Recordings & Info 273. King Edward IV and a Tanner of Tamworth
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) "The King and the Tinker" by Edith Fowke
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 248: King Edward IV and a Tanner of Tamworth (15 Listings)
Alternate Titles
The King and Miller of Mansfield
The King and the Tinker
The King and the Barker
Pleasant New Ballad of King Edward IV and a Tanner of Tamworth
Traditional Ballad Index: King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth [Child 273]
DESCRIPTION: The King goes out a-riding and meets the Tanner. The Tanner gives abrupt answers to the King's questions. The King tries to exchange horses; again the Tanner wants no part of the deal. Finally the King gives the Tanner a gift/pension
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1765 (Percy) (entered in the Stationer's Register in 1589)
KEYWORDS: royalty contest disguise trick gift money horse
HISTORICAL_REFERENCES: 1154-1189 - Reign of King Henry II
1399-1413 - Reign of King Henry IV
1461-1470 AND 1471-1483 - Reign of King Edward IV
FOUND_IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord)) Ireland Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES: (7 citations)
Child 273, "King Edward IV and a Tanner of Tamworth" (4 texts -- though three of them are appendices)
Bronson 273, "King Edward IV and a Tanner of Tamworth" (3 versions)
Percy/Wheatley II, pp. 92-100, "King Edward IV. And Tanner of Tamworth"; III, pp. 178-188, "The King and Miller of Mansfield" (2 texts)
Leach, pp. 649-653, "King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth" (1 text)
PBB 73, "King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth" (1 text)
BBI, ZN1472, "In summer time when leaves grow green"
ADDITIONAL: Katherine Briggs, _A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language_, Part A: Folk Narratives, 1970 (I use the 1971 Routledge paperback that combines volumes A.1 and A.2), volume A.2, pp. 437-438, "The King and the Tanner" (1 summarized text)
Roud #248
NOTES: The king mentioned in this ballad varies. Child's primary text simply calls the king "Edward." Of the three texts in the appendices, the first gives no name. The second goes under the title "King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth," but again the King is simply called "Edward." The third text (from the Percy folio, but not the version printed in the _Reliques_) is "King Henry II and the Miller of Mansefield," but again no name is given in the text itself. The records of 1564 also mention a printing of "The story of Kynge Henry IIIJth and the Tanner of Tamowthe."
On the other hand, Henry II was engaged in constant wars with France. Henry IV was an usurper who had to deal with periodic rebellions. And Edward IV lived during the Wars of the Roses. None of them had the petty cash to give the sorts of rewards mentioned here. Henry IV, in particular, had no money at all.
What I suspect to be the earliest mention of the song lists no name at all. According to Holt, p. 140, one Robert Langham heard an entertainment in July 1575 when Queen Elizabeth visited the Earl of Leicester's palace of Kenilworth; among the pieces perforned was "The King and the Tanner." We can't prove that that is this song, but it seems likely.
Chambers, p. 155, notes that there is a large class of "King and Subject narratives," most of which Child ignores. Chambers adds that this particular piece is "a late and much abridged version of _The King and the Barker._"
No matter which king we choose, there is no historical record of an event such as this. There is at least some verisimilitude in assigning the piece to Edward IV.
Edward was a hunter (most English kings were), but could be easily distracted by those he came across. The story is that he met his wife Elizabeth Woodville this way; she had been left a landless widow by the Wars of the Roses, and she deliberately stationed herself along his route to beg him for help (Lofts, p. 81).
Sadly for the legend, Ross, pp. 85-86, declares that "No one knows when Edward first met and became enamored of Elizabeth [Woodville or Wydeville, his future Queen]." The sources are assembled by Dockray, pp. 40-49, and most have little to say except that the two were secretly married, with almost no witnesses except her family, in May 1464. Kendall, p. 60, suspects that he had first seen her in passing in 1461 -- almost as if he had met his wife in the way described in this ballad. Edward actually kept the marriage secret for four months, possibly because he knew it was so far beneath his dignity to marry a woman who was English rather than a foreign princess, a widow, a mother, a Lancastrian (her former husband had died fighting against Edward in 1461), several years older than her husband, and the daughter of a mere knight (Lander, pp. 104-105; Dockray, pp. 40-41, who notes that all these things made her an "unsuitable" consort).
