Dance Flowers of Edinburgh 2250

In The Muses’ Delight published in Liverpool in 1754, “The Flowers of Edinburgh” is ascribed by John Sadler to David Rizzio, the Italian secretary to Queen Mary, who was murdered for various reasons, one of which was that he was purported in some quarters to have been the queen’s lover. Stenhouse states: “The Liverpool editor is unquestionably erroneous in ascribing the melody to Rizzio, for there is reason to believe that it was composed subsequent to the year 1700. indeed the editor is creditably informed, that the tune only became a fashionable Scotch measure (a sort of hornpipe so called) about the year 1740; and it was subsequent to this period when the verses appeared by an anonymous hand”.

The song was contained in James Oswald’s The Caledonian Pocket Companion, Volume 3, of 1742 and, also, in David Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs of 1776. “The Flowers of Edinburgh” was also included in James Johnson’s The Scots Musical Museum, Volume 1, 1787. The first verse is as follows:

My love was once a bonny lad,
He was the flower of all his kin;
The absence of his bonny face
Has rent my tender heart in twain.
I day nor night find no delight;
In silent tears I still complain.
And exclaim 'gainst those my rival foes;
That h’ae ta’en from me my darling Swain.

The author of the song in The Scots Musical Museum chose to remain anonymous which shoed a good deal more of intelligence and taste than do the verses, of which there are a total of five, all along the same lines as the first.

In Reliquies of Burns, published in 1808, Robert Cromek quotes an observation of Burns: “The title, Flowers of Edinburgh has no manner of connexion with the present verses, so I suspect there has been an older set of words, of which the title is all that remains.”

The older set of words to which Burns referred may be some imperfect verses from the Gibb Manuscript which begin:

All the soldiers in Edinburgh town
Were sitting drinking at the wine,
And all the toasts that were among them
Was a health to the lassie that gaes sae fine.

The music appears in Niel Gow’s Part Fourth of the Complete Repository of Original Scots Slow Strathspey and Dances with a very curious title, in view of the commentary of both Stenhouse and Burns. There the music is entitled “The Flowers (Magistrates) of Edinburgh”. There may indeed be a relationship between flowers and magistrates, for a footnote in The Book of Scotland by William Chambers, published in 1830, states: “In the church of St Giles at Edinburgh, a kirk formed out of the choir of the ancient cathedral, – standing adjacent to the parliament house, there are pews along the front of the gallery, appropriated to the use of the Barons of Exchequer, the Lords of Session and the magistrates of Edinburgh, with an enthroned chair for his majesty’s commissioner, or legate, to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland. During terms, these legal dignitaries attend divine service every Sunday in their robes of office, preceded by their officers and macers. Besides being furnished with a huge bible and psalm book, the Barons of Exchequer have each laid before them, during the seasons of summer and autumn, a nosegay of flowers and sweet scented herbs, which shed a pleasing perfume through the antique aisles. This custom resembles that which obtains with regard to the Lord Chancellor, who has a nosegay placed before him of the largest possible dimensions. Agreeable to a very ancient practice in Scotland, it is also customary to lay bunches of flowers on the benches of the deacons of the crafts and their adherents on the first Sunday after their election.”

Stenhouse says that “Burns himself wrote two pretty stanzas to the tune of the Flowers of Edinburgh”. There Stenhouse was in error. The song in question was “Here is the glen” written to “The River Cree”, an air composed by Lady Elizabeth Cochrane (1745–1811), daughter of the 8th Earl of Dundonald. When Burns sent the completed work to George Thomson in 1794 the publisher did not care for Lady Elizabeth’s music and substituted “The Flowers of Edinburgh”.