Recordings & Info 208. Lord Derwentwater
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Collection Index
4) Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
5) Folk Index
6) Mainly Norfolk
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 89: Lord Derwentwater ( Listings)
Alternative Titles
Derwentwater's Farewell
My Lord Derwater
The King's Love-Letter
Lord Allenwater
Traditional Ballad Index: Lord Derwentwater [Child 208]
DESCRIPTION: The king sends (Derwentwater) a summons to London. His wife bids him make his will before going. As he goes along his way, ill portents greet him. Arriving in London, he is condemned to death. (He gives gifts to the poor and is executed)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1812 (Bell)
KEYWORDS: rebellion nobility execution lastwill
HISTORICAL_REFERENCES: 1715 - the 1715 Jacobite rebellion
Sept. 1715 - Warrant issued for Derwentwater's arrest. He responds by openly going into revolt
Nov. 14, 1715 - Derwentwater and his comrades forced to surrender
Feb 24, 1716 - Execution of Derwentwater at the age of (probably) 26
FOUND_IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland) US(SE)
REFERENCES: (4 citations)
Child 208, "Lord Derwentwater" (10 texts)
Bronson 208, "Lord Derwentwater" (5 versions)
Lyle-Crawfurd1 3, "My Lord Derwater" (1 text)
Leach, pp. 553-554, "Lord Derwentwater" (1 text)
Roud #89
RECORDINGS:
Mrs. G. A. Griffin, "The King's Love-Letter" (AFS, 1937; on LC58) {Bronson's #4a}
CROSS_REFERENCES:
cf. "Sir Patrick Spens" [Child #58]
cf. "The Mother's Malison, or Clyde's Water" [Child 216]
cf. "Derwentwater's Farewell" (subject)
cf. "Derwentwater" (subject)
NOTES: Although based on a historical incident, this ballad is a rather curious amalgam of material from other pieces; the opening is straight from "Sir Patrick Spens" [Child #58], while the incident of the nosebleed portending doom is found in "The Mother's Malison, or Clyde's Water" [Child 216]. The making of the will is harder to trace, but the idea is commonplace.
There is an obvious urge to confuse this with "Derwentwater's Farewell," by Robert Surtees, but Child explicitly and correctly denies this link.
Derwentwater seems by all accounts to have been popular, and other poems were written of his death. In this case, it would appear that an unknown poet (Surtees?) took pieces of older ballads to produce a song for the occasion.
The night of Derwentwater's execution witnessed a particularly bright aurora, and the aurora is sometimes called "Derwentwater's Lights" as a result. But this usage, like the ballad itself, seems to have faded out with time. Another version of "Derwentwater's Lights" makes it an annual reappearance of a beacon Lady Derwentwater once put out to welcome her husband home."
According to Marc Alexander, _A Companion to the Folklore, Myths & Customs of Britain_, Sutton Publishing, 2002, pp. 66-67, gives this history of James, 3rd Earl of Dermentwater:
"In 1705 James Ratcliffe succeeded to the [Derwentwater] title at the age of seventeen. As befitted a scion of a Catholic and ardently pro-Stuart family, he had been educated at the court of St Germain with the son of the exiled James II. His devotion to the Stuart cause was reinforced by the fact that his mother was Lady Mary Tudor, a daughter of Charles II by Moll Davis. In 1712 James married a Catholic lady named Anne Welch, and three years later she watched her husband and his retainers join the Jacobite rebellion. Following their defeat, he was one of nine rebel lords taken prisoner."
