Broadside ballad entitled 'The Wedding of the Queen'

Commentary

This ballad begins: 'What a great day of rejoycing was Monday, / Sic joys in our town was ne'er seen, / Ilk lord and lady were buskit, / An' shone like unto a new preen.' It is to be sung to the tune of 'Fie, let us a' to the Bridal' and was printed by Menzies of Bank Street, Edinburgh. A woodcut of a woman and man, apparently the worse for alcohol, adorns the top of the sheet. The subject matter dates the sheet to 1840.

This cheeky ballad celebrates Queen Victoria's (r. 1837-1901) wedding to Albert, whom the author derides as 'the German bit laird'. It seems, however, that the author wishes Victoria had married the Scot, Lord Elphinstone. Queen Victoria always loved Scotland and spent much of her time at Balmoral, which endeared her to her Scottish subjects, therefore to see a Scot as Prince Regent would have delighted them even more!

Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.

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