That day she cradled me
What land I was to travel in,
Or what death I should die.
Writing to Mrs. Dunlop on January 25, 1790, Burns quoted these lines, ‘in an old Scottish ballad1, which, notwithstanding its rude simplicity2, speaks feelingly to the heart.’ Mr. Carlyle is said, when young, to have written them on a pane3 of glass in a window, with a diamond, adding, characteristically, ‘Oh foolish Thee!’ In 1802, in the first edition of ‘The Border Minstrelsy,’ Scott cited only three stanzas4 from the same ballad, not including Burns’s verse, but giving
Yestreen the Queen had four Maries,
The night she’ll hae but three,
There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaton,
And Marie Carmichael and me.
In later editions Sir Walter offered a made-up copy of the ballad, most of it from a version collected by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
It now appeared that Mary Hamilton was the heroine, that she was one of Queen Marie’s four Maries, and that she was hanged for murdering a child whom she bore to Darnley. Thus the character of Mary Hamilton was ‘totally lost,’ and Darnley certainly ‘had not sufficient for two.’ Darnley, to be sure, told his father that ‘I never offended the Queen, my wife, in meddling6 with any woman in thought, let be in deed,’ and, whether Darnley spoke7 truth or not, there was, among the Queen’s Maries, no Mary Hamilton to meddle8 with, just as there was no Mary Carmichael.
The Maries were attendant on the Queen as children ever since she left Scotland for France. They were Mary Livingstone (mentioned as ‘Lady Livinston’ in one version of the ballad),262 who married ‘John Sempill, called the Dancer,’ who, says Laing, ‘acquired the lands of Beltree, in Renfrewshire.’263
262 Child, vol. iii. p. 389.
263 Laing’s Knox, ii. 415, note 3.
When Queen Mary was a captive in England she was at odds9 with the Sempill pair about some jewels of hers in their custody10. He was not a satisfactory character, he died before November 1581. Mary Fleming, early in 1587, married the famous William Maitland of Lethington, ‘being no more fit for her than I to be a page,’ says Kirkcaldy of Grange. Her life was wretched enough, through the stormy career and sad death of her lord. Mary Beaton, with whom Randolph, the English ambassador, used to flirt11, married, in 1566, Ogilvy of Boyne, the first love of Lady Jane Gordon, the bride of Bothwell. Mary Seaton remained a maiden12 and busked the Queen’s hair during her English captivity13. We last hear of her from James Maitland of Lethington, in 1613, living at Rheims, very old, ‘decrepid,’ and poor. There is no room in the Four for Mary Hamilton, and no mention of her appears in the records of the Court.
How, then, did Mary Hamilton find her way into the old ballad about Darnley and the Queen?
To explain this puzzle, some modern writers have denied that the ballad of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ is really old; they attribute it to the eighteenth century. The antiquary who launched this opinion was Scott’s not very loyal friend, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. According to him, a certain Miss Hambledon (no Christian14 name is given), being Maid of Honour to the Empress Catherine of Russia, had three children by an amour, and murdered all three. Peter the Great caused her to be, not hanged, but decapitated. Sharpe took his facts from ‘a German almanac,’ and says: ‘The Russian tragedy must be the original.’ The late Professor Child, from more authentic15 documents, dates Miss Hambledon’s or Hamilton’s execution on March 14, 1719. At that time, or nearly then, Charles Wogan was in Russia on a mission from the Chevalier de St. George (James III.), and through him the news might reach Scotland. Mr. Courthope, in his ‘History of English Poetry,’ followed Sharpe and Professor Child, and says: ‘It is very remarkable16 that one of the very latest of the Scottish popular ballads17 should be one of the very best.’
