Hunt,--who dates it about 1626--from
Seyer's _Memoirs, Historical and Topographical, of Bristol and
its Neighbourhood_ (1821-23). The full title is _The Honour of
Bristol: shewing how the Angel Gabriel of Bristol fought with
three ships, who boarded as many times, wherein we cleared our
decks and killed five hundred of their men, and wounded many more,
and made them fly into Cales, when we lost but three men, to the
Honour of the Angel Gabriel of Bristol_. To the tune _Our Noble
King in his Progress_. Cales (13), pronounced as a dissyllable,
is of course Cadiz. It is fair to add that this spirited and
amusing piece of doggerel has been severely edited.
XXXI
From the _Minstrelsy_, where it is 'given, without alteration
or improvement, from the most accurate copy that could be
recovered.' The story runs that Helen Irving (or Helen Bell),
of Kirkconnell in Dumfriesshire, was beloved by Adam Fleming,
and (as some say) Bell of Blacket House; that she favoured the
first but her people encouraged the second; that she was thus
constrained to tryst with Fleming by night in the churchyard,
'a romantic spot, almost surrounded by the river Kirtle'; that
they were here surprised by the rejected suitor, who fired at
his rival from the far bank of the stream; that Helen, seeking
to shield her lover, was shot in his stead; and that Fleming,
either there and then, or afterwards in Spain, avenged her
death on the body of her slayer.
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