It is perhaps no coincidence that this ballad first appeared during the early seventeenth century, when the English Poor Law was steadily becoming established. The Poor Law is well-known as an ambitious and precocious system of parochial relief for those who could not work. It is less commonly known, however, that a clause in the 1601 Act also insisted that poor people were expected to seek and receive relief from their own kin before relying on their parishes. The Act explicitly placed an obligation on the adult offspring of poor old people to offer them support. This is the duty highlighted in the song, and the original editions might be understood partly as an attempt to draw it to public attention.
Against this background, the ballad introduces us to an elderly couple who, when unable to work any longer, take the logical step of turning to their wealthy son ‘for succour and reliefe’. Unfortunately, he lives a hundred miles away, a fact that allows him to reference the new legislation in his callous refusal to help. He knows that one of the aims of the recent statutes was to dissuade the poor from roaming the land, encouraging them instead to rely on support within their own parishes. In the ballad, the merciless son therefore tells his exhausted and aged parents repeatedly that they should ‘get you home againe’ and return to ‘your Country’ (meaning county). He even threatens them with ‘the perill of Law’, under which travelling beggars could be whipped and sent back to their parishes of origin. In this manner, the ballad perhaps points out a problem within the new legislation; the duty to look first to one’s kin for aid was not always consistent with the duty to remain at home.
Of course, the responsibility of grown-up children to support their elderly parents was also a component of Christian charity that was emphasised in sources from the Ten Commandments onwards, but the anxieties of the elderly about abandonment by the young were also long-established. In the ballad, it is noticeable that, although the parents are very clear about their son’s duties to them, they are also very nervous in approaching him. They are careful to appear well-mannered and even deferential as they remind him, first gently and then more forcefully, of his obligations. Clearly, they do not regard the support of their ‘loving Sonne’ as a foregone conclusion. Old age was associated both with wisdom and with decay, and at moments such as this one the tension between the two was acute.
The song presents the couple as decrepit but dignified, and therefore highly deserving on both counts (not all representations of the elderly were so sympathetic). The repetitive refrain, ‘Alacke and alas for woe’, directs us very strongly to share in their suffering. And if this suffering fails to move us, then perhaps the ferocity with which the son is punished in the wake of his cruelty will do the job. The couple call upon God to avenge them, and their words amount to a kind of curse: ‘The Lord send thee as little pitty/ when thou doest stand in need’. God, apparently untroubled by the questionable theology of this invocation, intervenes brutally, and the undutiful son is ‘mangled... monstrously’ by his own children before being buried without ceremony in a ditch.
Christopher Marsh
References
Lynn Botelho, Old age and the English poor law 1500-1700 (Woodbridge, 2004).
Lyn Botelho (ed.), The cultural conception of old age in the seventeenth century (Abingdon, 2016), Intergenerational relations in the seventeenth century (Abingdon, 2016) and Practices and principles regarding community responsibilities for the aged in the seventeenth century (Abingdon, 2016). These books are vols. 1, 3 and 5 in the series, The history of old age in England 1500-1800, ed. Lynn Botelho and Susannah R. Ottaway (Abingdon, 2016).
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.
Barbara Hanawalt, The ties that bind: peasant families in medieval England (Oxford, 1989), ch. 15.
Steve Hindle, On the parish? The micro-politics of poor relief in rural England, c. 1550-1750 (Oxford, 2004), pp. 48-58.
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. 1267 and 2007.
Emma Whipday, Shakespeare’s domestic tragedies. Violence in the early modern household (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 203-05.
To the tune of ‘Priscilla’ (lost melody)
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 found no notation for this melody in seventeenth-century sources. The song does not seem to have survived in later vernacular tradition and no suitable tune can be drawn from the work of folk song (and tune) collectors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In these disappointing circumstances, we have not been able to provide a recording.
Echoes (an overview)
As far as we known, no other ballads of the seventeenth century called for this tune. Nothing can therefore be said about the relationships between different songs set to the melody.
Songs and Summaries
A most excellent Ballad, of an old man and his wife... To the tune of Priscilla (composed, c. 1600; E. [A?], 1620?). Pepys 1.43; EBBA 20028. Family – children and parents; Crime – murder; Death – unlawful killing, result of immorality; Disability – physical; Bodies – health/sickness; Emotions – anger, sorrow; Morality – familial; Violence – interpersonal. An aged couple are rejected by their rich son when they turn to him for aid, but grim justice is done in the end.
Postscript
The tune does not appear to have been nominated on white-letter ballads, nor in songbooks of the period.
Christopher Marsh
Back to contentsStandard woodcut name: Parents pleading with son
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, clearly designed specifically for this song, has not been found on any other ballad in the two largest collections. The only title listed below is therefore our featured edition. Very surprisingly, the woodcut was not deployed on any other surviving edition of A most excellent Ballad, a circumstance that is highly unusual for such a carefully prepared and directly relevant woodcut. It has to be assumed that other pre-Restoration editions displaying the picture have been lost, and that the woodblock was either mislaid or seriously damaged by the date at which other extant sheets were published. It was a sad loss, for the woodcut artist has captured the narrative’s key moment of arrogant rejection and abject despair with great skill.