The occurrence would not only be remarkable, but, as far as possibility goes in literature, would be impossible, for several reasons. One is that neither literary men nor mere18 garreteers and makers19 of street ballads appear, about 1719–1730, to have been capable of recapturing the simplicity and charm of the old ballad style, at its best, or anything near its best. There is no mistaking the literary touch in such ballads as Allan Ramsay handled, or in the imitation named ‘Hardyknute ‘ in Allan’s ‘Tea Table Miscellany,’ 1724. ‘It was the first poem I ever learned, the last I shall ever forget,’ said Scott, and, misled by boyish affection, he deemed it ‘just old enough,’ ‘a noble imitation.’264 But the imitation can deceive nobody, and while literary imitators, as far as their efforts have reached us, were impotent to deceive, the popular Muse22, of 1714–1730, was not attempting deception23. Ballads of the eighteenth century were sarcastic24, as in those on Sheriffmuir and in Skirving’s amusing ballad on Preston Pans, or were mere doggerel25, or were brief songs to old tunes26. They survive in print, whether in flying broadsides or in books, but, popular as is ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ in all its many variants27 (Child gives no less than eighteen), we do not know a single printed example before Scott’s made-up copy in the ‘Border Minstrelsy.’ The latest ballad really in the old popular manner known to me is that of ‘Rob Roy,’ namely, of Robin29 Oig and James More, sons of Rob Roy, and about their abduction of an heiress in 1752. This is a genuine popular poem, but in style and tone and versification it is wholly unlike ‘The Queen’s Marie.’ I scarcely hope that any one can produce, after 1680, a single popular piece which could be mistaken for a ballad of or near Queen Mary’s time.
264 Lockhart, i. 114, x. 138.
The known person least unlike Mr. Courthope’s late ‘maker20’ was ‘Mussel-mou’d Charlie Leslie,’ ‘an old Aberdeenshire minstrel, the very last, probably, of the race,’ says Scott. Charlie died in 1782. He sang, and sold PRINTED ballads. ‘Why cannot you sing other songs than those rebellious30 ones?’ asked a Hanoverian Provost of Aberdeen. ‘Oh ay, but — THEY WINNA BUY THEM!’ said Charlie. ‘Where do you buy them?’ ‘Why, faur I get them cheapest.’ He carried his ballads in ‘a large harden bag, hung over his shoulder.’ Charlie had tholed prison for Prince Charles, and had seen Provost Morison drink the Prince’s health in wine and proclaim him Regent at the Cross of Aberdeen. If Charlie (who lived to be a hundred and two) composed the song, ‘Mussel-mou’d Charlie ‘ (‘this sang Charlie made hissel’’), then this maker could never have produced ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ nor could any maker like him. His ballads were printed, as any successful ballad of 1719 would probably have been, in broadsides.265 Against Mr. Child and Mr. Courthope, then, we argue that, after 1600, a marked decadence31 of the old ballad style set in-that the old style (as far as is known) died soon after Bothwell Brig (1679), in the execrable ballads of both sides, such as ‘Philiphaugh,’ and that it soon was not only dead as a form in practical use, but was entirely32 superseded33 by new kinds of popular poetry, of which many examples survive, and are familiar to every student. How, or why, then, should a poet, aiming at popularity, about 1719–1730, compose ‘The Queen’s Marie’ in an obsolete34 manner? The old ballads were still sung, indeed; but we ask for proof that new ballads were still composed in the ancient fashion.
265 See, for example, Mr. Macquoid’s Jacobite Songs and Ballads, pp. 424, 510, with a picture of Charlie.
Secondly35, WHY, and how tempted36, would a popular poet of 1719 transfer a modern tragedy of Russia to the year 1563, or thereabouts? His public would naturally desire a ballad gazette of the mournful new tale, concerning a lass of Scottish extraction, betrayed, tortured, beheaded, at the far-off court of a Muscovite tyrant37. The facts ‘palpitated with actuality,’ and, since Homer’s day, ‘men desire’ (as Homer says) ‘the new songs’ on the new events. What was gained by going back to Queen Mary? Would a popular ‘Musselmou’d Charlie’ even know, by 1719, the names of the Queen’s Maries? Mr. Courthope admits that ‘he may have been helped by some ballad,’ one of those spoken of, as we shall see, by Knox. If that ballad told the existing Marian story, what did the ‘maker’ add? If it did NOT, what did he borrow? No more than the names could he borrow, and no more than the name ‘Hamilton’ from the Russian tragedy could he add. One other thing he might be said to add, the verses in which Mary asks ‘the jolly sailors’ not to
‘Let on to my father and mother
But that I’m coming hame.’
