Little Jock Elliot
Encyclopedia
Synopsis
John Elliot of Park was a famous Scottish border reiver and infamous plunderer and cattle 'lifter' from the powerful Elliot family along the lawless Scottish border with England in the mid 16th Century. He is also the subject of a well-known Border balladBorder ballad
The English/Scottish border has a long and bloody history of conquest and reconquest, raid and counter-raid . It also has a stellar tradition of balladry, such that a whole group of songs exists that are often called "border ballads", because they were collected in that region.Border ballads, like...
called "Little Jock Elliot".
The ballad asserts Elliot's prowess in battle and contains the famous refrain "My name is Little Jock Elliot, and wha daur meddle wi' me!," which has traditionally been offered as one possible source for the origins of the Latin motto of the Order of the Thistle
Order of the Thistle
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...
, "Nemo me impune lacessit
Nemo me impune lacessit
Nemo me impune lacessit is the Latin motto of the Order of the Thistle and of three Scottish regiments of the British Army. The motto also appears, in conjunction with the collar of the Order of the Thistle, in later versions of the Royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of Scotland and subsequently in...
".
The ballad ends by referencing Little Jock Elliot's wounding of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell
James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell
James Hepburn, 1st Duke of Orkney , better known by his inherited title as 4th Earl of Bothwell, was hereditary Lord High Admiral of Scotland. He is best known for his association with and subsequent marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, as her third husband...
in the summer of 1566 when the latter attempted to arrest Elliot, apparently for crimes committed as a reiver.
Another ballad called "Bothwell", attributed to the early Scottish poet Robert Ayton
Robert Ayton
Sir Robert Aytoun was a Scottish poet.Ayton was the son of Ayton of Kinaldie House in Fife.He and his elder brother entered St Leonard's College in St Andrews in 1584. After graduating MA from St...
, presents the story from the point of view of Bothwell. The ballad 'Bothwell' states that the earl, though suffering from life-threatening wounds inflicted by Elliot, yet managed to kill him, thus reversing the heroic role assigned to Little Jock Elliot in the eponymous ballad and also its implicit message that Elliot survived the encounter.
History
The events occurred in fact, evidently with both Elliot and Bothwell at least wounding each other. The various accounts agree that Bothwell wounded Elliot first, who notwithstanding his wounds, managed to wound Bothwell in return to such a degree that he was near death and unable to continue the fight. This wounding of Bothwell apparently also led to Mary, Queen of Scots life being endangered. On her way to see Bothwell, her beloved, she almost perished in a mire, and subsequent to her strenuous ride (fifty miles in a single day), she became extremely ill, apparently with pneumoniaPneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
.