Derwentater pled guilty to treason, but no clemency was granted and he was beheaded after making a speech in behalf of the Stuart cause. - RBW
Child Collection Index- Child Ballad 208: Lord Dernwentwater
Child --Artist --Title --Album --Year --Length --Have
208 Adderstone Derwentwater's Farewell Cannily Cannily 2004 No
208 Alistair Anderson Derwenter's Farewell + Jimmy Allen + The Herd on the Hill Concertina Workshop - Traditional Music on the English Concertina 1974 3:17 Yes
208 Anni Fentiman Derwentwater's Farewell Away from It All 2003 5:31 Yes
208 Carolyn Robson Derwentwater's Farewell Banks of Tyne 1981 No
208 Dave Swarbrick Derwentwater's Farewell + The Noble Squire Dacre Swarbrick 2 1977 No
208 Dave Swarbrick Derwentwater's Farewell + The Noble Squire Dacre Swarbrick + Swarbrick 2 1996 3:14 Yes
208 Dave Swarbrick Derwentwater's Farewell + The Noble Squire Dacre The Best of English Folk 1999 3:20 Yes
208 David Parry Derwentwater's Farewell 'E Liked It All - David Parry in Concert with the Friends of Fiddler's Green 1995 7:11 Yes
208 Dr Faustus Lord Ellenwater Wager 2005 6:35 Yes
208 Graham & Sam Pirt Derwentwater Dance Ti' Thee Daddy 2008 No
208 Grit Laskin Derwentwater's Farewell + Salmon Tails Up the Water Unabashedly Folk - Songs and Tunes 1979 - 1985 2000 3:17 Yes
208 Jack Armstrong Bonny at Morn + Billy Boy + The Earl of Derwentwater's Farewell Bagpipes Of Britain & Ireland 1996 2:45 Yes
208 Jack Armstrong & Patricia Jennings Derwentwater's Farewell The Northumbrian Smallpipes 1969 No
208 Louis Killen Derwentwater's Farewell Northumbrian Garland - Songs from the North-East and the Border 1962 4:22 Yes
208 Louis Killen Derwentwater's Farewell The EFDSS Presents Folksound of Britain 1965 No
208 Louis Killen Derwentwater's Farewell Old Songs, Old Friends 1977 3:21 Yes
208 Louis Killen Derwentwater's Farewell Along the Coaly Tyne - Old and New Northumbrian Songs 1999 4:20 Yes
208 Moira Craig Derwentwater's Farewell + The Ode to Whiskey Celtic Spirit - The Magic and Mystery of Celtic Songs and Music 1998 No
208 Mrs. G.A. Griffin The King's Love-Letter Child Ballads Traditional in the United States, Vol. II 1960 2:34 Yes
208 Patti Reid Lord Derwentwater Landmarks - 30 Years of a Leading Folk Music Label 2006 2:39 Yes
208 Patti Reid Lord Derwentwater Patti Reid 1987 2:39 Yes
208 Pauline Cato Derwentwaters Farewell + Hesleyside Teel + Roxburgh Castle Minstrel's Fancy 1997 5:45 Yes
208 Pete Morton, Roger Wilson & Simon Edwards Derwentwater's Farewell Urban Folk Vol. II 1997 4:12 Yes
208 Pete Scrowther Derwentwater's Farewell Scrowther 1995 4:57 Yes
208 Phil Edwards Derwentwater's Farewell 52 Folk Songs - Indigo 2011 4:33 Yes
208 Phil Edwards Lord Allenwater 52 Folk Songs - Indigo 2011 3:07 Yes
208 Rebecca Fox Lord Allenwater The Signs and the Tokens 2007 4:32 Yes
208 Seamus & Manus McGuire Derwentwater's Farewell + Larry Redican's Humours of Lissadell 1980 3:56 Yes
208 Sheena Wellington Derwentwater's Farewell Kerelaw 1986 5:19 Yes
208 Shirley & Dolly Collins Lord Allenwater For as Many as Will 1978 5:30 Yes
208 Shirley Collins Lord Allenwater Fountain of Snow 1992 5:30 Yes
208 Shirley Collins Lord Allenwater Within Sound 2002 5:07 Yes
208 Strawhead Lord Derwentwater The Old Lamb and Flag 1992 4:06 Yes
208 The Askew Sisters & Craig, Morgan, Robson Lord Derwentwater The Axford Five - Songs Collected from Five Hampshire Women 2009 3:26 Yes
208 The Corries Derwentwater's Farewell The Corries Collection 1999 4:11 Yes
208 The Corries Derwentwater's Farewell The Very Best of the Corries 1997 4:12 Yes
208 The Corries Derwentwater's Farewell The Lads Among Heather - Vol 2 2006 No
208 The Corries Derwentwater's Farewell A Little of What You Fancy 1973 4:18 Yes
208 The Corries Derwentwater's Farewell 18 Scottish Favourites 2007 No
208 The New Scorpion Band Derwentwater's Farewell + Sir John Fenwick's Flower Amang Them All The Downfall of Pears 2004 7:56 Yes
208 The Tutors & Hannah Hutton Derwentwater's Farewell Twenty Years on - Joe's Course: The Rothbury Northumbrian Piping Weekend 1979 - 1999 1999 6:02 Yes
Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America
by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
208. LORD DERWENTWATER
Texts: JAFL, XLVII, 95 / Morris, F-S Fla, 460 / SFLQ, VIII, 158.
Local Titles: The King's Love Letter.
