Jim,
We have had this out on other threads.
To cut to the quick, we both have our strong beliefs based on many years' research on how the majority of the ballads came into being. Neither of us can ultimately prove our cases.
Apart from Peter Buchan's parody of Johnny Scot the rest of the ballads you mention all have as their earliest manifestation a broadside.    Sigh! In my opinion they have all appeared in print in their earliest form no matter what happened to them after that. You prefer to think that they came from the peasantry in some form which you are perfectly entitled to do. I can live with this. Why can't you live with my version? I have nowhere postulated a 'school of composers'. Why should these song makers not be invisible to public notice? Ballads were off the literati radar until the 18thc. I have never said the rural classes were incapable of producing nothing of their own. They certainly did, but IMHO not many were ballads, in England at any rate!