Brett Single 

Celtic History and Politics in The Ballads of Seven Dials 

Department of English, University of Minnesota 
English 3960, Junior-Senior Seminar: Nineteenth Century British Street Ballads 
Spring 1997

THE STREET ballads published in early nineteenth century England (largely by James Catnach and John Pitts, rival publishers headquartered in the Seven Dials district of London) covered a broad range of topics, ranging from traditional folklore-based ballads surviving the oral tradition, to historical and current events, and political issues. As scholar Leslie Shepard writes in his book The Broadside Ballad:
. . . if you assemble all the different types of subject of the broadsides from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, you will find the unvarying make-up of the modern newspaperóRoyalty, Murders, Topical News, Politics, Sport, Humour and Advertisements. (25)
A small percentage of these ballads deals with Celtic Britainóthat is, Scotland and Ireland. Of the categories Shepard  mentions,  perhaps these ballads best fit into "Politics," though the conflict almost invariably revolves around religious questions (particularly cases of Catholic versus Protestant) or ethnic differences. Some of these ballads are steeped in folklore, while others address issues current and historical, issues that remained fresh in the minds of many Irish and Scots natives despite the chronological removal from the ballad's publication, and the events themselves. Concentrating on a Celtic Studies cluster within my major in English, I have a greater than average interest in the historical and social content of these particular ballads. I must emphasize that, while these ballads deal with issues in Celtic Britain, and sometimes draw from traditional sources, they were published in early nineteenth century London; that is, they are not Celtic in origin. This essay explores and clarifies the now obscure social, political and historical backgrounds of selected London street ballads that have a decidedly Celtic "flavor." Most of the examples are drawn from the small collection of early nineteenth-century street ballads owned by the University of Minnesota Libraries.
    The intended audience for most of these ballads included the Irish immigrants who dominated the slum district of Seven Dials. Topical songs about Irish politics, such as "A New Song on the Catholic Emancipation," had a special interest for them.
    Many of Pitts' ballads hark back to the "good old days," as evidenced by "Draw the Sword, Scotland" (date of historical reference uncertain) and "Scots, Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled," which refers to events that took place in fourteenth-century Scotland; "Boyn Water," set in seventeenth century Ireland; and "Green Grows the Rashes," based on a traditional Scottish ballad, original date uncertain. Other ballads of note, dealing with more current issues (concerning Ireland in the late 1820s), include "A New Song on the Catholic Emancipation," "The Protestant Song" and "The Bold Irishman." This last is obviously a generic, and probably fictional, account of an Irishman's adventures in London. Nevertheless, it captures the feel of the ethnic conflicts between the English and Irish, as then perceived.
 "Scots, Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled" refers directly to the Wars of Independence (1297ñ1306), a conflict between Edward I of England and the Scottish aristocracy over succession to the Scottish throne. The first stanza reads:
Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots wham Bruce has often led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
On to Victory!
Now's the day and now's the hour,
See the front of battle o'er,
See approach proud Edwards power,
Chains and slavery. (ll. 1ñ8)
"Wallace" is the Scottish knight William Wallace, "one of Scotland's greatest national heroes, leader of the Scottish resistance forces during the first years of the long, and ultimately successful, struggle to free Scotland from English rule," according to the Encyclopædia Britannica (Online Edition). "Bruce" is Robert de Bruce, the  Scottish lord who led the rebels after Wallace's execution. The martyrdom of Wallace served only to increase the Scots's determination in their resistance. Wallace's inclusion as the subject of a ballad in Pitts's list  is not surprising. According to the Britannica,
Many of the stories surrounding Wallace have been traced to a late 15th-century romance ascribed to Henry the Minstrel, or "Blind Harry." The most popular tales are not supported by documentary evidence, but they show Wallace's firm hold on the imagination of his people.
The Pitts ballad is written in a rough phonetic style approximating a Scots dialect; to read it in Queen's English would be to detract from the patriotic, ethnic and nationalistic sentiments that it expresses.
    Another nationalistic piece, "Draw the Sword, Scotland," seems less tied to a particular event, but it still abounds in bitter, warlike sentiments, such as those expressed in the final four lines:
Sheath the sword Scotland Scotland [S]cotland,
Sheathe the sword Scotlandódim'd is its shine,
Thy foemen are fleeing, fleeing, fleeing
