Who is the baddy? Depends upon your version and your personal perspective.

Matty Groves in all its incarnations is one of my favorite ballads. One of the things I love about Matty Groves is that every version tells basically the same story, but presents the "psychology" in a different way. There seems to be a version for my every mood. Some versions present Matty as the "victim" of a strong willed woman's seductive wiles. Doc Watson's version has Matty smugly predicting that "Although she is Lord Daniel's wife, she'll be with me tonight," but Christy Moore's version has Little Musgrave proclaiming to Lady Barnard that "I have loved you dear lady, for long and many a day". The little page is always the informant but sometimes it seems to be for spite and sometimes it seems to be for honor ("Although I am a lady's page, I am Lord Barnard's man.") In most versions the cuckolded lord is eager for confrontation and revenge, but Ray Fisher sings a version in which he tries to avoid it. He makes as much noise as possible marching to the castle and upon reaching the courtyard proclaims that "He whose in bed wi another man's wife had best be on his way." When confronted Matty is sometimes a wiseass and sometimes terrified. After the duel, sometimes the lord is happy at the disposal of adulterous rubbish and sometimes he deeply regrets the course of action he took.

It is Roshomon in ballad form.