Songs and summaries
A most excellent Ballad, of an old man and his wife (E. [A?], 1612-21). Pepys 1.43; EBBA 20028. Family – children and parents; Crime – murder; Death – unlawful killing, result of immorality; Disability – physical; Bodies – health/sickness; Emotions – anger, sorrow; Morality – familial; Violence – interpersonal. An aged couple are rejected by their rich son when they turn to him for aid, but grim justice is done in the end (picture placement: the scene appears beneath the title, and there are no other woodcuts).
Christopher Marsh
Back to contentsAnother of the songs featured on this website deals with the ingratitude of grown-up offspring (see A most notable example of an ungracious Son) but neither this nor other publications of the period seem directly related to A most excellent Ballad in terms of their precise verbal content.
Christopher Marsh
A most excellent Ballad, of an old man and his wife, who in their great want and misery sought to/ Children for succour, by whom they were disdained, and scornefully sent away succourless, and Gods/ vengenace shewed upon them for the same. To the tune of Priscilla.
[We have not made a recording because the tune is unknown]
IT was an old man which with his poore wife
in great distresse did fall:
They were so feeble with age God wot,
they could not worke at all.
A gallant Sonne they had,
which lived wealthily:
To him they went with full intent,
to ease their misery.
Alacke and alas for woe, &c.
A hundred miles when they had gone,
with many a weary step:
At length they saw their Sons faire house,
which made their hearts to leape.
They sate them on the greene,
their shooes and hose to trim:
To put cleane bands about their neckes,
against they should enter in. Alack, &c.
Unto the doore with trembling joynts,
when those old couple came:
The woman with a shaking head,
the old man blind and lame:
Full mannerly they knockt,
fearing for to offend:
At last their Son doth frowningly come
unto them in the end. Alack, &c.
Good folks, quoth he, what would you have
me thinkes you are too bold?
Why get you not home to your Country
now you are lame and old?
With that they both replyed,
with sorrow, care, and griefe:
Here are we come to thee our Sonne,
for succour and reliefe. Alack, &c.
This is thy Father (gentle Sonne)
and I thy loving Mother:
That brought thee up so tenderly,
and lov’d thee above all other:
I bare thee in this wombe,
these brests did nourish thee:
And as it chanst, I often danst
thee on my tender knee.
And humbly now we thee intreat,
my deare and loving Sonne:
That thou wilt doe for us in our age,
as we for thee have done.
Nay nay, not so, he said,
your sute is all in vaine:
Tis best for you, I tell you true,
to get you home againe. Alack, &c.
The world is not now as when I was born
all things are growne, more deare:
My charge of Children likewise is great,
as plainely doth appeare.
The best that I can doe,
will hardly them maintaine:
Therefore I say, be packing away,
and get you home againe. Alack, &c.
The old man with his hat in his hand,
full many a legge did make:
The woman wept and wrung her hands,
and prayed him for Christ his sake
Not to send them backe,
distressed and undone:
But let us lie in some Barne hereby,
quoth she, my loving Sonne. Alacke, &c.
By no meanes would he thereto consent,
but sent them soone away:
Quoth he, You know the perill of Law,
if long time here you stay:
The stockes and the whipping poast
will fall unto your share:
Then take you heed, and with all speed,
to your Country doe repaire. Alack, &c.
Away then went this wofull old man,
full sad in heart and minde:
With weeping teares his wife did lament
their Sonne was so unkinde.
Thou wicked Childe, quoth they,
for this thy cruell deed,
The Lord send thee as little pitty
when thou dost stand in need.
Alack and alas for woe, &c.
His children hearing their Father set
his Parents thus at nought:
In short time after to have his Land
his death by subtlety wrought:
What cause have we, quoth they,
more kindnesse to expresse,
Then he unto his Parents did
in their great wretchednesse?
Alacke and alas for woe, &c.
They murthered him in pittiful sort,
they waid not his intreats,
The more he pray’d compassionatly,
the greater were their threats,
Speake not to us, quoth they,
for thou the death shalt die:
And with that word, with dagger & sw[ord]
they mangled him monstrously.
Alack and alas for woe, &c.
When they had got his silver and gold,
according to their mind:
They buried him in a stinking ditch,
where no man should him find.
But now behold and see,
Gods vengeance on them all:
To gaine their golde, their Cousin came,
and slew them great and small.
Alacke and alas for woe.
He came among them with a great clu[b]
in dead time of the night,
Yea two of the Sons he braind therewi[th]
and taking of his flight,
The murtherer taken was,
and suffered for the same:
Deserved for their cruelty,
this vengance upon them came
Alack and alas therefore,
Alack and alas therefore.
FINIS.
Printed in London by E. [ ]
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 'It was an old man which with his poore' from first line); Coles, Vere, Wright and Clarke, 1675; and Thackeray, 1689 ('Old Man & his poor Wife').
Other registrations with Stationers' Company: none.
No. of known editions c.1560-1711: 6
No. of extant copies: 6
New tune-titles generated: none.
Specially-commissioned woodcuts: Parents pleading with son on featured edition.
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library databases: 6 references, with no evidence of later collection as a folk-song (Roud no. V26777).
POINTS: 0 + 30 + 0 + 12 + 6 + 0 + 5 + 0 = 53
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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