100  Luke Huttons Lamentation: which he wrote the day before his death, being/ condemned to be hanged at Yorke for his robberies and trespasses committed/ there-about [Euing 189]

Author: Hutton, Luke (d. 1596), attrib.

Crime - prison Crime - robbery/theft Death - execution Death - godly end Economy - money Emotions - sorrow Family - children/parents Family - kin Places - English Recreation - alcohol Religion - Christ/God Religion - moral rules Religion - prayer Society - friends

Song History

Luke Hutton was an infamous highway robber, imprisoned in London and subsequently executed at York during the late 1590s. The ballad was almost certainly not composed by Hutton himself, despite the claim made in its title, but the young criminal certainly did publish two other works during his confinement in Newgate (see Related texts).

Hutton’s sudden literary flowering is probably sufficient to account for his celebrity but later authors added a new element to the highwayman’s story by alleging a family connection with Matthew Hutton, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1595. Over half a century later, John Harington claimed that Luke was in fact the Archbishop’s son, but Thomas Fuller soon revised this view, arguing instead that the criminal’s father was ‘Dr. Hutton’, a prebendary of Durham. It seems likely that this individual was Matthew Hutton’s brother, Robert, making the highwayman the Archbishop’s nephew.

This is all very interesting but the evidence is confusing. On the one hand, there are snippets that might support the suggestion of a link between the criminal and the clergymen. For example, one of Luke’s two published works was dedicated to Henry, Earl of Huntingdon (see Thoresby), who also happened to be a close associate of the Archbishop. Similarly, a Luke Hutton matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1582, and Matthew Hutton’s family certainly had a strong connection with this institution.

On the other hand, the date of this matriculation does not fit comfortably into the family histories of either the Archbishop or his brother (Robert Hutton, for example, seems to have fathered children in the 1590s). And genealogists who have worked on the clerical Huttons have not found that any of them produced a son named Luke (see Raine). The student of 1582 may have been the future criminal, and his failure to graduate is at least consistent with the probable career-trajectory of a highwayman-in-the making. It is not clear, however, that he was part of the Archbishop’s family. If Luke had been closely related to Matthew Hutton, it seems likely that this fact would have been mentioned in some of the publications of the 1590s. Harington later commended Archbishop Hutton for resisting the temptation to pull strings in order to save Luke from the gallows but the explanation for this restraint perhaps lies not in the clergyman’s laudable ‘constancy and severity’ but in the lack of any family connection.

Unfortunately, our efforts to place the ill-fated young criminal in a more plausible family have so far proved unsuccessful. Ballad-makers treated the ‘truth’ with considerable creativity; perhaps this is why we have been unable to find an individual with the right name who was born – as the song says -  on St. Luke’s day, presumably in Yorkshire, and who, in c. 1596, was aged around twenty-three.

The success of Luke Huttons Lamentation is reflected in fairly regular editions between the 1590s and the 1680s. The earliest extant version dates from c. 1598 but the ballad was registered well before this, on 22 December 1595. Given that Hutton, already a prisoner, seems certain to have been alive into 1596, this suggests that the ballad-makers were thinking some way ahead. Their commercial antennae had perhaps been aroused by the publication of the lost work, Luke Huttons repentance, probably late in 1595 (it was registered on 3 November). It also seems possible that they registered the ballad but did not actually publish it until Luke Hutton had been executed, on an unknown date between 1596 and 1598.

It is remarkable that a song about a particular criminal of the 1590s should still have been popular almost one hundred years later (there are at least seven surviving copies of the edition that was issued in 1681-84, a high figure for such an ephemeral form of literature). The song’s long-term success might be thought of in a number of ways. First, ‘rogue’ literature and tales of highwaymen were clearly highly marketable in the seventeenth century, and the fact that Luke Hutton also wrote a successful book called The blacke dogge of Newgate must also have helped to maintain his profile (see Related texts).

Second, the ballad includes some compelling lines (for example, ‘Good sir, quoth I, I had rather stay,/ I have no heart to ride that way’) and some distinctive stylistic features. The triple refrain, in lines 2, 4 and 7-8 of each verse, is particularly unusual. It is a shame that we do not have the tune and so cannot assess the effect of this device in performance. The last of these refrains also endows the song with a degree of repetitive religiosity that is not so strong in other execution ballads.

