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Percy collected so many facts concerning the old minstrels, that it is not necessary to add much to his stock of information, especially as, though a very interesting subject in itself, it has really very little to do with the contents of the Reliques.

The knightly Troubadours and Trouvères, and such men as Taillefer, the Norman minstrel, who at the battle of Hastings advanced on horseback before the invading host, and gave the signal for attack by singing the Song of Roland, who died at Roncesvalles, had little in common with the authors of the ballads in this book.

The wise son of Sirach enumerates among those famous men who are worthy to be praised "such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing;" but, according to Hector Boece, the early Scottish kings thought otherwise. In the Laws of Kenneth II., "bardis" are mentioned with vagabonds, fools, and idle persons, to be scourged and burnt on the cheek, unless they found some work by which to live; and the same laws against them were, according to Boece, still in force in the reign of Macbeth, nearly two centuries later. Better times, however, came, and Scotch bards and minstrels were highly favoured in the reign of James III.; but the sunshine did not last long. In 1574, "pipers, fiddlers, and minstrels" are again branded with the opprobrious term of vagabonds, and threatened with severe penalties; and the Regent Morton induced the Privy Council to issue an edict that "nane tak upon hand to emprent or sell whatsoever book, ballet, or other werk," without its being examined and licensed, under pain of death and confiscation of goods. In August, 1579, two poets of Edinburgh (William Turnbull, schoolmaster, and William Scot, notar, "baith weel belovit of the common people for their common offices"), were hanged for writing a satirical ballad against the Earl of Morton; and in October of the same year, the Estates passed an Act against beggars and "sic as make themselves fules and are bards ... minstrels, sangsters, and tale tellers, not avowed in special service by some of the lords of parliament or great burghs."

The minstrels had their several rounds, and, as a general rule, did not interfere with each other; but it is probable that they occasionally made a foray into other districts, in order to replenish their worn-out stock of songs.

One of the last of the true minstrels was Richard Sheale, who enjoys the credit of having preserved the old version of Chevy Chase. He was for a time in the service of Edward, Earl of Derby, and wrote an elegy on the Countess, who died in January, 1558. He afterwards followed the profession of a minstrel at Tamworth, and his wife was a "sylke woman," who sold shirts, head clothes, and laces, &c., at the fairs of Lichfield and other neighbouring towns. On one occasion, when he left Tamworth on horseback, with his harp in his hand, he had the misfortune to be robbed by four highwaymen, who lay in wait for him near Dunsmore Heath. He wrote a long account of his misfortune in verse,[2] in which he describes the grief of himself and his wife at their great loss, and laments over the coldness of worldly friends. He was robbed of threescore pounds—a large amount in those days—not obtained, however, from the exercise of his own skill, but by the sale of his wife's wares. This money was to be devoted to the payment of their debts, and in order that the carriage of it should not be a burden to him he changed it all for gold. He thought he might carry it safely, as no one would suspect a minstrel of possessing so much property, but he found to his cost that he had been foolishly bold. To add to his affliction, some of his acquaintances grieved him by saying that he was a lying knave, and had not been robbed, as it was not possible for a minstrel to have so much money. There was a little sweetness, however, in the poor minstrel's cup, for patrons were kind, and his loving neighbours at Tamworth exerted themselves to help him. They induced him to brew a bushel of malt, and sell the ale.

All this is related in a poem, which gives a vivid picture of the life of the time, although the verse does not do much credit to the poet's skill.

When the minstrel class had fallen to utter decay in England, it flourished with vigour in Wales; and we learn that the harpers and fiddlers were prominent figures in the Cymmortha, or gatherings of the people for mutual aid. These assemblies were of a similar character to the "Bees," which are common among our brethren in the United States. They were often abused for political purposes, and they gave some trouble to Burghley as they had previously done to Henry IV. In the reign of that king a statute was passed forbidding rhymers, minstrels, &c. from making the Cymmortha. The following extract from a MS. in the Lansdowne Collection in the British Museum, on the state of Wales in Elizabeth's reign, shows the estimation in which the minstrels were then held:—

"Upon the Sundays and holidays the multitudes of all sorts of men, women, and children of every parish do use to meet in sundry places, either on some hill or on the side of some mountain, where their harpers and crowthers sing them songs of the doings of their ancestors."[3]

Ben Jonson introduces "Old Father Rosin," the chief minstrel of Highgate, as one of the principal characters in his Tale of a Tub; and the blind harpers continued for many years to keep up the remembrance of the fallen glories of the minstrel's profession. Tom D'Urfey relates how merrily blind Tom harped, and mention is made of "honest Jack Nichols, the harper," in Tom Brown's Letters from the Dead to the Living (Works, ii. 191). Sir Walter Scott, in the article on Romance referred to above, tells us that "about fifty or sixty years since" (which would be about the year 1770) "a person acquired the nickname of 'Roswal and Lillian,' from singing that romance about the streets of Edinburgh, which is probably the very last instance of the proper minstrel craft." Scott himself, however, gives later instances in the introduction to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. He there writes: "It is certain that till a very late period the pipers, of whom there was one attached to each border town of note, and whose office was often hereditary, were the great depositaries of oral, and particularly of poetical tradition. About spring-time, and after harvest, it was the custom of these musicians to make a progress through a particular district of the country. The music and the tale repaid their lodging, and they were usually gratified, with a donation of seed corn. This order of minstrels is alluded to in the comic song of Maggy Lauder, who thus addresses a piper:

To this is added the following note:—"These town pipers, an institution of great antiquity upon the borders, were certainly the last remains of the minstrel race. Robin Hastie, town piper of Jedburgh, perhaps the last of