115  The Crafty MISS:/ Or, An Excise man well fitted [Pepys 3.274]

To the tune of ‘Moggies Jealousie’ (standard name: Moggie's jealousy)

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

Our recording features a version of the tune that appeared on a white-letter edition of A New SONG of Moggies Jealousie, probably issued in 1682 (EBBA 32367). A rather different version of the tune can also be found, under the title ‘Ye London Lads be merry’, in Nathaniel Thompson’s Choice Collection of 180 Loyal Songs (1685). The two renditions are recognisably the same melody, though the differences are quite significant at times (in the ballad version, the keynote is stable but Thompson’s tune begins on a G and ends on an F).

The melody was most often known as ‘Moggie’s jealousy’, though it was also called ‘There was a bonny young lad’, ‘You London lads be merry’ and ‘The crafty miss’ (from the ballad under discussion here).

Echoes (an overview)

This tune, composed in the early 1680s, enjoyed conspicuous success during the last part of the seventeenth century. It was named on numerous other ballads and most of these follow the original, A New Song of Moggies Jealousie, in focusing on courtship. Several of these adopt and adapt the narrative structure of this ballad, telling stories of love endangered by some crisis of doubt but eventually emerging triumphant (see, for example, Invincible LOVE and A New Scotch Ballad OF Jealous Nanny). The contexts are often Scottish, and these songs provided English people with imaginary insights into rustic romance, north of the border.

In some ballads, however, difficulties were not resolved, and men and women alike could be left in a state of anguish (The Faithful Shepherd and The Forlorn Damsel). In such cases, it seems possible that the tune may, for some listeners, have raised expectations of happy endings that were not ultimately fulfilled. 

From an early point in the tune’s career, it was also used for ballads that retained an interest in gender relations but concentrated more on controversial sex than on courtship as such. The Crafty MISS was one of the first and one of the most successful. Others described weddings in which one of the parties was a woman disguised as a man (A Mad MARRIAGE), or visitors to London undone by wily con-women (The Countrey Clerk), or masters who impregnated their young maids (John the Glover, and Jane his Servant). The tune thus came to associate itself both with conventional courtship and with the more cynical or immoral forms of sex, and it probably set up in the minds of knowledgeable listeners an interplay between these possibilities.

The only clear outlier in the list below was The Merciful Father, or, The Penitent Son, a political ballad that celebrates the return to court of the controversial Duke of Monmouth in 1684. In the ballad world, Monmouth was frequently a romantic figure and a symbol of wayward but admirable manhood, and it therefore seems likely that the sexy resonances of the tune were being deliberately called upon (see also ‘Postscript', below).

The ballads are connected not only by their shared tune and their subject matter but also by a number of close textual affinities, only a few of which can be mentioned here. The same Scottish names crop up regularly – Jockey, Sawney and so on – and lines delivered at the same point in the melody sometimes seem to echo one another (see, for example, the statements ‘He was of a pretty condition’ and ‘They are in a woeful condition’ in The Crafty Miss and THE Scotch Souldiers Kindness respectively). The opening line of The Surpriz'd Shepherdess is lifted directly from A New Song of Moggies Jealousie, though ‘lad’ becomes ‘lass’.

Furthermore, numerous ballads adopt a scheme in which words ending ‘ain’ are rhymed in lines six and eight, generating the potential for each song to remind listeners of others. In various combinations, the same words crop up repeatedly: disdain, again, vain, train, remain, stain, complain, pain and chain. Languish/anguish, consented/contented, and cruel/jewel also recur in combination, and the second halves of verses in three different songs run thus:

‘Then must we part my jewel,/ and I never see the no mere?/ And canst thou be so cruel,/ to eyn that loves the[e] so dear?’ (A New Song of Moggies Jealousie).

‘Ah! Nanny, quo he, be not cruel,/ but banish that Jealousie quite,/ For Nanny was always my Jewel,/ my joy and my anely delight’ (A New Scotch Ballad).

