On Wed, 25 Nov 1998, Kirke wrote:
>
> Much in haste. My grandmother often sang this song to me when I was a child
> explaining that the Bonny (Bonnie?) was Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young
> Pretender, Charles Stuart. The Stuarts were pushed off the Throne of
> Britain in the Glorious Revolution in 168? by the bloodless invasion by the
> protestant Prince of Orange, later King William III who reigned with his
> wife, Mary Stuart.
[snip]
> People who thought that he deserved better might well have emigrated to
> America as the English were nasty to the Scots who had supported Charlie and
> many of them found that leaving Britain was preferable to staying. If so,
> then they could well have taken this song with them.
>
> On this evidence I would date it to 1745/6.
And that's a thoroughly plausible explanation. On the other hand, there
is a song called "Barney", about which A.L. Lloyd writes:
"A stage song favoured by Irish comedians from the 1860s on. During the
1880s, apparently on American university campuses, close-harmony groups
remade it into the better-known (and even more preposterous) 'My Bonnie
Lies Over the Ocean'."
So ya pays yer money and ya takes yer choice.
Peace.
Paul
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