Maidens of England, Sair May Ye Mourn

DESCRIPTION: "Maidens of England, sair may ye mourn, For tyned ye have your lemans at Bannockburn, With heavalow. What wende [thought] the King of England to have gotten Scotland? With rumbalow."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1400 (MS. Rawlinson B. 171, f. 119a); presumably written c. 1314
KEYWORDS: battle MiddleEnglish
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1286 - Death of Alexander III of Scotland
1290 - Death of his granddaughter Margaret "Maid of Norway"
1292 - Edward I of England declares John Balliol king of Scotland
1296 - Edward deposes John Balliol
1297 - William Wallace, the Guardian of Scotland, defeats the English at Stirling Bridge
1298 - Edward defeats Wallace at Falkirk. Wallace forced into hiding
1305 - Capture and execution of Wallace (August 23)
1306 - Robert Bruce declares himself king of Scotland
1307 - Death of Edward I
1314 - Battle of Bannockburn. Robert Bruce defeats Edward II of England and regains Scottish independence
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (28 citations):
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #2039
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #3331
ADDITIONAL: Celia and Kenneth Sisam, _The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse_, Oxford University Press, 1970; corrected edition 1973, #282, p. 554, "(no title)" (1 text)
R. M. Wilson: _The Lost Literature of Medieval England_, Philosophical Library, 1952, p. 213, "(no title)" (1 text)
Richard Greene, editor, _A Selection of English Carols_, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1962, p. 26, "(no title)" (1 text)
E. K. Chambers, _English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages_, Oxford, 1945, 1947, p. 74, (no title)
Karin Boklund-Lagopolou, _I have a yong suster: Popular song and Middle English lyric_, Four Courts Press, 2002, p. 160, "(no title)" (1 text)
Prestwich: Michael Prestwich, _The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272-1377_, Weidenfeld, 1980 (I use the 2001 Routledge paperback edition), p. 81, "(no title)" (1 text)
Rossell Hope Robbins, _Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Century_, Columbia University Press, 1959, p. 262, "(no title)" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS. Peniarth 396D, folio 140
MANUSCRIPT: Beaminster, Dorset, J. Stevens Cox MS. [formerly Harmsworth; Sotheby Sale, Oct., 1945, lot 1956] (pagination unknown)
MANUSCRIPT: Cambridge [US], Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS. Eng. 530, folio 137
MANUSCRIPT: Cambridge [US], Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS. Eng. 587, folio 76
MANUSCRIPT: Cambridge [US], Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS. Eng. 766, folio 149
MANUSCRIPT: Cambridge [US], Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS. Richardson 35, folio 63
MANUSCRIPT: Cambridge, University Library MS. Ll.2.14, folio 166
MANUSCRIPT: Glasgow, University Library, MS. Hunterian 83 (T.3.21), folio 82
MANUSCRIPT: London, British Library, MS. Cotton Galba E.VIII, folio 88
MANUSCRIPT: London, British Library, MS. Harley 266, folio 15
MANUSCRIPT: New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library MS. 494, folio 73
MANUSCRIPT: New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, Takamiya Deposit MS. 12 [Dawsons of Pall Mall, Catalogue 103, item 3, 1970], folio 114
MANUSCRIPT: New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, Takamiya Deposit MS. 29, folio 81
MANUSCRIPT: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Rawlinson B.171 (SC 11539), folio 119
MANUSCRIPT: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Rawlinson B.190 (SC 15500), folio 90
MANUSCRIPT: Princeton, Princeton University Library MS. Taylor Medieval 3 [formerly Morent's Court, Kent, Meyerstein, Sotheby's 17 Dec. 1952, lot 466], folio 89
MANUSCRIPT: San Marino, Henry Huntington Library MS. 113 [formerly Phillipps 8857], folio 92
MANUSCRIPT: San Marino, Henry Huntington Library MS. 131 [formerly Buccleuch, Quaritch Cats. 303, 304], folio 88
MANUSCRIPT: San Marino, Henry Huntington Library MS. 136 [formerly Phillipps 8858], folio 85
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Scots Wha Hae (Bruce Before Bannockburn)" (subject: Battle of Bannockburn)
cf. "Hal-an-Tow" (words of unknown meaning)
NOTES [771 words]: For background on the Battle of Bannockburn itself, see the notes to "Scots Wha Hae (Bruce Before Bannockburn)"; also "Gude Wallace [Child 157]."
