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18th century song From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Lass of Richmond Hill", also known as "The Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill", is a song written by Leonard McNally with music composed by James Hook, and was first publicly performed in 1789. It was said to be a favourite of George III and, at one time, was thought to have been written by his son, George IV. It is a love ballad which popularized the poetic phrase "a rose without a thorn" as a romantic metaphor. Associated with the English town of Richmond in North Yorkshire, it is now often mistakenly considered to be a traditional folk song, and has been assigned the number 1246 on the Roud Folk Song Index. The music is also used as a military march by the British army.
The words were written by Leonard McNally[1][2] (1752 – 1820[3]), who was a Dublin barrister, playwright, a leader of the United Irishmen (a clandestine republican Irish revolutionary society[4]), but also a double agent for the British Government.[5][6] McNally would betray his United Irishmen colleagues to the authorities and then, as defence counsel at their trial, secretly collaborate with the prosecution to secure a conviction.[7][8][9] He wrote a number of songs and operettas, including for Covent Garden.[2]
The "lass" referred to is Frances I’Anson, whom Leonard McNally married in 1787.[2][10] Her family owned a property in Richmond, Yorkshire called "Hill House", hence she was the "lass of Richmond Hill".[2] (Lass is a Scottish or Northern English dialect word for "girl" or "young woman", derived from Old Norse.[11]) Frances's father disapproved of McNally and the couple had to elope in order to marry.[10] She died in childbirth five years after getting married; she was 29.[10][12]
McNally's authorship was periodically disputed[13] and other origins for the song were claimed over the years.[14] These claims included that it was written by a Rosa Smith, who may have been a poet from Richmond, Surrey near London, and that it was about herself; that it was the work of another songwriter called Upton; and that the Prince of Wales (who later became the Prince Regent and then George IV) was the author.[14] It was also thought that the Prince of Wales's mistress, Maria Fitzherbert ("Mrs Fitzherbert") was the subject of the song.[15] All of these claims were unfounded.[14]
The song is a ballad of praise of and expression of love for the "lass". It contains two verses with eight lines each and a chorus of four lines repeated after each verse. The first verse begins with the notable lines:[16]
The chorus is:
According to the musicologist and conductor Peter Holman, "a way of celebrating national identity was to place a love-story in a picturesque British rural setting. The most famous song of this type is James Hook’s The Lass of Richmond Hill"[17] The song was seen as so quintessentially English that authorship by an Irishman, that is, by McNally, was, as mentioned earlier, periodically challenged.[13]
The music was composed by James Hook (1746 – 1827), a composer and organist at Vauxhall Gardens from 1774 to 1820.[1][18] Hook composed over 2,000 songs, the best known of which is "The Lass of Richmond Hill".[18]
The music epitomises Hook’s charming but sanitised folk-song style using a Scottish pastoral idiom, and is often mistakenly believed to be a genuine traditional folk song,[19][20] and has been assigned the number 1246 on the Roud Folk Song Index.[21] Indeed, it has become a Scottish country dance.[22]
The song was first performed publicly by Charles Incledon at Vauxhall Gardens in 1789, although McNally appears to have written the words long before that.[2] It became one of the most popular songs of the time,[23] and was said to be a favourite of George III.[24] The song remains popular,[13] and, for example, is played by the BBC's classical music station, Radio 3.[25]
As well as becoming a Scottish country dance,[22] the music has been used as a military march by the British army and is the Regimental march of the Women’s Royal Army Corps[26] and the Middlesex Yeomanry.[27] It was also the march of the 107th Regiment of Foot (Bengal Light Infantry), a predecessor of the Royal Sussex Regiment.[28]
The song, or its title, has been the subject of a wide variety of cultural references and allusions:
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