Third, Hutton is characterised by the ballad-makers in at least three different ways, establishing the kind of interpretative tension that was clearly a trait of many successful songs. At one level, he is a self-pitying melancholic, repeatedly wailing ‘ah wo is me, wo is me’. Simultaneously, however, he is a deeply repentant sinner, expressing heartfelt remorse and turning to his saviour in a plea for mercy. The profundity of his sorrow is such that he eventually achieves a measure of confidence regarding his fate. Despite his crimes, he advises listeners, ‘When on the ladder you doe me view/ Thinke I am nearer heaven than you’. Hutton’s final persona is that of a criminal hero who tells his story with considerable bravado and a certain manly pride. He steals without fear and is eager to ‘lighten the load’ of the super-wealthy. He becomes a ‘famous theife’, talked about by ‘All men in Yorkeshire’. He is aided by ‘twelve yeomen tall/ Which I did my twelve Apostles call’, though he also takes pride in the fact that neither he nor his crew ever killed anyone. Hutton therefore displays several of the characteristics of the highwayman-hero, a figure whose romantic appeal was on the increase during the early modern period.

The tensions between these aspects of Hutton’s ballad-self are notably recorded in the lines, ‘And when my heart was in woefull case,/ I drunke to my friends with a smiling face’.

Christopher Marsh

References

Broadside ballads from the Bodleian Library: http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

English Broadside Ballad Archive: https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/

English Short Title Catalogue.

Thomas Fuller, The church history of Britain (1655), pp. 38-39.

John Harington, A briefe view of the state of the Church of England as it stood in Q. Elizabeths and King James his reigne, to the yeere 1608 (1653), p. 192.

A V. Judges (ed.), The Elizabethan underworld (1930), pp. 506-08.

Lena Liapi, Roguery in print. Crime and culture in early modern London (Woodbridge, 2019).

James Raine, ‘Marske in Swaledale’, Yorkshire archaeological and topographical journal 6 (1881), pp. 172-286 (at pp. 237-41).

Hyder E. Rollins, An analytical index to the ballad-entries (1557-1709) in the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London (1924; Hatboro, Pennsylvania, 1967), nos. 1604 and 1605.

Cathy Shrank, ‘Hutton, Luke (d. 1598)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography.

Stationers’ Register online: https://stationersregister.online/entry/SRO3789

Ralph Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis (1715), p. 532, no. 131.

Ralph Thoresby, Vicaria Leodiensis (1724), p. 140.

J. A. Venn (ed.), Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 1 (Cambridge, 1922), vol. 2, p. 442.

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Featured Tune History

To the tune of ‘Wandring and Wavering’ (lost melody; standard name - Wandering and wavering)

The purpose of this section is to provide brief notes on the melody followed by detailed evidence relating to  its career, paying particular attention to the ‘echoes’ (inter-song associations and connections) that may have been set up if it was nominated for the singing of more than one ballad. In the list presented in the ‘Songs and Summaries’ section below, we have endeavoured to include as many of the black-letter ballads that used the tune as possible, under any of its variant names. Titles from our chart of best-sellers are presented in bold type (these are also in colour when there is a link to the relevant ballad page on the website). It should be noted that it is extremely difficult to date many ballads precisely and the chronological order in which the songs are listed is therefore very approximate (we have drawn on previous attempts to date the ballads, making adjustments when additional evidence can be brought into play).  In most cases, we list the earliest surviving edition of a ballad, though in many instances there may have been earlier versions, now lost.

Versions and variations

We have been unable to find notation for this tune, and the song does not appear to have survived in later vernacular tradition. We have not therefore made a recording.

Echoes (an overview)

This lost tune does not appear to have been nominated for the singing of other ballads, and little can therefore be said about the associations that it may have carried.

