This post broadly concerns the 16th century Wedderburn family, and particularly those brothers of that ilk who were both authors and firebrands of the incoming reformed religion. Though relatively little known in Scotland and let alone in Dundee, their influence was considerable at one time. I will look briefly at the career of James Weddeburn the playwright in a future piece about the Playfield of Dundee. Also for the future is full consideration of the work known as The Complaynt of Scotland, which was probably authored by Robert Wedderburn. This post concentrates on the other Wedderburn siblings and their most famous literary production The Gude and Godlie Ballatis, which has thankfully survived, unlike the two plays we know were written by James Wedderburn.
This is not place to give a full analysis of the Ballatis, and not am I the person best placed to provide that service. Therefore I offer you only a scant background of the Wedderburn boys themselves and a small slice of their compositions.
The Wedderburns are named after lands of that name in Berwickshire, most associated with the powerful Home family. Some members of the kindred had migrated to Dundee and rose to prominence in the burgh from the early 15th century onward. There were several related families of Wedderburns in Dundee within a century and also a branch at Kingennie near Forfar. For our purposes, the most important branch is that headed by James Wedderburn of the Wellgait in Dundee, who died in 1514. James's wife Janet Barry was the sister of the burgh's vicar, Master John Barry, a prominent figure who sat in the burgh council in the 1520s. James and Janet had five sons: James, John, Robert, Henry, Gilbert. The elder James had a brother also resident in the Wellgait named Walter, whose son William was a monk in Arbroath, which surely put his at odds against his cousins in Dundee later.
As with most families, there was one brother of the Dundee Weddeburns who did not follow the productive literary path of his siblings. The least celebrated of the Wedderburn brothers also seems to have had the darkest character. Gilbert Wedderburn has his property escheated in 1538 after being convicted for heresy. No surprise there as all his siblings displayed commitment to radical Protestant ideology before the onset of the Reformation. Five years after that trouble he was declared an outlaw for killing a man named David Rollok, an act 'committed on old feud and felony'. The following year he was named as 'remaining at home and absenting himself from the army' and also being guilty of slaughtering Gilbert Rollok. Dundee being probably unsuitable for him as a residence, he settled in Leith and died there in 1559.
Mention might be made here of a later Dundonian Wedderburn, John of Craigie, who was active in the late 16th century. A member of the legal profession, he disposed of the lands of Craigie in the east of Dundee and took service with the Earl of Crawford. He was convicted in 1588 of wounding an Angus laird, David Gardyne. A burgess of Dundee, he was convicted in 1596 of killing Robert Lindsay of Balhall and also an Irishman named James Leitch. He fled south to England, where he boasted that he was a follower of the rebel Earl of Bothwell. He is described in a letter from Ralph, Lord Eure to Lord Burghley in the following year as ' a Scottishe gentleman, called Mr John Wedderburn, disguised in mariner's apparel, and that of the meanest sort'. Eure had detained him, rightly, as a suspicious character. He claimed to have been active in France on business of the king and stated that he was engaged in a conspiracy. His description was given as, 'of reasonable stature, verie square bodyed, bigg legged, one of two scarres on the hight of his foreheade...yellowe berded, the haire of his heade like unto white amber.' It was said he was 'cunning in state matters' and suspected that he had been engaged in 'more devilish practices than he revealeth'. He did not live to engage in further intrigues and was apparently dead within a few years.
(These details taken from The Wedderburn Book, Alexander Wedderburn, vol. I (1898), xlii.)
It wasn't all ardent religious intensity and polemical writing for the Wedderburn brothers. One of them at least slipped into the sporting annals of the nation by featuring in the following passage from Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie's 16th century History. Robert Wedderburn was also in the Church; some writers think that Pitscottie meant him and not John, whom he names in his text. But, whichever sibling is intended, the anecdote is a delightful glimpse into events in St Andrew in the year 1528 or 1529.
What did the book consist of? Apart from a metrical translation of the Psalms, the bulk of the text is popular songs composed in Scots to reaffirm the truth of the reformed religion and stigmatise the old Popish rule. Many of the ballads are translations of popular works from Germany, where the John had close links. Others are renewed versions of popular secular songs which would have been in circulation in the mid 16th century in Dundee and elsewhere. The description given near the start of the 1567 edition advertises the intent of the author:
This is not place to give a full analysis of the Ballatis, and not am I the person best placed to provide that service. Therefore I offer you only a scant background of the Wedderburn boys themselves and a small slice of their compositions.
