Volume III, song 206, pages 214 and 215 - 'Colonel...
Volume III, song 206, pages 214 and 215 - 'Colonel Gardener' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1 (to the tune of 'Sawnie's Pipe'): ''Twas at the hour of dark midnight, Before the first cock's crowing, When westland winds shook Stirling's towers, With hollow murmurs blowing; When Fanny fair, all woe begone, Sad on her bed was lying, And from the ruin'd towers she heard The boding screech owl crying.'
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
This particular song tells the tale of Colonel Gardener who, fighting on the side of the Hanoverians, was slain at the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745. According to Robert Riddell of Glenriddell, friend of Burns and fellow commentator on the 'Museum', 'he was slain by Farquhar Mc Gillevrey, then servant to the Duke of Perth. .. This man, Farquhar McGillevrey I have seen; he was Baron officer to the Earl of Nithsdale and had a house near Terreagles. He was a papist, and abhorred by the country people with whom Col: Gardener was a popular character.' The author of this song is purported to be Sir George Elliott of Minto. Unfortunately little is know of the melody 'Sawnie's Pipe', other than it was published in James Oswald's 'Caledonian Pocket Companion' (1759).
Volume III, song 206, pages 214 and 215 - 'Colonel Gardener' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)