Ross, p. 87, remarks that "Edward's motives for this remarkable misalliance remain a matter for awestruck speculation," and notes that it "ultimately contributed largely to the downfall of the Yorkist dynasty." For all the speculation about the reasons, it is clear that, ultimately, it was a love match (or, at least, a lust match). Edward may have thought he had reasons other than physical, but there seems little doubt that it caused his contemporaries to think him impulsive (in the time of Richard III, there would be charges that he had been bewitched).
In addition, Edward was a friendly, cheerful man who could easily be involved in games such as this. He was also a forgiving man, less likely than many kings to punish someone he met merely for being surly. Ross, p. 52, refers to his "natural generosity" -- even in his treatment of known traitors. Ross, p. 10, also quotes Dominic Mancini regarding his character: "Edward was of a gentle nature and cheerful aspect." Ross, p. 122, notes how Edward even ignored evidence of treason; when the Earl of Warwick began conspiring against him, "His easy-going nature, persistent optimism, and confidence in his personal harm prevented him from taking a hard and suspicious line."
Edward was also the sort of figure about whom legends easily arose. Even by Plantagenet standards, he was unusually handsome; Ross, p. 10, tells us that "His good looks were universally acclaimed by his contemporaries.... Even his sharpest contemporary critic, Philippe de Commynes, who met him twice, repeatedly praises his fine appearance: 'He was a very handsome prince, and tall... I do not remember ever having seem a more handsome prince.'"
On the other hand, if we assume this is truly about Edward IV, we probably have to abandon Tamworth as a setting. Ross, p. 271, notes that "The more distant parts of his realm saw him but rarely," and adds that his visits to the north of England were "infrequent." He was there before he became King, but after that, it was mostly in times of crisis -- at the Battle of Towton, or during the Earl of Warwick's rebellion. He went as far north as Nottingham in 1475 and again in 1476, and visited Pontrefract and York in 1478, but Tamworth, near modern Birmingham, seems to have been too far west to earn a visit in times of peace. - RBW
>>BIBLIOGRAPHY<<
Chambers: E. K. Chambers, _English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages_, Oxford, 1945, 1947
Dockray: Keith Dockray, _Edward IV: A Source Book_, Sutton, 1999
Holt: J. C. Holt, _Robin Hood_, second edition, revised and enlarged, Thames & Hudson, 1989
Kendall: Paul Murray Kendall, _Richard the Third_, 1955, 1956 (I use the undated but post-1975 Norton edition)
Lander: J. R. Lander, _The Wars of the Roses_, 1965; revised edition 1990 (I use the 1997 Grange edition)
Lofts: Norah Lofts, _Queens of England_, Doubleday, 1977
Ross: Charles Ross, _Edward IV_, 1974 (I use the 1997 paperback edition in the Yale English Monarch series with a new introduction by R. A. Griffiths)
Child Collection- Child Ballad 273: King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth
Child --Artist --Title --Album --Year --Length --Have
273 Fred Shorthill The King and the Tinker The Edith Fowke Collection No
273 George Robertson King and Tinker (1) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
273 George Robertson King and Tinker (2) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
273 John Kirkpatrick King Jamie and the Tinker Voices - English Traditional Songs 1992 4:53 Yes
273 Peasants All A Pleasant Ballad of King Henry II and the Miller of Mansfield A Handful of Pleasant Delites - A Collection of Popular English Music from the 13th. to the 17th. Century 1977 5:53 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
273. KING EDWARD THE FOURTH AND THE TANNER OF TAMWORTH
Reed Smith, SC Bids, 171 4 lists this song among the American survivals of Child ballads. I have been unable to find a published text. However, as the song is not on Smith's subsequent SFLQ, I, 22, 911 list, I believe the first entry to be a mistake.