This passage, according to Mr. Courthope, ‘was suggested partly by the fact of a Scotswoman being executed in Russia.’ C. K. Sharpe also says: ‘If Marie Hamilton was executed in Scotland, it is not likely’ (why not?) ‘that her relations resided beyond seas.’ They MAY have been in France, like many another Hamilton! Mr. Child says: ‘The appeal to the sailors shows that Mary Hamilton dies in a foreign land — not that of her ancestors.’ Yet the ballad makes her die in or near the Canongate! Moreover, the family of the Mary Hamilton of 1719 had been settled in Russia for generations, and were reckoned of the Russian noblesse. The verses, therefore, on either theory, are probably out of place, and are perhaps an interpolation suggested to some reciter (they only occur in some of the many versions) by a passage in ‘The Twa Brithers.’266
266 Child, i. 439.
We now reach the most important argument for the antiquity39 of ‘The Queen’s Marie.’ Mr. Courthope has theoretically introduced as existing in, or after, 1719, ‘makers’ who could imitate to deception the old ballad style. Now Maidment remarks that ‘this ballad was popular in Galloway, Selkirkshire, Lanarkshire, and Aberdeen, AND THE VERY STRIKING DISCREPANCIES41 GO FAR TO REMOVE EVERY SUSPICION OF FABRICATION.’ Chambers42 uses (1829) against Sharpe the same argument of ‘universal diffusion43 in Scotland.’ Neither Mr. Child nor Mr. Courthope draws the obvious inferences from the extraordinary discrepancies in the eighteen variants. Such essential discrepancies surely speak of a long period of oral recitation by men or women accustomed to interpolate, alter, and add, in the true old ballad manner. Did such rhapsodists exist after 1719? Old Charlie, for one, did not sing or sell the old ballads. Again, if the ballad (as it probably would be in 1719) was PRINTED, or even if it was not, could the variations have been evolved between 1719 and 1802?
These variations are numerous, striking, and fundamental. In many variants even the name of the heroine does not tally5 with that of the Russian maid of honour. That most important and telling coincidence wholly disappears. In a version of Motherwell’s, from Dumbartonshire, the heroine is Mary Myle. In a version known to Scott (‘Minstrelsy,’ 1810, iii. 89, note), the name is Mary Miles. Mr. Child also finds Mary Mild, Mary Moil, and Lady Maisry. This Maisry is daughter of the Duke of York! Now, the Duke of York whom alone the Scottish people knew was James Stuart, later James II. Once more the heroine is daughter of the Duke of Argyll, therefore a Campbell. Or she is without patronymic, and is daughter of a lord or knight44 of the North, or South, or East, and one of her sisters is a barber’s wife, and her father lives in England! —(Motherwell.) She, at least, might invoke45 ‘Ye mariners46, mariners, mariners!’ (as in Scott’s first fragment) not to carry her story. Now we ask whether, after the ringing tragedy of Miss Hamilton in Russia, in the year of grace 1719, contemporaries who heard the woeful tale could, between 1719 and 1820, call the heroine —(1) Hamilton; (2) Mild, Moil, Myle, Miles; (3) make her a daughter of the Duke of York, or of the Duke of Argyll, or of lords and of knights47 from all quarters of the compass, and sister-inlaw to an English barber, also one of the Queen’s ‘serving-maids.’ We at least cannot accept those numerous and glittering contradictions as corruptions48 which could be made soon after the Russian events, when the true old ballad style was dead.
We now produce more startling variations. The lover is not only ‘the King,’ ‘the Prince,’ Darnley, ‘the highest Stuart o’ a’,’ but he is also that old offender49, ‘Sweet Willie,’ or he is Warrenston (Warriston?). Mary is certainly not hanged (the Russian woman was beheaded) away from her home; she dies in Edinburgh, near the Tolbooth, the Netherbow, the Canongate, and —
O what will my three brothers say
When they COME HAME frae sea,
When they see three locks o’ my yellow hair
Hinging under a gallows50 tree?