Songs and Summaries

Luke Huttons Lamentation... To the tune of Wandring and Wavering (registered 1595; H. Gosson, 1624-40).  Euing 189; EBBA 31944. Crime – prison, robbery/theft; Death – execution, godly end; Economy - money; Emotions – sorrow; Family – children and parents, kin; Places - English; Recreation - alcohol; Religion – Christ/God, moral rules, prayer; Society - friends. A convicted highway robber repents his wicked ways and prepares to be executed.

Christopher Marsh

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Featured Woodcut History

Standard woodcut name: Knife attack

The purpose of this section is to provide evidence relating to  the career of the image under discussion, paying particular attention to the ‘reflections’ (inter-song associations and connections) that may have been set up if it was chosen to illustrate more than one ballad. The list given below includes all ballads from the Pepys and Roxburghe collections that feature this woodcut or a close variant (these are the two largest collections, including approximately 3300 sheets, in total). References to ballads from other collections occur only when the featured edition of the song under consideration here (or the featured edition of another song from our list) comes from such a source. Ballads from our chart of best-sellers are presented in bold type, and they also appear in colour where there is a link to another song in the database. Please note, however, that the editions of hit songs listed below are not necessarily those for which digital images are presented on this website. Cross-references to other examples of our featured woodcuts are also presented in bold. It is extremely difficult to date many ballads precisely and the chronological order in which the songs are listed is therefore very approximate (we have drawn on previous attempts to date the ballads, making adjustments when additional evidence can be brought into play).

Reflections (an overview)

Rather surprisingly, this image was rarely used, and the fact that the woodblock shows few signs of further wear between the early and late seventeenth century suggests that this is not just an illusion created by low survival rates. The scene appeared on the earliest known illustrated edition of Luke Huttons Lamentation but it was not retained on later versions. This may be because the image reveals what looks like a fatal stabbing but in the text Luke Hutton declares ‘Yet did I never kill man nor wife’.

Only two other ballads are is listed below, and on these the woodcut illustrates a fight over a woman and duel between knights respectively. All versions of the image appear to have been produced from the same woodblock, and we cannot say why it was not more widely deployed.

Songs and summaries:

Luke Huttons Lamentation (H. Gosson, 1624-40).  Euing 189; EBBA 31944. Crime – prison, robbery/theft; Death – execution, godly end; Economy - money; Emotions – sorrow; Family – children and parents, kin; Places - English; Recreation - alcohol; Religion – Christ/God, moral rules, prayer; Society - friends. A convicted highway robber repents his wicked ways and prepares to be executed (picture placement: the combatants appear beneath the title, sandwiched unhappily between two hanging men).

A lamentable Ballad of a Combat lately performed neere London,  betwixt Sir Iames Steward, and Sir George Wharton Knights (F. C., 1626-56). Euing 195; EBBA 31951. Gender – masculinity; Bodies – clothing, injury; Violence – interpersonal; Death – duel, godly end; Emotions – anger, disdain, excitement, patriotism; Places – English, nationalities; Recreation – games/sports; Religion – Christ/God, prayer; Royalty – praise. Two knights fall out while gaming, and a deadly duel is arranged and fought (picture placement: the woodcut appears alone on the right side of the sheet).

THE Witty Maid of the West: OR, The Miller well thrash'd by Robin the Plowman (J. Back, 1685-88).  Pepys 4.16; EBBA 21683.  Gender – sex, courtship, masculinity, femininity, sexual violence; Employment – crafts/trades, agrarian, male/female; Humour – bawdry, deceit/disguise; Morality – romantic/sexual; Emotions – longing, anger, sorrow; Violence – interpersonal, sexual, punitive; Nature – crops; Economy - money.  A lustful miller attempts to buy sex from a maiden but ends up being beaten by her true sweet-heart and made to pay (twice) for the pleasure he never received (picture placement: the scene appears beneath the title, to the right of an altercation beside a windmill, but an attempt has been made to erase the knife from the image).

