| Show WAKEMANS wanderings LONDON may 22 1893 there is nowhere in the entire range of sociological study and observation so grotesque and yet so genuine a thing as gipsy royalty to be kingor king or queen of a tatterdemalion crew of wanderers seems to us who are utterly removed from gipsy thought feeling and conditions so trifling and outlandish a thing that we can scarcely contemplate the regal status and its odd dignities without a feeling of ridicule and contempt the first gipsy I 1 ever saw was a princess afterwards a queen that was just forty years ago she was a mite of a thing and a great storm of early winter had separated her from the rest of her band as it was hastening to sum mer climes and driven her desperately near death from the severity of the elements to the door of our ample and ancient farm house it was thanksgiving day A crowd of relatives and friends was being entertained after the good old new england fashion the hundreds of cattle horses and sheep had all been comfortably housed from the bewildering storm three or four table fuls of countryside guests had been served everything possessing a keener relish for the shuddering night and its blinding snow while the good old place was ringing with laughter and jollity and my mother with the manner of a severe commander was giving an eye to preparations for the hired mens repast the storm clutched and shook the old farm house savagely in the rattle and clatter of it all there was swept into the wide low room a sacred trembling tawny gir gin r of perhaps fourteen years of age the snow was beaten into her glossy black hair which was matted wildly about her shivering form my mother locked the hired men out for a bit brought the girl to the capacious fireplace and dried and warmed her and then with a genuine court martial air and still with a brusque yet certain touch of the waifs waife immediate needs which had real humanity in it set her at the table and fed her until she could hold no more then taking both of us myself rising five as the farmers say and this plump glowing eyed heathen she marched us up stairs away into the garret and put us still together into the snuggest snug gest of t trundle rundle beds beside the huge roaring chimney where cuddling me in her warm arms as if for human companionship and muttering words of an unknown tongue which surely held the modulation and accent of myer this lost heathen princess sob eed crayer ed herself asleep it would be a long and even a romantic story how this gipsy girl was found at our home by a gipsy lad the next morning how lad and lass disappeared hand band in hand like ragged silhouettes over the snow capped hills about our valley farm how when a boy soldier I 1 came upon the two then man and wife ground between the teeth of war as hood was making his brave but fateful winter march upon nashville just ten years after the stormy thanksgiving time and at a then dreadful risk set them on their way to gipsy friends in the north how but a few years later still I 1 again found them this time in a great gipsy camp where the annual mayday may day 9 s and partings were 9 going on an and d where for what little I 1 and mine had done this same flame gipsy girl now queen of her tribe made my merits through her gratitude so great to lo her people and race that in all lands and places since three magic words have unlocked house tent and heart of all Gipsy dom but it has br ought brought me to see and feel almost with gipsy eyes and mind and to know that there is truly an impressive reality even in gipsy royalty in rags the accepted notion about gipsy kings and queens is that of the stage and story book gipsy carry carrying inga a witch crook striding great strides dressed in gaudy finery wearing a tin crown and be decked with brummagyn Brum magen beads and rings who endlessly speaks in a voice of suppressed aasbo and who thees hos has and Av A vaun aunts ts trembling subjects until their joints are loose in their sockets and the campfire camp fire pots rattle and clink in the crooks of the iron kettle sticks perhaps something of this sort was in in vogue a few hundred years ago the history of gipsy tribes in continental europe shows that gipsy kings princes earls dukes and those of lesser title roamed about under license of potentates with retinues and cavalcades that would have done honor to truly titled folk of the time but all this sort of thing is now alone found in the shill in ing shocker and penny dreadful wilds or of literature there was up to the last century some genuine royal gipsy pageantry among the larger wandering british tribes this was characteristic of scottish more than of english gipsies the record of the royal doings of the latter is indeed luminous and unique in the early part of the irth century anthonius gabino earl of little egypt was so consummately shrewd in carrying out his assumption on of pilgrimage and of bein being under commands of the pope to wander seven years without sleeping in a bed that he actually secured the countenance if not the favori favor of james IV this anthonius anthonius honius gabino seemed to be a diplomat by nature he inveigled king james into giving him a ver very Y strong and sympathetic letter to his uncle the king of denmark ip in which the gipsy chief and his vagabond followers are spoken of as Antho anthonius gabino earl of little egypt and the other afflicted and lamentable tribe of his bis retinue whilst through a desire of traveling and by command of the pope griming pil 0 over ver the christian world etc which shows that their impost imposition ion upon the melancholy scottish king was complete whether or not his testimonial ever benefited them in denmark until nearly a half century after this although the gipsies had aheady already become troublesome their true character had not been discovered james V shortly L lefore before his death in 1540 1540 entered entered into a league with john faw lord and earl of little egypt directing all in authority in his realm to compel the return to baws submission all those egyptians who had rebelled against him and that all officers should assist in detaining and pun punishing ishin those people in conformity with his flaws laws so that as the edict read the said john hav have no cause for complaint thereupon in time coming this edict further charged all officers of the realm to command masters of all ships at ports and havens where the said john and his company might come to receive them and on expenses being paid to convey them to their own country this was only a shrewd bit of maneuvering on the part of kin king faw who being pressed to take himell himself and tribe out of the country pretended to his followers rebellion against him and secured this unique edict in his favor to give color of necessity to prolonging his and his peoples stay in scotland this faw whose shrewdness stamped the genuine gipsy upon his character was afon the progenitor 0 of the