The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. 3

Francis James Child

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780486431475
• eBook ISBN: 9780486152868
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Published between 1882 and 1898, this definitive collection compiles all the extant ballads with all known variants and features Child's commentary for each work. Volume III includes Parts V and VI of the original set — ballads 114–188: "Mary Hamilton," "Flodden Field," "Sir Andrew Barton," and more than 30 ballads about Robin Hood.

THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH

POPULAR BALLADS

EDITED BY FRANCIS JAMES CHILD

PART VI

156

QUEEN ELEANOR’S CONFESSION

A. a. ‘Queen Eleanor’s Confession,’ a broadside, London, Printed for C. Bates, at the Sun and Bible in Gilt-spur-street, near Pye-corner, Bagford Ballads, II, No 26, British Museum (1685 ?). b. Another broadside, Printed for C. Bates in Pye-corner, Bagford Ballads, I, No 33 (1685 ?). c. Another copy, Printed for C. Bates, in Pye-corner, reprinted in Utterson’s Little Book of Ballads, p. 22. d. A Collection of Old Ballads, 1723, I, 18.

B. Skene MS., p. 39.

C. ‘Queen Eleanor’s Confession,’ Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 77.

D. ‘The Queen of England,’ Aytoun, Ballads of Scotland, 1859, I, 196.

E. ‘Queen Eleanor’s Confession,’ Kinloch’s Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 247.

F. ‘Earl Marshall,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 1.

GIVEN in Percy’s Reliques, 1765, II, 145, “from an old printed copy,” with some changes by the editor, of which the more important are in stanzas 2-4. F, “recovered from recitation” by Motherwell, repeats Percy’s changes in 2, 3, 10⁴, and there is reason to question whether this and the other recited versions are anything more than traditional variations of printed copies. The ballad seems first to have got into print in the latter part of the seventeenth century, but was no doubt circulating orally some time before that, for it is in the truly popular tone. The fact that two friars hear the confession would militate against a much earlier date. In E there might appear to be some consciousness of this irregularity; for the Queen sends for a single friar, and the King says he will be “a prelate old” and sit in a dark corner; but none the less does the King take an active part in the shrift.¹⁴¹

There is a Newcastle copy, “Printed and sold by Robert Marchbank, in the Customhouse-Entry,” among the Douce ballads in the Bodleian Library, 3, fol. 80, and in the Roxburghe collection, British Museum, III, 634. This is dated in the Museum catalogue 1720?

Eleanor of Aquitaine was married to Henry II of England in 1152, a few weeks after her divorce from Louis VII of France, she being then about thirty and Henry nineteen years of age. “It is needless to observe,” says Percy, “that the following ballad is altogether fabulous; whatever gallantries Eleanor encouraged in the time of her first husband, none are imputed to her in that of her second.”

In Peele’s play of Edward I, 1593, the story of this ballad is transferred from Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine to Edward Longshanks and that model of women and wives, Eleanor of Castile, together with other slanders which might less ridiculously have been invented of Henry II’s Eleanor.¹⁴² Edward’s brother Edmund plays the part of the Earl Marshall. The Queen dies; the King bewails his loss in terms of imbecile affection, and orders crosses to be reared at all the stages of the funeral convoy. Peele’s Works, ed. Dyce, I, 184 ff.

There are several sets of tales in which a husband takes a shrift-father’s place and hears his wife’s confession. 1. A fabliau “Du chevalier qui fist sa fame confesse,” Barbazan et Méon, III, 229; Montaiglon, Recueil Gé-néral, I, 178, No 16; Legrand, Fabliaux, etc., 1829, IV, 132, with circumstances added by Legrand. 2. Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, 1432, No 78; Scala Celi, 1480, fol. 49;¹⁴³ Mensa Philosophica, cited by Manni, Istoria del Decamerone, p. 476; Doni, Novelle, Lucca, 1852, Nov. xiii; Malespini, Ducento Novelle, No 92, Venice, 1609, I, 248; Kirchhof, Wendun-muth, No 245, Oesterley, II, 535; La Fontaine, “Le Mari Confesseur,” Contes, I, No 4. 3. Boccaccio, VII, 5.

