Annotation:Chapter of Kings
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CHAPTER OF KINGS. English, Air (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The "celebrated historical" song appeared in The Ladies Pocket-Book for the Year 1794, and was published in London on a song sheets by Humphrey Hime and Son and by Henry Thompson (75 Saint Paul's Church Yard), "Written and sung with universal applause by Mr. [John] Collins, author of The Brush." Collins sang the song in the character of an Irish schoolmaster. It begins:
The Romans, in England, they once did sway,
And the Saxons they after them led the way,
And they tugg'd with the Danes 'till an overthrow
They both of the got by the Norman bow.
Yet, barring all pother, the one and the other,
Were all of them Kings in their turn.
The melody was entered into the c. 1780-1804 music manuscript of fifer or violinist John Fife, who was probably from Perthshire, although there are references to battles in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean and he may have also been at sea.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 5), Glasgow, 1797; No. 61, p. 25.
Recorded sources: