Ass and the Orangeman's Daughter, The

DESCRIPTION: Thomas Gready's ass is auctioned to an Orangeman to pay the tithe. The ass is confined and starved. Orangeman's daughter tries to have him "relinquish Popery." The cross-marked ass refuses. She threatens to whip the ass. "A multitude of asses" frees him.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1867 (broadside, Bodleian Firth b.34(4))
KEYWORDS: Ireland political talltale animal
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Zimmerman-SongsOfIrishRebellion 46B, "The Ass and the Orangeman's Daughter" (1 text)
Hayward-UlsterSongsAndBalladsOfTheTownAndCountry, pp. 114-115, "The Ass and the Orangeman's Daughter" (1 text)
Roud #6543
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.34(4), "The Ass and the Orangeman's Daughter," J. Harkness (Preston), 1840-1866; also 2806 c.15(253), 2806 b.10(150), "The Ass and the Orangeman's Daughter"; 2806 b.9(169), 2806 b.9(222)[some words illegible], "The Tipperary Ass"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Battle of Carrickshock" (subject: The Tithe War) and references there
NOTES [1080 words]: The last verse raises a number of points.
Now to conclude and finish, long life to every ass,
May they live to be united, likewise to bear the cross.
We will toast a health to all our friends, likewise our gracious Queen,
May the asses meet in multitude once more in College Green.
Professor Thomas Bartlett in The 1798 Irish Rebellion quoted on the BBC site: "The Society of United Irishmen, founded in 1791, embraced Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters in its aim to remove English control from Irish affairs."
Donkeys have a cross-shaped patch of dark hair on their back. In political ballads this mark is taken as a sign that donkeys are Roman Catholic. [For more on this, see the notes to "The Ass's Complaint." - RBW]
The toast to Queen Victoria makes 1837 an earliest possible date for this broadside.
Zimmerman-SongsOfIrishRebellion, commenting on the last line: "The Irish Parliament House ... stood on the N. side of College Green, Dublin." - BS
Despite the mention of the Queen, I suspect the song dates from a few years before 1837. That was indeed the year Queen Victoria came to the throne, but the Tithe War was nearly over by then. The election of Daniel O'Connell and his followers to parliament, followed by tithe riots in 1830-1831, led the British government in 1833 to cease taking the tithe by force; in 1838, the Tithe Rentcharge Act took the tithe off the backs of the (mostly Catholic) peasants and put it on the back of the (mostly Protestant) landlords, though it wasn't until 1869 that Gladstone disestablished the Anglican church in Ireland.
Thus I suspect the song dates from 1830-1832; perhaps it was modified for publication. Alternately, it might refer to the Queens of George IV (reigned 1820-1830, and regent before that) or William IV (reigned 1830-1837). Adelaide, the wife of William IV, was popular enough but hardly notable.
If the reference is to the wife of George IV, though, things become really interesting. George's first wife was the widow Maria Fitzherbert -- a Catholic! He was apparently obsessed with her -- Smith, p. 33, says that George fell in love with her in 1783 "for the only time in his life." She was already twice a widow at age 26 (making her six years older than George; Hibbert, p. 47), and sufficiently well off as not to need the Prince. She was an odd choice in other ways; everyone seems to agree that she wasn't especially pretty, and her conversation was "rather heavy" (Hibbert, p. 47).
George was thrice barred from marrying her, once because she was Catholic, and again because she was a commoner, and third, because George III had enacted the Royal Marriage Act which forbade George from marrying without his father's consent until he had reached the age of 25 (Smith, p. 34). And she refused to become his mistress (Smith, p. 38). It didn't stop George -- at one time, he actually stabbed himself and declared he would let himself bleed to death unless she would marry him; she came, consented, then quite rightly broke the promise she had made under duress (Smith, p. 35; Hibbert, p. 49; Fraser, p. 33). She fled the country; he tried to pursue, and also offered to give up his claim to the throne for her (Smith, pp. 35-36). But, for some reason, she eventually decided to marry him (Smith, pp. 36-37). George had to hire a clergyman out of prison to find someone willing to marry them (Smith, p. 37).
The marriage took place in her home, with a bare handful of witnesses, the official witnesses both being Catholic (Smith, p. 37; Hibbert, pp. 54-55).
The forms were valid, so it was a legal marriage as far as both Catholic and Anglican churches were concerned (Smith, p. 38, although Fraser, p. 35, claims that British civil law was senior to church law in the Anglican Church. I think the truth of the matter is, both churches considered him married but the Anglicans would allow him multiple wives). Everything had been done properly -- except that the marriage was not properly registered or recorded because of its hole-in-the-corner nature. To all but the few witnesses, it appeared he had taken her as his mistress, which was the whole thing she had insisted on avoiding! Eventually it reached the point where George was publicly denying marriage while assuring her he was married. When everything came out, it caused a lot of people to stop trusting him (Smith, pp. 42-43).
Including Maria, and with reason. By 1788 George's eye was wandering again (Smith, pp. 46-47). The relationship temporarily ended in 1794; Maria was fobbed off with a pension of £3,000 (Black, p. 153). They would later reunite, but George finally dumped her in 1811 (Smith, p.119).
Since George had married Maria in secret, the marriage was held illegal and she never sat on the throne, but she was George's wife in Catholic eyes. Indeed. in 1799 George decided that he wanted her rather than the women he had been involved with -- and she wrote to the Pope for advice, and he told Maria to go back to him but that she was his one and only true wife (Smith, pp. 80-81). It would have been interesting if she had had a child, but by then she was in her mid-forties, so perhaps the odds weren't too high.
In an ultimate irony, she was to prove more true to him than he to her (Smith, p. 39). George, after their marriage but before their reunion, would wed a Protestant, in a disastrous marriage; it is perhaps fortunate, from the standpoint of legitimacy, that it produced only one daughter, who predeceased her father, so there was no issue about whether George left a legitimate heir.
This slightly more official wife was Caroline of Brunswick, whom George married in 1795 (for background on this, see "Queen Caroline"). It is said that he was drunk at their wedding, and they were rumoured to have slept together only once -- certainly for only a few weeks. He persecuted her for the rest of her life, and with the result that Caroline, never entirely normal mentally, may have become more unbalanced in her later years (see Macalpine/Hunter, pp. 247-250 or, again, the notes to "Queen Caroline").
George never had much to do with Caroline after those first few days, though their conflict became one of the major events of his reign. When he died in 1830, his brother and heir William IV ordered Maria Fitzherbert to wear mourning (Fraser, p, 462). Hm.
This is all very speculative, to be sure, but a reference to "The Queen" during the reign of George IV could thus be a highly charged political statement. - RBW
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