12–15. For Claverhouse’s cornet, see the preceding ballad. Captain John Graham, for that was all he then was, was not conspicuous at Bothwell Bridge. He commanded the horse on the right, and Captain Stuart the dragoons on the left, when the advance was made on the Covenanters. He was as capable of insubordination as Robert Hamilton was of Erastianism, and it is nearly as unnecessary, at this day, to vindicate him from the charge of cruelty as from that of procuring Monmouth’s execution six years in advance of the fates.[[83]]
‘Earlistoun,’ Chambers, Twelve Romantic Scottish Ballads, p. 26, is this piece with the battle omitted, or stanzas 1–6, 71,2, 83,4, 16.
Scott observes: “There is said to be another song upon this battle, once very popular, but I have not been able to recover it.”
There is a stall-ballad of Bothwell Brigg, not traditional, a very good ballad of its sort, with a touching story and a kindly moral, which may or may not be later than Sir Walter Scott’s day. It is of John Carr and his wife Janet and a non-covenanting lady, who carries off John, badly wounded, from the field (where he had fought better than most of his party), and nurses him in her lord’s castle till he is well enough to be visited by his wife.
Translated by Talvj, Charakteristik, p. 581.
1
‘O billie, billie, bonny billie,
Will ye go to the wood wi me?
We’ll ca our horse hame masterless,