Bonnie Prince Charlie sporting
"The White Cockade" on his hat
The White Cockade
This is another favourite old chorus song I picked up in the early days of the Leeds folk clubs where it was extremely popular, especially at ‘The Grove’.
The early folk song collector Frank Kidson in his book ‘Traditional Tunes’ published in 1891, states that he "originally noted it down from the singing of my mother, who heard it sung in Leeds about the year 1820." He called the song "The Summer Morning". In 1821, ‘Blackwood‘s Edingburgh Magazine’ printed a version of the song that they received from Thomas Doubleday, a Newcastle soap boiler.
My version seems to be an amalgamation of the two, plus some!
The Jacobite troops supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie had no formal uniform. So after the Prince picked a wild rose and pinned it to his hat, they adopted the ‘White Cockade’ as their emblem, which they stitched to their scotch bonnets.
