KING EDWARD IV. AND THE TANNER OF TAMWORTH. 1:1 50 I sweare, so mought I thee; Thy foule cowe-hide I wolde not beare, If thou woldst give it to mee. 60 What art thou a foole? the tanner reply'd; The king he tooke him up by the legge; The tanner a f** lett fall. I carry one under mee. When the tanner he was in the kinges sadèlle, And his foote in his stirrup was; He marvelled greatlye in his minde, Whether it were golde or brass. But when his steede saw the cows taile wagge, 125 And eke the blacke cowe-horne; He stamped, and stared, and awaye he ranne, As the devill had him borne. By fortye shilling a yere. 76 Yet one thing wolde I, sayd our king, At length the tanner came tumbling downe; His necke he had well-nye brast. If thou wilt not seeme strange : Take thy horse again with a vengeance, he sayd, With mee he shall not byde. "My horse wolde have borne thee well enoughe, 135 But he knewe not of thy cowe-hide. I sweare, so mote I thee: THE scene of this song is the same as in Num. XIV. The pilgrimage to Walsingham suggested the plan of many popular pieces. In the Pepys collection, vol. I. p. 226, is a kind of interlude in the old ballad style, of which the first stanza alone is worth reprinting. As I went to Walsingham, To the shrine with speede, Met I with a jolly palmer In a pilgrimes weede. Now God you save, you jolly palmer! Welcome, lady gay, Oft have I sued to thee for love." -Oft have I said you nay. The pilgrimages undertaken on pretence of religion, were often productive of affairs of gallantry, and led the votaries to no other shrine than that of Venus*. The following ballad was once very popular; it is quoted in Fletcher's "Knight of the burning pestle," Act II. sc. ult. and in another old play, called, "Hans Beer-pot, his invisible Comedy, &c." 4to. 1618: Act I. The copy below was communicated to the Editor by the late Mr. Shenstone as corrected by him from an ancient copy, and supplied with a concluding stanza. We have placed this, and "Gentle Herdsman," &c. thus early in the works, upon a presumption that they must have been written, if not before the dissolution of the monasteries, yet while the remembrance of them was fresh in the minds of the people. As ye came from the holy land Of blessed Walsingham, O met you not with my true love This stanza is restored from a quotation of this Ballad in Selden's "Titles of Honour," who produces it as a good authority to prove, that one mode of creating Esquires at that time, was by the imposition of a collar. His words are, "Nor is that old pamphlet of the tanner of Tamworth and King Edward the Fourth so contemptible, but that wee may thence note also an observable passage, wherein the use of making Esquires, by giving collars, is expressed." (Sub Tit. Esquire; & vide in Spelmanni Glossar. Armiger.) This form of creating Esquires actually exists at this day among the Sergeants at Arms, who are invested with a collar (which they wear on Collar Days) by the King himself. This information I owe to Samuel Pegge, Esq. to whom the Public is indebted for that curious work, the "Curialia 4to. † sc. pale. As this fine morsel of heroic poetry hath generally past for ancient, it is here thrown to the end of our earliest pieces; that such as doubt of its age, may the better compare it with other pieces of genuine antiquity. For after all, there is more than reason to suspect, that it owes most of its beauties (if not its whole existence) to the pen of a lady, within the present century. The following particulars may be depended on. Mrs. Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket (aunt to the late Sir Peter Halket, of Pitferran, in Scotland, who was killed in America, along with General Bradock, in 1755), pretended she had found this poem, written on shreds of paper, employed for what is called the bottoms of clues. A suspicion arose that it was her own composition. Some able judges asserted it to be modern. The lady did in a manner acknowledge it to be so. Being desired to shew an additional stanza, as a proof of this, she produced the two last, beginning with "There's nae light," &c. which were not in the copy that was first printed. The late Lord President Forbes, and Sir Gilbert Elliot, of Minto (late Lord Justice Clerk for Scotland) who had believed it ancient, contributed to the expence of publishing the first Edition, in folio, 1719. This account was transmitted from Scotland by Sir David Dalrymple, the late Lord Hailes, who yet was of opinion, that part of the ballad may be ancient; but retouched and much enlarged by the lady above mentioned. Indeed he had been informed, that the late William Thompson, the Scottish musician, who published the Orpheus Caledonius," 1733, 2 vols. 8vo. declared he had heard Fragments of it repeated in his infancy, before Mrs. Wardlaw's copy was heard of. The Poem is here printed from the original Edition, as it was prepared for the press with the additional improvements. (See below, page 116.) I. STATELY stept he east the w And stately stept he west, III. Full thirteen sons to him she bare, IV. Great love they bare to Fairly fair V. The King of Norse in summer tyde, With noble chiefs in brave aray, VI. "To horse, to horse, my royal liege, A trustier beast in a' the land VII. Go little page, tell Hardyknute, That lives on hill sae hie, Full seventy years he now had seen, Wi' scarce seven years of rest. 50 To draw his sword, the dread of faes And haste and follow me. And ay his sword tauld to their cost, He was their deadlye fae. Nae marrow had in all the land Save Elenar the queen. |