In response to Nerd upthread, I'm in two minds about the omission of the verses about Lord Barnard's remorse. The mood of Nic Jones's version is one of concentrated, fatalistic gloom. Even hearing it without any prior knowledge (as I did fairly recently - the privilege of ignorance!) you feel right from the start that something awful's going to happen. The hammer falls with that hair-raising bedchamber confrontation - "And how do you like my bed, Musgrave?" - and the rest of the song is pretty much tidying up, give or take a bit of heroic but doomed defiance.

It's a horror story, effectively, and it works because Lord Barnard's a monster and Musgrave's a blank (albeit a young and pretty blank). It's a bit one-dimensional, arguably a bit adolescent, certainly a bit hammy, but by God it's effective.