And wha kens no mercy is [n]e'r son o' thine. (ll. 13ñ16)
This ballad could refer to the Wars of Independence in the time of Wallace and Bruce, or the subsequent conflicts that ultimately continued into the sixteenth century. The reference to all of Scotland as the protagonist, rather than a specific clan, suggests that the enemy is England.
 "Boyn Water" describes the "Battle of the Boyne" in Ireland, a conflict over succession to the English throne between the Scots Catholic King James II of England and his son-in-law, Anglican Protestant William, Prince of Orange (who ultimately becoming King William III). The poem begins:
     There happen'd a glorious battle,
Where many a man lay on the ground,
     By the cannons that did rattle;
King James he pitch'd his tents between,
     The lines for to retire,
But William threw in his red shot,
     And set them all on fire (ll. 1ñ7).
    James, the brother of Charles II, had been restored to throne in 1660, following the death of Oliver Cromwell. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1668 or 1669, though the Britannica says this conversion "had little effect on his political views, which were already formed by his reverence for his dead father and his close association with the High Church party. James, in fact, was always more favourable to the Anglican church than was his Protestant brother." Nonetheless, after the death of James's first wife and his subsequent marriage in 1673 to Mary of Modena, a Roman Catholic princess, "by 1678 James's Roman Catholicism had created a climate of hysteria in which the fabricated tale of a "Popish Plot" to assassinate Charles and put his brother on the throne was generally believed" (Britannica).
    Though he had resigned all his offices in 1673 rather than take an anti-Catholic oath required by the "Test Act" to show loyalty to the Anglican church, and Parliament from 1679 to 1681 tried to exclude him from the succession to the throne, James remained heir to the throne, "owing largely to his own tenacious defense of his rights" (Britannica). He took the throne without incident on the death of Charles on February 6, 1685. However, minor rebellions in the summer of that year precipitated James's policy of what some see as "favoring" Roman Catholicism. In 1687, James suspended laws against Roman Catholicism and dissenting branches of Protestantism, culminating in his dissolution of Parliament in July of 1687; these actions antagonized Anglicans, who feared James's intention was to create a Roman Catholic Parliament, though, according to the Britannica, "some of his utterances . . . suggest a genuine belief in religious toleration as a matter of principle."
    In the winter of 1687, with the pregnancy of James's queen, the possibility of a continued succession of Roman Catholic kings outraged the nobility, who in the summer of 1688 invited William to England to call a new Parliament. James was defeated in December, but allowed to escape. In February 1689, Parliament declared the "abdication" of James and crowned William and Mary, though James reached Ireland in March and summoned a "Parliament" in Dublin recognizing him as king. The conflict clearly pitted Roman Catholic against Protestant, just as had the "main" war on the Continent. With support from France and Ireland, James amassed an army which confronted William's at the Boyne, ultimately meeting defeat.
 "A New Song on the Catholic Emancipation" celebrates the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, and those who helped bring it aboutóparticularly Daniel O'Connell:
O'Connell he will now rejoice,
His troubles now are over,
Though on a bed of thorns he's been
Now he can rest in clover (1.5ñ8).1
Numerous factors brought about the movement for "Catholic Emancipation" in Ireland; while England had passed numerous Reform Acts beginning in 1778 (culminating in the Act of Union, 1800, which unified Ireland under the crown with the rest of Great Britain) to reverse previous policies of repressing Irish freedoms, the efforts of the 1800 act clashed with the wishes of vehemently anti-Catholic King George III at the time. Aware that the Act of Union intended to bring about emancipatory measures, the people of Ireland merely sought to put into practice the theoretical freedoms given them as set down in writing. Their cause was greatly advanced by Daniel O'Connell ("The Liberator"), an Irish lawyer and orator who in the nineteenth century became the most outspoken advocate for Ireland since Jonathan Swift in the eighteenth century.
    A founder of the Catholic Association in 1823, uniting the overwhelmingly Catholic peasant and middle classes of Ireland in a common cause, O'Connell held peaceful public gatherings known as "monster rallies" or "aggregate meetings" suing for Catholic Emancipation. These were successful, in that the massive participation served as a "show of force" demonstrating the sheer numbers of opposition to the status quo. While these demonstrations were peaceful, they hinted at what might happen should events take a violent turn. Violent outbreaks occurred independently of O'Connell's activism, however, and these acts attracted Parliament's attention.
