First printed by Jamieson (C b) in 1806, who says: "For the copy of the ballad here given I am indebted to Mrs. Brown. I have also collated it with another, less perfect, but not materially different, so far as it goes, with which I was favored by the editor of the Border Minstrelsy, who took it down from the recitation of two ladies, great-grandchildren of Farquharson of Inverey; so that the ballad, and the notices that accompany it, are given upon the authority of a Gordon [Anne Gordon, Mrs. Brown] and a Farquharson."{[2}} A c is also a compounded copy: see the notes.
The text in The Thistle of Scotland, p. 46, is C b. That which is cited in part in the Fourth Report on Historical Manuscripts, 1874, p. 584, is A c. The ballad is rewritten by Allan Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, II, 208.
A. Inverey comes before day to Brackley's gate, and calls to him to open and have his blood spilled. Brackley asks over the wall whether the people below are gentlemen or hired gallows-birds; if gentlemen, they may come in and eat and drink; in the other case, they may go on to the Lowlands and steal cattle. His wife urges him to get up; the men are nothing but hired gallows-birds. Brackley will go out to meet Inverey (both know it is he, 12, 19), but these same gallows-birds will prove themselves men. His wife derisively calls on her maids to bring their distaffs; if Brackley is not man enough to protect his cattle, she will drive off the robbers with her women. Brackley says he will go out, but he shall never come in. He arms and sallies forth, attended by his brother William, his uncle, and his cousin; but presently bids his brother turn back because he is a bridegroom. William refuses, and in turn, but equally to no effect, urges Brackley to turn back for his wife's and his son's sake. The Gordons are but four against four hundred of Inverey's, and are all killed. Brackley's wife, so far from tearing her hair, braids it, welcomes Inverey, and makes him a feast. The son, on the nurse's knee, vows to be revenged if he lives to be a man. (Cf. 'Johnie Armstrong,' III, 367, where this should have been noted.)
The other versions agree with A a in the material points. Inverey's numbers are diminished. In B 10, C 11, Brackley has only his brother with him, meaning, perhaps, when he leaves his house. The fight was not simply at the gates, but was extended over a considerable distance (A 33, B 11), and other men joined the Gordons in the course of it. In B 12 we learn that the miller's four sons (D 10, the miller and his three sons) were killed with the Gordons (and William Gordon's wife, or bride, in A 25, is 'bonnie Jean, the maid o the mill'). In B 15, D 12, Craigevar comes up with a party, and might have saved Brackley's life had he been there an hour sooner. In A a, b, C, D, Brackley's wife is Peggy (Peggy Dann, wrongly, D 14, 15); in B 19 (wrongly) Catharine Fraser. D makes Catharine the wife of Gordon of Glenmuick (Alexander Gordon, A a 35), who rives her hair, as Brackley's wife does not (14, 15, 18, 19). In C, Peggy Gordon, besides feasting Inverey, keeps him till morning, and then shows him a road by which he may go safely home. C b adds, for poetical justice, that Inverey at once let this haggard down the wind.
This affray occurred in September, 1666. The account of it given by the Gordons (the son of the murdered laird and the Marquis of Huntly) was that John Gordon of Brackley, having poinded cattle belonging to John Farquharson of Inverey, or his followers, Inverey "convoked his people, to revenge himself on Brackley for putting the law in execution; that he came to the house of Brackley, and required the laird to restore his cattle which had been poinded; and that, although the laird gave a fair answer, yet the Farquharsons, with the view of drawing him out of his house, drove away not only the poinded cattle but also Brackley's own cattle, and when the latter was thus forced to come out of his house, the Farquharsons fell on him and murdered him and his brother."