It is impossible here to give all the variations. Mary pulls, or does not pull, or her lover pulls, the leaf of the Abbey, or ‘savin,’ or other tree; the Queen is ‘auld,’ or not ‘auld;’ she kicks in Mary’s door and bursts the bolts, or does nothing so athletic51 and inconsistent with her advanced age. The heroine does, or does not, appeal vainly to her father. Her dress is of all varieties. She does, or does not, go to the Tolbooth and other places. She is, or is not, allured52 to Edinburgh, ‘a wedding for to see.’ Her infanticide is variously described, or its details are omitted, and the dead body of the child is found in various places, or not found at all. Though drowned in the sea, it is between the bolster53 and the wall, or under the blankets! She expects, or does not expect, to be avenged54 by her kin21. The king is now angry, now clement55 — inviting56 Mary to dinner! Mary is hanged, or (Buchan’s MS.) is not hanged, but is ransomed57 by Warrenston, probably Johnston of Warriston! These are a few specimens58 of variations in point of fact: in language the variations are practically countless59. How could they arise, if the ballad is later than 1719?
We now condescend60 to appeal to statistics. We have examined the number of variants published by Mr. Child in his first six volumes, on ballads which have, or may have, an historical basis. Of course, the older and more popular the ballads, the more variants do we expect to discover — time and taste producing frequent changes. Well, of ‘Otterburn’ Mr. Child has five versions; of the ‘Hunting of the Cheviot’ he has two, with minor61 modifications62 indicated by letters from the ‘lower case.’ Of ‘Gude Wallace’ he has eight. Of ‘Johnnie Armstrong’ he has three. Of ‘Kinmont Willie’ he has one. Of ‘The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray’ he has two. Of ‘Johnnie Cock’ he has thirteen. Of ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ he has eighteen. And of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ (counting Burns’s solitary63 verse and other brief fragments) Mr. Child has eighteen versions or variants
Thus a ballad made, ex hypothesi Sharpiana, in or after 1719, has been as much altered in oral tradition as the most popular and perhaps the oldest historical ballad of all, ‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ and much more than any other of the confessedly ancient semi-historical popular poems. The historical event which may have suggested ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ is ‘plausibly,’ says Mr. Child, fixed64 in 1281: it is the marriage of Margaret of Scotland to Eric, King of Norway. Others suggest so late a date as the wooing of Anne of Denmark by James VI. Nothing is known. No wonder, then, that in time an orally preserved ballad grows rich in variants. But that a ballad of 1719 should, in eighty modern non-balladising years, become as rich in extant variants, and far more discrepant65 in their details, as ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ is a circumstance for which we invite explanation.
Will men say, ‘The later the ballad, the more it is altered in oral tradition’? If so, let them, by all means, produce examples! We should, on this theory, have about a dozen ‘Battles of Philiphaugh,’ and at least fifteen ‘Bothwell Brigs,’ a poem, by the way, much in the old manner, prosaically66 applied67, and so recent that, in art at least, it was produced after the death of the Duke of Monmouth, slain68, it avers69, by the machinations of Claverhouse! Of course we are not asking for exact proportions, since many variants of ballads may be lost, but merely for proof that, the later a ballad is, the more variants of it occur. But this contention70 is probably impossible, and the numerous variations in ‘The Queen’s Marie’ are really a proof of long existence in oral tradition, and contradict the theory espoused71 by Mr. Child, who later saw the difficulty involved in his hypothesis.
This argument, though statistical72, is, we think, conclusive73, and the other considerations which we have produced in favour of the antiquity of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ add their cumulative74 weight.
We have been, in brief, invited to suppose that, about 1719, a Scot wrote a ballad on an event in contemporary Russian Court life; that (contrary to use and wont) he threw the story back a century and a half; that he was a master of an old style, in the practice of his age utterly75 obsolete and not successfully imitated; that his poem became universally popular, and underwent, in eighty years, even more vicissitudes76 than most other ballads encounter in three or five centuries. Meanwhile it is certain that there had been real ancient ballads, contemporary with the Marian events — ballads on the very Maries two or three of whom appear in the so-called poem of 1719; while exactly the same sort of scandal as the ballad records had actually occurred at Queen Mary’s Court in a lower social rank. The theory of Mr. Child is opposed to our whole knowledge of ballad literature, of its age, decadence (about 1620–1700), and decease (in the old kind) as a popular art.