‘Ah! Nanny, quoth he, be not cruel,/ reverse that ill fate of your mind,/ Who Nature ordain’d for a jewel,/ should never be fair and unkind’ (The Faithful Shepherd).

[See 'Postscript', below, for additional notes on this melody].

Songs and Summaries

A New Song of Moggies Jealousie: OR, Jockies Vindication... Tune of, You London Lads be merry; Or, woo’t thou be wilfull still my Joe (registered 1684; J. Deacon, 1684-99).  Pepys 4.32; EBBA 21698.  Gender – courtship, femininity; Places – Scottish; Emotions – anger, love. A lover’s tiff over Jockey’s alleged inconstancy -  but the couple are on good terms by the end.

The Crafty Miss: Or, An Excise man well fitted... To the Tune of, Moggies Jealousie  (registered 1684; J. Deacon, 1684-99).  Pepys 3.274; EBBA 21288.  Crime – robbery; Gender – sex, femininity, masculinity; Humour – disguise/deceit; News – convicts/crimes; Places – English; Morality – social/economic, sexual; Employment – professions.  A tax collector, travelling in Kent, is tricked out of his money and his horse by a deceitful young woman.

Invincible LOVE... Tune of, Moggies jealousie (J. Wright, J. Clark, W. Thackery, and T. Passinger, 1684). Pepys 3.147; EBBA 21159. Gender – courtship, masculinity, femininity; Emotions – love, anxiety, joy. A man fears the disdain of the woman he loves but she reassures him and they agree to marry.

The Merciful Father, or, The Penitent Son... To the Tune of, There was a bonny young Lad (P. Brooksby, 1684). Pepys 2.221; EBBA 20833. Politics – court, celebration, domestic, Royalists, plots, obedience; Emotions – joy, relief; Family – children/parents, kin; Morality – political; Royalty – praise. This welcomes the news that James, Duke of Monmouth, has returned to court, having promised never to associate with politically disruptive individuals again.

THE Scotch Souldiers Kindness... To the Tune of, The Crafty Miss (J. Deacon, 1684-85). Crawford 1039; EBBA 33742. Gender – sex, courtship, masculinity, femininity, singles; Employment – sailors/soldiers, professions; Emotions – anxiety, contentment; Humour – bawdry, extreme situations/surprises, misunderstanding; Morality – romantic/sexual; Recreation – games/sports; News – domestic, sensational; Places – English, nationalities, Scottish. Fifty damsels in Southwark have surrendered their maidenheads to Scottish soldiers quartered in the neighbourhood and, after failing in a bid for legal redress, they decide instead to celebrate the time they spent with such brave and brawny men.

The Debtford Wedding... Tune is, Moggys Jealousie [‘Collins Complaint or O So ungrateful a Creature’ added by hand] (J. Clark, 1684-86). Douce 1(54a). Family – children/parents, pregnancy/childbirth, kin; Gender – courtship, sex, cross-dressing; Humour – deceit/disguise, domestic/familial, extreme situations/surprises; Society – friendship; old/young; Recreation – weddings; Morality – romantic/sexual, familial; Bodies – clothing, looks/physique; News – domestic, sensational; Places – English; Religion – clergy. A pregnant woman, deserted by her lover, dresses as a man and marries a female friend because the man’s mother has agreed to support her only if she finds a spouse.

The Countrey Clerk OR, Great Hopes soon Lost. To the Tune of, Moggies Jellousie (P. Brooksby, 1684-98). Pepys 3.264; EBBA 21278. Society – urban life; Gender – sex, femininity, masculinity; Crime – robbery/theft; Humour – bawdry, deceit/disguies; Employment – professions; Bodies – looks/physique, health/sickness; Recreation – theatre, food, alcohol; News – domestic; Places – English. A talented young attorney’s clerk from Lincoln travels to London, where he is seduced, tricked, robbed and infected by a city woman.

