"Wha'll be King but Charlie?" also known as The News from Moidart, is a song about Bonnie Prince Charlie, sung to the tune of 'Tidy Woman', a traditional Irish jig the date of which is unclear but the tune was well known by 1745.[1] The lyrics were written by Caroline Nairne (1766–1845).[2] Because Nairne published anonymously, the authorship of this and her other poems and lyrics was once unclear, however, late in her life Nairne identified herself and modern scholars accept that these lyrics are hers. Carolina, Baroness Nairne was a Jacobite from a Jacobite family living at a time when the last remnants of political Jacobitism were fading as Scotland entered a period of Romantic nationalism and literary romanticism.[2] Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed in the house where Caroline Nairne was born and reared when fleeing British capture after losing the Battle of Culloden.[2]
The song is one of the dance tunes played in the final scene of the 1921 film Sentimental Tommy as dancers fill the screen.[12]
In his novel The starling: a Scotch story, Norman McLeod tells of a boy who taught his pet starling to whistle the tune of "Wha'll be King but Charlie?".[13]
The Corries, a late 20th century Scottish singing group, performed the song in concert and recorded it.[14][15] as did the Scottish folk trio The McCalmans[16]
Meaning
"Wha'll" is the Scots word for "who'll" (who will). The song references Bonnie Prince Charlie, the son of James Francis Edward Stuart and from 1766 a Stuart pretender to the crown of England, Scotland and Ireland.[17] Prince Charlie traveled to Scotland to lead the Jacobite rising of 1745, which would prove to be the last Jacobite military attempt to capture the throne. After losing the Battle of Culloden, Prince Charlie fled to the remote peninsula of Moidart, from which, with a handful of leading Jacobites, he fled to exile in France.
^Rogers, Charles, ed. (1872). Life and songs of the Baroness Nairne, with a memoir and poems of Caroline Oliphant the younger. J. Grant.[page needed]
^Rogers, Charles (1871). "Wha'll be King but Charlie?". The Scottish Minstrel: The Songs and Songwriters of Scotland Subsequent to Burns. Lee and Shepard. pp. 62–63. OCLC1083367777.
^Wells, Paul F. (1993). "Review of Thomas W. Talley's Negro Folk Rhymes: A New, Expanded Edition, with Music". Ethnomusicology. 37 (1): 127–130. doi:10.2307/852255. JSTOR852255.
^Bayard, Samuel P. (1943). "Review of The Gift to Be Simple". The Journal of American Folklore. 56 (219): 81–84. doi:10.2307/535924. JSTOR535924.
^Gilchrist, Anne G. (1933). "Review of White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands". Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. 1 (2): 107–110. JSTOR4521031.
^Cohen, Norm (2005). "The Forget-Me-Not Songsters and Their Role in the American Folksong Tradition". American Music. 23 (2): 137–219. doi:10.2307/4153032. JSTOR4153032. GaleA404495136.
^Gilchrist, Anne G. (1928). "The Folk Element in Early Revival Hymns and Tunes". Journal of the Folk-Song Society. 8 (32): 61–95. JSTOR4434189.
^Dana, Richard Henry (1840). Two Years Before the Mast.[page needed]
^Hodges, Hugh T. (1986). "Charles Maclay: California Missionary, San Fernando Valley Pioneer: PART II". Southern California Quarterly. 68 (3): 207–256. doi:10.2307/41171225. JSTOR41171225.
^"The Starling by the late Norman McLeod, D.D. (book review, this is the year the Canadian edition of The Starling was published)". Daily American. 17 June 1877.
^Green, Ian (2011). Fuzz to Folk: Trax of My Life. Luath Press Ltd. p. 282. ISBN978-1-906817-69-5.
^Gilchrist, Jim (18 October 2010). "The News from Moidart - CD Reviews: Pop, Classical, Folk". The Scotsman.
