Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Relations with Romanies; Romanies
{18} There may be some doubt that Towla Bailyow, mentioned in a writ of
the Scots’ parliament in 1540, was a Baillie according to the modern
spelling of the word. In that case, the first Gipsies mentioned
officially in Great Britain with full native names, seem to have been
John Brown and George Brown, as found in a writ of the Scots’ parliament
of the 8th April, 1554. In the _History of the Gipsies_ I find the
following:—
“I am further inclined to think that it would be about this period,
and chiefly in consequence of these bloody enactments, the Gipsies
would, in general, assume the ordinary Christian and surnames common
at that time in Scotland. And their usual sagacity pointed out to
them the advantages arising from taking the cognomens of the most
powerful families in the kingdom, whose influence would afford them
ample protection as adopted members of their respective clans. In
support of my opinion of the origin of the surnames of the Gipsies of
the present day, we find that the most prevailing names among them
are those of the most influential of our noble families of Scotland,
such as Stewart, Gordon, Douglas, Graham, Ruthven, Hamilton,
Drummond, Kennedy, Cunningham, Montgomery, Kerr, Campbell, Maxwell,
Johnstone, Ogilvie, McDonald, Robertson, Grant, Baillie, Shaw,
Burnet, _Brown_, Keith, etc.” To that I added that “the English
Gipsies say that native names were assumed by their race in
consequence of the proscription to which it was subjected.”—(p. 117.)
{19} Perhaps I admitted too much when I said that “William Bonyon and
his wife were apparently ordinary English people,” for they need not
necessarily have been that, as I have shown. Had they been such, the
tradition of it would soon have died out in their Gipsy descendants of
mixed blood but for the little property that remained in the family; for
the associations of descent from the native race are not pleasant to the
tribe when they consider the hard feelings which it has entertained for
their Gipsy blood.
James IV. of Scotland, when introducing “Anthonius Gawino, Earl of Little
Egypt, and the other afflicted and lamentable tribe of his retinue,” to
his uncle, the King of Denmark, in 1506, said that they “had lately
arrived on the frontiers of our kingdom”; so that it is uncertain at what
time before 1506 some of the tribe had made their appearance without
being recorded in a public document. The Scottish king believed that as
“Denmark was nearer to Egypt than Scotland,” a greater number of the
Gipsies sojourned in it; and that his uncle would know more about them
than he did. If this style of reasoning was correct, England must have
received Gipsies before Scotland, for it was “nearer to Egypt than
Scotland.”—_History of the Gipsies_, p. 99.
Speaking of the “standing” of the leading Gipsies in Scotland between
1506 and 1579, the author of the History wrote as follows:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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