93. This point is made at the expense of a contradiction. See v. 27.
95-7. _The Cock of the North_ is an honorary popular title of the Duke of Gordon. Carnegy of Finhaven.
James Radcliff, Earl of Derwentwater, fell into the hands of the Whigs at the surrender of Preston, on the very day of the battle of Sheriff-Muir, and suffered death in February, 1716, for his participation in the rebellion. Smollet has described him as an amiable youth,--brave, open, generous, hospitable, and humane. "His fate drew tears from the spectators, and was a great misfortune to the country in which he lived. He gave bread to multitudes of people whom he employed on his estate;--the poor, the widow, and the orphan rejoiced in his bounty." (_History of England_, quoted by Cromek.) We are told that the _aurora borealis_ was remarkably vivid on the night of the earl's execution, and that this phenomenon is consequently still known in the north by the name of "Lord Derwentwater's Lights."
Although this ballad is said to have been extremely popular in the North of England for a long time after the event which gave rise to it, no good copy has as yet been recovered. The following was obtained by Motherwell (_Minstrelsy_, p. 349) from the recitation of an old woman. Another copy, also from recitation but "restored to poetical propriety," is given in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for June, 1825 (p. 489), and fragments of a third in _Notes and Queries_, vol. xii. p. 492. Two spurious ballads on the death of Lord Derwentwater have been sometimes received as genuine: one by Allan Cunningham, first published in Cromek's _Nithsdale and Galloway Song_, p. 129, another (_Lord Derwentwater's Goodnight_) by Surtees, printed in Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_, ii. 31. Still another modern imitation is _Young Ratcliffe_, in Sheldon's _Minstrelsy of the English Border_, p. 401.
There is a ballad on the disgraceful capitulation of Preston in Hogg's _Jacobite Relics_, ii. 102, also, _Northumberland Garland_, p. 85, beginning "Mackintosh was a soldier brave."
Our King has wrote a long letter, And sealed it ower with gold; He sent it to my lord Dunwaters, To read it if he could.
He has not sent it with a boy, 5 Nor with any Scots lord; But he's sent it with the noblest knight E'er Scotland could afford.