The action-packed tale of Guy, Earl of Warwick, was exceptionally well-known in early-modern England. The comparable stories of St. George and Robin Hood remain famous today but Guy’s celebrity has faded and it is perhaps surprising to learn that he was once on a par with these other exempla of historical English manhood.
His heroics are mentioned hundreds of times in printed texts of the early modern period, and it is clear that everybody knew his name. William Winstanley described Guy as ‘so famous, that the Vulgar are of Opinion he was a Man of more than an ordinary Stature’. Exasperated religious writers sometimes alleged that English people remembered more about Guy’s exploits than they did about the Bible and the theology of salvation (see Bolton and Baxter). The credulity of the ‘vulgar’ was regularly noted by sophisticated writers who were keen to demonstrate that they had spotted the many fictions, inconsistencies and wild exaggerations in the familiar narrative (Hakewill, Fuller, Camden). Historians have concluded that this narrative contains a kernel of ‘truth’ but not much more. The larger question is, of course, ‘does this matter?’
Guy’s story probably originated in the early thirteenth century as an Anglo-Norman romance that is usually known as Gui de Warewic. In late medieval England, Guy’s adventures were recorded in several manuscripts, and tales of his deeds clearly circulated freely, at least within the upper echelons of society. The hyperbolic heroism of the tale clearly served to flatter and validate Guy’s supposed descendants, the Neville and Beauchamp Earls of Warwick.
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Guy’s appeal had become broader and deeper and his adventures were told and re-told in a variety of different printed formats (see Related texts). We can be sure that Guy’s story also circulated orally, stimulated no doubt by the various items of memorabilia that were on display in Warwick and Coventry to remind visitors of his bravery. Several of these are referred to by the ballad’s composer in a manner that implies Guy’s status as an early-modern tourist attraction.
Sometimes, these items were still put to practical use. When King William visited Warwick Castle in 1695, for example, the townspeople who attended were provided with 120 gallons of punch, ‘made in a Vessel call’d Guy Earl of Warwick’s Pot’ (Anon, The royal progress). This was surely the same giant ‘pottage pot’ that the tourist Celia Fiennes was shown when she visited the castle two years later, along with Guy’s walking stick, sword and helmet. Visitors were also shown his wife’s slippers and the huge bones of many of the beasts Guy had slain. All these items, including Phyllis’ slippers, were ‘of a prodigious size’, though Fiennes noted privately that Guy, like the current king, was actually a small man capable of giant deeds.
The song was obviously very successful for well over one hundred years following its composition, probably in the 1590s. Its heyday was clearly in the seventeenth century, though there are several surviving editions from the eighteenth century as well (in this period, however, it seems that book-length versions of the story overtook the song in popularity).
The ballad’s immense early-modern appeal might be attributed to a number of factors: the skill with which the author crammed the highlights of Guy’s entire life onto a single sheet of paper; Guy’s super-hero qualities, particularly his capacity to dispatch giants, dragons and freakishly large cows, all of which should have been able to squash him; the representation of these qualities as peculiarly English in an age characterised by intensifying national self-consciousness and colonial activity; the author's use of the first-person throughout the text ('I Sir Guy'), which made it almost unique among printed versions of the story and must have helped ordinary readers/singers to identify with their hero; the fact that Guy was driven to adventure by love for a woman who was socially far superior to him (socially unequal romance was a strong ballad theme); and, of course, a catchy tune and arresting pictures.
All in all, the song presented something for everyone, and it is interesting that the deeds of a medieval Catholic (crusader, pilgrim, hermit) remained so marketable in the age of Reformation. Presumably, his Englishness trumped his Catholicism, and the setting of the tale in the fantastical past that ballad consumers clearly loved may have rendered questions about his denominational allegiance largely irrelevant.
Christopher Marsh
References
Anon, The royal progress (1695), p. 12.
Richard Baxter, A treatise of conversion preached (1657), p. 45.
Richard Bolton, The carnall professor (1634), p. 92.
William Camden, Camden’s Britannia newly translated (1623), pp. 511-12.
Helen Cooper, ‘Guy as an early modern English hero’ in Alison Wiggins and Rosalind Field (eds.), Guy of Warwick. Icon and ancestor (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 185-99.
