In England they soon won
their way into printed stall copies, and were grievously handled
and moralized by the hack editors.
No ballad has a stranger history than The Loving Ballad of Lord
Bateman, illustrated by the pencils of Cruikshank and Thackeray.
Their form is a ludicrous cockney perversion, but it retains the
essence. Bateman, a captive of "this Turk," is beloved by the
Turk's daughter (a staple incident of old French romance), and by
her released. The lady after seven years rejoins Lord Bateman: he
has just married a local bride, but "orders another marriage," and
sends home his bride "in a coach and three." This incident is
stereotyped in the ballads and occurs in an example in the Romaic.
{2}
Now Lord Bateman is Young Bekie in the Scotch ballads, who becomes
Young Beichan, Young Bichem, and so forth, and has adventures
identical with those of Lord Bateman, though the proud porter in
the Scots version is scarcely so prominent and illustrious. As
Motherwell saw, Bekie (Beichan, Buchan, Bateman) is really Becket,
Gilbert Becket, father of Thomas of Canterbury. Every one has
heard how HIS Saracen bride sought him in London. (Robert of
Gloucester's Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Percy Society.
See Child's Introduction, IV., i. 1861, and Motherwell's
Minstrelsy, p. xv., 1827.) The legend of the dissolved marriage is
from the common stock of ballad lore, Motherwell found an example
in the state of Cantefable, alternate prose and verse, like
Aucassin and Nicolette.
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