16  The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the/ WORLD [Euing 183]

To the tune of ‘O hone, O hone’ (standard name: Franklin is fled away)

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

This tune, popular in the second half of the seventeenth century, was known variously as ‘Franklin [is fled away]’, ‘O hone, O hone’, ‘Frankling is dead and gone’, ‘You pritty maidens all’, ‘The ruined virgin’ and ‘You gallant ladies all’. For our recording, we have used the version that appears in Apollo’s Banquet (1670). Notation can also be found in a number of other sources, including Musicks Recreation on the Viol, Lyra-way (1669), A Choice Collection of 180 Loyal Songs (1685), Wit and Mirth (1719-20) and the ballad-opera entitled The Jovial Crew (1731). These are all very clearly versions of the same tune, but there are numerous small melodic differences between them and no two of these renditions are the same. Clearly this was a tune that allowed and encouraged a good deal of individual variation on the part of song-writers and instrumentalists.

Echoes (an overview)

The melody was named on a number of songs between 1650 and 1680. It was associated strongly and consistently with death and grief, as befitted a tune that took one of its titles from a Gaelic expression of lament, anglicised as ‘O hone O hone’. A feeling of sorrow is perhaps intrinsic to the tune, but it was also enhanced by ballads such as A mournful carol and THE Queens Lamentation, both of which expressed the agony of grief.

This then opened up space for other ballad-makers to vary the approach somewhat, and The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the WORLD is ear-catching for the manner in which the note of grief is struck by a still-living woman, clearly modelled on Charles I’s daughter Elizabeth who died in exile in 1650 (perhaps the song also expresses wordless grief for the king himself, executed in the previous year). The immense success of the song may have had something to do with the subtlety of this design. The two Faithful Lovers and The two Unfortunate Lovers both present more conventional love-narratives, but the tune surely warns us continually that neither tale is likely to end well. Nobody actually dies in The distressed Damsels downfall by a deceitful Youngman, though the tune once again contributes dark and dismal resonances to this story of an abandoned, pregnant girl.

There are also some direct intertextual echoes that connect the songs listed below. As far as we can tell, the lament ‘O hone o hone’ was first connected with this tune in A mournful carol. Here, remarkably, it sounds forty-five times in a full rendition of the song. The expression was then used more sparingly in The two Faithful Lovers, where it features only at the end of the final verse. It also appears, however, as a tune title, and it is arguable that, for those who had heard A mournful carol, the expression must almost have come to haunt all subsequent songs. The Lamenting Ladies last farewel and THE Queens Lamentation both include verses that end ‘O pitty me’. The former uses ‘heaven succour me’ at the conclusion of other verses, while the latter chooses the closely-related expression, ‘Lord succour me’ (it is worth noting that these two songs expressed grief for members of the same family).

We might also note an interesting point of contact between THE Queens Lamentation and the earlier but still popular Lamentable dittie about the execution of the Earl of Essex in 1601. This was set to different music, but the melody was another lament, as suggested by its title, ‘Welladay’. Of the Earl of Essex’s attitude to Elizabeth I, we are told, ‘He did her fame advance,/ In Ireland Spaine and France’. In the later song, Charles II’s grieving queen sings of her dead son: ‘When late he was in France,/ his comely Grace/ My spirits did advance/ to see his face’. This was probably not a deliberate cross-reference on the ballad-maker’s part but it nevertheless suggests the manner in which old songs might flit uninvited through the mind of a composer -  or, for that matter, a consumer - while a new song was receiving attention.

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

Songs and Summaries

[A mournful carol: or an Elegy lamentating the Tr]agick ends of two unfortunate Lovers... To a new Tune, called, Franklin is fled away (registered in 1656, but the tune title used in The Lamenting Ladies last farewel suggests that A mournful carol actually came first; William Gilbertson, 1647-50?). Douce 2(221b). Death – warfare, heartbreak, suicide; Emotions – despair, love; Gender – courtship, masculinity, femininity; Bodies – looks/physique; Employment – sailors/soldiers; Politics – domestic, Royalist; Religion – heaven/hell. Cordelia laments the death in battle of her sweetheart, Franklin, and, after describing his many qualities, she commits suicide in order to join him in the afterlife.

The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the WORLD... To an excellent new Tune, O hone, O hone (Tho. Vere, 1650-66). Euing 183; EBBA 31938. Death – godly end; Emotions – sorrow; Religion – Christ/God, heaven/hell, prayer; Politics – domestic, Royalist; Gender – femininity; Family – children/parents. An aristocratic English woman in exile makes her will, lamenting the sad course her life has taken and putting her affairs in order as she prepares to meet her maker.

