“ Sir John the Graham did bear the gree
Through all the lands of Scotland wide:15
He was a lord of the south countrie.
And so was seen full many a time;
For the summer flowers did never spring,
But every Graham, in armour bright,
Would then appear before the king.20
They were all drest in armour sheen,
Upon the pleasant banks of Tay; [Pg 140]
Before a king they might be seen,
These gallant Grahams in their array.
At the Goukhead our camp we set,25
Our leaguer down there for to lay;
And, in the bonny summer light,
We rode our white horse and our gray. ”

“ The child may rue that is unborn,
The hunting of that day. [Pg 44]
The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,10
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer's days to take;
The chiefest harts in Chevy-Chace
To kill and bear away:
The tidings to Earl Douglas came,15
In Scotland where he lay.
Who sent Earl Piercy present word,
He would prevent his sport;
The English earl not fearing this,
Did to the woods resort,20
With fifteen hundred bow-men bold
All chosen men of might,
Who knew full well in time of need
To aim their shafts aright. ”

“ There is no question which ballad would stand higher in the estimation of the gentle knight, but the terms by which the war-song he admired is described are of course equally applicable to The Battle of Otterbourne. By the way we may remark that if we do understand Sidney to have meant Chevy Chase, then, whatever opinion writers of our day may have of its antiquity, and however probable it may seem to them that Chevy Chase was written by a contemporary of Sir Philip, it appeared to the author of the Defence of Poetry to be "evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of an uncivil age"! ”

“ The very next morning, the Covenanters, under General David Lesly, recalled from England by the danger threatened their cause by the victories of Montrose, crossed the Ettrick and fell on the encampment of the infantry, unperceived by a single scout. A hopeless discomfiture was the natural consequence. Montrose, roused by the firing, arrived with a few of his cavalry too late to redeem the day, and beheld his army slaughtered, or scattered in a retreat in which he was himself fain to join. ”

“ James Radcliff, Earl of Derwentwater, fell into the hands of the Whigs at the surrender of Preston, on the very day of the battle of Sheriff-Muir, and suffered death in February, 1716, for his participation in the rebellion. Smollet has described him as an amiable youth,—brave, open, generous, hospitable, and humane. "His fate drew tears from the spectators, and was a great misfortune to the country in which he lived. He gave bread to multitudes of people whom he employed on his estate;—the poor, the widow, and the orphan rejoiced in his bounty." (History of England, quoted by Cromek.) ”

“ Besides, Sheale's poetical abilities were manifestly of the lowest order, and although he styles himself "minstrel," we have no reason to think that he ever composed ballads. He speaks of his memory being at one time so decayed that he "could neither sing nor talk." Being a mere ballad-singer and story-teller, he would naturally be dependent on that faculty. The fact is very obvious, that Richard Sheale was a mere reciter of songs and tales; at any rate, that all we have to thank him for in the matter of Chevy Chase is for committing to paper the only old copy that has come down to our times. ”

“ Addison's papers in the Spectator (Nos. 70 and 74) evince so true a perception of the merits of this ballad, shorn as it is of the most striking beauties of the grand original, that we cannot but deeply regret his never having seen the ancient and genuine copy, which was published by Hearne only a few days after Addison died. Well might the Spectator dissent from the judgment of Sidney, if this were the rude and ill-apparelled song of a barbarous age.
God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all;
A woful hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall. ”

“ The ballad adheres to matter of fact with a fidelity very uncommon. In Drayton's England's Heroical Epistles is one from Jane Shore to King Edward, and in the notes he thus gives her portrait: "Her stature was meane, her haire of a dark yellow, her face round and full, her eye gray, delicate harmony being betwixt each part's proportion, and each proportion's colour, her body fat, white, and smooth, her countenance cheerfull and like to her condition." (Cited by Percy.) ”

“ Upon this Huntly made a fierce attack upon Argyle's centre, and bore down his banner, and his cavalry soon after attaining to more even ground, where their horses could operate with efficiency, the Highlanders, who were destitute of lances, and so unable to withstand the shock, were driven down the other side of the hill, and put to utter rout. The chief of Maclean alone withstood the assault of the horsemen, and performed marvellous feats of bravery, but was at last forced off the field by his own soldiers, and Argyle himself was compelled to fly, weeping with anger. ”

