Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy Part 11

Neither the Scott nor Elliot version is other than historically false.

But the Scott version, if we cut out the reference to auld Gibby Elliot, offers a conceivable, though not an actual, course of events.

The Elliot version, if we excise the Buccleuch incident, does not.

Cutting out the Buccleuch incident, Telfer goes all the way from Ettrick to Liddesdale, seeking help in that remote country, and never thinks of asking aid from Buccleuch, his neighbour and chief. This is idiotic. In the Scott version, if we cut out the refusal of Gilbert Elliot of Stobs, Telfer goes straight to his brother-in-law, auld Jock Grieve, within four miles of Buccleuch at Branksome; thence to another friend, William's Wat, at Catslockhill (now Branksome-braes), and so to Buccleuch at Branksome. This is absurd enough. Telfer would have gone straight to Branksome and Buccleuch, unless he were a poor shy small farmer, WHO WANTED SPONSORS, known to Buccleuch. Jock Grieve and William's Wat, both of them retainers and near neighbours of Buccleuch, were such sponsors. Granting this, the Scott version runs smoothly, Telfer goes to his sponsors, and with his sponsors to Buccleuch, and Buccleuch's men rescue his kye.

III--COLONEL ELLIOT'S CHARGE AGAINST SIR WALTER SCOTT

Colonel Elliot believes generally in the historical character of the ballad as given in the Elliot version, but "is inclined to think that"

the original poet "never wrote the stanza" (the stanza with Buccleuch's refusal) "at all, and that it has been inserted at some later period."

{97a} In that case Colonel Elliot is "inclined to think" that an Ettrick farmer, robbed by the English, never dreamed of going to his neighbour and potent chief, but went all the way to Martin Elliot, high up in Liddesdale, to seek redress! Surely few can share the Colonel's inclination. Why should a farmer in Ettrick "choose to lord" a remote Elliot, when he had the c.o.c.k of the Border, the heroic Buccleuch, within eight miles of his home?

Holding these opinions, Colonel Elliot, with deep regret -

I wat the tear blinded his ee -

accuses Sir Walter Scott of having taken the Elliot version--till then the only version--and of having altered stanzas vii.-xi. (in which Jamie goes to Branksome, and is refused succour) into his own stanzas vii.-xi., in which Jamie goes to Stobs and is refused succour. This evil thing Scott did, thinks Colonel Elliot. Scott had no copy, he thinks, of the ballad except an Elliot copy, which he deliberately perverted.

We must look into the facts of the case. I know no older published copy of the ballad than that of Scott, in Border Minstrelsy, vol. i. p.

91 et seqq. (1802). Professor Child quotes a letter from the Ettrick shepherd to Scott of "June 30, 1802" thus: "I am surprised to find that the songs in your collection differ so widely from my mother's; Jamie Telfer differs in many particulars." {98a} (This is an incomplete quotation. I give the MS. version later.)

Scott himself, before Hogg wrote thus, had said, in the prefatory note to his Jamie Telfer: "There is another ballad, under the same t.i.tle as the following, in which nearly the same incidents are narrated, with little difference, except that the honour of rescuing the cattle is attributed to the Liddesdale Elliots, headed by a chief there called Martin Elliot of the Preakin Tower, whose son, Simm, is said to have fallen in the action. It is very possible that both the Teviotdale Scotts and the Elliots were engaged in the affair, and that each claimed the honour of the victory."

Old Mrs. Hogg's version, "differing in many particulars" from Scott's, must have been the Elliot version, published by Professor Child, as "A*," "Jamie Telfer IN" (not "OF") "the Fair Dodhead," "from a MS.

written about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and now in the possession of Mr. William Macmath"; it had previously belonged to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. {98b}

There is one great point of difference between the two forms. In Sir Walter's variant, verse 26 summons the Scotts of Teviotdale, including Wat of Harden. In his 28 the Scotts ride with the slogan "Rise for Branksome readily." Scott's verses 34, 36, and the two first lines of 38, are, if there be such a thing as internal evidence, from his own pen. Such lines as

The Dinlay snaw was ne'er mair white Nor the lyart locks o' Harden's hair

are cryingly modern and "Scottesque."