A memorandum for John Farquharson of Inverey and others, 24 January, 1677, "sets forth that John Gordon of Brackley, having bought from the sheriff of Aberdeen the fines exigible from Inverey and others for killing of black-fish, the said Brackley made friendly arrangements with others, but declined to settle with Inverey; whereupon the latter, being on his way to the market at Tullich,[foot-note] sent Mr. John Ferguson, minister at Glenmuick, John McHardy of Crathie, a notary, and Duncan Erskine, portioner of Invergelder, to the laird of Brackley, with the view of representing to him that Inverey and his tenants were willing to settle their fines on the same terms as their neighbors. These proposals were received by Brackley with contempt, and during the time of the communing he gathered his friends and attacked Inverey, and having * loused severall shotts' against Inverey's party, the return shots of the latter were in self-defence. The result was that the laird of Brackley, with his brother William and their cousin James Gordon in Cults, were killed on the one side, and on the other Robert McWilliam in Inverey, John McKenzie, sometime there, and Malcom Gordon the elder." The convocation of Inverey's friends is accounted for in the same document by the fact that Inverey was captain of the watch for the time; that he and his ancestors had been used to go to the market with men to guard it; and that it is the custom of the country for people who are going to the market to join any numerous company that may be going the same way, either for their own security or out of "kindness for the persons with whom they go," and also the custom of that mountainous country to go with arms, especially at markets. (Abstract, by Dr. John Stuart, of a Manuscript of Col. James Farquharson of Invercauld, Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fourth Report, p. 534).
Another account, agreeing in all important points with the last, is given in a history of the family of Macintosh.[foot-note] It will be borne in mind that Inverey belonged to this clan, and that acts of his would therefore be put in a favorable light. Brackley had seized the horses of some of Inverey's people on account of fines alleged to be due by them for taking salmon in the Dee out of season. Inverey represented to Brackley that the sufferers by this proceeding were men who had incurred no penalty, and offered, if the horses should be restored, to deliver the guilty parties for punishment. Brackley would not return the horses on these terms, and Inverey then proposed that the matter in dispute should be left to friends. While Brackley was considering what to do, Alexander Gordon of Aberfeldy came to offer his services, with a body of armed men, and Brackley, now feeling himself strong, rejected the suggestion of a peaceful solution, and set out to attack Inverey. When a collision was impending, Inverey at first drew back, begging Brackley to desist from violence, which only made Brackley and Aberfeldy the keener. Two of Inverey's followers were slain; and then Inverey and his men, in self-defence, turned on their assailants, and killed Gordon of Brackley, his brother William, and James Gordon of Cults.
The Gordons, this account further says, began a prosecution of Inverey and his party before the Court of Justiciary. Inverey had recourse to Macintosh, his chief, who exerted himself so effectually in behalf of his kinsman that when the case was called no plaintiff appeared. Nevertheless Dr. John Stuart (Historical Manuscripts, as above) produces a warrant "for apprehending John Farquharson of Inverey and others his followers, who had been outlawed for not compearing to answer at their trial, and had subsequently continued for many years in their outlawry, associating with themselves a company of thieves, murderers, and sorners; therefore empowering James Innes, Serjeant, and Corporal Radnoch, commanding a party of troops at Kincardine O'Neill, to apprehend the said John Farquharson and his accomplices." From this warrant Dr. Stuart considers that we may infer that Inverey was the aggressor in the affray with Brackley. But there is nothing to identify the case, and the date of the warrant is February 12, 1685, nearly twenty years from the affair which we are occupied with, during which space, unless he were of an unusually peaceable habit, Inverey might have had several broils on his hands.
Gordon of Brackley, as reported by Mrs. Brown, from what she may have heard in her girlhood, a hundred years after his tragical end, was "a man universally esteemed."[foot-note] "Farquharson of Inverey," says Jamieson, without giving his authority, "a renowned freebooter on Deeside, was his relation, and in habits of friendly intercourse with him. Farquharson was fierce, daring, and active, exhibiting all the worst characteristics of a freebooter, with nothing of that blunt and partially just and manly generosity which were then not uncommonly met with among that description of men. The common people supposed him (as they did Dundee, and others of the same cast who were remarkable for their fortunate intrepidity and miraculous escapes) to be a warlock, and proof against steel and lead. He is said to have been buried on the north side of a hill, which the sun could never shine upon, etc." All which, as far as appears, is merely the tradition of Jamieson's day, and will be taken at different values by different readers.
The 'Peggy' of A a, b, C, D was Margaret Burnet, daughter of Sir Thomas Burnet of Leys, and own cousin of Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury.[foot-note] This lady married Gordon of Brackley against her friends' wishes, or without their consent, and so probably made a love-match. After Brackley's death she married one James Leslie, Doctor of Medicine,[foot-note] a fact which will suffice to offset the unconfirmed scandal of the ballad.