Ronald S. Crane, ‘The vogue of Guy of Warwick from the close of the middle ages to the Romantic Revival’, Publications of the Modern Language Association 30.2 (1915), pp. 125-94.
Celia Fiennes, The journeys of Celia Fiennes, ed. Christopher Morris (1947), pp. 116-17.
Thomas Fuller, The history of the worthies of England (1662), p. 98.
George Hakewill, An apologie of the power and providence of God (1627), p. 198.
Alison Wiggins and Rosalind Field (eds.), Guy of Warwick. Icon and ancestor (Woodbridge, 2007).
William Winstanley, Historical varieties and curious observations domestick & foreign (1684), p. 112.
To the tune of ‘Was ever man’ (standard name)
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
There is no known notation for a tune called ‘Was Ever Man’ but it seems highly probable that a melody published as ‘Sir Guy’ in Robin Hood, a ballad-opera of 1730, provides the music we seek. It fits A pleasant Song perfectly, and the eighteenth-century text presents clear textual echoes of our ballad (compare ‘Was ever Knight for Ladies sake,/ so tost in love, as I sir Guy’ and ‘Was ever Maid in such Distress,/ So tost by Fate as wretched me?’). In any case, there are no other options and we have therefore used this tune for our recording.
Echoes (an overview)
This melody was not nominated on other surviving black-letter ballads, presumably because a feeling developed that it was so firmly attached to A pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry that attempts to re-deploy it were inappropriate.
[See 'Postscript', below, for additional notes on the melody].
Songs and Summaries
A pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry, achieved by that Noble Knight, Sir Guy of Warwick... To the Tune of, Was ever man, &c (F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke, 1675-80). Roxburghe 3.50-51; EBBA 30400. History – medieval; Violence – animals, interpersonal; Gender – courtship, masculinity, femininity; Emotions – love; Employment – sailors/soldiers; Places – eatra-European, English, travel/transport; Religion – pilgrimage, Catholic/Protestant, heroism; Environment – animals, landscape; Bodies – health/sickness; Death – godly end; Politics – foreign affairs. This describes the brave adventures of Sir Guy, driven by a combination of religious and romantic devotion, and it concludes with his death in a hermit’s cave near Warwick.
Postscript
A ballad entitled The WORLDLINGS FAREWELL: Or, The State of a DYING-MAN (W. Thackeray, T. Passenger, and W. Whitwood, 1666-79) is set to the tune of ‘Guy of Warwick’ but the pattern of its verses make it extremely unlikely that the melody of our hit song was intended. There may have been another tune, now lost, that was associated with Sir Guy, or perhaps this was a fairly rare example of metrical incompetence.
Christopher Marsh
References
Robin Hood. An Opera (1730), p. 27.
Claude Simpson, The British broadside ballad and its music (New Brunswick, 1966), pp. 283-85.
Back to contentsStandard woodcut name: Couple in cave
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)
This image was clearly designed specifically for this particular song (the cave, the cross and the visiting woman point clearly to Sir Guy), The woodcut represents the state of pious withdrawal in which Guy ends his life, and a mighty but now disused sword is visible at his feet. It thus forms a striking contrast with the magnificent medieval masculinity that is revealed in the ballad's other image. The Couple in Cave image has not been found on any other seventeenth-century ballad in the two largest collections (but see 'Postscript', below). The picture was used so frequently on editions of A pleasant Song that it must have been a vital component in the ballad's long-lived success. Most surviving copies of the woodcut appear to have been produced from the same block.
Songs and summaries
A pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry, achieved by that Noble Knight, Sir Guy of Warwick (F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke, 1675-80). Roxburghe 3.50-51; EBBA 30400. History – medieval; Violence – animals, interpersonal; Gender – courtship, masculinity, femininity; Emotions – love; Employment – sailors/soldiers; Places – eatra-European, English, travel/transport; Religion – pilgrimage, Catholic/Protestant, heroism; Environment – animals, landscape; Bodies – health/sickness; Death – godly end; Politics – foreign affairs. This describes the brave adventures of Sir Guy, driven by a combination of religious and romantic devotion, and it concludes with his death in a hermit’s cave near Warwick (picture placement: the scene appears on the right and may be intended to capture the moment at which Phyllis, having only just realised that the hermit in the cave is her long-lost husband, comes to attend him as he dies).