The Wedderburn Family and Dundee
The Wedderburns are named after lands of that name in Berwickshire, most associated with the powerful Home family. Some members of the kindred had migrated to Dundee and rose to prominence in the burgh from the early 15th century onward. There were several related families of Wedderburns in Dundee within a century and also a branch at Kingennie near Forfar. For our purposes, the most important branch is that headed by James Wedderburn of the Wellgait in Dundee, who died in 1514. James's wife Janet Barry was the sister of the burgh's vicar, Master John Barry, a prominent figure who sat in the burgh council in the 1520s. James and Janet had five sons: James, John, Robert, Henry, Gilbert. The elder James had a brother also resident in the Wellgait named Walter, whose son William was a monk in Arbroath, which surely put his at odds against his cousins in Dundee later.
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| Dundee in the 17th century |
Several Black Sheep
Mention might be made here of a later Dundonian Wedderburn, John of Craigie, who was active in the late 16th century. A member of the legal profession, he disposed of the lands of Craigie in the east of Dundee and took service with the Earl of Crawford. He was convicted in 1588 of wounding an Angus laird, David Gardyne. A burgess of Dundee, he was convicted in 1596 of killing Robert Lindsay of Balhall and also an Irishman named James Leitch. He fled south to England, where he boasted that he was a follower of the rebel Earl of Bothwell. He is described in a letter from Ralph, Lord Eure to Lord Burghley in the following year as ' a Scottishe gentleman, called Mr John Wedderburn, disguised in mariner's apparel, and that of the meanest sort'. Eure had detained him, rightly, as a suspicious character. He claimed to have been active in France on business of the king and stated that he was engaged in a conspiracy. His description was given as, 'of reasonable stature, verie square bodyed, bigg legged, one of two scarres on the hight of his foreheade...yellowe berded, the haire of his heade like unto white amber.' It was said he was 'cunning in state matters' and suspected that he had been engaged in 'more devilish practices than he revealeth'. He did not live to engage in further intrigues and was apparently dead within a few years.
(These details taken from The Wedderburn Book, Alexander Wedderburn, vol. I (1898), xlii.)
A Little Sport Besides the Religion
It wasn't all ardent religious intensity and polemical writing for the Wedderburn brothers. One of them at least slipped into the sporting annals of the nation by featuring in the following passage from Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie's 16th century History. Robert Wedderburn was also in the Church; some writers think that Pitscottie meant him and not John, whom he names in his text. But, whichever sibling is intended, the anecdote is a delightful glimpse into events in St Andrew in the year 1528 or 1529.
In this year there came an ambassador out of England, named Lord William Howard, and a bishop with him, to the number of three score horse, which were all the able men and waled men for all kind of games and pastimes, shouting, louping, running, wrestling,and casting of the stone; but they were well sayed ere they past out of Scotland, and that by their own provocation: but ever they tint: till at last the Queen of Scotland, the King's mother, favoured the Englishmen, because she was the king of England's sister: and therefore she took an enterprise of archery upon the Englishmen's hands, contrary to her son the King, and any six in Scotland he would wale [pick], either gentlemen or yeomen, that the Englishmen would shoot against them, either at pricks, revers, or butts, as the Scots pleased. The King hearing this of his mother, was content and gart her pawn a hundred crowns, and a tun of wine, upon the Englishmen's hands; and he incontinent laid down as much for the Scottish men. The field and ground were chosen in St Andrews, and three landed men and three yeomen chosen to shoot against the Englishmen; to wit, David Wemyss of that ilk, David Arnot of that ilk, and Mr John Wedderburn, vicar of Dundee; the yeomen, John Thompson, in Leith, Steven Taburnea, with a piper called Alexander Bailie. They shot very near, and worsted the Englishmen of the enterprise, and wan the hundred crowns and the tun of wine, which made the King very merry that his men wan the victory.
John Wedderburn and The Gude and Godlie Ballatis
John Wedderburn was born around 1500 and was educated at St Andrews (at St Leonard's College, where most of the other brothers seem to have been educated also). He became a chaplain in the church of St Mary at Dundee. His was convicted of heresy in 1538, around the time his brother Gilbert was also having legal difficulties, and left Scotland for Wittenberg in Germany, imbibing the teachings of Luther while he was there. Returning to Scotland in 1543, he was obliged to go to England in 1546 and there he died in 1556.