Story Types: A: The Duke is summoned to England by a "love letter" from the King, He calls his eldest son and tells the lad that he is leaving for London. Before the city, he meets a man who fortells the Duke's death and asks for his will. The will is given; thereupon the Duke's nose begins to bleed as he stoops over to smell flowers. The song is incomplete, and it ends with the Duke's wish that his children be cared for.
Discussion: The story of the incomplete Florida version can be reconstructed from the Child texts (especially Child D) where Derwentwater, who was actually an agitator for the Pretender, is summoned as a Scotsman to the court. His wife, with child, forseeing his death, tells him to make his will before he goes. Derwentwater complies. He then sets forth. En route, by some omen such as a bleeding nose, the stumbling of his horse, etc. he knows his days are numbered. At London, he is branded a traitor. An old man with an axe then steps up (undoubtedly this man is the original of the American questioner) and demands the Lord's life. Derwentwater is slain after a few generous dying requests.
For a discussion of the one American text of the ballad and the folk superstition in the nose-bleeding see SFLQ, VIII, 158. A. C. Morris, the editor of this item, sees this discovery as an indication of the retention of English eighteenth centnry culture in the South.
Folk Index: Lord Derwentwater [Ch 208]
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p553
Griffin, Mrs. G. A.. Morris, Alton C. / Folksongs of Florida, Univ. Florida, Bk (1950), p308/#167 [1934/03] (King's Love Letter)
Lord Derwentwater's Farewell
Mf - My Father's Cause
My Father's Cause - Kent, Enoch/Traditional
Sm - Lord Derwentwater's Farewell
Kent, Enoch. I'm a Working Chap, 2nd AV SAS 2007, CD (2002), trk# 8
Mainly Norfolk: Lord Allenwater / Lord Derwentwater
[Roud 89; Child 208; Ballad Index C208; trad.]
Lord Allenwater was collected from E.A. Stears of Horsham, Sussex, in 1904. Shirley Collins sang it accompanied by Dolly Collins on flute organ and piano, Phil Pickett playing cornet and Michale Gregory playing percussion on the sisters' album For As Many As Will. This recording was also included on their anthology Fountain of Snow (1992). A 1981 live recording from Holland with Julie Carter, vocals, and Jim Younger, concertina, was published in 2000 on her anthology Within Sound.
Shirley Collins commented in the first album's notes:
James Ratcliffe, third Earl of Derwentwater, was beheaded on Tower Hill, February 24th, 1716, for his part in the Jacobite uprising of 1715. The entire story has been handed down as factual—as if it really happened. And other legends have sprung up around the event. It was said that on the night he was executed, the rivers on his estates ran blood, and that the Northern Lights shone more brightly that night than they ever had before; from then they were locally called “Lord Derwentwater's Lights”.
Lyrics
Shirley Collins sings Lord Allenwater
The King has wrote a long letter
And sealed it up with gold,
And sent it unto Lord Allenwater
To read it if he could.
The first two lines Lord Allenwater read
They struck him with surprise,
And the next two lines Lord Allenwater read
Made tears fall from his eyes.
He goes up to his gay lady
As she in child bed lay,
And says, “To London I must go,
I'm sure there is great need.”
“Well, if to London you must go,
Before you go away
Make your will, my dear,” she said,
“Lest you should go astray.”
“Well, I will leave my only son
My houses and my land;
And I will leave my dear wedded wife
Ten thousand pounds in hand.”
And he goes out to his stable groom
To saddle his milk-white steed;
Said, up to London he might ride,
“I'm sure there is great need.”
And he put a foot into the stirrup,
The other across his steed;
And the gay gold ringsufrom his fingers burst,
His nose began to bleed.
And as he was riding along the road
His horse caught against a stone.
“Oh, there's signs and tokens enough I've seen,
I'm sure I'll never return.”
And as he was a-riding up a merry London street
So close up the fair Whitehall,
Oh, the lords and the ladies stood looking hard,
And a traitor he was called.
“No traitor at all,” Lord Allenwater said,
“No traitor at all,” cried he,
“Why, I vow I can find you three score men
To fight for King Georgie.”
Then it's up and bespoke a grey-headed man,
A broad axe in his hand,
“Oh deliver your soul, Lord Allenwater,
Your life's at my command.”
“My life I do not value too,
My life I will give unto thee,
And the black velvet coat that I have on my back,
You take that for your fee.
There's forty pounds in one pocket,
Pray give it unto the poor,
And there's forty-five in the other one,
Pray give it from door to door.”
And he laid his head upon the block,
The man gave a mighty blow,
“Now there lies the head of a traitor,” he said
But it answered and it said—“No”.