King James and Brown [Child 180]

DESCRIPTION: Douglas comes to attack the King. The ruler is saved by Brown. Brown convinces the king to pardon Douglas; Douglas reacts by attacking Edinborough. Brown once again defeats the renegade Earl; for this and other services, King James makes him an earl
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1750 (Percy folio)
KEYWORDS: royalty nobility fight rescue
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1567 - James VI, who is only a year old, becomes King of Scotland after the forced deposition of his mother Mary Stewart
April 7, 1571 - hanging of James Hamilton, Archbishop of Saint Andrews, whom Child believes to the the Bishop of Saint Andrews whom Brown defeated
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Child 180, "King James and Brown" (1 text, with appendix "The King of Scots and Andrew Browne")
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume I, pp. 135-141, "Kinge James & Browne" (1 text); volume II, pp. 265-268, "Bishoppe & Browne" (1 fragment, of the text Child puts in the appendix)
Percy/Wheatley-ReliquesOfAncientEnglishPoetry II, pp. 221-225, "King of Scots and Andrew Brown" (1 text, not from the folio manuscript even though the folio includes part of the piece; note that this is the piece Child puts in the appendix, not the main text, though both are from the Percy folio)
Rimbault-Musical IllustrationsOfBishopPercysReliques XXVII, p. 67, "King of Scots and Andrew Brown" (1 partial text, 1 tune, the version in Child's appendix)
Barry/Eckstorm/Smyth-BritishBalladsFromMaine p. 467, "King James and Brown" (notes plus a modified partial text from Child)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSPercyFolio}, The Percy Folio, London, British Library MS. Additional 27879, page 58
Roud #4009
NOTES [362 words]: Even by ballad standards, this is singularly inaccurate. While there was much intrigue during the reign of James VI (who had no close relatives and so was in danger of being overthrown by a not-so-distant relative), no one such as Brown existed. Child's notes are probably sufficient to explain the ballad on the hypothesis that King James is James Vi.
There is a little part of me that wonders, though, if it *is* about James VI. The surviving text in the Percy Folio never names the king. The title calls him "King James," but even if that is correct, there were six kings of Scotland named James, running continuously from James I to James VI except for the interruption by Mary Queen of Scots. And there were always Earls of Douglas, who were always powers in the land, and St. Andrews always had a bishop, and a lot of them made trouble. This text would fit about as well, or as badly, in the reigns of most of the Jameses. I have no specific alternative to propose; I just think we should be careful about automatically assuming that Child's explanation is actually the correct one.
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 -- and, despite various hints that it has been found in America, Fowler's statement appears to be correct.
The one other possible mention is a ballad licensed May 30, 1581 by Yarrath James, titled "A ballad declaring the Treasonne Conspired againste the kinge of Scottes"; see Hyder E. Rollins, An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries (1557-1709) In the Register of the Company of Stationers of London, 1924 (I use the 1967 Tradition Press reprint with a new Foreword by Leslie Shepard), #525, p. 51.
The text of this that Child prints in his appendix is reported to be by William Elderton, and the Percy Folio version may well be derived from that. Albert B. Friedman, The Ballad Revival, University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 30, calls likely author William Elderton "the cleverest of Elizabethan broadside-writers." For more on Elderton, see the notes to "Mary Ambree." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: C180

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