Christopher Marsh

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Related Texts

Luke Hutton, while imprisoned in Newgate during the mid-1590s, wrote and published two books (the ballad was almost certainly not his work). The first of these, Luke Huttons repentance, is now lost but its title probably tells us what we need to know about its contents. We can be sure that it was printed because Hutton says so in his second work (see below). We also know that, in 1724, the antiquarian Ralph Thoresby possessed a manuscript version of the piece, dedicated to the Earl of Huntingdon. Sadly, this too has gone missing. Given that the ballad was registered within a few weeks of the book, late in 1595, it seems likely that the song-writers were endeavouring to capitalise on the success of the lengthier work.

More famously, Hutton wrote The black dogge of Newgate in c 1596. This remains well known as an early exposé of the appalling conditions in one of London’s notorious prisons. The ‘black dog’ is an embodiment of the Newgate regime, and Hutton charges this forbidding beast with all manner of abuses and corrupt practices. The author skilfully appropriates and manipulates two existing phenomena: an old tale about a supernatural creature that haunted Newgate; and the fashionable ‘coney-catching’ literature of the late sixteenth century. This literature claimed to lift the lid on England’s criminal underworld, and Hutton responded by claiming that the real criminals were the prison officers.

The book evidently did well and also gave rise to a play of the same name, now lost. Not surprisingly, The black dogge of Newgate seems unrelated to the ballad (which may not even have been printed by the date of the book’s composition), and the repetitive use of ‘wo is me’ or ‘Woes me’ in both works is probably coincidental.

Christopher Marsh

Texts (in chronological order)

Luke Hutton, Luke Huttons repentance (lost text; c. 1595).

Anon, Luke Huttons Lamentation... To the Tune of, wandring and wavering (registered 1595 and probably printed soon afterwards).

Luke Hutton, The black dogge of Newgate: both pithie and profitable for all Readers (c. 1596). A revised edition was issued in 1612 and 1638 as The discovery of a London monster, called, the black dog of Newgate. This dropped all reference to Hutton’s name.

The black dog of Newgate (lost play, c. 1602).

References

Lena Liapi, Roguery in print. Crime and culture in early modern London (Woodbridge, 2019).

Lost plays database: https://lostplays.folger.edu/ (search for ‘Black dog’).

Stationers’ Register online: https://stationersregister.online/entry/SRO3789

Ralph Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis (1715), p. 532, no. 131.

Ralph Thoresby, Vicaria Leodiensis (1724), p. 140.

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Luke Huttons Lamentation: which he wrote the day before his death being/ condemned to be hanged at Yorke for his robberies and trespasses committed/ there-about.  To the tune of Wandring and Wavering.

[We have not made a recording because the tune is unknown]

 

I Am a poore prisoner condemned to die,

ah woe is me, woe is me for my great folly:

Fast fettered in irons in place where I lie:

be warned young wantons hemp passeth green Holy.

My parents were of good degree,

By whom I would not ruled be,

Lord Jesus forgive me, with mercy relieve me,

Receive O sweet Saviour, my spirit unto thee.

My name is Hutton, yea Luke, of bad life:

ah woe is me, &c.

Which on the high=way did rob Man and Wife,

be warned, &c.

Intic’d by many a gracelesse mate,

Whose counsell I repent too late,

Lord Jesus forgive me, with mercy relieve me, &c.

Not twenty yeeres old (alas) was I,

ah woe is me, &c.

When I began this felony:

be warned &c.

With me went still twelve Yeomen tall,

Which I did my Apostles call,

Lord Jesus forgive me, with mercy relieve me, &c.

There was no Squire, nor Baron bold

ah woe is me, &c.

That rode by the way with silver and gold,

be warned, &c.

But I and my Apostles gay,

Would lighten their load ere they went away.

Lord Jesus forgive me, with mercy relieve me, &c.

This newes procur’d my kinsfolkes griefe,

ah woe is me, &c.

That hearing I was a famous thiefe,

be warned, &c.

They wept, they waild, they wrung their hands,

That thus I should hazard life and lands.

Lord Jesus forgive me, with mercy relieve me, &c.

 

They made me Jai[l]or a little before,

ah woe is me, &c.

To keepe in prison offenders sore,

be warned, &c.

But such a Jailor was never none,

I went and let them out every one,

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

I wis this sorrow sore grieved me,

ah woe is me, &c.

Such proper men should hanged be:

be warned young wantons, &c.