To agree with Mr. Child, we must not only accept one great ballad-poet, born at least fifty years too late; we must not only admit that such a poet would throw back his facts for a century and a half; but we must also conceive that the balladising humour, with its ancient methods, was even more vivacious77 in Scotland for many years after 1719 than, as far as we know, it had ever been before. Yet there is no other trace known to us of the existence of the old balladising humour and of the old art in all that period. We have no such ballad about the English captain shot by the writer’s pretty wife, none about the bewitched son of Lord Torphichen, none about the Old Chevalier, or Lochiel, or Prince Charlie: we have merely Shenstone’s ‘Jemmy Dawson’ and the Glasgow bellman’s rhymed history of Prince Charles. In fact, ‘Jemmy Dawson’ is a fair instantia contradictoria as far as a ballad by a man of letters is to the point. Such a ballad that age could indeed produce: it is not very like ‘The Queen’s Marie’! No, we cannot take refuge in ‘Townley’s Ghost’ and his address to the Butcher Cumberland:—
Imbrued in bliss78, imbathed in case,
Though now thou seem’st to lie,
My injured form shall gall40 thy peace,
And make thee wish to die!
THAT is a ballad of the eighteenth century, and it is not in the manner of ‘The Queen’s Marie.’
These considerations, now so obvious to a student of the art of old popular poetry, if he thinks of the matter, could not occur to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. He was a great collector of ballads, but not versed79 in, or interested in, their ‘aesthetic’— in the history and evolution of ballad-making. Mr. Child, on the other hand, was the Grimm or Kohler of popular English and Scottish poetry. Our objections to his theory could scarcely have been collected in such numbers, without the aid of his own assortment80 of eighteen versions or fragments, with more lectiones variae. But he has not allowed for the possible, the constantly occurring, chance of coincidence between fancy and fact; nor, perhaps, has he reflected on the changed condition of ballad poetry in the eighteenth century, on the popular love of a new song about a new event, and on the entire lack of evidence (as far as I am aware) for the existence of ballad-poets in the old manner during the reign38 of George I. The ballad-reading public of 1719 would have revelled81 in a fresh ballad of a Scottish lass, recently betrayed, tortured, and slain far away by a Russian tyrant. A fresh ballad on Queen Mary’s Court, done in the early obsolete manner, would, on the other hand, have had comparatively little charm for the ballad-buying lieges in 1719. The ballad-poet had thus in 1719 no temptation to be ‘archaistic,’ like Mr. Rossetti, and to sing of old times. He had, on the contrary, every inducement to indite83 a ‘rare new ballad’ on the last tragic84 scandal, with its poignant85 details, as of Peter kissing the dead girl’s head.
The hypothesis of Mr. Child could only be DEMONSTRATED incorrect by proving that there was no Russian scandal at all, or by producing a printed or manuscript copy of ‘The Queen’s Marie’ older than 1719. We can do neither of these things; we can only give the reader his choice of two improbabilities —(a) that an historical event, in 1718–19, chanced to coincide with the topic of an old ballad; (b) that, contrary to all we know of the evolution of ballads and the state of taste, a new popular poem on a fresh theme was composed in a style long disused,267 was offered most successfully to the public of 1719, and in not much more than half a century was more subjected to alterations86 and interpolations than ballads which for two or three hundred years had run the gauntlet of oral tradition.
267 A learned Scots antiquary writes to me: ‘The real ballad manner hardly came down to 1600. It was killed by the Francis Roos version of the Psalms87, after which the Scottish folk of the Lowlands cast everything into that mould.’ I think, however, that ‘Bothwell Brig’ is a true survival of the ancient style, and there are other examples, as in the case of the ballad on Lady Warriston’s husband murder.
As for our own explanation of the resemblance between the affair of Miss Hamilton, in 1719, and the ballad story of Mary Hamilton (alias Mild, Myle, Moil, Campbell, Miles, or Stuart, or anonymous88, or Lady Maisry), we simply, with Scott, regard it as ‘a very curious coincidence.’ On the other theory, on Mr. Child’s, it is also a curious coincidence that a waiting-woman of Mary Stuart WAS hanged (not beheaded) for child-murder, and that there WERE written, simultaneously89, ballads on the Queen’s Maries. Much odder coincidences than either have often, and indisputably, occurred, and it is not for want of instances, but for lack of space, that we do not give examples.
