"The Gudeman of Ballangeich": rambles in the afterlife of James V

Folklore, August, 2004 by David Stevenson

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In the twentieth century, with democracy emerging, it might have been thought that having been reputed the king of the commons would have won James favour from historians. Instead, in the supposed century of the common man, the poor man's king largely disappears from serious history. To those academic historians determined to win a reputation for their discipline as scientific, with its finding based strictly on contemporary documentary evidence, traditions about James's attitude to the commons--and their attitudes to him--were no more than hearsay. James, who had sometimes been hailed as one of the country's best kings, was quickly transformed into one of the worst. With the "evidence" about him and the commons relegated to the dustbin, what was left was a greedy king who had acted viciously towards members of the nobility. One historian (even though mentioning James's reputation as poor man's king) has spoken of "the revulsion with which he must be regarded'--although rather arbitrarily attributing his faults to the English blood of his mother, Margaret Tudor (Donaldson 1965 , 61 and 62; quoted in Cameron 1998, 328-9). Another judged him "probably the most unpleasant of all the Stewarts" (Wormald 1981, 12 quoted in Cameron 1998, 329). Recently, however, efforts have been made, not to whitewash James, but at least to take a more balanced look at his character (Cameron 1998).

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James V and the "King in Disguise" Motif

What the rest of this paper intends to do is look at the stories about one aspect of perceptions of James as king of the commons, which emerge from oral tradition into print from the 1790s, the stories of the "king in disguise." How far should they be dismissed as romantic inventions of the age that brought them to print, and how far do they reflect older traditions about the king, perhaps dating back to his own lifetime? "King in disguise" may be classified as a folklore motif, but should not preclude acceptance that such behaviour could exist in reality. There is a whole range of reasons why rulers really did--and do--sometimes assume disguise. King in disguise stories, fact or fiction, may be crudely divided into three categories as to motivation--the political, the recreational, and the accidental.

In times of political crisis, disguise may aid escape, gain advantage, or ensure survival. Disguise could allow a king access to information that would not otherwise reach him, being filtered out by officials and court dignitaries. Indeed there was a strand in political thought, particularly strong in the sixteenth century, that urged kings to go among their people in disguise, to find out what the commons really thought of them, and how their officials were behaving. Rulers in disguise for such purposes was a popular theme with Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists (Shakespeare 1965, xliv-li). How many rulers followed advice to gather intelligence incognito cannot even be guessed at, but it did happen--and does. The press reported in January 2000 (The Times 19 January, 20 and 22 January, 15) that the new king of Jordan, Abdullah, had been doing exactly this--and that he was following the example of his father, King Hussein.

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"The Gudeman of Ballangeich": rambles in the afterlife of James V

Folklore, August, 2004 by David Stevenson

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