The Forlorn Damsel... The Tune is, Moggy’s Jealousie (P. Brooksby, 1684-98). Roxburghe 2.157; EBBA 30636. Gender – sex, courtship, marriage, femininity; Emotions – frustration; Bodies – health/sickness; Humour – bawdry, mockery. A woman, desperate to lose her virginity, reveals her anguish and complains that ‘my Maiden-head is such a load’.

A New Scotch Ballad OF Jealous Nanny... To the Tune of, Moggies Jealousie (P. Brooksby, 1684-98). Crawford 848; EBBA 33487. Gender – courtship, masculinity, femininity; Emotions – love, suspicion, confusion, joy; Places – nationalities; Recreation – music, weddings; Bodies – clothing. Nanny is jealous and has decided to leave Willy, but he insists on the steadfast nature of his devotion and, at the end, she agrees to marry him.

ROGER and MARY: Or, the loving Couple in a great Engagement... Tune of Moggies Jealousie [‘Give Ear to a Frolicksome Ditty’ added by hand] (P. Brooksby, 1684-98). Douce 2(186a). Gender – sex, singles; Humour – bawdry, verbal; Employment – agrarian, female; Bodies – looks/physique, clothing; Emotions  - excitement, confusion; Environment – crops, weather, landscape; Society – rural life. A bawdy song, full of landscape-related innuendo, about a young man and woman having somewhat problematic sex during a break from hay-making.

THE West-Country Revell; Or, the Jovial Crew of Lads and Lasses... Tune of, Moggies jealousie [‘Collins Complaint’ added by hand] (P. Brooksby, 1684-98). Douce 2(257b). Gender – sex, courtship, singles, mixed sociability; Recreation – music, dance, fairs/festivals, alcohol; Humour – bawdry, verbal; Bodies – looks/physique; Emotions – excitement, joy; Society – rural life, friendship. This describes a bawdy outdoor dance at which each man 'gave his Lass a green Gown’ (ie made love to her in the grass).

The Surpriz'd Shepherdess... The Tune is, Moggies Jealousie (J. Deacon, 1684-99).  Pepys 3.199; EBBA 21212.  Gender – sex, courtship; Employment – agrarian, female/male; Emotions – longing, love, joy; Environment – animals, landscape, seasons, weather.  A romantic ballad about a maiden who lies sleeping in a meadow until she is aroused in more ways than one by a lusty shepherd.

THE West-Country Wedding. Betwixt Roger the Plowman, and Ellin the Dary-Maid... To the Tune of, The Crafty Miss, or, Moggies Jealousie (J. Deacon, 1684-99).  Pepys 4.108; EBBA 21772.  Gender – courtship, sex, masculinity, femininity; Humour – bawdry, deceit/disguise; Employment – agrarian, female/male; Emotions – anger; Recreation – fairs/festivals, food.  Roger marries Ellin, much to the dismay of the other young women of the area, many of whom are already pregnant by the philandering and deceitful bridegroom.

John the Glover, and Jane his Servant... To the Tune of Moggies Jealousie [‘or Collins Complaint’ added by hand] (J. Deacon, 1684-99). Douce 1(103b). Gender – sex, adultery/cuckoldry, masculinity, femininity, marriage, sexual violence; Employment – apprenticeship/service; Family – children/parents, pregnancy/childbirth; Society – old/young; Violence – domestic, sexual; Morality – romantic/sexual, familial; Emotions – longing, anxiety; Crime – immorality; News – domestic.  A master already has one son by his twelve-year-old maidservant and now he persuades her that she needs a sister for the boy.

A Mad MARRIAGE; Or, The Female Fancy of Debtford... To the Tune of, Moggies Jealousie [‘Give Ear to a Frolicksome Ditty’ added by hand] (J. Deacon, 1684-99). Douce 2(149b). Gender – courtship, marriage, femininity; Humour – deceit/disguise, extreme situations/surprises, verbal; Family – children/parents, pregnancy/childbirth; Bodies – clothing; Employment – sailors/soldiers, apprenticeship/service; Recreation – weddings; News – domestic, sensational; Places – English. A pregnant woman, abandoned by her lover, persuades a friend to dress up as the offending man and marry her in order save her from shame (eventually, however, they are caught and required to stand trial).