David Calderwood (1575-1650) briefly described the Wedderburns in his History of the Kirk of Scotland . According to him, John was initially reluctant to enter into religion, though whether this was due to the Catholic doctrine prevalent at the time, or a more general disinclination is unknown. Calderwood states that he heard Luther and other reformers preach in Germany and he translated some of the latter's works into Scots. Also, in a reference to his surviving work, 'He turned manie bawdie songs and rymes in godlie rymes.'
The book named the Gude and Godlie Ballatis is almost certainly the work of John Wedderburn. The other brothers may have had some input also. Robert is said to have provided some of the tunes for the metres provided, but there is no music printed in the text. The book does not survive in manuscript, but there have been various published versions, with differing titles. The published titles include the Psalms of Dundee, the Psalms of Wedderburn, the Godlie and Spirituall Sangs. The editions were issued first during the Reformation and grew and changed as time went on. It is a work containing both prose and verse and is valued both for the richness of its Scots language as well as being an important text on the religious development of the nation. The first surviving edition of the book is from 1567, though the ballads may have been in circulation in the early 1540s. When the famous preacher George Wishart was arrested in 1546 or 1547, John Knox reports that he sang the fifty-first psalm in Scottish metre.
What did the book consist of? Apart from a metrical translation of the Psalms, the bulk of the text is popular songs composed in Scots to reaffirm the truth of the reformed religion and stigmatise the old Popish rule. Many of the ballads are translations of popular works from Germany, where the John had close links. Others are renewed versions of popular secular songs which would have been in circulation in the mid 16th century in Dundee and elsewhere. The description given near the start of the 1567 edition advertises the intent of the author:
Ane Compendius Book of Godly and Spirituall Sangis out of Sundry parts of the Scripture with sundry other Ballats changet out of prophaine sangis for avoyding of sin and harlatry, with augmentation of sundrye gude and godly Ballates, etc., etc.
Students of Scots vernacular and of the Reformation may find much to fascinate them in The Gude and Godlie Ballatis, but the more general reader will find the content not so east to digest in the modern age. I offer here one solitary entire example from the work, not because of its intrinsic worth, but because of the story behind it. 'Welcum, Fortoun,' was the name of a ballad banned by the general assembly in 1568 and it vanished for a full three hundred years before being found by the editor of the Scottish Text Society edition of the The Gude and Godlie Ballatis (1897). Why it should have been banned by the Kirk is something of a mystery, so its subject is mild by most standards. However, it does exude a wholly earthly longing of a man for a woman and there are different theories about its origin, given by the Ballatis' editor, A. F. Mitchell.
Is it John Wedderburn's heartfelt rhapsody for the mother of his children, or a more generalised tribute to secular love? Possibly it might only be a reworking of something older still. Wedderburn may have cleaned up a bawdier ballad that was circulating in the profane drinking dens of Dundee. Whichever it was, the ballad was transformed again into a sparking religious confection, beginning with these sacred words:
Welcum, Fortoun, welcum againe,
The day and hour I may weill blis,
Thow hes exilit all my paine,
Quhilk to my hart greit plesour is.
For I may say, that few men may,
Seing of paine I am drest,
I haif obtenit all my pay,
The lufe of hir that I lufe best.
I knaw nane sic as scho is one,
Sa trew, sa kynde, sa luiffandlie,
Quhat suld I do, an scho war gone?
Allace! zit had I leuer die.
To me scho is baith trew and kynde,
Worthie it war scho had the praise,
For na disdaine in hir I find,
I pray to God I may hir pleis.
Quhen that I heir hir name exprest,
My hart for Ioy dois loup thairfoir,
Abufe all vther I lufe his best,
Unto I die, quhat wald scho moir?
Is it John Wedderburn's heartfelt rhapsody for the mother of his children, or a more generalised tribute to secular love? Possibly it might only be a reworking of something older still. Wedderburn may have cleaned up a bawdier ballad that was circulating in the profane drinking dens of Dundee. Whichever it was, the ballad was transformed again into a sparking religious confection, beginning with these sacred words:
Welcum, Lord Christ, welcum, againe,
My ioy, my confort, and my blis,
That culd me saif from Hellis paine,
Bot onlie thow nane was, nor is.
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