The earliest appearance of John o the Side is, perhaps, in the list of the marauders against whom complaint was made to the Bishop of Carlisle "presently after" Queen Mary Stuart's departure for France; not far, therefore, from 1550: "John of the Side (Gleed John)." The earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, after the failure of the Rising in the North, fled first to Liddesdale, and thence "to one of the Armstrongs," in the Debateable Land. The Liddesdale men stole the Countess of Northumberland's horses, and the earls, continuing - their flight, left her "on foot, at John of the Syde's house, a cottage not to be compared to any dog-kennel in England." At his departing, "my lord of Westmoreland changed his coat of plate and sword with John of the Syde, to be the more unknown" (Sussex to Cecil, December 22, 1569, printed in Sharp's Memorials of the Rebellion, p. 114 f.).
This ballad is one of the best in the world, and enough to make a moss-trooper of any young borderer, had he lacked the impulse. In deference to history, it is put after Kinmont Willie, for it may be a free version of his story. Scott's version (Minstrelsy, 1802, 1, 154) is B b, with the insertion of three stanzas (6, 7 23) from B a.
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