No. 160: The Knight of Liddesdale
[There are no known US or Canadian versions of this ballad which is based on a single stanza fragment.]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes (There are no footnotes for this ballad)
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Texts A
5. "Additions and Corrections"
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 160. The Knight of Liddesdale
A. Roud No. 3999: The Knight of Liddesdale (1 Listing)
2. Sheet Music: 160. The Knight of Liddesdale (Bronson's gives no music examples)
3. English and Other Versions (Including Child versions A with additional notes)]
Child's Narrative:The Knight of Liddesdale
A. Hume of Godscroft, History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, 1644, p. 77.
William Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, who figures in the foregoing ballad, was assassinated in 1353, while hunting in Ettrick forest, by his kinsman and godson, Lord William Douglas.
According to the Scotichronicon, the motive was said to be revenge for Alexander Ramsay, one of the first men among the Scots, whom Liddesdale had assaulted while he was holding a court, wounded, carried off, and suffered to die by starving; and for Sir David Berkeley, whom Liddesdale was charged with procuring to be murdered in 1350, in return for the death of his brother, Sir John Douglas, brought to pass by Berkeley. (Scotichronicon, ed. Goodall, II, 348, 335, XIV, 8, XIII, 50, XIV, 7.)
Hume of Godscroft considers the motive assigned to be quite unnatural, and at best a pretence. A ballad known to him gave a different account. "The Lord of Liddesdale, being at his pastime, hunting in Attrick forest, is beset by William Earle of Douglas, and such as hee had ordained for that purpose, and there assailed, wounded, and slain, beside Galsewood, in the yeare 1353; upon a jealousie that the Earle had conceived of him with his lady, as the report goeth, for so sayes the old song." After citing the stanza which follows, Hume goes on to say: "The song also declareth how shee did write her love-letters to Liddisdale, to disswade him from that hunting. It tells likewise the manner of the taking of his men, and his owne killing at Galsewood, and how hee was carried the first night to Lindin Kirk, a mile from Selkirk, and was buried within the Abbacie of Melrosse."
"The sole basis for this statement of Hume's," says Sir William Fraser, The Douglas Book, I, 223 f, 1885, "seems to be the anonymous Border ballad, part of which he quotes, to which he adds the tradition that the lady wrote to her lover to dissuade him from that hunting. Apart from the fact that this tradition is opposed to contemporary history, which states that Sir William was wholly unsuspicious of danger, the story told by Godscroft is otherwise erroneous. He assumes that Douglas was made earl in 1346, and that he was married to a daughter of the Earl of March, neither of which assumptions is true. Douglas was not created earl until 26th January, 1357-8, and there was therefore no 'Countess of Douglas' to wait for the Knight of Liddesdale. Douglas's only wife was Lady Margaret of Mar, who survived him. The exact date of their marriage has not been ascertained, but it is certain that Douglas had no countess of the family of March in 1353, while it is doubtful if at that date he was married at all. Popular tradition is therefore at fault in assigning matrimonial jealousy as a motive for killing the Knight of Liddesdale."
"Some fragments of this ballad are still current, and will be found in the ensuing work," says Scott, Minstrelsy, I, 221, note, ed. 1833. It may be that Sir Walter became convinced that these fragments were not genuine; at any rate, they do not appear in his collection.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
William Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, who figures in the foregoing ballad (No, 159) was assassinated in 1353, while hunting in Ettrick forest, by his kinsman and godson, William Lord Douglas. According to the Scotichronicon, the motive was said to be revenge for the death by starvation of Alexander Ramsay and the murder of Sir David Berkeley. Hume of Godscroft considers the motive assigned to be quite unnatural, and at best a pretence. A ballad known to him gave a different account. "The Lord of Liddesdale, being at his pastime, hunting in Attrick forest, is beset by William Earle of Douglas, and such as hee had ordained for that purpose, and there assailed, wounded, and slain, beside Galsewood, in the year 1353; upon a jealousie that the Earle had conceived of him with his lady, as the report goeth, for so sayes the old song." After citing the stanza which follows, Hume goes on to say: "The song also declareth how shee did write her love-letters to Liddisdale, to disswade him from that hunting. It tells likewise the manner of the taking of his men, and his owne killing at Galsewood, and how hee was carried the first night to Lindin Kirk, a mile from Selkirk, and was buried within the Abbacie of Melrose."
"The sole basis for this statement of Hume's," says Sir William Fraser (The Douglas Book, i, 223 f., 1885), "seems to be the anonymous Border ballad, part of which he quotes, to which he adds the tradition that the lady wrote to her lover to dissuade him from that hunting. Apart from the fact that this tradition is opposed to contemporary history, which states that Sir William was wholly unsuspicious of danger, the story told by Godscroft is otherwise erroneous... Douglas was not created earl until 26th January, 1357-8, and there was therefore no 'Countess of Douglas' to wail for the Knight of Liddesdale. Douglas's only wife was Lady Margaret of Mar, who survived him. Douglass had no countess of the family of March in 1353, while it is doubtful if at that date he was married. Popular tradition is therefore at fault in assigning matrimonial jealousy as a motive for killing the Knight of Liddesdale.''
Child's Ballad Text
[Lord of Liddesdale] Version A; Child 160 The Knight of Liddesdale
Hume of Godscroft, History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, 1644, p. 77.
1 The Countesse of Douglas out of her boure she came,
And loudly there that she did call:
'It is for the Lord of Liddesdale
That I let all these teares downe fall.'
Additions and Corrections
To be Corrected in the Print.
288 a, line 4 of the first paragraph. Read William Lord Douglas.
b, line 16. Read wail.