King Henry- Margaret Bain; c. 1820s; Child C
The following information, mainly from A. G. Gilchrist, is from Songs from Cumberland & Northumberland: by Frank Kidson, Lucy E. Broadwood, A. G. Gilchrist, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Cecil J. Sharp; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 3, No. 10 (1907), pp. 39-46:
The occasional occurrence of the name "King Henry" in the ballad more commonly known as "Lord Rendal" is perhaps due to a reminiscence of Henry I's death from eating a dish of lanmpreys, on lhis return from a hunting expedition. It seems quite possible that a story arose that the dish had been tampered with, or that the "lampreys" were euphemistically named, and hence that the king died of poison, not simple gluttony. A somewhat similar poisoning circumstance in connection with the death of King John is recorded in the old chronicle which relates that a certain monk poisoned, with the venom from a toad, a wassail-cup, of which the king drank and thereafter swelled and died. See Scott's Bordler Minstrelsy, note to "Lord Rendal."
It is also imaginable that the "King Henry" referred to may have been the "Young King Henry" who was crowned in the lifetime of his father, Henry II, and died of "a violent fever and flix" while fighting against him, in France. There is a possibility that poison was suspected in his case, also; but it seems much more likely that the person who first introduced the name of Henry into the ballad had in mind the monarch who succumbed to the dish of lampreys.
While the poisoning story itself was probably current in Europe at an early period, the following suggestions may be offered as to the reason why the name "Lord Rendal" should be traditionally connected with the ballad in England and Scotland:
(1). - Randal III, sixth Earl of Chester, 1181, (died 1232) divorced his first wife, Constance, widow of Geoffrey Plantagenet, and married again, " for which sin, as many men suppose, this Ranulph [Randal] deserved to dye without issuie and to relinquish his honors unto the sonne of his sister." [The quotation is taken from The Catalogue of Hontor, 1610, an old peerage in the writer's possession].
(2). - He was succeeded by his nephew John, whose wife "was infamous for plotting to take away the life of her husband John by poison."-[Ibid.]
(a). - Following upon a contemporary belief that Randal left no heir because of his sin in divorcing his first wife and re-marrying, may there not have arisen the story that a young son and heir, child of the second wife, was poisoned by his " stepmother" (i.e. the divorced Constance) at her own house, returning to his mother to die? (This would explain the "Wee Croodlin' Doo" form of the story, with its conjunction of "stepmother " and "nammy," though, at the same time, the "mammy" of the nursery version may simply have been the child's foster-mother or nurse).
If, when the real circumstances had somewhat faded from memory, people wished to find a romantic reason for the fact of Randal III's leaving no heir and the earldom thus passing to his nephew, a divine judgment might be the explanation offered by the priest and the scholar, but the common folk would, I think, be much more likely to seek a human agent in the first wife, dishonoured, jealous, and revengeful, and thus to attach to Randal an already existing ballad-story. (It will be remembered that Constance's own son, Prince Arthur, had been done to death).
(b). - The fact, or story, that Randal's nephew and successor to the title was poisoned by his own wife may later have become attached to Randal himself by confusion with the (presumptive) poisoning legend about Randal's young son and heir. These suggestions do not, of course, interfere with the circumstance of the Lord Randal story being current in Italy or other countries at a much earlier date. They merely aim at explaining why the hero should be called Lord Randal in the English form of the ballad. (See Chappell's Popular Music, p. 10, for an account of the services English minstrels rendered to Randal, when besieged in 12I2. This (or another) Randal seems to have been early a popular hero, for Longland describes his Friar as much better acquainted with the "rimes of Robinhode and of Randal, erle of Chester," than with his Paternoster)- A. G. G.
KING HENRY- Child 12; Lord Randal Version C
Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 69. From the recitation of Margaret Bain, in the parish of Blackford, Perthshire.
1 'What's become of your hounds, King Henrie, my son?
What's become of your hounds, my pretty little one?'
'They all died on the way; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.'
2 'What gat ye to your supper, King Henry, my son?
What gat ye to your supper, my pretty little one?'
'I gat fish boiled in broo; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.'
3 'What like were the fish, King Henry, my son?
What like were the fish, my pretty little one?'
'They were spreckled on the back and white on the belly; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.'
4 'What leave ye to your father, King Henry, my son?
What leave ye to *your father, my pretty little one?'
'The keys of Old Ireland, and all that's therein; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.'
5 'What leave ye to your brother, King Henry, my son?
What leave ye to your brother, my pretty little one?'
'The keys of my coffers and all that's therein; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.'
6 'What leave ye to your sister, King Henry, my son?
What leave ye to your sister, my pretty little one?'
'The world's wide, she may go beg; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.'
7 'What leave ye to your trew-love, King Henry, my son?
What leave ye to your trew-love, my pretty little one?'
'The highest hill to hang her on, for she's poisoned me and my hounds all; mother, make my bed soon,
Oh I'm sick to the heart, and I fain wald lie down.'
_________________
Footnote:
* 4(2). your father, King Henry, my son.