1572. 15 Eliz.

1574. 17 Eliz.

Hen. Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, tenth baron in the pedigree. The more modern copy
Ld President.
of the ballad runs thus:

Jo. Rokeby, Esq. one of the Council.
Jo. Rokeby, L. L. D. ditto.

Ralph Rokeby, Esq. one of the Se

cretaries.

Jo. Rokeby, Precentor of York.
7 Will. 3. Sir J. Rokeby, Knt. one of the
Justices of the King's Bench.

The family of De Rokeby came over with the Conqueror.
The old motto belonging to the family is In Bivio Dextra.
The arms, argent, cherron sable, between three rooks
proper.

<< There is somewhat more to be found in our family in the Scottish history about the affairs of Dun-Bretton town, but what it is, and in what time, I know not, nor can have convenient leisure to search. But Parson Blackwood, the Scottish chaplain to the Lord of Shrewsbury, recited to me once a piece of a Scottish song, wherein was mentioned that William Wallis, the great deliverer of the Scots from the English bondage, should, at Dun-Bretton, have been brought up under a Rokeby, captain then of that place; and as he walked on a cliff, should thrust him on a sudden into the sea, and thereby have gotten that hold, which, I think, was about the 33d of Edw. I. or before. Thus, leaving our ancestors of record, we must also with them leave the Chronicle of Malmesbury Abbey, called Eulogium Historiarum, out of which Mr Leland reporteth this history, and coppy down unwritten story, the which have yet the testimony of later times, and the fresh memory of men yet alive, for their warrant and creditt, of whom I have learned it, that in K. Henry the 7th's reign, one Ralph Rokeby, Esq. was owner of Morton, and I guess that this was he that deceived the fryars of Richmond with his felon swine, on which a jargon was

made.>>

The above is a quotation from a manuscript written by Ralph Rokeby: when he lived is uncertain.

Good Sir Ralph Raby there was slain,
Whose prowess did surmount.

This would rather seem to relate to one of the Nevilles
is
of Raby, but as the old ballad is romantic, accuracy
not to be looked for.

Note 3. Stanza ix.
the Felon Sow.

The ancient minstrels had a comic as well as a serious strain of romance, and although the examples of the latter are by far the most numerous, they are, perhaps, the less valuable. The comic romance was a sort of parody upon the usual subjects of minstrel poetry. If the latter described deeds of heroic achievement, and the events of the battle, the tourney, and the chase, the former, as in the tournament of Tottenham, introduced a set of clowns debating in the field, with all the assumed circumstances of chivalry; or, as in the Hunting of the Hare (see Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. III.), persons of the same description following the chase, with all the grievous mistakes and blunders incident to such unpractised sportsmen. The idea, therefore, of Don Quixote's frenzy, although inimitably embodied and brought out, was not perhaps in the abstract altogether original. One of the very best of these mock romances, and which has no small portion of comic humour, is the Hunting of the Felon Sow of Rokeby by the Friars of Richmond. Ralph Rokeby, who (for the jest's sake apparently) bestowed this intractable animal on the convent of Richmond, seems to have flourished in the time of Henry VII., which, since we know not the date of Friar Theobald's Wardenship, to which the poem refers us, may indicate that of the composition itself. Morton, the Mortham of the text, is mentioned as being this faceous baron's place of residence; accordingly Leland notices that « Mr Rokeby hath a place called Mortham, a little beneth Gretneybridge, almost on the mouth of Gretney.>> That no information may be lacking which is in my power to

the romance, who so charitably refreshed the sow after she had discomfited Friar Middleton and his auxiliaries, was, as appears from the pedigree of the Rokeby family, daughter and heir of Danby of Yafforth.

To what metrical Scottish tradition Parson Black-supply, I have to notice, that the Mistress Rokeby of wood alluded, it would be now in vain to inquire. But in Blind Harry's history of Sir William Wallace, we find a legend of one Rukbie, whom he makes keeper of Stirling Castle under the English usurpation, and whom Wallace slays with his own hand:

In the great press Wallace and Rukbie met,
With his good sword a stroke upon him set;
Derfly to death the old Rakbie he drave,
But his two sons scaped among the lave.

This curious poem was first published in Mr Whitaker's History of Craven, but from an inaccurate manuscript, not corrected very happily. It was transferred by Mr Evans to the new edition of his ballads, with some welljudged conjectural improvements. I have been induced to give a more authentic and full, though still an imThese sons, according to the romantic minstrel, sur- perfect, edition of this humorous composition, from rendered the castle on conditions, and went back to being furnished with a copy from a manuscript in the England, but returned to Scotland in the days of Bruce, possession of Mr Rokeby, to whom I have acknowledged when one of them became again keeper of Stirling my obligations in the last note. It has three or four Castle. Immediately after this achievement follows stanzas more than that of Mr Whitaker, and the lananother engagement, between Wallace and those West-guage seems, where they differ, to have the more anern Highlanders who embraced the English interest, at cient and genuine readings.

a pass in Glendochart, where many were precipitated into the lake over a precipice. These circumstances may have been confused in the narrative of Parson Blackwood, or in the recollection of Mr Rokeby.

In the old ballad of Chevy Chace, there is mentioned, among the English warriors, «Sir Raff the ryche. Rugbe,» which may apply to Sir Ralph Rokeby, the

The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Friars of Richmond.
Ya men that will of aunters' winne,
That late within this land hath beene,
Of one I will you tell;

Both the MS. and Mr Whitaker's copy read ancestors, evidently a corruption of aunters, adventures, as corrected by Mr Evans,

Note 4. Stanza x.