That Sir Walter knew the other version, as in Mr. Macmath's MS. of the early nineteenth century, is certain; he describes that version in his preface. That he effected the whole transposition of Scotts for Elliots is Colonel Elliot's opinion. {99a}

If Scott did, I am not the man to defend his conduct; I regret and condemn it; and shall try to prove that he found the matter in his copy. I shall first prove, beyond possibility of doubt, that the ballad is, from end to end, utterly unhistorical, though based on certain real incidents of 1596-97. I shall next show that the Elliot version is probably later than the Scott version. Finally, I shall make it certain (or so it seems to me) that Scott worked on an old copy which was NOT the copy that belonged to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, but contained points of difference, NOT those inserted by Sir Walter Scott about "Dinlay snaw," and so forth.

IV--WHO WAS THE FARMER IN THE DODHEAD IN 1580-1609?

Colonel Elliot has made no attempt to prove that one Telfer was tenant of the Dodhead in 1580-1603, which must, we shall see, include the years in which the alleged incidents occur. On this question--was there a Telfer in the Dodhead in 1580-1603?--I consulted my friend, Mr.

T. Craig Brown, author of an excellent History of Selkirks.h.i.+re. In that work (vol. i. p. 356) the author writes: "Dodhead or Scotsbank; Dodhead was one of the four stedes of Redefurd in 1455. In 1609 Robert Scot of Satch.e.l.ls (ancestor of the poet-captain) obtained a Crown charter of the lands of Dodbank." For the statement that Dodhead was one of the three stedes in 1455, Mr. Craig Brown quotes "The Retoured Extent of 1628," "an unimpeachable authority." For the Crown charter of 1609, we have only to look up "Dodbank" in the Register of the Great Seal of 1609. The charter is of November 24, 1609, and gratifies "Robert Scott of Satscheillis" (father of the Captain Walter Scott who composed the Metrical History of the Scotts in 1688) with the lands, which have been occupied by him and his forefathers "from a time past human memory." Thus, writes Mr. Craig Brown to me, "Scott of Satch.e.l.ls was undoubtedly Scott of Dodhead also in 1609."

In "The Retoured Extent of 1628," "Dodhead or Dodbank" appears as Harden's property. Thus in 1628 the place was "Dodhead or Dodbank," a farm that had been tenanted by Scotts "from beyond human memory." But Mr. Craig Brown proves from record that one Simpson farmed it in 1510.

So where does Jamie Telfer come in?

The farmers were Scotts, it was to their chief, Buccleuch, that they went when they needed aid. {101a}

Thus vanishes the hero of the ballad, Jamie Telfer in the Fair Dodhead, and thus the ballad is pure fiction from end to end.

V--MORE IMPOSSIBILITIES IN THE BALLAD

This is only one of the impossibilities in the ballad. That the Captain of Bewcastle, an English hold, stated in a letter of the period to be distant three miles from the frontier, the Liddel water, should seek "to drive a prey from the Ettrick, far through the bounds of his neighbours and foes, Grahams, Armstrongs, Scotts, and Elliots, is a ridiculously absurd circ.u.mstance.

Colonel Elliot attempts to meet this difficulty by his theory of the route taken by the Captain, which he ill.u.s.trates by a map. {102a} The ballad gives no details except that the Captain found his first guide "high up in Hardhaughswire," which Colonel Elliot cannot identify. The second guide was "laigh down in Borthwick water." If this means on the lower course of the Borthwick, the Captain was perilously near Branksome Hall and Harden, and his ride was foolhardy. But "laigh down," I think, means merely "on lower ground than Hardhaughswire."

The Captain, as soon as he crossed the Ritterford after leaving Bewcastle, was in hostile and very watchful Armstrong country. This initial difficulty Colonel Elliot meets by marking on his map, as Armstrong country, the north bank of the Liddel down to Kershope burn; and the Captain crosses Liddel below that burn at Ritterford. Thence he goes north by west, across Tarras water, up Ewes water, up Mickledale burn, by Merrylaw and Ramscleugh and so on to Howpasley, which is not on the lower but the upper Borthwick.

