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The Blind Beggar. The reference is to the ballad of "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." The version in the Percy Reliques relates the adventures of Henry, Earl of Leicester, the son of Simon de Montfort, who was blinded at the battle of Evesham and left for dead, and thereafter begged his way with his pretty Bessee.
"Everything is the very best that could have befallen him to hear him speak. He is the very sunshine of the Spital, and had he been ordered on this Crusade, I think all the hamlets round would have risen to withhold him." "Ah!" said Richard, hoping he was acting indifference; "said he aught of the little maiden with the blind father?" "Pretty Bessee and Blind Hal of Bednall Green?
was built by the Blind Beggar of Bednall Green, so much talked of and sang in ballads; but they say it was only some of the outhouses of it. We drank great store of wine, and a beer glass at last which made me almost sick.
Thence to Bednall Green by coach, my brother with me, and saw all well there, and fetched away my journall book to enter for five days past, and then back to the office where I find Bagwell's wife, and her husband come home. Agreed to come to their house to-morrow, I sending him away to his ship to-day.
Beneath a spreading tree a dozen fiddlers put their instruments in tune, while behind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in by the sexton, a rustic choir was trying over "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green."
The House is upon the King's answer to their message about Temple, which is, that my Lord of Bristoll did tell him that Temple did say those words; so the House are resolved upon sending some of their members to him to know the truth, and to demand satisfaction if it be not true. Sir W. Batten, Sir J. Minnes, my Lady Batten, and I by coach to Bednall Green, to Sir W. Rider's to dinner.
Sir W. Coventry told me of another this morning in Holborne, which he showed the King: that when it was offered to stop the fire near his house for such a reward that come but to 2s. 6d. a man among the neighbours he would give but 18d. Thence to Bednall Green by coach, my brother with me, and saw all well there, and fetched away my journall-book to enter for five days past.
"Howsomever, 'tis Jerry I'm arter my mate Jeremy as went adrift from me my mate Jerry as could sing so true, but I was the lad to dance!" And here he must needs fall a-dancing in his rags, singing hoarsely: "Heave-ho, lads, and here's my ditty! Saw ye e'er in town or city A lass to kiss so sweet an' pretty As Bess o' Bednall Green.
In the well-known ballad preserved by Bishop Percy, of "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green," it is imagined that Henry de Montfort was rescued at night from the field of battle while still living, by "a baron's faire daughter," in search of her father's body; that she nursed him, and that, on his recovery they married, their daughter being "prettye Bessee."
"Kirkebyes Castell, and Fisher's Follie, Spinila's pleasure, and Megse's glorie." The place was known in Strype's time as the "Blind Beggar's House," but he knew nothing of the ballad, "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green," for he remarks, "perhaps Kirby beggared himself by it." Sr.
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