The Filea of O'Neale was he.

had at the fyrst to cause them to weare gownes of sylke, furred with myneuere and gray; for before these kynges thought themselfe well apparelled whan they had on a mantell. They rode always without saddles and styropes, and with great payne I made them to ride after our usage.»-LORD BERNERS' Froissart, Lond. 1812. 4to. II, 621.

his cheeks were all beblubbered with teares, the horsemen, namelie, such as understood not English, began to diuine what the lord-chancelor meant with all this long circumstance; some of them reporting that he was preaching a sermon, others said that he stood making of some heroicall poetry in the praise of the Lord Thomas. And thus as every ideot shot his foolish bolt at the wise chancellor his discourse, who in effect did nought else but drop pretious stones before hogs, one Bard de Nelan, an Irish rithmour, and a rotten sheepe to infect a whole flocke, was chatting of Irish verses, as though his toong had run on pattens, in commendation of the Lord Thomas, investing him with the title of Silken Thomas, bicause his horsemens jacks were gorgeously imbrodered with silke: and in the end he told him that he lingered there ouer long, Whereat the Lord Thomas being quickened,» t as Hollinshed expresses it, bid defiance to the chancellor, threw down contemptuously the sword of office, which, in his father's absence, he held as deputy, and rushed forth to engage in open insurrection.

The Filea, or Ollamh Re Dan, was the proper bard, or, as the name literally implies, poet. Each chieftain of distinction had one or more in his service, whose office was usually hereditary. The late ingenious Mr Cooper Walker has assembled a curious collection of particulars concerning this order of men in his His- The influence of these bards upon their patrons, and torical Memoirs of the Irish Bards. There were itinerant their admitted title to interfere in matters of the bards of less elevated rank, but all were held in the weightiest concern, may be also proved from the behighest veneration. The English, who considered them haviour of one of them at an interview between Thomas as chief supporters of the spirit of national indepen- Fitzgerald, son of the Earl of Kildare, then about to dence, were much disposed to proscribe this race of renounce the English allegiance, and the Lord Chanpoets, as Edward I. is said to have done in Wales. cellor Cromer, who made a long and goodly oration to Spenser, while he admits the merit of their wild poetry, dissuade him from his purpose. The young lord had as a savouring of sweet wit and good invention, and come to the council armed and weaponed,» and sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural de-attended by seven score horsemen in their shirts of vice,»> yet rigorously condemns the whole application mail; and we are assured that the chancellor, having of their poetry, as abased to the gracing of wicked-set forth his oration «< with such a lamentable action as ness and vice.» The household minstrel was admitted even to the feast of the prince whom he served, and sat at the same table. It was one of the customs of which Sir Richard Sewry, to whose charge Richard II. committed the instruction of four Irish monarchs in the civilization of the period, found it most difficult to break his royal disciples, though he had also much ado to subject them to other English rules, and particularly to reconcile them to wear breeches. «The kyng, my soueverigne lords entent was, that in maner, countenaunce, and apparell of clothyng, they sholde use according to the maner of Englande, for the kyoge thought to make them all four knyghtes: they had a fayre house to lodge in, in Duvelyn, and I was charged to abyde styll with them, and not to departe; and so two or three dayes I suffered them to do as they lyst, and sayde nothyng to them, but folowed their owne appetytes; they wolde sytte at the table, and make countenance nother good nor fayre. Than I thought I shulde cause them to chaunge that maner; they wolde cause their mynstrells, their seruauntes, and varlettes to sytte with them, and to eate in their owne dyssche, and to drinke of their cuppes; and they shewed me that the Ah, Clandeboy! thy friendly floor, usage of their countre was good, for they sayd in all Slieve-Donard's oak shall light no more. thyngs (except their beddes) they were and lyved as Clandeboy is a district of Ulster, formerly possessed comen. So the fourthe day I ordayned other tables by the sept of the O'Neales, and Slieve-Donard a roto be couered in the hall, after the usage of Englande,mantic mountain in the same province. The clan was and I made these four knyghtes to sytte at the hy he table, and their mynstrels at another borde, and ti:cir seruauntes and varlettes at another byneth them, whereof by semynge they were displeased, and beheld each other, and wolde not eate, and sayde, how I wolde take fro them their good usage, wherein they had been norished. Then I answered them smylyng, to apeace them, that it was not honourable for their estates to do as they dyde before, and that they must leave it, and use the custom of Englande, and that it was the kynge's pleasure they shulde do so, and how he was charged so to order them. Whan they harde that, they suffred it, bycause they had putte themselfe under the obeysance of the kynge of Englande, and parceuered in the same as long as I was with them; yet they had one use which I knew was well used in their countre, and that was, they dyde were no breches; I caused breches of lynen clothe to be made for them. Whyle I was with them I caused them to leaue many rude thynges, as well in clothyng as in other causes.

Moche ado I

Note 5. Stanza x.

ruined after Tyrone's great rebellion, and their places of abode laid desolate. The ancient Irish, wild and uncultivated in other respects, did not yield even to their descendants in practising the most free and extended hospitality, and doubtless the bards mourned the decay

of the mansions of their chiefs in strains similar to the verses of the British Llywarch Hen on a similar occasion, which are affecting, even through the discouraging

medium of a literal translation:

Silent-breathing gale, long wilt thou be heard!
There is scarcely another deserving praise,
Since Urien is no more.

Many a dog that scented well the prey, and aerial hawk,
Have been trained on this floor
Before Erlleon became polluted

This bearth, ah, will it not be covered with nettles!
Whilst its defender lived,

More congenial to it was the foot of the needy petitioner.

1 HOLLINSHED, Lond. 1808. 4to. vol. VI, p. 291.