Looking at Colonel Elliot's chart of the Captain's route, all seems easy enough for the Captain. He does not try to ride into Teviotdale, for which he is making, up the Liddel water, and thence by the Hermitage tributary on his left. Colonel Elliot studs that region with names of Armstrong and Elliot strongholds. He makes the Captain, crossing Liddel by the Ritterford, bear to his left, through a s.p.a.ce empty of hostile habitations, in his map. This seems prudent, but the region thus left blank was full of the fiercest and most warlike of the Armstrong name. That road was closed to the Captain!

Colonel Elliot has failed to observe this fact, which I go on to prove, from a memoir addressed in 1583 to Burleigh, by Thomas Musgrave, the active son of the aged Captain of Bewcastle, Sir Simon Musgrave.

Thomas describes the topography of the Middle Marches. He says that the Armstrongs hold both banks of Liddel as far south as "Kershope foot" (the junction of the Kershope with the Liddel), and hold the north side of the Liddel as far as its junction with the Esk. {103a} Thus on crossing Liddel by the Ritterford, the Captain had at once to pa.s.s through the hostile Armstrongs. Thereby also were Grahams with whom the Musgraves of Bewcastle were in deadly feud. Farther down Esk, west of Esk, dwelt Kinmont Willie, an Armstrong, "at a place called Morton." If he did pa.s.s so far through Armstrongs, the Captain met them again, farther north, on Tarras side, where Runyen Armstrong lived at Th.o.r.n.ythaite. Near him was Armstrong of Hollhouse, Musgrave's great enemy. North of Tarras the Captain rode through Ewesdale; there he had to deal with three hundred Armstrong men of the spear. {104a} When he reached Ramscleuch (which he never could have done), the Colonel's map makes the Captain ride past Ramscleuch, then farmed by the Grieves, retainers of Buccleuch, who would warn Branksome. When the Captain reached Howpasley on Borthwick water, he would be observed by the men of Scott of Howpasley, the Grieves, who could send a rider some six miles to warn Branksome.

We get the same information as to the perils of the Captain's path from the places marked on Blaeu's map of 1600-54. There are Hollhouse and Th.o.r.n.ythaite, Armstrong towers, and the active John Armstrong of Langholm can come at a summons.

It seems to be a great error to suppose that the route chosen for the Captain by Colonel Elliot could lead him into anything better than a death-trap. I must insist that it would have been madness for a Captain of Bewcastle to ride far through Armstrong country, deep into Buccleuch's country, and return on another line through Scott, and near Elliot, and through Armstrong country--and all for no purpose but to steal ten cows in remote Selkirks.h.i.+re!

Here I may save the reader trouble, by omitting a great ma.s.s of detail as to the deplorable condition of Bewcastle itself in 1580-96. Sir Simon, the Captain, declares himself old and weary. The hold is "utterly decayed," the riders are only thirty-seven men fairly equipped. Soldiers are asked for, sometimes fifty are sent from the garrison of Berwick, then they are withdrawn. Bewcastle is forayed almost daily; "March Bills" minutely describe the cattle, horses, and personal property taken from the Captain and the people by the Armstrongs and Elliots.

Once, in 1582, Thomas Musgrave slew Arthur Graham, a near neighbour, and took one hundred and sixty kye, but this only caused such a feud that the Musgraves could not stir safely from home. From 1586 onwards, Thomas Musgrave, officially or unofficially, was acting Captain of Bewcastle. He had no strength to justify him in raiding to remote Ettrick, through enemies who penned him in at Bewcastle.

I look on Musgrave as the Captain whose existence is known to the ballad-maker, and I find the origin of the tale of his defeat and capture in the ballad, in a distorted memory of his actual capture.

