Susannes Folksong-Notizen
[1962:] When [after the death of Queen Anne in 1714] George the First imported his seraglio of impoverished gentlewomen from Germany he provided the Jacobite songwriters with material for some of their most ribald verses. Madam Kilmansegge, Countess of Platen, is referred to exclusively as 'The Sow' in the songs while his favourite mistress, the lean and haggard Madam Schulemberg, later Duchess of Kendal, was given the name of 'The Goose'. She is the goosie in the song. The 'blade' mentioned in the second verse is the Count Koningsmark. 'Bobbing John' is a reference to John, Earl of Mar, who, at the time this song was made, was recruiting Highlanders for the Hanoverian cause. 'Geordie Whelps' is, of course, George the First. (Notes Ewan MacColl, 'The Jacobite Risings') [1988:] Hogg himself is an important songwriter, subtly attuned to the melodic culture of Scotland and capable of using vernacular Scots, at his best, with dazzling virtuosity. This becomes clearer when we consider the range of his personal contribution to the ['Jacobite Relics']. Donald Macgillavry was avowed. But how many songs were not? Obviously one has to be tentative since the evidence is wholly internal and circumstantial, but there [are] a number of pieces with a very strong family likeness to one another which suddenly appear for the first time in the 'Relics'. There is not a trace of them in the earlier tradition and it is highly improbable that earlier collectors would have missed them had they been genuinely old. They are artistically of high quality, outstanding in their command of the vernacular, and fitted to their beautiful airs with the utmost guile by somebody who knew in the highest degree what he was about. On the basis of this I think we must include the following songs (at the very least) amongst the works of James Hogg: This is no my ain House, Cam ye o'er frae France, Will ye go to Sheriffmuir and The Piper o' Dundee. They approach the very summits of the popular art-song as a form. (Donaldson, Song 108) [1990:] The Jacobite songs [...] are (more often than not) brilliantly crafted works of art. And their scope is enormous. [...] For sheer insouciance, you'd have to travel a long way to find a song that could match [this song]. No frenzied bashing with a club there and no rapier either, just a buttoned foil in the hand of a master, darting and feinting and dabbing at will, at the arm, left shoulder, breast, stomach, groin, all palpable hits and a light kick up the backside to see the booby off. Dance tempo. (MacColl, Journeyman 366f) [2000:] The references to "whelps" are not just ordinary insults, but scurrilous puns on the family name of the House of Hanover, "Guelph". (Murray on Saltspring,
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=21233#226866 'Welcome, Royal Charlie' ,11 May) - http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/steeleye.span/songs/camyeoerfraefrance.html
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Folksong-Notizen English Notes 