Postscript
A ballad held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, presents one interesting re-deployment of this image. The scene appears on The True Lovers Ghost (J. Deacon, 1671-99), Douce Ballads 2 (222b). Here, however, it quite clearly represents a terrifying moment when the ghost of a jilted female lover returns to earth to abduct the man who rejected her (‘Then on him the Ghost it seized,/ Whose anger could not be appeased’). This is a striking new role for the woodcut, and the ballad-maker has skilfully taken advantage of the woman’s strangely forward body language. It may have been difficult for viewers, however, to re-process an image that they already knew and loved as a wholesome representation of Sir Guy and his wife, Phyllis. The True Lovers Ghost is not known to have achieved a second edition, though there are at least six surviving copies of this printing.
Christopher Marsh
Back to contentsThe short selection of texts in the list below is arranged in chronological order. Our aim is to include publications and other sources, written between 1500 and 1700, that cover the same story as A pleasant Song and that might have had some relationship to the ballad. There were also, of course, numerous medieval texts about Sir Guy but these are beyond the scope of the current exercise (see instead the collection of essays edited by Alison Wiggins and Rosalind Field).
The most important early-modern source is Richard Lloyd’s account of the Nine Worthies, written in 1584. This is interesting in that it includes Guy of Warwick on a traditional list of chivalric notables that did not normally feature him (Lloyd gave him the nod ahead of Godfrey of Bouillon). More importantly for our purposes, Lloyd’s account of Guy’s life, written in rhyming lines with seven stresses, was clearly the inspiration for our hit ballad. The unknown ballad-writer essentially took Lloyd’s text and reorganised it, perhaps to fit the distinctive metre of the melody with its three-note upbeats. A new opening verse was added, one later verse was omitted, and minor adjustments were made throughout the text, but the two sources are very closely related.
As an example of the ballad-maker’s interventions, consider the following verses from the two sources:
‘Nine hundreth twentie yeeres and one after Christ his birth,/ When King Athelstone ware the crowne, I lived upon earth./ Sometime I was of Warwicke Earle, and (for to say truth)/ A Ladies love did me constraine to travell in my youth’ (Lloyd).
‘Two hundred twenty years and odd,/ after our Saviour Christ his birth,/ When King Atheston wore the Crown,/ I lived here upon the earth,/ Sometimes I was of Warwick Earl,/ and as I said in very truth:/ A Ladies love did me constrain/ to seek strange ventures in my youth’ (A pleasant Song).
The fact that the ballad-maker’s error in setting the scene 700 years too early was never corrected in subsequent editions of the song speaks volumes about the ballad audience’s vague and fantastical vision of the medieval past.
The other texts listed below include cheap pamphlets (Smithson, for example), lengthier books (Rowlands) and a play (B.J.). In fact, Helen Cooper shows that there was ‘a flourishing industry of Guy plays’ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though only one example is extant. Entries in the Stationers’ Registers also reveal the existence of several other publications on Sir Guy that have not survived. Of the works that are still available, some are in verse, others in prose, and overall it is clear that all sectors of the market for literature were covered.
In general, these publications present much fuller versions of Guy’s story than those devised by Lloyd or the composer of the ballad. Key aspects of the traditional narrative, alluded to in the ballad but scarcely developed, are considered in much greater detail. These include: the personality and perspective of Guy’s sweetheart, Felice (who becomes Phyllis in the ballad); the huge disparity in social status between the two characters and its role in inspiring Guy to seek adventure and reputation; and the importance of religion as another of Guy’s driving motives. We also find out much more about the lion that walks alongside Guy in the ballad’s left-hand woodcut, the ring that Guy presents to Phyllis near the end of his life, and Guy’s status as an exemplary Englishman (Shirley calls him ‘our Renowned Hero, England’s greatest boast’).
Other elements, ignored in the ballad, occur and recur in these lengthier accounts: Guy’s upbringing and lineage (including his son, Rainborne); his travelling companions, some heroic and some comic; and his service to the English king, who relies upon Guy repeatedly to deal with dragons and Danes alike. BJ’s play is unusual in introducing a deal of material about Oberon and the fairy world to the story.