Turning, now, to a genuine historic scandal of Queen Mary’s reign, we find that it might have given rise to the many varying forms of the ballad of ‘The Queen’s Marie.’ There is, practically, no such ballad; that is, among the many variants, we cannot say which comes nearest to the ‘original’ lay of the frail90 maid and her doom91. All the variants are full of historical impossibilities, due to the lapses92 of memory and the wandering fancy of reciters, altering and interpolating, through more than two centuries, an original of which nothing can now be known. The fancy, if not of the first ballad poet who dealt with a real tragic event, at least of his successors in many corners of Scotland, raised the actors and sufferers in a sad story, elevating a French waiting-maid to the rank of a Queen’s Marie, and her lover, a French apothecary93, to the place of a queen’s consort94, or, at lowest, of a Scottish laird.
At the time of the General Assembly which met on Christmas Day 1563, a French waiting-maid of Mary Stuart, ‘ane Frenche woman that servit in the Queenis chalmer,’ fell into sin ‘with the Queenis awin hipoticary.’ The father and mother slew95 the child, and were ‘dampned to be hangit upoun the publict streit of Edinburgh.’ No official report exists: ‘the records of the Court of Justiciary at this time are defective,’ says Maidment, and he conjectures96 that the accused may have been hanged without trial, ‘redhand.’ Now the Queen’s apothecary must have left traces in the royal account-books. No writer on the subject has mentioned them. I myself have had the Records of Privy97 Council and the MS. Treasurer98’s Accounts examined, with their statement of the expenses of the royal household. The Rev82. John Anderson was kind enough to undertake this task, though with less leisure than he could have desired. There is, unluckily, a gap of some months in 1563. In June 1560, Mr. Anderson finds mention of a ‘medicinar,’ ‘apoticarre,’ ‘apotigar,’ but no name is given, and the Queen was then in France. One Nicholas Wardlaw of the royal household was engaged, in 1562, to a Miss Seton of Parbroath, but it needed a special royal messenger to bring the swain to the altar. ‘Ane appotigar’ of 1562 is mentioned, but not named, and we hear of Robert Henderson, chirurgeon, who supplied powders and odours to embalm99 Huntley. There is no trace of the hanging of any ‘appotigar,’ or of any one of the Queen’s women, ‘the maidans,’ spoken of collectively. So far, the search for the apothecary has been a failure. More can be learned from Randolph’s letter to Cecil (December 31, 1563), here copied from the MS. in the Public Record Office. The austerity of Mary’s Court, under Mr. Knox, is amusingly revealed:—
‘For newes yt maye please your honour to knowe that the Lord Treasurer of Scotlande for gettinge of a woman with chylde muste vpon Sondaye nexte do open penance100 before the whole congregation and mr knox mayke the sermonde. Thys my Lord of murraye wylled me to wryte vnto you for a note of our greate severitie in punyshynge of offenders101. THE FRENCHE POTTICARIE AND THE WOMAN HE GOTTE WITH CHYLDE WERE BOTHE HANGED THYS PRESENT FRIDAYE. Thys hathe made myche sorrowe in our Courte. Maynie evle fortunes we have had by our Frenche fowlkes, and yet I feare we love them over well.’
After recording102 the condemnation103 of the waiting-woman and her lover, Knox tells a false story about ‘shame hastening the marriage’ of Mary Livingstone. Dr. Robertson, in his ‘Inventories of Queen Mary,’ refutes this slander104, which he deems as baseless as the fables105 against Knox’s own continence. Knox adds: ‘What bruit106 the Maries and the rest of the danseris of the Courte had, the ballads of that age did witness, quhilk we for modesteis sake omit.’ Unlucky omission107, unfortunate ‘modestei’! From Randolph’s Letters it is known that Knox, at this date, was thundering against ‘danseris.’ Here, then, is a tale of the Queen’s French waiting-woman hanged for murder, and here is proof that there actually were ballads about the Queen’s Maries. These ladies, as we know from Keith, were, from the first, in the Queen’s childhood, Mary Livingstone, Mary Seatoun, Mary Beatoun, and Mary Fleming.
