Of D the editor says: "An imperfect copy ... was noted down by us from the singing of a gentleman in this city [Glasgow], which has necessarily been remodelled and smoothed down to the present measure, without any other liberties, however, having been taken with the original narrative, which is here carefully preserved as it was committed to us." The air, says Lyle, was "beautiful, and peculiar to the ballad."
E. Leigh, Ballads and Legends of Cheshire, p. 203, repeats A.
Mr. E. Peacock had an imperfect manuscript copy with the title 'Lord Delamere,' beginning
Dr. Rimbault remembered hearing a version sung at a village in Staffordshire, about 1842, in which Hereford was substituted for Devonshire: Notes and Queries, First Series, V, 348, 1852.
Lord Delamere, upon occasion of the imposition of some new taxes, begs a boon of the king, in the Parliament House; it is that he may have all the poor men in the land down to Cheshire and hang them, since it would be better for them to be hanged than to be starved. A French (Dutch) lord says that Delamere ought to be stabbed for publicly affronting the king. The Duke of Devonshire offers himself to fight for Delamere, and a stage is set up for a duel to the utterance. Devonshire's sword bends at the first thrust and then breaks. An English lord who is standing by (Willoughby, B) gives him another, and advises him to play low, for there is treachery. Devonshire drops on his knee and gives his antagonist his death-wound. The king orders the dead man to be taken away, but Devonshire insists on first examining the body. He finds that the French lord had been wear ing armor, and the king's armor, while he himself was fighting bare. He reproaches the king with the purpose of taking his life, and tells him that he shall not have his armor back until he wins it.
According to the title of B, the duel was between Devonshire and Lord Danby, and in 1687. The other party is, however, called a Dutch lord in the ballad. The king is James. Delamere is said to be under age (he was thirty-five in 1687).
In D, Delamere is changed to Delaware, of Lincolnshire; the Duke of Devonshire is called a Welsh lord, and fights a Dutch lord in defence of young Delaware. When Devonshire's sword breaks, he springs from the stage, borrows another from a soldier in the ring, and leaps back to the stage.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the duel is on a par for historical verity with that in 'Johnie Scot' (No 99). If there was to be a duel, Devonshire (Earl, he was not created Duke till 1694, the last year of Delamere's life) was well chosen for the nonce. He had fought with Lord Mohun, in 1676, and was credited with challenging Count Konigsmark, in 1682. What is true in the ballad is that Delamere was a strenuous and uncompromising advocate of constitutional government, and that he and Devonshire were political and personal friends. Both were particularly active in bringing in the Prince of Orange; and so was Lord Danby, with whom, according to the title of B, Devonshire was fighting the duel the year before the revolution.
It has been suggested,[foot-note] and it is barely conceivable, that the ballad may have grown out of a perverted report of the affair of the Earl of Devonshire with Colonel Colepepper.
"On Sunday the 24th of April, 1687, the said earl, meeting on Colonel Culpepper in the drawing-room in Whitehall (who had formerly affronted the said earl in the king's palace, for which he had not received any satisfaction), he spake to the said colonel to go with him into the next room, who went with him accordingly; and when they were there, the said earl required of him to go down stairs, that he might have satisfaction for the affront done him, as aforesaid; which the colonel refusing to do, the said earl struck him with his stick, as is supposed."[foot-note] For this, Devonshire was summoned to the King's Bench and required to give sureties to the amount of £30,000 that he would appear to stand trial. Delamere was surety for £5,000. Devonshire was in the end fined £30,000, and Delamere made a strong plea, apparently in the House of Lords, against the legality of the proceedings of the court.
There is the slightest possible similitude here to the facts of the ballad. It is merely that one party stands up for the other; but Delamere appears as the champion of Devonshire, not Devonshire of Delamere. If Devonshire had testified for Delamere when the latter was tried for high treason in 1686, there would be something to go upon. A more plausible explanation is desirable.
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