Talk:The Bonnie Earl o' Moray

O'tempora, o'morēs!
This is not "Earl O'Moray" or "O'Murray" with an Irish last name. It is "the Earl o' Moray" (or Murray), with the Scottish "o'" for "of". The two forms are completely unrelated. I have corrected them in the article and am about to move this article to correct the title.

--Thnidu (talk) 06:00, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

(apologies in advance, I thought I was adding a new post but seem to have accidentally tagged the following comments onto the Thnidu post...sorry!)

Historical Background and Forensic Analysis of the Moray Painting

The article appears to support the traditional story of the murder of Moray which has been widely propagated, especially by the writings of Sir Walter Scott. Huntly arrived at Donibristle with the King's warrant for Moray's arrest on the 5th February 1592 with 120 armed men, after a seige the castle was set on fire and while escaping to the nearby beach Moray's position was given away in the darkness by the glowing embers of his helmet plume which had caught fire and he was hunted down and murdered. Personally I have always had suspicions that Scott's story was 'inspired' by the story of Nisus and Euryalus from Virgil's Aeneid.

I thought I might add details of an article written by Ian Olsen which was published in The Scots Magazine, January 1998, pages 180-184. According to the popular story one of Huntly's kin, Gordon of Buckie was the first to catch up with Moray on the beach and wound him. Gordon then insisted Huntly join in, presumably to share the guilt. Ian Olsen points out that while Huntly was never punished for the murder Gordon of Buckie was arrested in Edinburgh and summarily executed. Gordon may have simply been a scapegoat offered to appease the popular anger over Moray's murder but Olsen asks why he did not undergo the questioning under torture or public trial which would have been expected and suggests that the answer may have been that Gordon of Buckie's answers may have proved an embarrasment to some.

Olsen points out that three verses in the ballad suggest a murder under trust of Moray in his bed rather than a seige:

'Open the gates

And let him come in,

he is my brother Huntly,

He'll do him nae harm;

The gates they were opent,

they let him come in,

But fause traitor Huntly,

he did him great harm.

He's ben and he's ben ('ben' is Scots for 'in')

And ben to his bed

And with a shairp rapier,

he stabbed him dead.'

In the ballad it has been commonly held that the speaker of these lines was Moray's wife but, as Olsen points out, Moray's wife had died some months before the attack at Donibristle. Ballads cannot be read as literal reports of historical events but elements of truth may be found in them. The lines appear to suggest that rather than conducting a seige Huntly's party may have actually been allowed entrance to the castle. Olsen points out that Donibristle was actually Moray's mother's house, Margaret Campbell of Argyll and while Moray should have been safe in an Argyll stronghold the clan was warring with internal feuds at the time and it is believed some Campbells had enlisted Huntly as an ally. John Campbell of Cawdor had been assasinated only three days before Moray.

Olsen also suggests that entry may have been gained with a royal letter. Moray was out of favour with King James VI who had a reputation for disposing of his enemies by any means and James arranged to be gone on a long hunting expedition at the time of the murder which may have been to ensure a clear aliby.

Finally as further evidence for this reading Olsen made an analysis of the painting of Moray's corpse which was only re-discovered in the Chapter Room at Donnibristle House early in the 20th century. This shows a corpse which has suffered at least three bullet wounds fired from the front, several stab wounds from the front, and slash wounds from sharp swords apparently from below and the side. The bullet wounds are clean, with small entry holes. as Olsen points out with the introduction of gunpowder full armour was no longer worn and the protection favoured at the time was a lighter 'Jack' of 'Brigantine' which had metal plates sewn into the fabric. Moray would certainly have owned such a jacket and would have had plenty of time to put one on during a seige. The jacket would have protected him against the slash wounds evident in the painting and lead bullets striking the metal plates would have flattened leading to far larger entry wounds than the small, clean bullet wounds portrayed. Olsen writes: " In other words, the death portrait is quite in keeping with the murder of a naked or lightly-clad man in his bed, who has been both shot and stabbed from the front, and then slashed from the side and below as he curled up and turned away to escape the frontal assault."

Such a cold blooded murder would not have cast a good light on the Huntly faction and as Olsen points out: "Such an atrocity incurred the Scots law charges called "hamesucken" and "murder under tryst". the first ("fellonious seeking and invasion of a person in his dwelling-place or house with intent to assault") carried the death penalty, the second, forfeiture of life, goods and lands." He continues: "Was the house then set on fire and Moray's body carried outside in the confusion to be "Laid on the green" to support Huntly's claim that Moray had got himself killed trying to escape lawful arrest? Was Huntly really innocent and had one of his raiding party - such as Gordon of Buckie - been told that Moray was not to be brought in alive?"