The Faithful Shepherd; Or, The Loves of Tommy and Nanny. To a New Scotch Tune: Or, There was a bonny young Lad, &c. (no imprint, 1684-1700?).  Roxburghe 2.150; EBBA 30630.  Gender – courtship; Bodies – physique/looks; Emotions – anxiety, love, hope.  Tommy loves Nanny and thinks about her ‘Ivory Pillows’ all the time, but now it seems likely that she has ditched him.

LOVES POWER... To the Tune of, Moggies jealousie (no imprint; 1684-1700?). Roxburghe 2.307; EBBA 30759. Gender – sex, masculinity, femininity, singles; Emotions – longing. A lustful man has sex with a woman whom he meets by chance but he struggles to satisfy her.

THE Shepherds Complaint: AND THE Comforting Shepherdess... To the Tune of, Moggy’s Jealousie (Josiah Blare, 1684-1706).  Pepys 3.217; EBBA 21230.  Gender – courtship, masculinity; Cupid; Emotions – anxiety, love; Employment – agrarian. A man languishes in romantic pain, uncertain of his sweetheart’s love, but things improve when she intervenes to reassure him.

Postscript

This melody, under the title ‘The Crafty Miss’, was also nominated for a ‘New SONG of the Welsh-mans misfortune’, printed in the Loyal Garland of MIRTH and Pastime (1685). Another reference to the tune within a book suggests, intriguingly, that it may have had politically loyal resonances before it became overwhelmingly a love-melody. On the broadside, A New Song of Moggies Jealousie (see above), it was named ‘You London Lads be merry’. This name seems to derive from a song that appeared in Nathaniel Thompson’s, A Choice Collection Of 120 Loyal Songs (1684). ‘A new SONG made on the Parliaments removing from London to Oxford’ (in 1681) opened with the line, ‘YE London Lads be merry’. The next song in the collection also used the tune, calling it ‘Ye London Lads be Merry’, and the 1685 edition of Thompson’s book, now including 180 songs, included the music. The song about the Oxford Parliament also appeared as [An Exc]ellent New SONG, a white-letter ballad of c. 1683-84, though no tune was named and the musical notation that appeared on the sheet was a different melody.

In view of this complex evidence, it seems likely that the numerous ballads about romance and sex, listed above, carried in their tune loyal associations that were not normally made explicit in the words (and the song about Monmouth recalled these associations alongside the newer ones).

Christopher Marsh

References

Loyal Garland of MIRTH and Pastime (1685), A3r-4r.

Claude Simpson, The British broadside ballad and its music (New Brunswick, 1966), pp. 806-08.

Nathaniel Thompson’s, A Choice Collection Of 120 Loyal Songs (1684), pp. 198-99.

A Choice Collection of 180 Loyal Songs (1685), p. 160.

Standard woodcut name: Man in shock

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 woodcut appeared regularly on seventeenth-century ballads and enjoyed an interesting career. It seems to have begun life as one half of a larger picture, which can be seen in all its glory on A Pleasant new Ballad you here may behold, How the Devill, though subtle, was guld by a Scold . In conjunction with the text, it here represents a woman riding the devil (in the form of a horse) while her agitated husband looks on. At some point, the woodblock was sawn in half, and on our hit ballad, The Crafty MISS, published in the 1680s, the two components were reunited, though displayed as separate pictures and in reverse order. In the woodcut of the woman, the horse’s devillish horns have been removed (filed down on the woodblock), but the end of the beast’s tail, no longer attached, is still visible beneath the bottom-right corner of the man’s cloak.

This may have been the start of the Man in shock’s independent career, and it proved a very successful one. He appeared on several other ballads, and one of the period’s anonymous woodcut-artists paid him the compliment of carving a copy, to which were added the horns of a cuckold.

