Kinloch and others incline to take Geordie to be George Gordon, fourth earl of Huntly, who incurred the Queen Regent’s displeasure for failing to execute a commission against a Highland robber in 1554. Huntly was committed to Edinburgh Castle, and some of his many enemies urged that he should be banished to France, others that he should be put to death. The Earl of Cassilis, though a foe to Huntly, resisted these measures on grounds of patriotism, and proposed that he should be deprived of certain honors and offices and fined. A fine was exacted, and the places which had been taken from him were restored.[88] With regard to this hypothesis, it may at least be said that, if it should be accepted, the ballad would be quite as faithful to history as many others. #A#-#E# are the purer forms of the ballad; #F#-#J# are corrupted by admixture. Geordie is Geordie Lukely of Stirling in #F#. In #G#, he is the Earl of Cassilis, ‘of Hye,’ as if some singer of the Gordons had turned the tables on Huntly’s enemy. In #H#, Geordie lives at the Bog o Gight, and should be the Earl, or Marquis, of Huntly; but writers of peerages will consult st. 17. There has been a battle in the North in #A#-#E#. Sir Charles Hay[89] has been killed, and Geordie is in custody for this, #A#, #B#. Geordie has killed a man and is to die, #C#; the man is his wife’s brother, #D#. In #E#, Geordie is a rebel. #F# begins with two stanzas from a vulgar last-dying-speech, of which more by and by: otherwise the story is not essentially injured, though the style is lowered. Geordie (in the first two stanzas) has done many an ill deed, but no murder or slaughter; he has stolen fifteen of the king’s horse and sold them in Bohemia. Earl Cassilis, likewise, in #G#, could not keep his hand off horses; he has stolen three geldings out of a park and sold them to Balleny (Balveny). Huntly, if it be he, in #H#, has only made free with the king’s deer. In #I#, #J#, Geordie has had an intrigue with Bignet’s (Pilbagnet’s, Badenoch’s) lady, for which the husband has thrown him into prison, and he is to die. But he owns to more than this in #J#. Beginning with an acknowledgment of one of the king’s best steeds stolen and sold in ‘Bevany,’ upon being pressed, he confesses to a woman abused and five orphan babes killed for their money. Geordie points his message to his wife in #C# 2, #D# 4, by begging her to sew him or bring him his linen shirt (shirts), a good side shirt, which will be the last he shall need, and a lang side sark is equally prominent in the lady’s thoughts in #I# 8. The lady stops for nothing in her ride to Edinburgh. She will not, and does not, eat or drink all the way, #A# 4, 5. When she comes to the water-side, finding no boat ready, she swims the Queen’s Ferry, #B# 7, #C# 5, #D# 9, #J# 13, #L# 1; or pays a boatman prodigally to take her over, #H# 9, #I# 9, #J# 14.