Bonnie Dundee


Bonnie Dundee is the title of a poem and a song written by Walter Scott in 1825 in honour of John Graham, 7th Laird of Claverhouse, who was created 1st Viscount Dundee in November 1688, then in 1689 led a Jacobite rising in which he died, becoming a Jacobite hero.
The older tune Bonny Dundee adapted by Scott had already been used for several songs appearing under variations of that title and referring to the bonnie town of Dundee rather than to Claverhouse. Scott's song has been used as a regimental march by several Scottish regiments in the British Army.

Bonny Dundee: tunes and songs

Bonny Dundee is a very old Scottish folk-tune used for at least fifteen songs. A simpler version of the tune appears in the Skene manuscript around 1630 under the title Adew, Dundee. The title Bonny Dundee for the tune appears in an appendix to John Playford's 1688 edition of The Dancing Master, an English publication. The tune has been used for the following popular song:
"Saint Johnstone" refers to Perth, and "Bonny Dundee" is the town of Dundee. This song was parodied in English publications of the early 18th century with coarser wording, under the title Jockey's Deliverance, or the Valiant Escape from Dundee, to be sung "to an Excellent Tune, called Bonny Dundee." A 1719 collection titled the parody Jockey's Escape from Dundee; and the Parsons Daughter whom he had Mowd, and its chorus featured variations on "Come open the Gates, and let me go free, And shew me the way to bonny Dundee". Robert Burns rewrote the second verse of the original, so that the latter lines were "May Heaven protect my Bonnie Scots laddie, and send him safe hame to his baby and me." He added a concluding verse with the promise to the baby to "bigg a bower on yon bonnie banks, where Tay rins dimpling by sae clear", alluding to the River Tay. Another version of the original, titled Scots Callan O' Bonnie Dundee, refers to a callant rather than a soldier, and a "bonnie blue bonnet" instead of a bannock.
The tune is used for unrelated words in a broadside ballad published in 1701 under the title Bonny Dundee, suggesting that it was to be sung to this melody, and in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera published in 1765.

Graham of Claverhouse

From 1668 John Graham, the laird of Claverhouse was at the forefront of Royalist repression of the Covenanters, for which he was called "Bluidy Clavers" by his covenanting opponents. In 1688 he was made 1st Viscount of Dundee by James VII of Scotland. When William of Orange overturned James in 1689 in what was called the Glorious Revolution, Claverhouse was one of the few Scottish nobles who remained loyal to James. After trying to influence the Convention of Estates of Scotland on James's behalf, at some danger to himself, he led his cavalry out of Edinburgh to carry on the struggle in the field and was killed at the moment of victory in the battle of Killiecrankie. His forces were subsequently defeated at the Battle of Dunkeld. Over a century later he was immortalised in a poem by Walter Scott which was later adapted into a song.

Walter Scott's poem

's novel Old Mortality, published in 1816, gives a sympathetic portrait of Claverhouse. The story mentions one of Claverhouse's troopers "humming the lively Scottish air, 'Between Saint Johnstone and Bonny Dundee, I'll gar ye be fain to follow me'." In this, "Saint Johnstone" refers to Perth, and "Bonny" was the common description of the town of Dundee before Scott transferred the description to Claverhouse.
On 22 December 1825 Scott wrote in his journal:
Scott sent a copy of the verses to his daughter-in-law Jane, mentioning that his great-grandfather had been among Claverhouse's followers and describing himself as "a most incorrigible Jacobite". This is a comic exaggeration, but Scott's ballad is certainly written from the point of view of Claverhouse, whom he had already celebrated in his novel Old Mortality. It consists of eleven stanzas, which Scott admitted was "greatly too long", with a refrain copied from the traditional song Jockey's Escape from Dundee.
The poem was first published in a miscellany, The Christmas Box, and then included as a song in Scott's unperformed play The Doom of Devorgoil. Later adaptations for singing include only stanzas 1, 2, 8 and 10, with the refrain. After Scott's death, many changes were made in the text in different republications. Some add extra Scotticisms, e.g. "To the lords" becomes "Tae the lairds". The authentic long text below comes from The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., ed. J. G. Lockhart.

Scott's original poem

The song

There are several versions of the song and a common one is given here.