Finally Olsen suggests that the ballad itself may have been written and broadcast with the full approval and support of the newly reformed Church of Scotland. The presbyterian church was at odds with James VI who wanted to impose an epicopalian church on Scotland. Moray was a popular protestant and his murder by the Roman Catholic Huntly enraged the protestant population of Scotland. Moray's mother had the corpse put on public display in a church in Leith and ordered the painting of the corpse which is in a style appropriate to the commemoration of a religious martyr. After the murder James VI was popularly held as responsible for the murder and it was only a few months later that he signed the 'Golden Act' in July 1592 which secured the position of the Presbyterian church. After this, having given in to the presbyterian demands, Moray's corpse was buried and the painting disappeared for some three hundred years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.51.29.56 (talk) 12:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Author of Ballad
There was an article by the Scottish author Nigel Tranter published in The Scots Magazine, October 1969, pages 11-18.

Identity of author?

In the article Tranter questioned who the author of the ballad was. He states that Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe first sugegsted in notes to Johnson's Musical Museum that Lady wardlaw of Pitreavie was the author of the ballad. Alan Ramsay also credited Lady Wardlaw with authorship while Robert Charles in Chalmer's Edinburgh Journal of 1847 claimed that Lady Wardlaw was author of both The Bonnie Earl O' Moray and also of the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. Tranter further states in evidence that Lady Wardlaw was a renowned 'ballad-monger'. She was born Elizabeth Halkett in 1677 at Pitfirrane, a neighbouring estate to Pitreavie not far from Donibristle or Dunfermline and her family was linked by marriage to the Earls of Moray. She is also know to have been the author of a ballad to King James VI and Anne of Denmark titled 'Young Waters' which bears some similarities to The Bonnie Earl O' Moray:

'And then she saw young Waters

Come riding into town.'

Did Moray have an affair with Queen Anne?

Tranter then makes a close reading of the ballad asking what truth there is in the verses. James Stewart, was oldest son of Sir James Stewart, Lord Doune. the family was not powerful but he married the only daughter of the Earl of Moray (the illegitimate son of James V and half brother of Mary Queen of Scots) and in so doing won lands and a fortune. Moray was handsome, sporting and popular, everything that King James VI was not. He was also a stalwart of the reformed presbyterian church of Scotland while King James was against the church, wanting to establish at least an episcopalian church and toying with catholicism.

Tranter notes there are hints of an affair between Moray and James' Queen Anne of Denmark in the poem and asks if this was simply malice on the part of the author:

'Oh he was the queens love'

and

'Oh, he might have been a king' (often missung as 'Oh, he might have been the king')

While a courtier Sir James Balfour reported how the seventeen year old Anne praised Moray Tranter points out that the claim is fatuous as Anne was only a queen consort and so any marriage between her and Moray would not have resulted in his crowning.

Was King James VI involved in Morays assasination?

Tranter concludes he was almost certainly involved, pointing out that eight years after Moray's assasination the Earl of Gowrie was murdered by courtiers in the king;'s presence after Queen Anne became attracted to him. Public opinion certainly held James responsible for Moray's assasination and he was forced to move court to Glasgow for a time 'an unheard of extremity in those days'.

Regarding the lines:

'I bade you bring him wi' you,

But forbade you him to slay.'

Tranter points out that this possibly appears to be an apologia for James. The lines appear to be James speaking in the first person and yet the rest of the ballad has a different speaker as King James would not have praised Moray as a 'braw callant'.

Who was 'His Lady'?

Tranter repeats the traditional view of Moray's murder as having taken place after a seige. Out of favour Moray had returned north but King James feared his association with the powerful Stewarts and sent Lord Ochiltree north to order him back to court to negotiate a promised reconciliation. Moray obeyed the summons but came south only as far as his mother's house at Donibristle. King James went hunting with Huntly accompanied by an anusually large and well armed following. At South Queensferry James gave Huntly orders to arrest Moray and they parted company. Huntly beseiged the tower at Donibristle which should have been secure from attack but Tranter states that at that time modernising lairds were improving sanitation and cutting waste chutes through the walls. Huntly's men piled dry hay under the chutes and set them alight, the tower then acted like a chimney with the fire drawing oxygen up thought the building. Moray was then murdered trying to escape. It was then Moray's mother, then powerful Lady Margaret Campbell, who led the cry for vengance over her son, laying his corpse out on public display in a church at Leith, ordering a martyrdom painting to be made for display; and also holding a procession through the streets in which Moray's blood stained shirt or sark was held aloft on a spearhead. The lines:

'O lang will his lady

look owre the Castle Doune'

therefore relate to Moray's mother Lady Campbell, who was also Lady Doune, rather than Moray's wife. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.148.62.204 (talk) 20:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)