“ Then bespake good Queen Margaret,
The tears fell from her eye:10
"Leave off these wars, most noble king,
Keep your fidelity.
"The water runs swift and wondrous deep
From bottom unto the brim;
My brother Henry hath men good enough,15
England is hard to win." [Pg 73]
"Away," quoth he, "with this silly fool!
In prison fast let her lye:
For she is come of the English blood,
And for these words she shall die."20
With that bespake Lord Thomas Howard,
The Queens chamberlain that day;
"If that you put Queen Margaret to death,
Scotland shall rue it alway." ”

“ So confident his ambition, that he blushed not to tell Queen Elizabeth, 'that he preferred rather to be sovereign of a mole-hill, than the highest subject to the greatest king in Christendom;' adding, moreover, 'that he was assured he should be a prince before his death.' 'I hope,' said Queen Elizabeth, 'I shall hear from you, when you are stated in your principality.' 'I will write unto you,' quoth Stuckley. ”

“ But the beauty of his person, and the inexperience of his youth, would dispose mankind to treat him with an indulgence, which the cruelty of his murder would afterwards convert into the most tender pity and regret: and then imagination would not fail to adorn his memory with all those virtues he ought to have possessed.
"Darnley, who had been born and educated in England, was but in his 21st year when he was murdered, Feb. 9, 1567-8. This crime was perpetrated by the Earl of Bothwell, not out of respect to the memory of Riccio, but in order to pave the way for his own marriage with the queen. ”

“ Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby of Eresby, had, in the year 1586, distinguished himself at the siege of Zutphen, in the Low Countries. He was the year after made general of the English forces in the United Provinces, in room of the Earl of Leicester, who was recalled. This gave him an opportunity of signalizing his courage and military skill in several actions against the Spaniards. One of these, greatly exaggerated by popular report, is probably the subject of this old ballad, which, on account of its flattering encomiums on English valour, hath always been a favourite with the people. ”

“ At the head of this faction were the Catholic Earls of Huntly, Errol, and Angus. Even after the dispersion of the Armada, they kept up negotiations with the Prince of Parma and the King of Spain, in the hope of restoring the ancient religion, or at least of obtaining for themselves an equality of privileges with the Protestants. More than once were the leaders of this party committed to prison for overt acts of treason, and released by the clemency of the sovereign, but suffering as the Romanists did under the oppression of a fanatical majority, rebellion was their natural condition. ”

“ The chief of the Gordons, suddenly assailed, had no time to procure assistance from Angus. He collected about a thousand gentlemen of his own name, and Errol came to his aid with two or three hundred of the Hays. All these were men of birth, well armed and mounted, and to this small, but powerful, troop of cavalry, was added a train of six field pieces (engines very terrible to Highlanders) , under the management of an excellent soldier, the very same Captain Ker, who has figured already in the ballad of Edom o' Gordon. ”

“ Upon King William's forces;10
And often did cry vehemently,
That they would stop their courses.
A bullet from the Irish came,
Which grazed King William's arm;
They thought his majesty was slain,15
Yet it did him little harm.
Duke Schomberg then, in friendly care,
His king would often caution
To shun the spot where bullets hot
Retain'd their rapid motion.20
But William said—"He don't deserve
The name of Faith's defender,
That would not venture life and limb
To make a foe surrender." ”

“ When Philip the Second was preparing his Armada for the conquest of England, he spared no pains to induce James of Scotland to favor his enterprise. Elizabeth, on her part, was not less active to secure the friendship of a neighbor, who, by opening or closing his ports, might do so much to assist or to counteract the projects of her enemy. James had the [Pg 215] wisdom to see that it was not for his interest to ally himself with a power that sought the extinction of the faith which he professed, and the subjugation of a kingdom to which he was the heir. ”

