Annotation:Vicar of Bray (The)
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VICAR OF BRAY, THE. AKA and see "Country Garden (The)," "Country Gardens." English, Air (4/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. This popular English song dates from the latter 18th century. The vicar of the title is said to have been one Simon Aleyn, whose parish was in the village of Bray on the Thames, near Windsor, according to Kidson. Aleyn was remarkable for maintaining his position from 1640 to 1688, throughout the intense political and religious turmoil and changes in England at the time; a proverbial saying arose from his tenure, that “the Vicar of Bray will be the Vicar of Bray still.” Nichols, in Select Poems, says that this song "was written by a soldier in Colonel Fuller's troop of Dragoons, in the reign of George I" (Chappell, 1859). Kidson, however, finds an early version of the song printed in the reign of Queen Anne in volume iii of Miscellaneous Writings in Prose and Verse (2nd edition, 1712), by Edward Ward, who had a reputations as a satirical writer. His song or poem is called “The Religious Turncoat,” or “The Trimming Parson,” and begins:
I loved no King in forty one
When Prelacy went down
A cloak and band I then put on
And preached against the Crown.
The original tune was not the now-familiar “Country Gardens,” but the words instead were set to other well-known song tunes, including “(Oh) London is a Fine Town” and “Bessy Bell and Mary Gray.” For example, “Vicar of Bray” is set to the latter in Walsh’s British Musical Miscellany, vol. I (1734), and this is the tune sung until about 1770 or 1780 (Kidson calls the melody “quite unvocal and inappropriate”). In fact, states Kidson, the use of “Country Gardens” is a late 18th century marriage. The tune appears as “The Country Gardens" in The Quaker's Opera (1728) and other ballad operas.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources:
Recorded sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 2, 1859; pp. 122123.
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