THE Queens Lamentation, OR, The most sad and mournfull Complaint of her Sacred Majesty, the Queen of England, upon the death of her most dear and well Esteemed Son... To the Tune of, Franklin (Charles Tyus, 1660). Euing 290; EBBA 31904. Death – illness, tragedy; Emotions –despair; Family – children/parents; Royalty – praise; Gender – masculinity, femininity;Bodies – looks/physique; Politics – foreign affairs, domestic; Religion – heaven/hell, ghosts/spirits, angels/devils; Environment – skies, wonders, birds; Places – European. The Queen of England expresses profound grief at the death of her son, Henry, on 13 September 1660.

The two Faithful Lovers. To the Tune of, Francklin is fled  (F. Coles, T. Vere, and J. Wright,  1665-74). Douce 2(213b). Gender – courtship, cross-dressing; Death – tragedy, grief; Emotions – love, sorrow; Places – European; Politics – domestic.  A woman travels in disguise to Venice with her sweetheart because she cannot bear to be parted from him but, on this occasion, there is no happy ending.

The two Unfortunate Lovers: OR, THE Flintshire 'SQUIRE and Shropshire MAID's Misfortunes... Tune of  The Ruined Virgin: or, Franklin is fled away (J. Deacon, 1671-99).  Pepys 3.363; EBBA 21379.  Gender – courtship, masculinity, femininity; Morality – romantic/sexual; Society – rich and poor; Death – heartbreak, tragedy; Emotions – sorrow; Family – children/parents; Places – English, Welsh.  An esquire seduces a young woman with a promise of matrimony but then abandons her, with tragic consequences.

The distressed Damsels downfall by a deceitful Youngman... To the Tune of Frankling is dead and gone, O hone, o hone (Francis Coles, T. Vere, Jo. Wright, and Jo. Clarke, 1675-80). Douce 1(59b). Gender – courtship, sex, masculinity, femininity; Family – children/parents, pregnancy/childbirth; Emotions – sorrow; Morality – romantic/sexual; Bodies – clothing; Places – travel/transport; Environment – roads; Society – education, friendship. A teenaged girl agrees to have sex with an ardent man when he promises marriage, but he abandons her when she becomes pregnant and she has no option but to run away from home.

Postscript

The melody was also called for on several white-letter ballads and in songbooks of the period.  See, for example: The Childrens Cryes Against Their Barbarous & Cruel Father... To the Tune of, You Pritty Maidens all (1690-1700); and Nathaniel Thompson, A Choice Collection of 120 Loyal Songs (London, 1684). In Thompson’s songs, the tune is used in biting mockery of an Irishman and a Whig respectively, both of whom lament the failure of their subversive political enterprises. In the world of the political songbook, it seems that satirical uses of the tune were very definitely in vogue, though the effect of this tactic of course depended heavily upon the associations already carried by the tune. An eighteenth-century parody, included in the 1719-20 edition of Wit and Mirth, deployed the tune in imagining a wealthy lady cast into profound grief when her dog was accidentally suffocated by a sleeping maidservant. The melody was also referenced occasionally in other forms of literature. In Luke Milbourne’s Notes on Dryden’s Virgil, for example, there is a scornful remark about ‘a meer Ballad Singer, Toning out, o Hone, o Hone, with sad Lines, and a dismal voice’.

Christopher Marsh

References

Anon, Musicks Recreation on the Viol, Lyra-way (1669), p. 13.

Apollo’s Banquet (1670), no. 67 (transcribed in Simpson, p. 233)

The Jovial Crew (1731), p. 59.

Luke Milbourne, Notes on Dryden’s Virgil In a Letter to a Friend (1698), p. 58.

Claude Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and its Music (New Brunswick, 1966), pp. 232-35.

Nathaniel Thompson, A Choice Collection of 120 Loyal Songs (1684), pp. 106-09 and 113-15.

                A Choice Collection of 180 Loyal Songs (1685), p. 120.

Wit and Mirth (1719-20), V, p. 129.

Standard woodcut name: Woman with hand of God

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 deployed on most seventeenth-century editions of The Lamenting Ladies last farewel. The same wood-block appears to have been used for all surviving versions, and it remained in use even as wood-worm burrowed into it (see also Song history). Its specific association with this ballad probably explains why it was not used commonly on other sheets; a search of the two largest collections has revealed no further examples (the only song listed below is therefore our featured edition, from the Euing collection). The image, as it appears on this hit political ballad, seems to convey a stimulating ambivalence. The lady begins her lament by appealing to Melpomene, the ancient muse of tragedy, for assistance in making her will, yet she concludes with the words ‘Christ cals for me’. Whose hand, then, is reaching towards her from the clouds?

Songs and summaries

The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the WORLD (Tho. Vere, 1650-66). Euing 183; EBBA 31938. Death – godly end; Emotions – sorrow; Religion – Christ/God, heaven/hell, prayer; Politics – domestic, Royalist; Gender – femininity; Family – children/parents. An aristocratic English woman in exile makes her will, lamenting the sad course her life has taken and putting her affairs in order as she prepares to meet her maker (picture placement: she stands directly beneath the title).

Christopher Marsh