In 1, 2, the husband discovers himself after the confession; in 3 he is recognized by the wife before she begins her shrift, which she frames to suit her purposes. In all these, the wife, on being reproached with the infidelity which she had revealed, tells the husband that she knew all the while that he was the confessor, and gives an ingenious turn to her apparently compromising disclosures which satisfies him of her innocence. All these tales have the cynical Oriental character, and, to a healthy taste, are far surpassed by the innocuous humor of the English ballad.

Oesterley, in his notes to Kirchhof, V, 103, cites a number of German story-books in which the tale may, in some form, be found; also Hans Sachs, 4, 3, 7b.¹⁴⁴ In Bandello, Parte Prima, No 9, a husband, not disguising himself, prevails upon a priest to let him overhear his wife’s confession, and afterwards kills her.

Svend Grundtvig informed me that he had six copies of an evidently recent (and very bad) translation of Percy’s ballad, taken down from recitation in different parts of Denmark. In one of these Queen Eleanor is exchanged for a Queen of Norway. Percy’s ballad is also translated by Bodmer...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• ADVERTISEMENT TO PART V
• ADVERTISEMENT TO PART VI
• Table of Contents
• 114 - JOHNIE COCK
• 115 - ROBYN AND GANDELEYN
• 116 - ADAM BELL, CLIM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLY
• 117 - A GEST OF ROBYN HODE
• 118 - ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE
• 119 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE MONK
• 120 - ROBIN HOOD’S DEATH
• 121 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE POTTER
• 122 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE BUTCHER
• 123 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE CURTAL FRIAR
• 124 - THE JOLLY PINDER OF WAKEFIELD
• 125 - ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN
• 126 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE TANNER
• 127 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE TINKER
• 128 - ROBIN HOOD NEWLY REVIVED
• 129 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE PRINCE OF ARAGON
• 130 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE SCOTCHMAN
• 131 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE RANGER
• 132 - THE BOLD PEDLAR AND ROBIN HOOD
• 133 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE BEGGAR, I
• 134 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE BEGGAR, II
• 135 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE SHEPHERD
• 136 - ROBIN HOOD’S DELIGHT
• 137 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE PEDLARS
• 138 - ROBIN HOOD AND ALLEN A DALE
• 139 - ROBIN HOOD’S PROGRESS TO NOTTINGHAM
• 140 - ROBIN HOOD RESCUING THREE SQUIRES
• 141 - ROBIN HOOD RESCUING WILL STUTLY
• 142 - LITTLE JOHN A BEGGING
• 143 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE BISHOP
• 144 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE BISHOP OF HEREFORD
• 145 - ROBIN HOOD AND QUEEN KATHERINE
• 146 - ROBIN HOOD’S CHASE
• 147 - ROBIN HOOD’S GOLDEN PRIZE
• 148 - THE NOBLE FISHERMAN, OR, ROBIN HOOD’S PREFERMENT
• 149 - ROBIN HOOD’S BIRTH, BREEDING, VALOR AND MARRIAGE
• 150 - ROBIN HOOD AND MAID MARIAN
• 151 - THE KING’S DISGUISE, AND FRIENDSHIP WITH ROBIN HOOD
• 152 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE GOLDEN ARROW
• 153 - ROBIN HOOD AND THE VALIANT KNIGHT
• 154 - A TRUE TALE OF ROBIN HOOD
• 155 - SIR HUGH, OR, THE JEW’S DAUGHTER
• THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH - POPULAR BALLADS
• 186 - KINMONT WILLIE
• 187 - JOCK O THE SIDE
• 188 - ARCHIE O CAWFIELD
• ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS
• A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER - BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST