I've had the following email from Arthur Percival of the Faversham Society. The RVWL, NSA and BL search engines fail to show anything useful. Can anyone help?

Dear George

Tall order, but I wonder if you have any idea to what melody this might have been sung?



We are the fishermen,
We are the men

Who sailed up the Creek

With our Royal King Jim.

5 An Arnold and a Jemmett,

And a lot more in it1,

Sailing up the Creek

With our Royal King James.

You had to call

10 A Gregory and a Dane

To make things plain

For the reception ceremonial

To our Royal King James.

After morning prayers

15 We went to the Mayor's

At the foot of the stairs

To bid adieu

To our Royal King James.

Our Merry Fishermen,

20 Bold and brave,

Saved King James

From a watery grave.

Our wives and daughters,

With many strong waters,

25 Drank to the health

Of our Royal King James

Loud cheers for the strong waters,

Our wives and daughters,

Who drank to the health

30 Of our Royal King James.

No matter who may prate,

Or who may preach,

We rule the waves

To Nagden Beach.

35 On a full spring tide,

Broad and wide,

We sailed up the Creek

With our Royal King James.

A Coleman and a Moon,

40 On the Kitty Scoon2

Stood by the main boom,

Piloting up the Fleet

With our Royal King James.

We were four and twenty pairs

45 Who marched to the Mayor's

As the King's Bodyguard

To our Royal King James.



Notes

1 it - the boat.

2 Kitty Scoon - No details of this vessel are known. However there are local records

of the surnames Scoon and Scoones.



This is the text of a song which appeared in a letter from John Mannooch (of Toronto but formerly of Faversham) published in the Faversham News in March/April 1925. It is not known what tune was used.

The overall sense (that Faversham fishermen "saved King James from a watery grave") is at variance with other accounts of the events of December 1688, when James II was trying to make good his escape as William of Orange (William III) approached London.

These record that the hoy in which he and his travelling companions had embarked was intercepted at Shellness by three Faversham smacks, with 40 seamen and three files of musketeers aboard; that 300 guineas was stolen from them by the boarding party; and that they were taken under armed guard to the town.

The fishermen had not realised that they had taken the King prisoner and it was only when they arrived in Faversham that he was recognised. He was deeply unpopular in the town and for his own safety was taken to the house of the Mayor at 18 Court Street. Later he was allowed to return to London and then make a final, more dignified escape to France.

The song is therefore more than a bit economical with the truth. James II's captors became his saviours, presumably because this was thought to reflect more credit on them.

The 'fishermen' must have been predominantly oyster dredgers. The Faversham grounds were in the Swale, between Shellness and the mainland, and for centuries dynasties of Jemmetts, Danes and Gregorys were prominent in the industry.

John Mannooch recalled that the song used to be sung at fishermen's banquets held on the feast of St James, which was also the anniversary of James II's Coronation. The feast of St James is on 25 July, the Coronation was on 23 April 1685, so there is a discrepancy here.

Some of the stanzas, as recalled by Mary Jones, of Stonedane Court, Faversham, were also published in the Faversham News in the 1970s. She could remember her father singing the chorus, and speaking of his father singing the words to him.

With its random assortment of four- and five-line stanzas, and rather erratic metre, the text seems corrupt. The oral tradition has died out but possibly other printed versions remain to be discovered.