Scott's attribution of the tune

To help Jane identify the tune, Scott gave a few lines from each of three songs for which it had been used. His first quotation is from Jockey's Escape from Dundee; the second is from Scots Callan o' Bonnie Dundee ; and the third is from John Gay, The Beggar's Opera.
The transcriptions of the tune for different sets of words vary both in notes and in rhythmic phrasing. The version in The Beggar's Opera differs most widely, with most of the dotted rhythms smoothed out into a regular succession of crotchets. We cannot say whether Scott had any particular variation in mind; he professed to have a good ear for time but little or none for tune. All are in a minor key, and their melancholy and their subtle rhythms will surprise anyone familiar only with the setting now best known.
This later setting, with its cheerful major key and cantering rhythm, suits both the spirit of Scott's lines and their metre, and makes an excellent cavalry march. Scott might well have approved: he intended the verses "to be sung a la militaire" and not as the song is in The Beggars Opera. In this tune, too, variations occur in different publications.
The origin of this immensely popular tune is uncertain. It makes use of the Lombard rhythm or "Scotch snap", and may owe something to Scottish folk-song. It seems first to have been used about 1850 and was associated with the contralto and composer Charlotte Dolby, later Sainton-Dolby. The sheet music of Bonnie Dundee was published by Boosey & Sons as "sung by Miss Dolby" and "sung by Madame Sainton-Dolby", but Boosey credits her only with performing the song and arranging the accompaniment; no composer is named, and Boosey lists the piece as a Scotch Air. However, Bonnie Dundee has been included among Dolby's works.
It has been suggested that the melody comes from a piano piece called The Band at a Distance, and that it was Dolby who first combined this tune with Scott's words. A score for piano or harp called The Band at a Distance, by Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, was published by Walker & Son c. 1830, but has no resemblance to Bonnie Dundee.
In the Scottish Orpheus, Adam Hamilton gives the song as "Composed by Dr E. F. Rimbault. Arranged by Edward Rimbault Dibdin". This attribution has not been confirmed. Edward Francis Rimbault was a prolific writer of and about music, but his songs are not listed separately in any bibliography. His name sometimes appears as having "arranged" Bonnie Dundee.

Marches

The song is the authorized regimental march for the following Canadian regiments:
It is used by several British cavalry regiments and the Royal Horse Artillery, in addition to being the regimental march for Tayforth Universities Officers Training Corps which is based in Dundee

Parodies and alternative versions

Scott's song was parodied by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass and by Rudyard Kipling in The Jungle Book.
William McGonagall praised the town of Dundee in 1878.
A 1904 broadside ballad titled The Bailies of Bonnie Dundee parodied Scott's song to raise accusations of corruption by members of Dundee's burgh council.

Lewis Carroll

From Chapter IX of Through the Looking-Glass, 1871:

William McGonagall

returned to the idea of praising the town in Bonnie Dundee in 1878. The opening lines quoted below exemplify McGonagall's inimitable style:

Orthodoxee

In 1892 there was a protest in the Highlands of Scotland against the Free Church of Scotland's Declaratory Act, which modified the denomination's adherence to the orthodoxy of the Westminster Confession of Faith and "abandoned the whole system of thought for which it stood." Initially the protest was led by Rev. Murdoch Macaskill of Dingwall, though he did not in the end separate with the two ministers from Syke who created the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1893.
The poem 'Orthodoxee' was published in the 'Grantown Supplement' weekly newspaper, Grantown-on-Spey, on 25 June 1892.

Rudyard Kipling

From "Parade Song of the Camp Animals", which follows the story "Her Majesty's Servants", in The Jungle Book published in 1894:

American Civil War

Riding a Raid (Traditional)

During the American Civil War traditional English, Irish, and Scottish songs were often sung or modified. The Confederates did this very often. The song Riding a Raid takes place during the 1862 Antietam Campaign. J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalry set off on a screening movement on the flank of Robert E. Lee's army in order to give Lee time to prepare his army to meet the Union Army after Northern general George B. McClellan had gained information on Lee's location and plans. The Campaign would culminate in the battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg as the Confederates called it. This would be the bloodiest day in American history and while the battle was indecisive, Lee was forced to abandon any hope of continuing the campaign.

Boer War

During the last phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War in the former Orange Free State, the Afrikaner people of Winburg taunted the local British Army garrison with a parody of Bonnie Dundee, which was generally sung in English. The parody celebrated the guerrilla warfare of Boer Commandant Christiaan De Wet.