He turn'd him on the other side, And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he"If ye like na my visit in merry England, "In fair Scotland come visit me!" All sore astonish'd stood Lord Scroope, "He is either himsell a devil frae hell, NOTES ON KINMONT WILLIE. On Hairibee to hang him up?-P. 200. v. 1. Hairibee is the place of execution at Carlisle. And they brought him ower the Liddel-rack.-P. 200. v. 3. The Liddel-rack is a ford on the Liddel. And so they reach'd the Woodhouselee.-P. 204. v. 1. Woodhouselee; a house on the Border, belonging to Buc cleuch. The Salkeldes, or Sakeldes, were a powerful family in Cumberland, possessing, among other manors, that of Corby, before it came into the possession of the Howards, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. A strange stratagem was practised by an outlaw, called Jock Græme of the Peartree, upon Mr Salkelde, Sheriff of Cumberland; who is probably the person alluded to in the ballad, as the fact is stated to have happened late in Elizabeth's time. The brother of this free 8 booter was lying in Carlisle jail for execution, when Jock of the Peartree came riding past the gate of Corby Castle. A child of the sheriff was playing before the door, to whom the outlaw gave an apple, saying, "Master, will you ride?" The boy willingly consenting, Grame took him up before him, carried him into Scotland, and would never part with him, till he had his brother safe from the gallows. There is no historical ground for supposing, either that Salkelde, or any one else, lost his life in the raid of Carlisle. In the list of Border clans, 1597, Will of Kinmonth, with Kyrstie Armestrange, and John Skynbank, are mentioned as leaders of a band of Armstrongs called Sandies Barnes, inhabiting the Debateable Land. The ballad itself has never before been published. VOL. I. DICK O' THE COW. THIS ballad, and the two which immediately follow it in the collection, were first published, 1784, in the Hawick Museum, a provincial miscellany, to which they were communicated by John Elliot, Esq. of Reidheugh, a gentleman well skilled in the antiquities of the Western Border, and to whose friendly assistance the editor is indebted for many valuable communications. These ballads are connected with each other, and appear to have been composed by the same author. The actors seem to have flourished, while Thomas Lord Scroope, of Bolton, was warden of the West Marches of England, and governor of Carlisle castle; which offices he acquired upon the death of his father, about 1590, and retained till the union of the crowns. Dick of the Cow, from the privileged insolence which he assumes, seems to have been Lord Scroope's jester. In the preliminary dissertation, the reader will find the Border custom of assuming nommes de guerre particular ly noticed. It is exemplified in the following ballad, where one Armstrong is called the Laird's Jock, (i. e. the laird's son Jock), another Fair Johnie, a third Billie Willie (brother Willie), &c. The Laird's Jock, son to the Laird of Mangerton, appears, as one of the men of name in Liddesdale, in the list of the Border Clans, 1597. Dick of the Cow is erroneously supposed to have been the same with one Ricardus Coldall, de Plumpton, a knight and celebrated warrior, who died in 1462, as appears from his epitaph in the church of Penrith.NICHOLSON'S History of Westmoreland and Cumberland, vol. II. p. 408. This ballad is very popular in Liddesdale; and the reciter always adds, at the conclusion, that poor Dickie's cautious removal to Burgh under Stanemore did not save him from the clutches of the Armstrongs; for that, having fallen into their power several years after this exploit, he was put to an inhuman death. The ballad was well known in England so early as 1596. An allusion to it likewise occurs in PARROT's Luquei Ridiculosi, or Springes for Woodcocks; London, 1613. Owenus wondreth since he came to Wales, Epigr. 76. |