US & Canada Versions: 126. Bonny Earl of Murray
[There are six traditional versions that have been recovered in America and all are found in my collection. Additionally Barry says the ballad was recognized by Captain Charles L. Donovan of Jonesport, Maine (See BBM, 1929). Of the six versions one is from Mrs. McLeod of Dumfries, Scotland, when she was on a visit to her relatives at Lake Mills, Wisconsin and may not, by some, be considered a version from America. However, the McLeod version will be included here.
The legitimacy of the six versions has not been questioned but I find the Olney version to be a mystery. According to Flanders, the "text and tune were copied from the written back pages of an old, receipt book belonging to Mrs. Charles L. Olney, Springfield, Vermont." What?!? Flanders and M. Olney don't think it's odd that not only the text but the tune are on the back of an old receipt book? Certainly, it takes a skilled person to write down the tune. They don't know or say how it got there and who may have written it. Marguerite Olney, the collector is obviously related to Mrs. Charles Olney, so why isn't more information supplied? Whose receipt book was it? How did Mrs. Olney get it? Because the named is spelled, Murray, it would seem that this comes from a print source and is not just something heard somewhere. The few textual changes from Child A, such "brave" for "braw" are obvious. There are some red flags with this version.
The Edwards version, also from Flanders, is questionable because Edwards recreated ballads (The Edwards Ballad, for one) from print and family recollections. He was surely supplied a copy of the Child ballads either by Barry or Flanders in the early 1930s. Edwards may have heard the ballad, but that doesn't mean the resulting ballad isn't a recreation. Flanders does not ask, what he knew of the ballad in his childhood in Yorkshire; whether he further adapted what he heard from print. There's nothing to authenticate this version, other than he sang at least the first stanza. Perhaps like Kyle Davis Jr., she didn't what to know more since it might invalidate the version.
R. Matteson 2015]
CONTENTS: (To access individual versions click on the blue highlighted title below)
1) Highlands & Lowlands- Hoisington (NY) 1906 Parsons
2) Earl o' Murray- McLeod (WI-SCT) 1906 Eldred JAF
3) The Earl of Moray- Gordon (NC) c1921 Sutton/Brown
4) The Earl of Murray- Edwards (VT) 1934 Flanders
5) Earl of Murray- Olney (VT) 1939 Olney/Flanders A
6) The Bonny Earl of Moray- Williams (NY-CA) 1959 Klein
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Notes from Ancient Ballads; Flanders Coffin, 1963.
The Bonnie Earl of Murray
(Child 181)
In the winter of 1592, the Earl of Huntly was given a commission by the King to bring his arch enemy the Earl of Murray to trial in connection with Bothwell's raid on Holyrood House. Huntly went to Donibristle, where Murray was staying with his mother, but could not get Murray to surrender. He fired the house, causing the inmates to flee. Murray, who waited till the last possible moment to leave the burning building, nearly escaped, but was spotted among the rocks because the tip of his helmet had caught fire. He was captured and slain. Huntly's men made their leader, who had no part in the actual killing, stab the corpse so he would be unable to shirk responsibility for the crime. However, in spite of public indignation, Huntly was never punished. See Edward D. Ives, "'The Bonny Earl of Murray': The Ballad as History," in MWF,IX, 133-138, for a thorough treatment of these events and the anti-Catholic feelings involved in them. Ives believes the ballad was originally used to fan anti-Huntly indignation.
The ballad tells little of the story, though it may have been more complete at one time. Child has two versions that are merely lyric laments. In America, it is usually found in the form of Child A, although Child B seems to have had some currency in Wisconsin and New England. The Flanders A text is Child A with the fourth stanza omitted. The Flanders B text is a fusion of Child A and B. Flanders stanzas 1, 2, and 5 correspond to Child A 1, 2, and 4, while stanzas 3 and 4 correspond to Child B 5 and 6. The final stanza from the Vermont text is not in the Child versions.
See Coffin, 117, for the brief American bibliography. The song is not listed in Dean-Smith.
The two tunes for Child 181 are not related.
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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
181. THE BONNY EARL OF MURRAY
Texts: Barry, Brit Bids Me, 468 (trace) / Brown Coll / JAFL, XX, 158; XLIV, 297.
Local Titles: Highlands and Lowlands.
Story Types:
A: One text is an almost lyric moan for the Earl of Murray who has been slain and laid on the green. It was ordered he be captured, not killed. He was a. capable man, a favorite of the Queen, and might have become King.
Examples: JAFL, XLIV, 297.
B: A similar lyric, which mourns Murray, upbraids Huntly for killing the man in his bed, reminds him his wife will rue the deed, and tells him he will not dare come into Dinnybristle town for a long time.
Examples: JAFL, XX, 158.
Discussion: The Type A story follows Child A closely, while Type B is an incomplete variation which resembles Child B (Stanzas 6 and 9) in its final two stanzas. In Type B the speakers and the story background are not clear. For the complete story behind the ballad and for the details of the murder of Murray by Huntly in February 1592 see Child, III, 447.
Barry found a Maine sea-captain who recognized the song. See Barry, Brit Bids Me, 468.