We have, then, a child-murder, by a woman of the Queen, we have ballads about her Maries, and, as Scott says, ‘the tale has suffered great alterations, as handed down by tradition, the French waiting-woman being changed into Mary Hamilton, and the Queen’s apothecary into Henry Darnley,’ who, as Mr. Child shows, was not even in Scotland in 1563. But gross perversion108 of contemporary facts does not prove a ballad to be late or apocryphal109. Mr. Child even says that accuracy in a ballad would be very ‘suspicious.’ Thus, for example, we know, from contemporary evidence, that the murder of the Bonny Earl Murray, in 1592, by Huntley, was at once made the topic of ballads. Of these, Aytoun and Mr. Child print two widely different in details: in the first, Huntley has married Murray’s sister; in the second, Murray is the lover of the Queen of James VI. Both statements are picturesque110; but the former is certainly, and the latter is probably, untrue. Again, ‘King James and Brown,’ in the Percy MS., is accepted as a genuine contemporary ballad of the youth of gentle King Jamie. James is herein made to say to his nobles —
‘My grandfather you have slaine,
And my own mother you hanged on a tree.’
Even if we read ‘father’ (against the manuscript) this is absurd. James V. was not ‘slaine,’ neither Darnley nor Mary was ‘hanged on a tree.’ Ballads are always inaccurate111; they do not report events, so much as throw into verse the popular impression of events, the magnified, distorted, dramatic rumours112. That a ballad-writer should promote a Queen’s tirewoman into a Queen’s Marie, and substitute Darnley (where HE is the lover, which is not always) for the Queen’s apothecary, is a license113 quite in keeping with precedent114. Mr. Child, obviously, would admit this. In producing a Marie who never existed, the ‘maker’ shows the same delicacy115 as Voltaire, when he brings into ‘Candide’ a Pope who never was born.
Finally, a fragment of a variant28 of the ballad among the Abbotsford MSS.268 does mention an apothecary as the lover of the heroine, and, so far, is true to historical fact, whether the author was well informed, or merely, in the multitude of variations, deviated116 by chance into truth.
There can, on the whole, be no reasonable doubt that the ballad is on an event in Scotland of 1563, not of 1719, in Russia, and Mr. Child came to hold that this opinion was, at least, the more probable.
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ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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tally
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| n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致 | |
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meddling
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| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的现在分词 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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13
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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14
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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15
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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19
makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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21
kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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22
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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23
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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25
doggerel
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| n.拙劣的诗，打油诗 | |
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26
tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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27
variants
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| n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体 | |
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variant
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| adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体 | |
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29
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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30
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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31
decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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32
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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33
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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34
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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35
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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36
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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37
tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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38
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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39
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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40
gall
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| v.使烦恼，使焦躁，难堪；n.磨难 | |
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41
discrepancies
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| n.差异，不符合（之处），不一致（之处）( discrepancy的名词复数 ) | |
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42
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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43
diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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44
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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45
invoke
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| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
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mariners
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| 海员，水手（mariner的复数形式） | |
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47
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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48
corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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49
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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50
gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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51
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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52
allured
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| 诱引，吸引( allure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
bolster
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| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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54
avenged
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| v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复 | |
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55
clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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56
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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57
ransomed
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| 付赎金救人，赎金( ransom的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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59
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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60
condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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61
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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63
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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65
discrepant
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| 差异的 | |
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66
prosaically
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| adv.无聊地；乏味地；散文式地；平凡地 | |
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67
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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68
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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69
avers
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| v.断言( aver的第三人称单数 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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70
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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71
espoused
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| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
statistical
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| adj.统计的，统计学的 | |
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73
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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74
cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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75
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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76
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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77
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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78
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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79
versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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80
assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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81
revelled
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| v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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82
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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83
indite
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作 | |
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84
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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85
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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86
alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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87
psalms
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| n.赞美诗( psalm的名词复数 )；圣诗；圣歌；(中的) | |
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88
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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89
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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90
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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91
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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92
lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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93
apothecary
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| n.药剂师 | |
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94
consort
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| v.相伴；结交 | |
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95
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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96
conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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97
privy
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| adj.私用的；隐密的 | |
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98
treasurer
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| n.司库，财务主管 | |
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99
embalm
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| v.保存（尸体）不腐 | |
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100
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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101
offenders
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| n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 )；犯规者；罪犯；妨害…的人（或事物） | |
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102
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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103
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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104
slander
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| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
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105
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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106
bruit
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| v.散布；n.（听诊时所听到的）杂音；吵闹 | |
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107
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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108
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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109
apocryphal
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| adj.假冒的，虚假的 | |
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110
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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111
inaccurate
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| adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的 | |
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112
rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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113
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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114
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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115
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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116
deviated
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| v.偏离，越轨( deviate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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