King John & the Bishop- (KY) 1912
[From the article "History in Kentucky Folk Song," found in Annual Report of the Ohio Valley Historical Association, Volume 5 by Ohio Valley Historical Association 1912. No author given, probably by Hubert G. Shearin.
R. Matteson 2014]
I. Songs of the Old Country.
I begin with an old song of King John of England, and give the versions still sung in the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky. Archbishop Hubert Walter died in 1205; King John claimed the right, exercised by his predecessors, of naming the new head of the church at Canterbury. But the bishops of the province asserted that the right was their’s. In a quandary, Pope Innocent III, appointed his own candidate, Stephen Lang-ton. King John until worsted in the altercation, refused to receive or to recognize the new archbishop. Now a generation or two before Shakespeare, our English forefathers were listening to the plays and interludes of that vigorous protestant and defender of King John, Bishop John Bale. The theme was well worked, and the quarrel between Pope and King was well aired for considerably more than a century before the landing of the first American colonists in the early 1600’s. Little wonder, then, that ballads should be found, clinging like ivy vines around the ruins of this tale of the royal quarrel of long ago, and little wonder that at least one of them has been saved to this day, to be remembered long after the quarrel itself as a historical incident had been forgotten. This folk-song, “King John and the Bishop,” seems to be a popular “take-off” upon the slow-wittedness of King John. A bishop of the Pope’s Party had been summoned into the royal presence, and sentence of death had fallen from the royal lips. The wretched cleric begs John for life, and the King, in tantalizing mood, grants his wish upon condition that the Bishop answer correctly three questions. The latter in terror of failure, confides his hard plight to a poor shepherd friend, who magnanimously impersonates in disguise the Bishop and answers the questions in his stead
“My first question is, without any doubt,
How long I’d be travelling this wide world about?”
“You rise with the sun, go down with the same,
In twenty-four hours you will it obtain.”
The second query of King John is, “How much money am I worth?”
“Our Saviour for thirty pieces was sold
Unto the Jews, both wicked and hold;
I think twenty-nine must be your just due,
For I’m sure he 'was one piece better than you.”
“And from my third question you must not shrink,
But tell me truly what do I think?”
“My answer here ’tis; ’twill make you quite merry,
You think I’m the Bishop of Old Canterbury,
But I’m his poor shepherd, as now you do see.”
And we are left to assume that both Bishop and shepherd are saved from the King’s decree, by the clever answering of the peasant.