Lord Willoughby (trad; Roud V18836) Week 208, 9 March 2025

Continuing this month's theme of songs of military bravery. Probably there has been war almost as long as there have been organised states, and probably there have been songs about war for almost the same length of time. Some of the main types of these songs are those celebrating an army or navy's victory in a battle, or lamenting a defeat; or at a more individual level, praising the courage or heroism of an individual, or bewailing the loss of a loved one (or perhaps both). For this month I've chosen a theme of songs of military bravery (which may or may not also involve victory).

The hero of "Lord Willoughby" is - you'll never guess :) - Lord Willoughby. Of the various Lords Willoughby there have been (the title Baron Willoughby de Eresby was created back in 1313 and still exists today), it's about Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby (1555–1601), a military commander for Elizabeth I in the later 16th century.

Willoughby acted as a diplomat 1582-1586, and then from March 1586 served in the Netherlands, first as governor of Bergen-op-Zoom under Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, then after Leicester's departure for England in December 1586, as general of the English forces there until March 1589.

In 1568, the northern provinces of the Spanish Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule, because of high taxes, persecution of Protestants, and attempts to centralize government. As a nearby protestant neighbour, already in conflict with Spain (the Spanish Armada was in 1588 and English privateers such as Drake had attacked Spanish ships for years before that), England gave substantial support to the Dutch rebels for many years. (For a short time the United Provinces were a protectorate of England, though Elizabeth declined an offer of sovereignty.)

The song tells of a battle in which the English, with only fifteen hundred fighting men, routed the Spanish with fourteen thousand. Although the song gives a specific date, "On the fifteenth day of July", it does not name the battle, and none of the military actions that Willoughby fought in the Netherlands seems to have been in July. However, Willoughby was undoubtedly widely admired at the time for his bravery (and success) as a military leader. Probably the song is best seen as an attempt to extol his bravery and success in an imagined battle which illustrates these.

The Dictionary of National Biography says:
"Willoughby's valour, chiefly exhibited in the war in the Netherlands, and especially at the siege of Bergen, excited more admiration on the part of his contemporaries than that of almost any other soldier of the time."
...
"The spirited ballad of "Brave Lord Willoughby" relates one of Willoughby's exploits in Flanders with no very strict adherence to historical fact. The earliest copy known is an illustrated broadside in the Roxburghe collection, and cannot be dated earlier than 1640. It was very frequently reprinted in the seventeenth century, and Dr. Percy included it in his Reliques, 1765. The ​absence of all reference to it in the ‘Stationers' Registers’ of the sixteenth century, and its historical inaccuracy, go far to support the conclusion that it is not of Elizabethan origin. There is evidence, however, to prove that there once existed two undoubtedly sixteenth-century ballads concerning Lord Willoughby, the one entitled ‘Lord Willobie's Welcome Home,’ and the other ‘Lord Willoughby's March;’ but neither of these is now extant."

The song does not seem to have survived long in oral tradition, but was printed in Chappell's 1855 "Popular Music Of The Olden Time" (with seven verses) and more recently in Karl Dallas' 1972 "The Cruel Wars" (as "Brave Lord Willoughby", with six verses).

I learned this song from Chappell and Dallas; I have sung nine verses (Percy's Reliques seems to have had twelve). Mainly Norfolk says that Swan Arcade, Jim Moray and Danny Spooner have all recorded versions, but I didn't have time to listen to them before I recorded my version.

For more notes and lyrics see:
https://mainlynorfolk.info/danny.spoo...

Ex-Classics website:
https://www.exclassics.com/percy/perc...

Wikipedia on Lord Willoughby:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregri...

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 on Lord Willoughby:
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Dict...