Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas [Child 176]

DESCRIPTION: Northumberland flees to Scotland and is taken into custody. Despite his protestations of virtue, he is passed from hand to hand, ending in the custody of Douglas. Percy sets sail, believing he will be freed, but ends up under the control of Lord Hunsden
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1750 (Percy folio)
KEYWORDS: nobility rebellion escape trick ring wife betrayal prison
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1572 - Execution of Thomas Percy, Seventh Earl of Northumberland
FOUND IN: Britain
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Child 176, "Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas" (1 text)
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume II, pp. 217-226, "Northumberland Betrayd by Dowglas" (1 text)
Percy/Wheatley-ReliquesOfAncientEnglishPoetry I, pp. 279-294, "Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas" (2 texts, one being that in the Reliques and the other being the manuscript copy)
Flanders-AncientBalladsTraditionallySungInNewEngland3, p. 171, "Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas" (1 fragment, similar to the Child text but so short that it might, from its text, be something else -- e.g. some texts of "Mary Hamilton" have rather similar lyrics; the singer apparently knew more of the song but would not repeat it)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 129, "Northumberland Betrayed by Douglas" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSPercyFolio}, The Percy Folio, London, British Library MS. Additional 27879, page 259
Roud #4006
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Rising in the North" [Child 175] (subject)
cf. "The Earl of Westmoreland" [Child 177] (subject)
NOTES [213 words]: According to David C. Fowler, A Literary History of the Popular Ballad, Duke University Press, 1968, p. 158 n. 25, this is one of eighteen ballads in the Child collection found only in the Percy Folio. Percy claimed to have two copies, but no hint of another copy has been found, and Percy said this about other ballads as well.
For the background to Northumberland's flight to Scotland, see "The Rising in the North" [Child 175]. Having arrived in Scotland, Northumberland became a valuable pawn -- and in a nation with a child king and no real government, he wound up being passed back and forth until he came into Douglas's hands.
The Countess of Northumberland, in exile in Flanders, raised money to ransom him. But the English matched the ransom, and Northumberland was turned over to Lord Hunsdon in late 1571 and executed in 1572.
For the complete details of these proceedings, see the notes in Child.
Those desiring to see how Percy converted the folio text into of Percy's hack, see Nick Groom, The Making of Percy's Reliques, Oxford English Monographs, 1999, pp. 127 ffff. -- though Groom is far too sympathetic to Percy's hack-work. Percy claimed to have two copies, one from the folio, one not. He didn't; he had only the folio and an overactive imagination. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: C176

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