Origins: Mattie Groves - What year?

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 10:16 PM

As posted by Pavanne in another thread, in the 17th c. versions of Child 81, and the one in Pepys Ballads I, the characters are Little Mousgrave (Musgrave, Musgrove) and Lady Barnet. The lord was feasting with friends; no kings, queens or Whitehall are mentioned.

Child, the English and Scottish Popular ballads, quotes Percy: "This ballad is ancient, and has been popular; we find it quoted in many old plays." He mentioned one of about 1611.
It is likely that the song originated in the theatre; the characters entirely fictional.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: GUEST,maryrrf
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 07:26 PM

Some interesting speculation - I tend to agree that the incident must have happened but then was elaborated on and confused with other incidents...people have always been fascinated with scandal, haven't they - and "Mattie Groves" has it all - sex, violence, involvement of rich prominent citizens, must have been quite a sensation in the surrounding area when it happened!

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Snuffy
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 09:02 AM

Speaking of real life throwing up modern instances like the stories of old songs, this one put me in mind of Polly Vaughan/Molly Ban, etc

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 04:21 PM

Wouldn't have surpised your average Englishman much 400 years ago.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 04:15 PM

The thing is there's nothing particularly unusual about the story as such. Stuff like this happens pretty regularly in real life. (For example see this rather horrible storythat I came across today when looking for soemthing quite different, about a man who went out and killed his former lover and her family; he also beat a dog to death with a shovel. Typical ballad material, except he wasn't a lord. Unlike the equally unsavoury Lord Lucan, who could also have well featured in a ballad.)

I'd have thiught it pretty likely that the text we have does in fact relate to some actual episode, though it'd likely enough have incorporated stuff from some pre-existing account of the same kind of thing.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: DannyC
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 01:20 PM

I fall with Mr. Burke here. When the lady "cast her eye on the little Musgrave as bright as the summer sun" I caught a divine glimmer from a nearby tangled hedge. A Graves he said - a Graves he said to place these lovers in.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:25 PM

Actually the current Lord Barnard lives in Raby Castle. Anybody fancy popping over and asking him?

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:19 PM

Oh well it's fun to speculate, isn't it!

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:10 PM

How true.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 11:53 AM

Barnard could have been his first name:

"The ballade of ane right noble victorius [and] myghty lord Barnard Stewart lord of Aubigny erle of Beaumont Roger and bonaffre consaloure and cham[ber]lane ordinare to the maist hee maist excelle[n]t [and] maist crystyn prince Loys king of France knyght of his ordoure capitane of the kepyng of his body co[n]queror of Naplis and vmquhile co[n]stable general of the same." - by William Dunbar, Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar, 1508.

Which would be a disaster for dating the song, as you'd have to look up everyone called Barnard, Bernard, Bernhardt etc.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 11:47 AM

I think Barnard Castle in Teesdale might be a candidate. Varnet was created Earl Barnard because his family took the place. A quick google should give you the family details.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 11:37 AM

1927 - A bloke in the pub told me.

:D

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 11:36 AM

Thanks Les from Hull. Hmm, that does rather blow my theories out of the window, doesn't it? Nevertheless, if Lord B. wasn't 'created' until 1698 how did he get into a ballad cited in 1611 and probably created even earlier?
I suppose the moral is never enquire too deeply into the historical backgrounds of ballads - it can drive you crazy - gibber, gibber, drool, drool!!

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 10:13 AM

The first Lord Barnard (Sir Christopher Vane) was created in 1698.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 09:15 AM

Child no. 81 is 'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard' and Child gives the earliest written citation as 1611 - as given above. It's not unreasonable to suppose that if the ballad is based on historical events then those events could have taken place a century or more earlier - or not, as the case may be.
Interestingly, some versions of Child no. 83, 'Child Maurice' ('Gil Morice', 'Bob Norice', etc., etc.) also feature a homicidal 'Lord Barnard'who, this time, mistakes Lady B's illegitimate son (Child M.) for her lover and chops his head off. This seems to be a much later ballad (printed versions from mid-18th century)but perhaps at some time in the 15th/16th centuries there was a Lord Barnard, in the North of England, who was known to fly off the handle when he thought that his missus was 'playing away' and his savagery stuck in the folk memory and generated (at least) two ballads.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: GUEST,Steve Parkes
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:15 AM

Sarah Gray's version has the usual swordfight, but Lord Darnall shoots Lady Darnell with his "special" (surely not a gentleman's weapon)?! Andthe name of the page is Robert Ford!

Steve

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:07 AM

Well I got the line about "King Henry at Whitehall" from the singing of Joan Baez, which I'm pretty sure was taken from an Appalachian version. (Some of the Appalachian variants have Lord Donald/Arnold/Arlen/ or whatever blasting Mattie Groves with a shotgun, so I know they can't be regarded as reliable sources). Oh I'm sure it's a story that's been repeated many, many times (husband walks in on unfaithful wife and her boyfriend and kills both of them - nothing new!) but in the back of my mind I think the song might be based on an incident that really happened and probably at some time during the reign of Henry VIII. I think it was one of those scandals like Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher that would have caught people's imagination enough for them to still be singing it in 1611. I really enjoy the song - always have and while I'm singing it or listening to it I picture the characters and the scene in my mind. I just wanted to "glean" (as Santa so aptly put it) other peoples opinions to see if there was the faintest chance that the actual incident may have been recorded or pinpointed.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 07:50 AM

There's always some spoilsport out to ruin the fun!