It is now to be noted that a baron of Brackley had been murdered by caterans towards the end of the preceding century. "The Clanchattan, who, of all that faction, most eagerly endeavored to revenge the Earl of Murray his death, assembling their forces under Angus Donald Williamson his conduct, entered Strathdee and Glenmuick, where they invaded the Earl of Huntly his lands, and killed four of the surname of Gordon, Henry Gordon of the Knock, Alexander Gordon of Teldow, Thomas Gordon of Blaircharrish, and the old baron of Breaghly, whose death and manner thereof was so much the more lamented because he was very aged, and much given to hospitality, and slain under trust. He was killed by them in his own house after he bad made them good cheer, without suspecting or expecting any such reckoning for his kindly entertainment; which happened the first day of November, 1592. In revenge whereof the Earl of Huntly assembled some of his forces and made an expedition into Pettie," etc. (See No 183, III, 456.) So writes Sir Robert Gordon, before 1630.[foot-note]
Upon comparing Sir Robert Gordon's description of the old baron of Brackley who was murdered in 1592 with what is said of the baron in the ballad (A), there is a likeness for which there is no historical authority in the instance of the baron of 1666. The ballad intimates the hospitality which is emphasized by Sir Robert Gordon, and also the baron's unconsciousness of his having any foe to dread. ("An honest aged man," says Spotiswood, "against whom they could pretend no quarrel.") Other details are not pertinent to the elder baron, but belong demonstrably to the Brackley who had a quarrel with Farquharson.
Of the two, the older Brackley would have a better chance of being celebrated in a ballad. He was an aged and innocent man, slain while dispensing habitual hospitality, "slain under trust." The younger Brackley treated Inverey's people harshly, there was an encounter, Brackley was killed, and others on both sides. His friends may have mourned for him, but there was no call for the feeling expressed in the ballad; that would be more naturally excited by the death of the kindly old man, 'who basely was slain.' On the whole it may be surmised that two occurrences, or even two ballads, have been blended, and some slight items of corroborative evidence may favor this conclusion.
'The Gordons may mourn him and bann Inverey,' says B 14. It appears that the Earl of Aboyne sided with Inverey, though the Marquis of Huntly supported the laird of Brackley's son;[foot-note] whereas all the Gordons would have mourned the older baron, and none would have maintained the caterans who slew him.
In the affray with the Farquharsons in 1666 there were killed, of the Gordons, besides Brackley, his brother William and his cousin James Gordon of Cults. The Gordons killed by the Clanchattan in 1592 were Brackley, Henry Gordon of the Knock, an Alexander Gordon (also a Thomas). According to A 34, 35, the Gordons killed were Brackley and his brother William, his cousin James of the Knox [Knocks, Knock], and his uncle Alexander Gordon; according to B 12, 13, there were killed, besides Brackley, "Harry Gordon and Harry of the Knock" (one and the same person), Brackley's brother, as we see from 10; in D 10, the killed are Brackley, and Sandy Gordon o the Knock, called Peter in 21. A Gordon of the Knock is named as killed in A, B, D, and it is Henry Gordon in B; an Alexander Gordon is named in A, B. A William Gordon and a James (of the Knocks, not of the Cults) are named in A. On the whole, the names sort much better with the earlier story.
In B 15 we are told that if Craigievar had come up an hour sooner, Brackley had not been slain. Upon this Dr. Joseph Robert son (who assigned the ballad to 1592) has observed, Kinloch Manuscripts, VI, 24, that Craigievar passed to a branch of the family of Forbes in 1625; so that Craigievar would have done nothing to save Brackley in 1666, the Gordons and the Forbeses having long been at feud. To make sense of this stanza we must suppose an earlier date than 1625.
The fourth edition of Spotiswood's history, printed in 1677 (about forty years after the author's death), calls Brackley of 1592 John Gordon. Further, there is this anonymous marginal note, not found in the preceding editions: "I have read in a Manuscript called the Acts of the Gordons, that Glenmuick, Glentaner, Strathdee and Birs were spoiled, and Brachlie, with his son-in-law, slain, by Mackondoquy [that is Maconochie, alias Campbell] of Inner-Aw."[foot-note]
Brackley, on the Muick, is in close vicinity to the village of Ballater, on the Dee, some forty miles westward from Aberdeen.
Translated by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 156, after Allingham.
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