In comparison to these works, the ballad’s account of Guy’s life is skeletal. Sometimes, episodes are so devoid of explanatory context that they scarcely make sense on their own terms. For example, Guy’s decision to depart England for a second time, immediately after finally winning the hand of Phyllis in marriage, seems extraordinary, given that his previous deeds had all been accomplished ‘for her sake’. In fuller versions of the story, we are told that Guy has been struck by remorse following the extreme violence of his first trip and resolves to travel on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in order to demonstrate repentance for his sins.
We might, of course, explain the ballad’s apparent narrative shortcomings in terms of creative clumsiness on the part of the composers but it perhaps make more sense to imagine the listeners and readers filling in the gaps from their existing knowledge of the story. Even today, this effect can be achieved. I first studied the ballad without much knowledge of Guy’s story and found it perplexing at several points. Having read numerous alternative accounts, however, I now find that the ballad makes (almost) perfect sense. Arguably, the ballad concentrates on Guy’s ‘Valiant Deeds’ because of their immense appeal, leaving consumers to fill in some of the back-story for themselves.
Overall, the sources present a series of variations around a basic core narrative and, taken together, they provide strong evidence of the immense popularity of Guy’s story (which also influenced Spenser’s account of ‘Sir Guyon’ in Book 2 of The Faerie Queene). Regular verbal echoes connect the publications, and the ballad plays its part in this intertextuality. Admittedly, the longer works generally avoid references to the ballad, reflecting perhaps the literary pretensions of their authors, but BJ’s play and Crouch’s chapbook are both informed by knowledge of the song. BJ, for example, deploys several phrases that echo the ballad: ‘fetch my food at my own Castle Gate’; ‘my dear Phillis, whom I loved best’; and ‘in Warwick Castle for a monument’.
It is also notable that the left-hand woodcut on our featured edition of the ballad became firmly established as the go-to image of Sir Guy. It seems to have appeared first on the frontispiece of Rowlands’ book (1609) but, in various versions, it can also be found in the works by Shirley, Crouch, Smithson and in the anonymous chapbook of 1680. The fact that it is also found on all editions of the ballad suggests that, when early-modern people thought of Guy’s ‘Valiant Deeds’, this was the picture that popped up in their minds.
Christopher Marsh
Texts (in chronological order)
[The history of Guy of Warwick] (1500).
[The history of Guy of Warwick] (mid sixteenth-century).
Richard Lloyd, A briefe discourse of the most renowned actes and right valiant conquests of those puisant Princes, called the Nine worthies (1584).
B. J., The tragical history, admirable atchievments and various events of Guy Earl of Warwick[.] A tragedy acted very frequently with great applause by his late Majesties servants (probably composed in the late sixteenth century; printed in 1661).
Samuel Rowlands, The famous historie of Guy, Earle of Warwick (1609).
Humphrey Crouch, The heroick history of Guy, Earl of Warwick (1671; edition of 1673).
Anon, The history of the famous exploits of Guy Earl of Warwick (1680).
Samuel Smithson, The famous history of Guy Earl of Warwick (1674-79; edition of 1686).
John Shirley, The renowned history, or the life and death of Guy Earl of Warwick. Containing his noble exploits and victories (1681).
William Winstanley, Historical rarities and curious observations domestick and foreign (1684), pp. 111-19.
References
Helen Cooper, ‘Guy as an early modern English hero’ in Alison Wiggins and Rosalind Field (eds.), Guy of Warwick. Icon and ancestor (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 185-99.
Ronald S. Crane, ‘The vogue of Guy of Warwick from the close of the middle ages to the Romantic Revival’, Publications of the Modern Language Association 30.2 (1915), pp. 125-94.
Alison Wiggins and Rosalind Field (eds.), Guy of Warwick. Icon and ancestor (Woodbridge, 2007).
A Pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry,/ Atchieved by that Noble Knight, Sir Guy of Warwick, who for the love of fair Phillis/ became a Hermit, and dyed in a Cave of a Craggy Rock, a Mile distant from Warwick.
To the Tune of, Was ever Man, &c.
