There is a copy of the broadside among the Pepys ballads, II, 148, No 130, printed, like #a#, #b#, #c#, for P. Brooksby, with the variation, “at the Golden Ball, near the Bear Tavern, in Pye Corner.” The ballad was given in Ritson’s Ancient Songs, 1790, p. 192, from #A a#, collated with another copy “in the hands of John Baynes, Esq.” In a note, p. 332, Ritson says: “In the editor’s collection is a somewhat different ballad upon the same subject, intitled ‘Sir Hugh in the Grimes downfall, or a new song made on Sir Hugh in the Grime, who was hangd for stealing the Bishop’s mare.’ It begins, ‘Good Lord John is a hunting gone.’” This last was evidently the late and corrupt copy #D#. Of #C# Scott says: “The present edition was procured for me by my friend Mr W. Laidlaw, in Blackhouse, and has been long current in Selkirkshire. Mr Ritson’s copy has occasionally been resorted to for better readings.” #B# is partially rewritten by Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, I, 327. The copy in R. H. Evans’s Old Ballads, 1810, I, 367, is #A#; that in The Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire, First Series, p. 47, is of course #B#; Aytoun, ed. of 1859, II, 128, reprints #C#; Maidment, 1868, II, 140, #A#, II, 145, #C#.[3] “According to tradition,” says Stenhouse, “Robert Aldridge, Bishop of Carlisle, about the year 1560, seduced the wife of Hugh Graham, one of those bold and predatory chiefs who so long inhabited what was called the debateable land on the English and Scottish border. Graham, being unable to bring so powerful a prelate to justice, in revenge made an excursion into Cumberland, and carried off, _inter alia_, a fine mare belonging to the bishop; but being closely pursued by Sir John Scroope, warden of Carlisle, with a party on horseback, was apprehended near Solway Moss, and carried to Carlisle, where he was tried and convicted of felony. Great intercessions were made to save his life, but the bishop, it is said, being determined to remove the chief obstacle to his guilty passions, remained inexorable, and poor Graham fell a victim to his own indiscretion and his wife’s infidelity. Anthony Wood observes that there were many changes in this prelate’s time, both in church and state, but that he retained his office and preferments during them all.” Musical Museum, 1853, IV, 297. The pretended tradition is plainly extracted from the ballad, the bishop’s name and the date being supplied from without. The _inter alia_ is introduced, and the mare qualified as a fine one, to mitigate the ridiculousness of making Hugh Graham steal a mare to retaliate the wrong done him by the bishop. As Allan Cunningham remarks, “tradition, in all the varieties of her legends, never invented such an unnecessary and superfluous reason as this. By habit and by nature thieves, the Græmes never waited for anything like a pretence to steal.” In passing, it may be observed that Hugh is quite arbitrarily elevated to the rank of a predatory chief.