The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

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This ballad, and the two which immediately follow it in the collection, were published, 1784, in the Hawick Museum, a provincial miscellany, to which they were communicated by John Elliot, Esq. of Reidheugh, a gentleman well skilled in the antiquities of the western border, and to whose friendly assistance the editor is indebted for many valuable communications.

These ballads are connected with each other, and appear to have been composed by the same author.  The actors seem to have flourished, while Thomas, Lord Scroope, of Bolton, was warden of the west marches of England, and governor of Carlisle castle; which offices he acquired upon the death of his father, about 1590; and retained it till the union of the crowns.

Dick of the Cow, from the privileged insolence which he assumes, seems to have been Lord Scroope’s jester.  In the preliminary dissertation, the reader will find the border custom of assuming noms de guerre particularly noticed.  It is exemplified in the following ballad, where one Armstrong is called the Laird’s Jock (i.e. the laird’s son Jock), another Fair Johnie, a third Billie Willie (brother Willie), &c.  The Laird’s Jock, son to the laird of Mangerton, appears, as one of the men of name in Liddesdale, in the list of border clans, 1597.

Dick of the Cow is erroneously supposed to have been the same with one Ricardus Coldall, de Plumpton, a knight and celebrated warrior, who died in 1462, as appears from his epitaph in the church of Penrith.—­Nicolson’s History of Westmoreland and Cumberland, Vol.  II. p. 408.

This ballad is very popular in Liddesdale; and the reciter always adds, at the conclusion, that poor Dickie’s cautious removal to Burgh under Stanemore, did not save him from the clutches of the Armstrongs; for that, having fallen into their power several years after this exploit, he was put to an inhuman death.  The ballad was well known in England, so early as 1556.  An allusion to it likewise occurs in Parrot’s Laquei Ridiculosi, or Springes for Woodcocks; London, 1613.

  Owenus wondreth, since he came to Wales,
  What the description of this isle should be,
  That nere had seen but mountains, hills, and dales. 
  Yet would he boast, and stand on pedigree,
  From Rice ap Richard, sprung from Dick a Cow,
  Be cod, was right gud gentleman, looke ye now!

Epigr. 76.