The anonymous ballad whose lyrics we have opened with was penned around 1642. At that time, the Puritan Parliament was beginning its hostilities against not only King Charles I (whom, in the end, it would murder) and his Cavalier supporters, but all that was left of Merry—indeed, Catholic—England. So, too, did it make war on all that was truest and best in His Majesty’s other kingdoms of Scotland…