This fragment of a taunt song has been very popular -- with scholars, at least, who have given it much attention. It seems clear that it was written shortly after Robert Bruce's victory at Bannockburn in 1314, but the author is unknown and the exact text is also uncertain. Much of the attention it has gotten, curiously, seems to be related to the two curious words it contains, "heavalow" and "rumbalow." These notes were originally written in connection with "Hal-an-Tow," which contains similar-sounding words (I would not necessarily concede that they are actually the same word). Take the following notes in that light:
Chambers, p. 74, quotes, with an astonishing lack of source detail, one of the "Brut" chronicles concerning the battle of Bannockburn:
Maydenes of Engelande, sare may ye morne,
For tynt [presumably past tense of tine, lose, forfeit] ye have youre lemmans at Bannokesborn,
With hevalogh
What wende [thought] the Kyng of Engleand
To have ygete Scotlande
With rombylogh.
Sisam has the same text but uses different punctuation and orthography:
Maidenes of Engelande, sare may ye mourne,
For tint ye have youre lemmans at Bannokesbourne,
With hevalogh.
What! wende the King of Engeland [i.e. here read "Did the king of England think"]
Have y-gete Scotlande?
With rombylogh.
The ultimate source of this is Bodleian MS. Rawlinson B. 171, f. 119a, dated c. 1400.
Boklund-Lagopolou, p. 160, declares the piece "more flyting [insult-rhyme] than narrative," but if nothing else it refers to a clearly datable event.
Chambers explains both "hevalogh" and "rumbylogh" as "boating refrains," but does not show any supporting evidence, although this is accepted, e.g., by Phillips, p. 11n. Chambers also says that Fabyan's Chronicle (1516) has a similar rhyme, which is described as a dance and carol (p. 180). Wells, p. 209, discussing Fabyan, mentions "six lines of tail-rime made by the English 'in reproche of ye Scottes' whom they had beaten in the attempt to relieve Dunbar; a six-line tail-rime stanza like that sung by the mariners in [the thirteenth century metrical romance] Richard Coer de Lyon ('with heua a lowe -- with rumbylowe')"; presumably this is the source of the Chambers comment, but no one gives a line citation from the romance (which was popular in its time but now relatively rarely studied or reprinted), so I can't check it.
Prestwich, p. 81, offers what seems to be a translation of the above rhyme, which he describes as "a song mocking the oarsman's chant of 'Heavalow, Rumbalow'":
Maidens of England, sore may you mourn,
For you have lost your men at Bannockburn with 'Heavalow'.
What, would the king of England have won Scotland with 'Rumbalow'?"
Prestwich's source for this is F. W. D. Brie, editor, The Brut, Early English Text Society, 1906, 1908, volume i, p. 208 (i.e. the same original source as Chambers; cited also by Phillips, p. 11, who quotes both the original and the translation and also gives a little of the context).
Greene, p. 26, gives yet another slightly different version, this one from Fabyan's Chronicle (as printed by Pynson in 1516) rather than the manuscript:
Than the Scottish enflamyd with pryde, in derysyon of Englysshe men, made this ryme as foloweth.
Maydens of Englonde, sore maye ye morne.
For your lemmans ye haue loste at Bannocisborne,
With heue a lowe.
What wenyth the kynge of Englonde,
So soone to haue wonne Sotlande
WIth rumbylowe.
This songe was after many dayes sungyn, in daunces, in carolis of ye maydens & mynstrellys of Scotlande, to the reproofe and dysdayne of Englysshe men, w[i]t[h] dyuerse other which I ouer passe.
Evelyn Kendrick Wells, The Ballad Tree, pp. 204-205, has this same version (with minor variants), also attributed to Fabyan's Chronicle.
The DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse says this is found in 21 witnesses -- an extraordinarily high number, though many of them are editions of the "Brut." The DIMEV lists the texts of many of the versions; the variations are dramatic. These two facts argue for some sort of traditional status, even though there is no evidence that it was ever a full-length song.
Whether any of these explanations is true, or none, the "rumbelow" refrain was well enough known that W. S. Gilbert used it in "The Mikado." In Act I, lines 67-71 (p. 265 in Gilbert/Sullivan/Bradley), we find the chorus
Then man the capstan -- of we go,
As the fiddler swings us round.
WIth a yeo heave ho,
And a rumbelow,
Hurrah for the homeward bound! - RBW
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