Lyr Req: The Bold Princess Royal (from P Bellamy)

Subject: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: GUEST,Jasper
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 01:35 PM

Trying to find the lyrics for 'The 14th February' as sung by Peter Bellamy, on Fair Englands Shore, strugging to to decipher from CD, can anyone help??

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: GUEST,jasper
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 02:03 PM

I think I've track the song down think its called The Bold Princess Royal, going to go through the lyrics whislt listening to cd.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: Dead Horse
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 05:38 PM

Its not this one is it?
The first line is usually sung as "On the fourteenth day of Febuary, the weather it being clear"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: Dead Horse
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 05:40 PM

After having read those lyrics, nearly all are different, but the song is the same - if you know what I mean:-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 06:54 PM

Both deal with encounters at sea, but they aren't really related. 'The Royal Oak' (Roud 951: also 'The Twenty-Fourth of February', 'Captain Mansfield's Fight With the Turkes at Sea' etc) seems likely, as A L Lloyd noted in The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, to have been based on an incident of 1669.

'The Bold Princess Royal' (Roud 528) concerns an incident of 1798 (for details, see Marrow Bones). It was a post from a one-off visitor here, in a thread otherwise devoted to the (unrelated) 'Princess Royal' dance tune frequently attributed to O'Carolan, that put me on the track of that. Actually the real-life event was more dramatic than the song based on it.

The Marrow Bones text is in the DT: THE BOLD PRINCESS ROYAL (2). Like most versions found in oral tradition, it's quite close to broadside editions (for some of which, see Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads: The Bold Princess Royal).

Peter Bellamy's recording of 'The Fourteenth of February' originally appeared on his LP Mainly Norfolk. I haven't heard it in years, but I'm fairly sure that it was an arrangement of either Harry Cox's or Walter Pardon's versions. Both were also fairly close to the broadside form.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 May 11 - 01:11 PM

Re this last post ~ belatedly. Would have been Cox; I am pretty sure that Mainly Norfolk appeared some years before Walter P was "discovered".

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: Reinhard
Date: 15 May 11 - 01:35 PM

Neither. Bellamy wrote in the Mainly Norfolk notes: "This version I learned from the singing of Bob Bayfield, a retired fisherman of Wells-Next-The-Sea, and to which I added two verses from the Larner version."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 15 May 11 - 03:40 PM

Bob Copper collected a version from Ned Adams of Hastings. The words and tune are in Bob's book Songs & Southern Breezes.

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 May 11 - 12:50 AM

Thanks, Reinhard. I should have checked. My point was really that it could not have been Walter.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BOLD PRINCESS ROYAL
From: Young Buchan
Date: 16 May 11 - 10:16 AM

On the fourteenth of February we sailed from the strand
On the Bold Princess Royal bound for Newfoundland.
We had forty bold seamen for our ship's company,
And right boldly from Yarmouth to the westward sailed we.

We had not been sailing but days two or three
When a man from the masthead strange sails he did see,
Come bearing down after us for to see what we were
And under her mizzen black colors she bore.

"oh Lord!" cried our captain, "What shall we do now?
For here comes a bold pirate to rob us, I vow."
"Oh no" cried the first mate, "That shall never be so.
We will open our reefs, boys, and from her we'll go."

And then this old pirate he hoved alongside.
Through a loud-speaking trumpet, "Who are you?" he cried,
Our captain walked the quarter deck and this he did say:
"We are the Bold Princess Royal and we're bound far away"

"Oh well, " cried the pirate, "Then heave yourself to;
For I've got a long letter to send on by you."
"Oh no," cried our captain, "I'll heave our ship to,
But it will be in some old harbour, not alongside of you."

They chased us to windward three nights and four days.
They chased us to windward but could not make way.
They chased us to windward but could not prevail,
For the Bold Princess Royal soon showed them her tail.

"Oh well," cried the captain, "Now the pirate has gone,
Go=et down to your grog, boys, get you down everyone.
Get you down to your grog, my boys, and be of good cheer
For while the Princess have sea-room, brave boys, never fear."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 14th February
From: Young Buchan
Date: 16 May 11 - 10:19 AM

Please don't try sailing westward from Yarmouth - the bit outside Birmingham is likely to bugger your keel.