Aikendrum - Folklorist

“Aikendrum”

Description

"Ken ye how a Whig can fight?" The ballad gives examples that Whigs can't fight, that Sunderland, who had sworn to clear the land, cannot be found. The song imagines "the Dutchmen" drowned, Jacobite victory, and King James crowned.

Notes

Opie 7 quotes the first lines of this song noting that it is "a ballad about the opposing armies before the battle of Sheriffmuir (1715)." The Battle of Sheriffmuir took place November 13, 1715 between the Jacobites and Hanoverians. Told from the Jacobite viewpoint this song does not reflect the outcome of the battle. Both sides claimed victory in this biggest battle of the 1715 Jacobite uprising. - BS

The Digital Tradition lists this to the tune of "Captain Kidd." The two are related, I think, but Ewan MacColl's tune is shifted to minor and has other differences.

I suspect that the song may have been mistranscribed by Hogg. The first line was clearly heard as "Ken ye hoo a Whig can fight, Aikendrum, aikendrum." But "hoo" can be either "how" (as Hogg and the above description) or "who"; the latter makes more sense.

The song refers to "Sunderland," which on its face would appear to be Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland (1674-1722), a Whig politician who had been one of the leaders of the governments from 1706-1710, and who intrigued for high office under George I as well. In this period, though, he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and doing very little other than trying to get higher office out of George I.

It is generally agreed that "Sunderland" is in fact "Sutherland," a Hannoverian general in Scotland who was responsible for guarding Scotland but who was outmanuevered by the Jacobite Sir Donald MacDonald.

Not that the Jacobite success did much good. John Erskine, Earl of Mar (1675-1732), had been part of the government under Queen Anne, but was dismissed after George I took the throne in 1714. He finally cast his lot with the Jacobite forces, and commanded the rebels at Sheriffmuir, the great battle of the 1715 rebellion.

According to Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson, _Blood Royal: The Illustrious House of Hanover (Doubleday, 1980), p. 53, Sheriffmuir took place on a "bitterly cold day." The Jacobites had an overwhelming numerical advantage (usually listed as on the order of 9000 men to the Duke of Argyll's 3500 or so), but Mar had no idea what to do with his troops and the battle -- the only serious clash of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion -- was a tactical draw, with both armies gaining ground on the right and yielding it on the left. Mar, still possessed of his big numerical advantage, didn't even try to hold the field. He proceeded to wander around Scotland for a while, then fled into exile with the Old Pretender James (III).

As for James himself, he hadn't made it to Scotland at the time, and Susan Maclean Kybett (who is, to be sure, rather an anti-Stuart biographer) "wonders why James came to Scotland at all" (Kybett, _Bonnie Prince Charlie_, Dodd Mead, 1988, p. 16). She also notes that James came to be called "Old Melancholy" (which fits), adding that his presence largely quelled what enthusiasm for rebellion there remained._ - RBW

Cross references

cf. "Ye Jacobites By Name" (tune)

Recordings

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, "Aikendrum" (on SCMacCollSeeger01)

References