[Play each verse by clicking anywhere within its text]
so tost in love, as I Sir Guy? For Phillis fair that Lady bright, as ever man beheld with eye; She gave me leave my self to try, the valiant Knights with shield & spear Ere that her love she would grant me, which made me venture far and near.
in deeds of arms the Doubtful Knight, That every day in England was, with sword and spear in field to fight: An English-man I was by birth, in faith of Christ a Christian true; The wicked Laws of Infidels I sought by power to subdue.
after our Saviour Christ his birth, When King Atheston wore the Crown, I lived here upon the earth, Sometimes I was of Warwick Earl, and as I said in very truth: A Ladies love did me constrain to seek strange vertues [‘ventures’ in other editions] in my youth.
in strange and sundry heathen Lands, Where I achieved for her sake right dangerous Conquests with my hands For first I sail’d to Normandy, and there I stoutly won in fight, The Emperors Daughter of Almany, from many a valiant worthy Knight.
to help the Emperor to his right, Against the mighty Soldans Hoast, of puissant Persians for to fight: Where I did slay of Sarazens, and Heathen Pagans many a man; And slew the Soldans Couzin dear, who had to name, Daughty Caloron.
to death likewise I did pursue, And Almain King of Tyre also, most terrible too in fight to view. I went into the Soldans Haast ['Hoost' in other editions], being thither on ambassage sent, And brought away his head with me I having slain him in his Tent.
which also I my self did slay; As he a Lyon did pursue, most fiercely met me by the way: From thence I past the Seas of Greece, and came to Pavy land aright; There I the Duke of Pavy Kil’d, his hainous treason to requite.
towards fair Phillis Lady bright; For love of whom I travelled far to try my manhood and my might: But when I had espoused her, I staid with her but forty days, But there I left this Lady fair, and then I went beyond the Seas.
my voyage from her I did take, Unto that blessed Holy Land, for Jesus Christ my Saviours sake: Where I Earl Jonas did redeem, and all his sons which were fifteen: Who with the cruel Sarazens in Prison for long time had been.
in battel fiercely hand to hand, And Daughty Barknard killed I, the mighty Duke of that same Land: Then I to England came again, and here with Colbron fell I fought, An ugly Gyant, which the Danes, had for their Champion thither brought.
and slew him did right valiantly; Where I the Land did then redeem from Danish tribute utterly: And afterwards I offered up the use of weapons solemnly; At Winchester, whereas I fought in sight of many far and nigh.
a Boar of passing might and strength; The like in England never was, for hugeness both in breadth and length; Some of his bones in Warwick yet, within the Castle there do lie; One of his shield bones to this day, hangs in the City of Coventry.
a monstrous wild and cruel beast, Call’d the Dun Cow of Duns-more-heath, which many people had opprest: Some of her bones in Warwick yet, still for a monument do lie, Which unto every lookers view, as wondrous strange they may espy.
I also did in fight destroy, Which did both man and beasts oppress and all the Country sore annoy: An then to Warwick came again, like Pilgrim poor, and was not known, And there I liv’d a Hermits life, a mile and more out of the town.
out of a craggy Rock of stone; And lived like a Palmer poor, within that Cave my self alone: And daily came to beg my food of Phillis at my Castle Gate, Not known unto my loving Wife, who mourned daily for her mate.
yea sick so sore that I must dye; I sent to her a ring of gold, by which she knew me presently: Then she repairing to the Cave, before that I gave up the Ghost; Her self clos’d up my dying eyes, my Phillis fair, whom I lov’d most.
to bring my corps unto the Grave, And like a Palmer dyed I, whereby I sought my life to save: My body in Warwick yet doth lie, though now it be consum’d to mold, My stature there was graven in stone, this present day you may behold.
FINIS.
Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke.
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 'Guy of Warricke'); Coles, Vere, Wright and Clarke, 1675; and Thackeray, 1689 ('Guy of Warwick').
Other registrations with Stationers' Company: 1592.
No. of known editions c.1560-1711: 10
No. of extant copies: 7
New tune-titles generated: 'Guy of Warwick' (1 ballad).
Specially-commissioned woodcuts: Knight with boar's head on featured edition (and other editions); and Couple in cave on featured edition (and other editions).
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library databases: 16 references, with no evidence of later collection as a folk-song (Roud no. V4091).
POINTS: 0 + 30 + 5 + 20 + 7 + 2 + 10 + 2 = 76
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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