    Bringing the issue to a head was O'Connell's candidacy for a seat in British Parliament. Ireland, since the 1800 Act of Union, was allowed to send representatives to Parliament. Though Irish "home rule" (under which Ireland would have political independence from Britain) was Daniel O'Connell's ultimate goal, he abandoned it as unrealistic, settling instead for the next best thing by seeking for Catholic Ireland a voice in Parliament. Because of his Roman Catholicism, O'Connell was himself ineligible to sit in Parliament, though Protestant Irish were allowed to represent their nation. Undaunted, in 1828 O'Connell ran for Irish Parliamentary office anyway, and was elected overwhelmingly by the majority of Irish Catholic voters (led by the parish priests) in the county of Clare. This outcome helped force the issue of Catholic Emancipation.
    The ballad's complimentary references to the "Duke of Wellington" are somewhat misleading. There is the spoken aside towards the middle:
Now what do [you] think of the Duke of Wellington? Bless his short nose, he's quite roasted them, and almost frighten'd one man to death, with a flash in the pan . . . . (4.1ñ5)
And another mention in the final stanza:
And here's to Dan O'Connell too,
And Wellington so clever,
Who did Emancipation bring,
And set us free for ever. (9.5ñ8)
In fact the actions of Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington, were more pragmatic than heroic. Following his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, Wellington, of Anglo-Irish descent, began his career in politics, eventually becoming Prime Minister (1828). While he disdained Catholic Ireland, Wellington was a practical man; along with Sir Robert Peel, leader of the House of Commons, he reluctantly realized that Catholic Emancipation was necessary to prevent revolt on the massive scale demonstrated in O'Connell's peaceful protests. Nonetheless, the warm sentiment behind the references to Wellington in the ballad suggest that he had endeared himself to the Irish.
  "The Protestant Song" appears to respond negatively in extremis to the 1829 Emancipation Act, which granted to Irish and British Roman Catholics freedoms previously extended only to Anglican Protestants. The former Anglican Protestant ascendancy in Ireland found itself outnumbered by Roman Catholic majority and, if the ballad is to be believed, felt threatened. A literary lashing out at political events in Ireland, "The Protestant Song" calls Protestants to defend the Anglican "High Church" against the imaginary -- but seemingly omnipresent at the time -- threat of a "Papist Conspiracy." Such sentiments illustrate how by this time the two separate denominations of Christianity have evolved into distinctive ethnicities, especially within Ireland, due to Britain's de facto Protestant government. Ironic is that the issues are less theological than they are political, but these political differences are identified in terms of religion.
    What purports to be a transcript of "Winchelsea's Address to the Protestants" accompanies this ballad; it may be fictional. George William Finch-Hatton, ninth earl of Winchilsea and fifth earl of Nottingham, was notorious for resisting all kinds of political reform, including Catholic Emancipation: he even fought a duel with Wellington over that matter.
    With "The Protestant Song," Pitts seems to play both ends against the other, having published emotionally and politically charged ballads advocating either side in the controversy. The seemingly paranoid and xenophobic opinions expressed in this ballad present the opposite side of the coin, as compared to the more friendly, fraternal sentiments expressed in Pitts' "A New Song on the Catholic Emancipation."
    Many of the references in "The Protestant Song" are now obscure, particularly:
Where's Póñ now and W.. ? link'd hand and hand
With Lib'rals and Rebels the scourge of the land,
The men who stood staunch to our Protestant crown
Are with papists conspiring to pull the church down (ll. 8ñ11).
Presumably the references are to Peel and Wellington, thought to be traitors to the conservative cause for allowing the Act to pass.
    "The Protestant Song" continues to spit political venom, referring to other times of religious strife in England:
Remember the days of Queen Mary of old,
Our blood at the very remembrance runs cold,
When those who stood firm to the Protestant faith
By papists were butchered, or burnt at a stake (ll. 16ñ19).
"Queen Mary" is Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary"), eldest daughter of King Henry VIII. When Henry made England's original break from the Roman Catholic church in 1534, Mary was pressured into admitting the "illegitimacy" of her birth (Henry having "divorced" Mary's mother by his own decree), and taking the place second in line to the succession after her younger half-brother Edward. Edward's rule after Henry proved to be short, however; and upon taking the throne in 1553, Mary made clear her intention to restore Roman Catholicism as the state religion. With the onset of resistance, an initial uprising was quickly put down, and Mary attacked "heresy" against the Catholic church with a vengeance, burning some 300 at the stake and becoming most hated by her subjects in the process.