Yes, of course it is a work of art etc. That doesn't mean that it was a total invention. The song may have had some historic grounding, and some people find it interesting to try to tease out any such factual basis from thin textual references and any other research. Whether it did or it didn't, often we can learn something from the gleanings they find or the path they take. (Or even, it must be admitted, sometimes gain a mild amusement from errors.)

Good for the diggers. Full speed ahead and damn the philistines.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 04:05 AM

Do I detect a little naievity here? Most of the 'big ballads' are timeless STORIES. Even if there was an incident that inspired a particular reworking of the theme, it's almost always heavily vested in a mythological coating.

Just as an instance: since Lord Whatever killed both Matty/ Musgrave and the lady, who recorded the conversation between them about hearing the horn of Mattygrave's pal: "away, Musgrave, away"?

It's a timeless tragedy, a work of art, not a historical record.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:15 AM

Those two are in Bronson's "Singing Tradition."

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:13 AM

The version found in Canada, "Lord Banner" ("and young Magrue from Scotland too") is more interesting. In that song, Lord Banner has gone to fair England "to take King Henry's throne. Now an attempt to take the throne was certainly newsworthy, and would be meat for Wackipedia.

A version collected by Sharp (Lady Banner and little MacGroves involved here) has Lord Banner "Redemption gone, he's on Queen Anne's throne." That shifts the date a bit.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 10:16 PM

The earliest reference is c.1611 (Beaumont and Fletcher, Knight of the Burning Pestle, one verse quoted). The ballad was probably quite new at that time. Barnet or Barnard to begin with; the "Arlen" form is much later.

So far as I recall, King Henry doesn't appear in the song until early 20th century sets found in America. Not something to be used in any attempt at dating it wihout a lot more detail. What was your source for that line?

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 08:17 PM

The episode referred to might be a lot older than the ballad we've got. Or, another way of putting it, the story could be a lot older than any historical characters it may have got itself attached to. The original Lord Arlen would have been some Alpha Male Homo Erectus...

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 05:57 PM

I know it's not that old, but I was making the point it King Henry doesn't help much on it's own. Could well be Henry VII.

I've not heard the King Henry verse, and it's not in the DT. How's it go?

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 05:14 PM

Yes, I usually sing the "Mattie Groves/Lord Arlen" version but the Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard version may be even more prevalent.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 03:31 PM

Musgraves are an old Cumbrian family and isn't the lord in the original song lord Barnard?
Don't think we need go back as far as Henry I, the ballad is certainly not that old.

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 03:02 PM

Oh I know we can't ever be completely sure, but it's fun to try. What about this hypotheses - (as you know, Mattie Groves is also referred to as Little Musgrave)- that it took place in Cumbria? Check out the link http://musgravemanor.homestead.com/Cumbria.html

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 02:25 PM

Also, why assume Henry VIII? Henry I reigned in the 12th C, whitehall has been a centre of goverment since about then.

There is no record of a Lord (or earl etc) Arlen in Burkes Peerage, and the 1901 UK cencus has no Arlens at all. The name, has therefore suffered from the folk process.

Going to obvious mishearings does not help, as there are too many options. The nearest is probably the earls of Arden, who have held titles from Saxon times. Not a lot of good....

So neither the King nor the Lord can pin it down. We tried to pin the place down a while back, and that didn't get to a proper answer either. Can't find that thread now. How ironic...

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 01:35 PM

Oh I didn't know that! I'm so glad I posted this question - it sheds new light on the subject. Thank you!

Subject: RE: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 01:33 PM

"First day of the year" needn't be assumed to mean January 1st. Up until 1752 in England the year was seen as beginning on March 25th, the feast day of the Annunciation, nine months before Christmas Day.

Subject: Mattie Groves - What year?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 01:13 PM

I've looked over previous threads on "Mattie Groves" and haven't found the answer, nor have searches on the net yielded it. The "first known date" for the appearance of the song is 1611, I think. However there is a line in the song that says "Lord Arlen's gone to consecrate King Henry at Whitehall" which made me think it must have occurred during the reign of Henry VIII, around 70 years previous to that.   I've been checking through some history books trying to figure out if Henry VIII was ever "concecrated" at Whitehall, or it might be this consecration ritual was a yearly event of some kind? I'd always thought the meeting between Mattie Groves and Lord Arlen's wife took place on New Year's Day because in some versions it says "the first day of the year". Then again, sometimes it's "best day of the year". Well, does anybody want to venture a guess as to what might be the exact year, if we could deduce such a thing?