arms, especially at markets. (Abstract, by Dr. John Stuart, of a MS. of Col. James Farquharson of Invercauld, Historical MSS Commission, Fourth Report, p. 534).
Another account, agreeing in all important points with the last, is given in a history of the family of Macintosh.[[63]] It will be borne in mind that Inverey belonged to this clan, and that acts of his would therefore be put in a favorable light. Brackley had seized the horses of some of Inverey’s people on account of fines alleged to be due by them for taking salmon in the Dee out of season. Inverey represented to Brackley that the sufferers by this proceeding were men who had incurred no penalty, and offered, if the horses should be restored, to deliver the guilty parties for punishment. Brackley would not return the horses on these terms, and Inverey then proposed that the matter in dispute should be left to friends. While Brackley was considering what to do, Alexander Gordon of Aberfeldy came to offer his services, with a body of armed men, and Brackley, now feeling himself strong, rejected the suggestion of a peaceful solution, and set out to attack Inverey. When a collision was impending, Inverey at first drew back, begging Brackley to desist from violence, which only made Brackley and Aberfeldy the keener. Two of Inverey’s followers were slain; and then Inverey and his men, in self-defence, turned on their assailants, and killed Gordon of Brackley, his brother William, and James Gordon of Cults.