On 3rd July 1596, Thomas (having got Scrope's permission, without which he dared not cross the Border on affairs of war) attempted a retaliatory raid on Armstrongs within seven miles of the Border, the Armstrongs of Hollace, or Hollhouse. "He found only empty houses;" he "sought a prey" in vain; he let his men straggle, and returning homeward, with some fifteen companions, he was ambushed by the Armstrongs near Bewcastle, was refused shelter by a Graham, was taken prisoner, and was sent to Buccleuch at Branksome. On 15th July he came home under a bond of 200 pounds for ransom. {106a} As every one did, in his circ.u.mstances, the Captain made out his Bill for Damages. It was indented on 28th April 1597. We learn that John (Armstrong) of Langholm, Will of Kinmont (not Liddesdale men), and others, who took him, are in the Captain's debt for "24 horses and mares, himself prisoner, and ransomed to 200 pounds, and 16 other prisoners, and slaughter." The charges are admitted by the accused; the Captain is to get 400 pounds. {106b}

In my opinion this capture of the Captain of Bewcastle and others, poetically handled, is, with other incidents, the basis of the ballad.

Colonel Elliot says that the incident "is no proof that a Captain of Bewcastle was not also taken or killed at some other place or at some other time." But WHAT Captain, and when? Sir Simon, in 1586, had been Captain, he says, for thirty years. Thenceforth till near the Union of the Crowns, Thomas was Captain, or acting Captain.

So considerable an event as the taking of a Captain of Bewcastle, who, in the ballad, was shot through the head and elsewhere, could not escape record in dispatches, and the periodical "March Bills," or statements of wrongs to be redressed. Colonel Elliot's reply takes the shape of the argument that the ballad may speak of some other Captain, at some other time; and that, in one way or another, the sufferings and losses of THAT Captain may have escaped mention in the English dispatches from the Border. These dispatches are full of minute details, down to the theft of a single mare. I am content to let historians familiar with the dispatches decide as to whether the Captain's mad ride into Ettrick, with his dangerous wounds, loss of property, and loss of seventeen men killed and wounded (as in the ballad), could escape mention.

The capture of Thomas Musgrave, I think, and two other incidents,-- confused in course of tradition, and handled by the poet with poetic freedom,--are the materials of Jamie Telfer. One of the other incidents is of April 1597. {107a} Here Buccleuch in person, on the Sabbath, burned twenty houses in Tynedale, and "slew fourteen men who had been in Scotland and brought away their booty." Here we have Buccleuch "on the hot trod," pursuing English reivers, recovering the spoils probably, and slaying as many of the raiders as the Captain lost, in the ballad. Again, not a SON of Elliot of Preakinhaugh (as I had erroneously said), but a NEPHEW named Martin, was slain in a Tynedale raid into Liddesdale. {108a} Soldiers aided the English raiders. A confused memory of this death of Elliot's nephew in 1597 may be the source of the story of the death of his son, Simmy, in the ballad.

Our traditional ballads all arise out of some germs of history, all handle the facts romantically, and all appear to have been composed, in their extant shapes, at a considerable time after the events. I may cite Mary Hamilton; The Laird of Logie is another case in point; there are many others.

Colonel Elliot does not agree with me. So be it.

Colonel Elliot writes that,--in place of my saying that Jamie Telfer "is a mere mythical perversion of carefully recorded facts,"--"it would surely be more correct to say that it is a fairly true, though jumbled, account of actual incidents, separated from each other by only short periods of time . . . " {108b} If he means, or thinks that I mean, that the actual facts were the capture of Musgrave near Bewcastle in 1596 by the Armstrongs, with Buccleuch's hot-trod, and Martin Elliot's slaying in 1597, I entirely agree with him that the facts are ''jumbled." But as to the opinion that the ballad is "fairly true"

about the raid to Ettrick (the Captain could not ride a mile beyond the Border without the Warden's permission), about the nonexistent Jamie Telfer, about the shooting, taking, and plundering of the Captain, about his loss of seventeen men wounded and slain (he lost about as many prisoners),--I have given reasons for my disbelief.

VI--IS THE SCOTT VERSION, WITH ELLIOTS AND SCOTTS TRANSPOSED, THE LATER VERSION?