Folk Index: King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth [Ch 273]
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p. 650
"The King and the Tinker"
by Edith Fowke
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 79, No. 313 (Jul. - Sep., 1966), pp. 469-471
"The King and the Tinker"
A fragment of "King James I and the Tinker," a form of Child 273, "King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth," has turned up in Ontario. This appears to be the first definite evidence of the ballad's survival in North America. Coffin, noting that
Reed Smith listed Child 273 among American survivals in his South Carolina Ballads in
I937 but not in his subsequent Southern Folklore Quarterly list in I937, concludes that
the first entry was a mistake (The British Traditional Ballad in North America [Philadelphia,
I963], p. I43). As far as I can discover, "King James I and the Tinker" has
not been reported from tradition in Britain for more than a century.
When I visited Fred Shorthill at his home in Balinafad, Ontario, some thirty miles
west of Toronto, on March 27, 1964, he sang the fragment given below.
The King and the Tinker
Oh, the King and the tin - ker were at a great fair. The
King went a - hunt - ing a deer for to chase. O-ver
hill and o'er va - le a - way they did steer, Till they
whipped all his no - bles and of them got clear,
Why why whack the far - rel the far - rel la lay; Why
why whack the far - rel the far - rel la lay; Why
why whack the far - rel the tar - rel la lay; Fal the
tar - rel la lar - rel la lar - rel la lay.
Mr. Shorthill, who was then eighty, said his father used to sing the whole ballad, but this was all he could remember. (On a later visit he repeated it again in exactly the same form, but still could remember no more.) His grandparents came out from Tipperary in 183I and presumably brought the ballad w th them.
These lines do not parallel any of the texts Child gives, but their origin is clear when they are compared with the second stanza of the last reported traditional text of "King James I and the Tinkler" given in Dixon's Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of
England ([London, 18463, pp. I09-II2), as recited by Francis King, the "Skipton Minstrel":
As he was a-huntingt he swift fallow-deer
He dropped all his nobles; and when he got clear,
In hope of some pastime away he did ride,
Till he camet o an alehouseh, ardb y a wood-side.
Dixon notes that Percy mentions the ballad but that it is not in the Reliques or in any other popular collection, although it appeared in a few broadsheets and chapbooks. Dixon's text from Francis King was reprinted in Bell's Ancient Poems, Ballads
and Songs of the Peasantry of England ([London, 18573, pp. 292-295), in Holroyd's Collection of Yorkshire Ballads, edited by Forshaw ([London, 18923, pp. 232-235), in J. Horsfall Turner's Yorkshire Anthology ([Bingley, England, I90go, pp. 68-69),
and in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (III [I936], pp. 63-64) In the Journal Miss A. G. Gilchrist gives a tune, "The King and the Tinker," from a sheet of manuscript airs found among the papers of the late Frank Kidson, which she
calls "the Edinburgh MS" because it was postmarked Edinburgh, December 23, I903. Miss Gilchrist says that Dixon's text "is the only copy known to me," and the air she gives appears to be the second reported for the ballad, the other being in Petrie's The Complete Collection of Irish Music (London, I902-I905).
Another traditional t ext is given by James M aidment i n his Scotish B allads a nd Songs ([Edinburgh, I8593, pp. 92-97), with the note: "There is in a small collection of songs, probably unique, printed at Edinburgh, without date-but certainly not later than I730-the present version of 'The King and the Tinkler'." That text is even more closely related to Mr. Shorthill's fragment for it begins:
The King and his nobles,
They went out a race,
They went out a-hunting,
The deer for to chase.
Over hills and high vallies,
I'll make it appear,
For he lost all his nobles,
And often got clear.
In his discussion of the ballad, Maidment suggests that its hero was not James I of England but "the fifth James of Scotland-who had an especial delight in such adventures, and who was as good natured as he was courageous." King James V of Scotland (1512-1542) was the father of Mary Queen of Scots; King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) was his grandson and came to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth in I603. Maidment argues: "It is very questionable whether the 'sapient'
monarch, who for the first time united the two Crowns, would have had 'pluck' enough for carrying out such a frolic with the Tinker. He was too much alarmed for his personal safety to run risks of any kind, and although no king relished jokes-some of them coarse enough in all conscience-more than he did, he took very good care not to expose himself to any unnecessary hazard. If Jamesh ad lost himself while hunting and had fallen in with the Tinker, he would have been too much frightened to have thought of amusing himself at his expense."
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
EDITH FOWKE