In one or other of these two guises, he illustrated a number of ballads, including two of the four surviving editions of The Crafty Miss. His horrified hand-gesture fitted him perfectly for ballads in which men were dominated or deceived by women in some way. On The Crafty Miss, he is shocked because the woman with whom he has just enjoyed a night of illicit sex has stolen his horse and is riding away. Other ballads described men who were abused by scolding wives, undone by thieving whores or beaten up by sturdy maidservants.

Most frequently, however, he is a cuckold, and the freedom with which the woodcut moved from sheet to sheet had the effect of conflating the various forms of male failure. On The Valiant Dairy-Maid, for example, there is no actual sex but the ill-mannered tailors who are violently humiliated by a young woman in men’s clothes are nevertheless represented by the horned version of the picture (and their reference to eating phallic cucumbers in the final verse of the text also makes the connection with cuckoldry).

Similarly, the appearance of the picture, again with horns, on Dunkirk's Lamentation may seem of dubious relevance, but it complements the text by implying that England’s enemies in France and Ireland are not only militarily inept but sexually inadequate.

The only ballad listed below that does not seem to draw on the picture’s strongest association is A Warning and good Counsel to the WEAVERS, an apparently serious piece about the cloth industry, but perhaps we are missing something.

Songs and summaries

The Woman to the Plow; And the Man to the HEN-ROOST (F. Grove, 1629-56).  Euing 397; EBBA 32025.  Employment – agrarian, female; Gender – marriage; Humour – domestic/familial, extreme situations/surprises; Nature – animals; Family – children and parents; Economy – household, livings.  A husband and wife, critical of one another’s work, swap tasks for a time with disastrous consequences (picture placement: he stands on the right, next to a finely dressed woman).

A Pleasant new Ballad you here may behold, How the Devill, though subtle, was guld by a Scold (Henry Gosson, 1630-40).  Roxburghe 1.340-41; EBBA 30231. Gender – marriage, femininity, masculinity; Religion – angels/devils, church; Humour – extreme situations/surprises, domestic/familial; Emotions – anger, frustration; Environment – animals; Places – travel/transport, nationalities; Violence – interpersonal; Recreation – alcohol. A man asks the Devil to remove his scolding wife to hell, but when the Devil turns up as a horse and is mounted by the woman, he finds that he cannot stand her and so he returns her to her husband (picture placement: he appears on the right, and is clearly part of a single woodcut that also includes the horse-riding woman who later appeared separately on The Crafty Miss).

THE Hen-peckt CUCKOLD: OR, The Cross-grain'd Wife (J. Millet, 1674-92).  Pepys 4.129; EEBO 21793. Gender – adultery, femininity, masculinity, sex; Humour – bawdry, domestic/familial. A husband despairs at his marriage to a domineering woman (picture placement: he appears next to an image of a woman beating a man).

The Bulls Feather; BEING The Good-fellows Song, usually sung at their Merry-Meeting in Bulls Feather-Hall (F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke, 1675-80).  Pepys 4.152; EBBA 21816.  Gender – adultery/cuckoldry, sex; Emotions – sorrow, contentment; Humour – bawdry, domestic/familial; Nature – animals.  A discussion of the issues surrounding cuckoldry, complete with the calculation that 90% of men are either cuckolds or cuckold-makers (picture placement: in a version with horns, he appears beneath the title, to the right of a young woman who turns towards him).

The Seamans Lamentation: Or, The CAPTAIN at the Helm (J. Back, 1682-85).  Pepys 4.194; EBBA 21856. Gender – adultery, marriage, masculinity, sex; Employment – soldiers/sailors. One sailor is cuckolded by another while he is out of the house (picture placement: in a version with horns, he stands next to a couple in bed).