My Office then I did defie,

And ran a way for company.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

Three yeeres I lived upon the spoyle,

ah woe is me, &c.

Giving many an Earle the foyle

be warned, &c.

Yet never did I kill man nor wife,

Though lewdly long I led my life.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

But all too bad my deeds have beene,

ah woe is me, &c.

Offending my Country and my good Queene:

be warned, &c.

All men in Yorkshire talke of me,

A stronger thiefe there could not be.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

Upon S. Lukes day was I borne,

ah woe is me, &c.

Whom want of grace hath made me scorne:

be warned, &c.

In honour of my birth day then,

I rob’d (in bravery) nineteene men.

Lord Jesus forgive me, with mercy relieve me,

Receive, O sweet Saviour, my spirit unto thee.

 

The second part, To the same tune.

 

THe Country weary to beare this wrong,

ah woe is me, &c.

With Hues and Cries pursued me long:

be warned, &c.

Though long I scap’t, yet loe at the last,

At London I was in New-gate cast.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

Where I did lie with grieved minde,

ah woe is me, &c.

Although the keeper was gentle and kind,

be warned, &c.

Yet was he not so kind as I,

To let me goe at liberty.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

At last the Shriefe of Yorkeshire came,

ah woe is me, &c.

And in a warrant he had my name,

be warned, &c.

Quoth he, at Yorke thou must be tride,

With me therefore hence must thou ride.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

Like pangs of death his words did sound,

ah woe is me, &c.

My hands and armes full fast he bound,

be warned, &c.

Good sir quoth I, I had rather stay,

I have no heart to ride that way.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

 

When no intreaty would prevaile,

ah woe is me, &c.

I called for Wine, Beare and Ale,

be warned, &c.

And when my heart was in woefull case,

I drunke to my friends with a smiling face.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

With clubs and staves, I was guarded then,

ah woe is me, &c.

I never before had such wayting men:

be warned, &c.

If they had ridden before me amaine,

Beshrew me if I had call’d them again.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

And when unto Yorke that I was come,

ah woe is me, &c.

Each one on me did cast his doome:

be warned, &c.

And whilst you live this sentence note,

Evill men can never have good report.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

Before the Judges when I was brought,

ah woe is me, &c.

But sure I had a carefull thought,

be warned, &c.

Nine score Inditements and seventeene,

Against me there were read and seene,

Lord Jesus forgive me &c.

And each of those was fellony found,

ah woe is me, &c.

Which did my heart with sorrow wound,

be warned, &c.

What should I herein longer stay?

For this I was condemn’d that day.

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

My death each houre I did attend,

ah woe is me, &c.

In prayers & in teares my time I did spend,

be warned, &c.

And all my loving friends that day,

I did intreat for me to pray,

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

I have deserved death long since,

ah woe is me, &c.

A viler sinner lived not then I,

be warned, &c.

On friends I hoped life to save;

But I am fittest for the grave,

Lord Jesus forgive me, &c.

Adieu my loving friends each one,

ah woe is me, &c.

Thinke on me Lords when I am gone,

be warned, &c.

When on the ladder you doe me view,

Thinke I am neerer heaven than you.

Lord Jesus forgive me, with mercy relieve me,

Receive, O sweet Saviour, my spirit unto thee.

FINIS.      L. Hutton.

London Printed for H. Gosson.

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This ballad is included according to the criteria for List A (see Methodology). The evidence presented here is accurate, to the best of our knowledge, as of 1st January 2024.

Shirburn ballads: not included.

Appearances on Ballad Partners' lists: Pavier and partners, 1624 (as 'Luke Hutton'); and Thackeray, 1689 ('Luke Hutton').

Other registrations with Stationers' Company: 1595.

No. of known editions c.1560-1711: 6

No. of extant copies: 9

New tune-titles generated: none.

Specially-commissioned woodcuts: none known.

Vaughan Williams Memorial Library databases: 6 references, with no evidence of later collection as a folk-song (Roud no. V26632).

POINTS: 0 + 20 + 5 + 12 + 9 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 46

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This box will be used to highlight any new information on this song that might come to light after the launch of the website.

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