happy? - Aug 14 (Death of Benbow)

Subject: RE: happy? - Aug 14 (Death of Benbow)
From: GUEST,Mr Red.
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 10:56 AM

Roy Lives in Malvern, where Benbow lived for a time. I nearly bought a flat in the ex-pub that the Admiral lived in. Malvern Wells (that's where).

Not a lot of people know that.

I am sentimental about Malvern because that's where I got divorced............

Subject: happy? - Aug 14 (Death of Benbow)
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 10:26 AM

Admiral Benbow's fleet prepares to engage the French fleet off Jamaica:

          We took our leave of them and made quick dispatch,
          And then steered our course to the island of Vache,
          But turning to windward as near as we could lie,
          On the fourteenth of August [1702] ten sail we did espy.
  
                  "The Death of Admiral Benbow" from Oxford Book of Sea Songs, Roy Palmer p82
  
  ALSO:        
          The Ruby and Benbow fought the French, fought the French;
          The Ruby and Benbow fought the French.
          They fought them up and down
          'Til the blood came trickling down,
          'Til the blood came trickling down
          Where they lay, where they lay.
  
                  "Admiral Benbow" or "The Brother Tar's Song," per Cyril Tawney 
                  on Seamen Bold, taken from Sharp, English Folk Songs

.

In A Ballad History of England, Roy Palmer who says the song stayed in tradition at least until the 1950's.

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