Whose there Agen: OR, The 6-penny Cuckold of Shoreditch his Policy (J. Blare, 1682-1706).  Pepys 4.127; EBBA 21791.  Gender – adultery, marriage, masculinity, sex; Employment – trades and crafts; Humour – bawdry, domestic/familial; Society – neighbours.  A drunken glover comes home to find his wife in bed with a neighbour and proceeds to sell the interloper a pair of gloves (picture placement: he appears next to a woman and the horns of a cuckold have been added to the image).

The Crafty Miss: Or, An Excise man well fitted (J. Deacon, 1684-99).  Pepys 3.274; EBBA 21288.  Crime – robbery; Gender – sex, femininity, masculinity; Humour – disguise/deceit; News – convicts/crimes; Places – English; Morality – social/economic, sexual; Employment – professions.  A tax collector, travelling in Kent, is tricked out of his money and his horse by a deceitful young woman (picture placement: he stands on the far right, next to a woman on horseback).

The LONDON CUCKOLD (J. Back, 1685-8).  Pepys 4.122; EBBA 21786.  Gender – adultery, marriage, masculinity, sex; Humour – bawdry, domestic/familial; Family – pregnancy/ childbirth.  A wife is impregnated by a gallant and has to confess the fact to her husband when he returns from a trip away (picture placement: he appears over the opening lines, and the horns of a cuckold have been added to the image).

An ANSWER To the London CUCKOLD (J. Deacon, 1685-8).  Pepys 4.123; EBBA 21787.  Gender – adultery, marriage, masculinity, sex; Humour – bawdry, domestic/familial; Employment – trades and crafts; Family – pregnancy/childbirth. A husband laments his cuckolded state and his wife tries to reassure him (picture placement: he appears twice on the sheet, once with horns and once without – on both occasions he stands beside a man and a woman).

The Valiant Dairy-Maid; OR, Three TAYLORS well Fitted (C. Dennisson, 1685-88).  Pepys 4.283; EBBA 21944.  Employment – crafts/trades, female/male; Gender – femininity, masculinity, cross-dressing; Humour – deceit/disguies, extreme situations/surprises, mockery; Violence – interpersonal; Bodies – clothing; Recreation – food, hospitality.  Three tailors deliver garments to a farmer’s house and are fed and paid for their pains, but a local dairy-maid, judging them to have been greedy, dresses as a man and mugs them as they leave, despite being armed with nothing more than a rolling-pin (picture placement: with added horns, he stands beneath the title, to the right of a woman riding past a man on horseback).

A Warning and good Counsel to the WEAVERS (P. Brooksby, 1685-88).  Pepys 4.356; EBBA 22020.  Employment – crafts/trades, apprenticeship/service; Economy – hardship, livings, rural/urban; Emotions – anger; Morality – social/economic; Society – rich and poor; Places – English. This is billed as a ‘jest’ but the text seems to present a serious complaint on bahalf of Norfolk’s weavers, who have allegedly been deceived and mistreated by the wealthy merchants with whom they deal (picture placement: he appears beneath the title, to the right of a weaver’s workshop).

THE St. James's FROLICK; OR, The Barbers Merry Meeting with the Poulterers Buxome young Wife (C. Bates, 1690-1716).  Pepys 3.243; EBBA 21257.  Gender – adultery/cuckoldry, sex, marriage, masculinity, femininity; Humour – bawrdy, verbal; Employment – crafts/trades; Recreation – alcohol; Places – English.  A bawdy ballad featuring a virile barber and a beautiful woman whose husband fails to satisfy her and who therefore decides to call in for a ‘trim’ (picture placement: with horns, he appears beneath the title and to the right of a room in which three men and a woman meet).

Dunkirk's Lamentation (P. Brooksby, 1692).  Pepys 2.314; EBBA 20932.  Politics – celebration, foreign affairs, Royalist, satire; Places – nationalities; Humour – mockery, satire; Violence – between states. England’s enemies lament the failure of their plans for an invasion (picture placement: he appears, with added horns, beneath the title, to the right of a man with hat in hand and and a Crowd, preacher and church – without the crowd in this instance).

Christopher Marsh