    The threads of that old conspiracy, the "Papist Plot" are picked up again in the reference to James II:
. . . never since King James, in affright fled his place
Did popery shew so unblushing a face, (ll. 32ñ33)
Soon, new conspirators, cryptically identified, are thrown into the mix:
     Should Cóó in parliament show a rogue's face,
Send the papist to Newgateóhe's fit for the place,
And should P... or W... think it severe,
Send them off to Old Nick with a flea in their ear, (ll. 48ñ51).
As conjectured previously, "P..." and "W..." are almost certainly Peel and Wellington, but "Cóó" remains unidentified. "Newgate" is the infamous prison, and "Old Nick" is a euphemism for "the Devil"; apparently popular Protestant sentiment agrees that Peel and Wellington can "go to hell."
    Also condemned is a familiar figure, Daniel O'Connell, the toast of Pitts's "A New Song on the Catholic Emancipation":
Now pray Mr. O'Connell, and Gorman Mahon
For God's sake let protestant Britons alone, (ll. 44ñ45)
Gorman Mahon was an Irish politician, an associate of O'Connell's.
    One of the more memorable and intriguing parts of the ballad reads:
And may George the Fourth, our good protestant King,
Sing 'Lillbullero' till Windsor's halls ring. (ll. 38ñ39)
A Britannica Online search sheds light on the cryptic reference to "Lillbullero"óproperly "Lillibullero" or "Lilli burlero," a ballad that dates back to 1687. According to the Britannica, it was doggerel "intended to discredit the administration in Ireland of Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell." A sample of two verses follows:
Dare was an old prophesy found in a bog,
Lilli burlero, bullen a-la
"Ireland shall be ruled by an ass and a dog."
Lilli burlero, bullen a-la
Lero, lero, lilli burlero, lero, lero,
bullen a-la,
Lero, lero, lilli burlero, lero, lero,
bullen a-la.
And now dis prophesy is come to pass,
Lilli burlero, etc.
For Talbot's de dog and Ja . . s is de ass.
Lilli burlero, etc.
    The final stanza in "The Protestant Song" includes several obscure references:
While P...; papists, Lib'rals, and Arians agree
With the rugged aóó  sages of Stinkomalee
To cry down the churchólet the protestants sing,
Confusion to poperyóGod save the King. (ll. 52-55)
The Arians were heretics in the fourth century; here the term has a more general application. "Stinkomalee" was a derisive name for University College, London, so called because built near a rubbish dump; it was known (and reviled) for its secularism.
      "The Bold Irishman" seems more a social than political in theme. Like "Draw the Sword, Scotland," it lacks specific temporal reference; presumably, it is meant to be contemporary with the date of its publication. Told from the point of view of the Irishman (though probably composed by an Englishmanówith the requisite prejudices), this ballad demonstrates the mutual antagonism between the Irish and English:
For when I came there they were making a rout,
About 2 naked buffer[s] who were buffing it out
Great fencing there was but devil a stroke,
Thought I to myself, it was all a joke,
I said my brave bullies leave off your ticks
For its my country fashion to box with 2 sticks (ll. 8ñ13)
    "Buffer," as used in the ballad, according to the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, is British slang meaning "an old-fashioned or incompetent person," "a fellow; man," or "a chief boatswain's mate in the British navy"; the most likely denotation intended is the first one. Having delivered this insult, our protagonist draws himself into the fray:
A blustering bully with a head like a Turk
Says welcome from Ireland, sweet Paddy from Cork
Arrah turn you round Pat, for I've been a kin[d]
For I never yet see a coat buttoned behind
A beef headed butcher was then standing by
Cries Paddy you rogue I'll bung up your eye
Such blustering words made my heart ache
For fear of my eyes not a word I dare speak
It's I have been up to the word of command
I took my shillelah right fast in my hand
I hit those 2 bullies right over the head
By my soul you'd have thought they'd been seven years dead (ll. 14ñ25)
    Demonstrating the toughness of the stereotypical Irishman, the infamous "shillelah" (more commonly spelled "shillelagh") or cudgel, named after the Irish town, makes its appearance. Another stereotype emerges as, victorious in battle, the speaker says:
It's I being up to the rigs of the city,
I kissed pretty maids & thought a pity
Such blustering words make them all stare
Yet all owned I was the boy for the fair. (ll. 33-36)
    While this selection of "Celtic" ballads is limited, a richness of subject matter reveals itself. With the exception of a few collections, most of this street literature (admittedly produced for consumption by the working class) is lost to us; permanence was not part of its design. However, value can still be found in these ballads today; they provide an idea of what issues were considered important (or at least profitableóthe ballads of Seven Dials were, after all, commercial ventures) at the time. Having taken a course in Irish History at the same time I began studying the ballads in general, and the "Celtic" ballads in particular, I found them doubly enlightening and entertaining.

