صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[ocr errors]

The song then proceeds:

Quhen Alysander oure kynge wes dede,
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away wes sons off ale and brede,

Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and gle;
Oure golde wes changyd into lede;
Chryst, borne into vergynite,
Succour Scotland, and remede

That stad in his perplexite!

A historical incident which occurred not long after the death of Alexander the Third, gave occasion to a rhyme, or song, which has been preserved for us by the English chroniclers. In 1296, when King Edward I. (surnamed Longshanks) undertook his first expedition against Scotland, he resolved to destroy the town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which then belonged to the Scottish nation, and which, being strongly garrisoned by them, threatened to be a serious obstacle to his obtaining possession of the country. So effectually did this city protect the chief passage from England into Scotland, that, on this very occasion, Edward, though at the head of a prodigious force, was obliged to adopt the circuitous and inconvenient passage by the ford of Coldstream, twenty miles up the river, the north bank of which he had afterwards to descend, along with his army, before he could lay siege to Berwick. When he first summoned the town to surrender, the defenders were so confident, that they would listen to no terms he could propose. He then directed that, while his army should prepare to advance upon the landward defences of the town, his ships should enter the harbour, and thus distress the garrison by a double attack. Some misunderstanding, however, having occurred, the ships entered the harbour before the king was ready to co-operate by an assault on the walls; and thus the Scots were gratified by having it in their power to burn two large war-vessels, which fell into their hands. So much were they elevated by

this good fortune, that they composed and chanted a rhyme, as a sneer at the miserable efforts of the English sovereign. It ran thus:

Weened Kyng Edewarde, with his lange shankes,
To have gete [got] Berwyke, al our unthankes?
Gas pikes hym,

And after gas dikes hym.

Such, at least, is the rhyme quoted by Ritson, from a Harleian manuscript; though it is probable that some errors have occurred in its transcription; the two last lines, standing as they do, seeming in a great measure unintelligible.* Whatever may be the precise meaning of the rhyme, it is evident that its composers designed it as a sarcasm at the confident hopes with which the English approached their walls, as contrasted with the present depressed state of their affairs. The English, however, soon found an opportunity of revenging the satire of the Scots. King Edward immediately after led his men to a grand attack on the dykes, or sunk fences, which then protected the town; being himself the first man to jump the walls, which he did without dismounting from his war-horse Bayard; and such was the fury of the English, in consequence of the insolence of the Scots, that, even after the garrison

Perhaps the word "gas" was gar, which signifies to cause. The incident and the song are thus incorporated in Langtoft's Chronicle:

Now dos Edward dike Berwik brode and long,

Als thei bad him pike and scorned him in ther song.

Pikit him, and dikit him, on scorne said he,

He pikes and dikes in length, as him likes, how best it may be. And thou has for the pikyng mykille ill likyng, the soothe is

to se,

Without any lesyng, alle is hething, fallen upon the.

For scattered are the Scottis, and hodred in their hottes, never thei ne the.

Right als I rede, they tombled in Tweed, that woned by the se.

had submitted, they continued to massacre the inhabitants, till, according to some accounts, twenty-seven thousand were killed; by whose blood, says an old historian, running in streams through the streets, "ane mil mycht haif gane two days."

The battle of Dunbar occurred soon after, in which the Scots, by their imprudence in leaving the high grounds, where they commanded the English army, lost a great number of men.

The invaders had thus got a double revenge for the taunting rhyme of the defenders of Berwick; yet, as if a revenge in kind bad been still necessary, they composed the following rhyme, which must be allowed to possess fully as much of the elements of satire as the former:

Thus scattered Scottis
Hold I for rootis,

Of wrenches unaware;

Early in a mornyng,
In an evyle tyding,

Went ye fro Dunnbarre.*

There is at least one valuable historical fact to be argued from these rude canticles; that the language of the English nation, and that of the Scottish lowlanders, were then nearly the same.

It is also, perhaps, to be gathered from these, that to express national sentiment in songs and rhymes, was then a common practice with both the English and the Scots; of which theory a further confirmation is to be found in the Scotichronicon of Fordun, a work written about a century after the period in question. Fordun informs us, that many songs were composed by the peo

*After the battle of Dunbar, according to Langtoft,
the Inglis rymed this.

Oure fote folk put tham in the polk, and nakned ther nages,
Bi no way herd I nevir say of prester pages,

Purses to pike, robis to rike, and in dike tham schonne,
Thou wiffin Scotte of Abrethin, kotte is thi honne.

ple on their heroic leader, Sir William Wallace; and he refers to one of them as evidence of a historical fact. One ballad on an adventure of this hero still exists; but whether it be a composition of his own time, or one of later date, is not now to be ascertained. Ritson, in his "Ancient Songs," has preserved an English song on the death of Wallace, and the fates of his various compatriots.

The next national Scottish song, of which any notice occurs in our early chroniclers, is one of triumph on the brilliant victory of Bannockburn. On this oc

casion, says Fabyan, (a citizen of London, who wrote an English chronicle,) "the Scottes, enflamed with pride, made this ryme as followeth, in derysyon of the Englyshmen:

Maydens of Englande, sore may you mourne

For your lemmans ye have lost at Bannockisburne!
With heve a lowe.

What! weeneth the kyng of England
So soone to have won Scotland!
With rumbylowe.

This songe," he adds, "was, after many days, sung in daunces in the carols of the maidens and minstrels of Scotland, to the reproofe and disdayne of Englyshmen, with dyvers other, which I overpasse." Ritson informs us, that, in Caxton's Chronicle, and in a Harleian manuscript, two somewhat various versions of this song occur. He further points out that the strange burdens which formed the third and the sixth lines, were common at the time, and for a long period after, as "Derry down" is at present. Thus, in "Peblis to the Play,"

Hop, Cailzie, and Cardrona,
Gathered out thick-fald;

With heigh, and howe, rumbelow,

The young folks were full bauld.

The next pasquil which the Scots can be discovered to have composed against the English, occurs in the

year 1328, when David, the infant son of Robert Bruce, was married to Jane, the daughter of Edward II., as a means of procuring a pacification between the two countries. The terms of this treaty were humiliating to England, which seemed, by sacrificing one of its sovereign's family as a hostage, to purchase the forbearance of their northern neighbours. The Scots, on their part, were greatly puffed up by a transaction so favourable to them. They called the young princess," Jane Make-peace;" and " also, to their more derision," quoth Fabyan, "thei made divers truffes, roundes, and songs, of the which," he adds, "one is specially remembered as followeth :

Long beardes heartles,
Paynted hoodes witles,
Gay cotes graceles,

Maketh Englande thriftles.

Which ryme, as saeith Guido, was made by the Scottes, principally for the deformyte of clothyng that at those days was used by Englyshmenne." Another historian (Caxton) gives us the circumstances more minutely. The English at that time clothed themselves in coats and hoods, which were decorated in a strange fashion, with letters and flowers painted on them. They also wore long beards. The Scots, on coming to York to manage the business of the pacification, were much struck with this fantastic attire, which no doubt formed a strong contrast with the rude and scanty garments which they themselves wore, in all probability, at that time. The Scotsman has ever been a self-denyer. And he is not only disposed to restrain himself in luxurious pleasures, but he is much given to censuring the extravagance of others. Accordingly, on the present occasion," thei made this bill, which they fastened upon the church doores of Seint Petre towards Stangate, in despite of Englishmenne."

Some of the preceding specimens may appear scarcely fit to be introduced as illustrating the condition of

« السابقةمتابعة »