“ The favor shown by Queen Mary to her brother Lord James Stuart, on her first coming to Scotland, excited a violent jealousy in Gordon, Earl of Huntly, who, as a Catholic, and the head of a loyal and powerful family in the North, expected no slight distinction from his sovereign. This jealousy broke out into open hostility when the Queen, in 1562, conferred on her brother the earldom of Murray, the honors and revenues of which had been enjoyed by Huntly since 1548. ”

“ In this lament for the melancholy fate of Montrose and his heroic companions, it was clearly the humble minstrel's aim to sketch the chief incidents in the great Marquis's career as the champion and the martyr of Royalty. The derangements and omissions which may be found in the verses as they now stand are but the natural effects of time. The ballad was first published in Scott's Minstrelsy, as obtained from tradition, with enlargements and corrections from an old printed copy (entitled The Gallant Grahams of Scotland) furnished by Ritson. ”

“ The battle of Flodden, in Northumberland, was fought the 9th of September, 1513, being the fifth year of King Henry the Eighth (who, with a great army, was then before Terouen in France) , between Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, commander-in-chief of the English forces, and James the Fourth, King of Scots, with an inferior army of 15,000 men, who were entirely routed with great slaughter, their heroic sovereign being left dead upon the field. ”

“ Hume of Godscroft, speaking of the songs made on the battle of Otterbourne, says, "the Scots song made of Otterbourne telleth the time—about Lammas; and also the occasion—to take preys out of England; also the dividing armies betwixt the Earls of Fife and Douglas, and their several journeys, almost as in the authentic history," and proceeds to quote the first stanza of the present ballad. Again, it is said that at Lammas, when the Scotch husbandmen are busy at getting in their hay, the season has been over for a month in most parts of England. ”

“ The Pope finding it cheaper to fill Stuckley's swelling sails with airy titles than real gifts, created him Baron of Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl of Wexford, Marquis of Leinster; and then furnished this title-top-heavy general with eight hundred soldiers, paid by the King of Spain, for the Irish expedition. ”

“ The Queen's party received both the flying and the pursuers with an impenetrable front of lances. Huntly was repulsed, and the other northern clans, seeing how the victory was going, turned their swords upon their friends. Many of the Gordons were slain, and the Earl, who was old and fat, being thrown from his horse, was smothered in the retreat. His sons John and Adam were taken prisoners, and the former was put to death at Aberdeen the day after the battle.
The following ballad, it will be perceived, is utterly at variance with the facts of history. ”

“ On this ground it has been very strangely concluded that Sheale was not, as Percy and Ritson supposed, the transcriber, but the actual author of this noble ballad. The glaring objection of the antiquity of the language has [Pg 28] been met, first, by the supposition that the author belonged to the north of England, and afterwards, when it appeared that Sheale lived at Tamworth, about a hundred miles from London, by the allegation that the language of a person in humble life in Warwickshire or Staffordshire would be very far behind the current speech of the metropolis. ”

“ This redoubted hero was prevented, by mixed motives, from joining either party. He could not fight against the Earl of Mar, consistent with his conscience, nor could he oppose the Duke of Argyle, without forfeiting the protection of a powerful friend. ”

“ The insurrection commemorated and magnified in the following ballad, as indeed it has been in some histories, was, in itself, no very important affair. It began in Dumfries-shire, where Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, was employed to levy the arbitrary fines imposed for not attending the Episcopal churches. The people rose, seized his person, disarmed his soldiers, and, having continued together, resolved to march towards Edinburgh, expecting to be joined by their friends in that quarter. ”

“ With blows and shouts put our foes to the route,
The day we crossed the water.
The Protestants of Drogheda
Have reasons to be thankful,50
That they were not to bondage brought,
They being but a handful. ”

“ It was the hard fate of Aberdeen to suffer from the arms of Montrose, first, when he was general of the Covenanters, and again while he was [Pg 231] lieutenant for the King. The murder and pillage perpetrated in the town by the Irish after the defeat of Lord Burleigh, in 1644, have been made the subject of violent reproach by his enemies, but it may perhaps be said, that for all that exceeded the usual horrors of war, the heroic commander was not responsible. ”