1Mostly for my own convenience, the "stanzas" of "Catholic Emancipation" will be numbered in this way. "Catholic Emancipation" is presented in a highly irregular format, alternating between sung stanzas and spoken paragraphs. Hence, the lines in the first sung stanza are numbered "1.5ñ8." To avoid confusion (though perhaps my attempt at establishing clarity merely adds to the confusion) will continue numbering spoken paragraphs in this way, referring to lines as they are printed in the original, though obviously this convention would not normally be followed.



WORKS CITED

"A New Song on the Catholic Emancipation." Collection of ballads, songsheets.

"The Bold Irishman." Collection of ballads, songsheets.

"Boyn Water." Collection of eighty street ballads.

Collection of eighty street ballads on forty sheets, mostly with a woodcut printed at London, the majority by J. Catnach (1820-1830). London: n.p., n.d. Department of Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Minnesota Libraries.

Collection of ballads, songsheets. 2 vols. London: J. Pitts, 1805ñ1840? Department of Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Minnesota Libraries.

"Draw the Sword, Scotland." Collection of ballads, songsheets.

Encyclopædia Britannica. Online Edition.

"A New Song on the Catholic Emancipation." Collection of ballads, songsheets.

"The Protestant Song." Collection of ballads, songsheets.

Random House Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Random, 1971.

"Scots, Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled." Collection of ballads, songsheets.

Shepard, Leslie. The Broadside Ballad: A Study in Origins and Meaning. Hatboro, PA: Legacy Books, 1978.

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Michael Hancher
Department of English, University of Minnesota
URL: <http://umn.edu/home/mh/single.html>
Comments to the author: Brett Single
Created 27 June 1997
Last revised 30 June 1997