Chevy Chase

“Chevy Chase” is both a folk song and the oldest of our topical songs because it tells of real people who once lived, although we are not exactly sure who they were (Child, English and Scottish #162). According to the version that Coverly selected, during the reign of a King James of Scotland and a King Henry of England, Earl of Northumberland Percy (Piercy) decided to go hunting across the border in Scotland in “Chevy Chase,” poaching in territory that belonged to Earl Douglas. He took 1,500 bowmen and his greyhounds to run down the prey. When Douglas appeared to challenge him, a duel was proposed. But before the two earls could engage, the English archers shot down “threescore Scots” and soon a fierce battle engaged. As the two leaders fought to a standstill, Douglas called for Percy’s submission. He refused and an English arrow then felled Douglas. Enraged, Sir Hugh Montgomery rode up and thrust a spear through Percy. Montgomery was felled by an English arrow and the slaughter continued until only a few more than fifty from each side remained. When the news reached the two kings, Henry and James both vowed to take vengeance for the loss of their brave subjects. The text ends with a futile prayer that such “foul debate ’twix noblemen may cease.”

According to James Maidment, the two kings were James I of Scotland and Henry IV of England, putting the event in the early 1400s (1:69-80). Other sources identify the original conflict as the Battle of Otterburn in 1388, the topic of another early ballad (Child, English and Scottish #161). The text is first mentioned in the Complaynte of Scotland (1549), shortly after the reigns of Henry VIII of England and James V of Scotland.

Coverly’s version shows little signs of updating. Once the early text was modernized from its mid-sixteenth-century language, the old song was supported by endless issues of remarkable stability on broadsides and in songbooks. Beginning in the early eighteenth century it appeared in “antiquarian” collections of old ballads and a continuing stream of parodies and sequels were written (Fox 1-6). In 1738, when recent Irish immigrant John Ray sent money back to his peddler friend in Colraine to ship goods to him in New York, he asked his friend to “buy six quire of ballads, aw ald yens,” and specified that the version of “Chevy Chase” should have as its last line: “The English fleed. . . .” (Virginia Gazette, November 17-24, 1738). In 1765, Benjamin Franklin wrote to his brother about the importance of using an old song as a model for didactic verses.

Had you fitted [your song] to an old one, well known, it must have spread much faster. . . I think, too, that if you had given it to some country girl in the heart of Massachusetts, who has never heard any other than psalm tunes or Chevy Chase, the Children in the Woods, the Spanish Lady, and such old, simple ditties. . . she might more probably have made a pleasing popular tune for you than any of the masters here [in London]. (Lambert 2:772)

By the eighteenth century this basic broadside version of “Chevy Chase” had become common property; a classic in its own right. In discussing the importance of balladry in education, Carl Bridenbaugh quotes a Virginia clergyman who recalled that in his carefree youth, “he once could recite over a hundred verses of ‘Chevy Chase’ and other ‘paltry songs’” (“Life of the Reverend”). By then, too, the text had lost reverence as historical narrative, for many comic, topical, and satirical songs were modeled on its verses and set to its tune. But the old song still sold. On Coverly’s broadside, it is presented straight. He printed both “Chevy Chase” and “Children in the Wood” (also, “The Children in the Wood”) on several broadsides, finding the old songs continued to sell well (Simpson 96-101; Roud; R. Keller; Corry; Stephens, Catalogue 3: #2487, #3677; 4: #3915, #4011, #4029; George 6: #6849; Election).