many tribes of baws faas or falls who with the baillies formerly Bail the present gipsy baileys of america have been the roost most numerous and noted of scottish gipsies and whose descendants as fews and falls I 1 have found in respectable numbers and condition throughout the united states the most noted royal gipsies ot of scotland were king anthonius gabino previously referred to the Bail afterwards the baillies and old king john faw many members of the faa family have attained wealth and political preferment in scotland the once wealthy falls merchants of dunbar are gipsies one of the falls became a colonel in the british army another served a term in parliament hosts have been and are under sheriffs and bailiffs lady anstruther wife of the late sir john anstruther of elie was jenny faa a gipsy woman of great reat wit and beauty these falls or faas of dunbar are also connected by marriage with the great banking family of coutts widely known in america through the frequent social intelligence concerning the noted baroness burdette coutts while the celebrated poem the gipsy laddie commemorates the abduction by the then gipsy king john faa in 1643 of lady cabillis Ca sillis wife of the earl of cabillis Ca sillis a sullen and ill tempered k man more given to theology than to ilka day goodness who was absent on a deputation to ratify the solemn league and covenant of that year at westminster this noted line of british gipsy royalty still exis s in direct descent in the person of the most hopeless outcast of all outcasts an outcast gipsy whose acquaintance I 1 have the honor to possess although the same is esteemed almost a dishonor from even a gipsy point of view and the same royal line in distributed strains is still proudly recognized in nearly seventy families ur or tribes I 1 personally know in england scotland and america all these tribes hold to the right of succession within their separate tiny kingdoms of population rather than territory with the same tenacity and sacred inviolability as any european monarchial dynasty where the line becomes extinct which seldom occurs it is nearly always reintroduced by marriage with members of other tribes where the hereditary line is superabundant in instances where it is permitted to become and remain extinct a king or queen or both are always chosen by popular election in nearly all such cases the sovereign is is selected from a family possessing the next requisite to royal blood age without taint of crime thus it will be seen that both british and american gipsies while purely communistic in actual application of tribal government are among the most exacting of all strictly monarchial people in holding to the principle of royal heredity the climax of visible british gipsy royalty was undoubtedly reached at ancient kirk yetholm Yet holm just across the en english glis h border among the cheviot H hills s a at t about the middle of the present century at the dea that kirk yetholm Yet holm in 1847 of the king of all the scottish and many of the english gipsies william faa or auld wull faal faa as he was familiarly known they mustered from yetholm and its immediate neighborhood gipsies and asses as an escort for his remains from coldstream Cold stream to the parish burying ground at yetholm Yet holm shortly after his death on the sudden decease of charles blythe king williams immediate successor a remarkable contest took place between the late faas two daughters princess esther and princess helen the blythe line was extinct in scotland and no one could be found to dispute the royal line reverting to one or the other of the two faa princesses helen the younger urged her claims on the well known and often expressed express rd wish of the dead king that she should eventually succeed him esther the elder claimed the succession on the grou grounds n ds of seniority for months the liveliest imaginable political canvass was waged throughout the gipsy camps of scotland and england at last the contest waged so bitter that these sisters of royal blood came to blows the first and last breach of the peace ever accredited to gipsies in yetholm Yet holm they were both women of powerful frame and that encounter has been des bribed to me by an eye witness now living as having been of the most savage and ferocious character esther was victorious and helen or black bearded nell as the villagers called her got hersel weel this affray apparently decided the contest for when testing day or shrove tuesday on which the famous bowmont games are still notably celebrated princess helen and her followers urged no objection to princess esthers election and coronation the crowning of queen esther whose full name was esther faa blythe rutherford the blythe and rutherford addenda comin coming from marriages with worthless men of of her race was an affair of great note at yetholm Yet holm her majesty was attended by a royal brother several princess and princesses of the blood prince robert her son to whom I 1 have previously referred and a great retinue of over gipsies and as many townspeople and gentry of the surrounding country the cavalcade proceeded to the yetholm cross A jolly old blacksmith named george gladstone who had performed a like office for charles blythe and thus secured the title tide of archbishop of yetholm Yet holm wrought a resplendent coronet of tin sustaining a tremendous scotch thistle in presence of the great multitude he made proclamation of his right to exercise the high office and having in the most solemn fashion set the emblem of royalty upon her head bead proclaimed the heroine her royal majesty esther faa blythe rutherford sovereign n and queen of of all the gipsies in the Zing kingdom dorn of scotland challenge who darel dare addresses of congratulation were read from loyal subjects in the different shires shares from the citizens of kelso and other near cities and villages and from yetholm townsfolk after which a levee was held at the royal palace a thatched cottage with a hard clay floor and the night was passed in all manner of rustic reve revelries revel ries iries queen esther whose life sized portrait rait 01 in oil is one of my most pr prized of gipsy ps Y relics died at kelso a dozen miles to the north of yetholm Yet holm in july 1883 her cortege from kelso to kirk yet holm where she was buried beside hundreds of her race was a memorable one thousands of people came to yetholm Yet holm U upon on the coffin lay the royal red cloak Y of the queen and an enormous white wreath of roses sent by lady john scott of surmounted this both were interred with the body of the queen the rev mr davidson for thirty two years minister of the kirk yetholm church tells me he never witnessed a more remarkable scene than at this burial the services were held at kelso but such vast crowds massed about the grave at yetholm that though mr davidson made enort effort to reach it to say a few words over the body the grief of the gipsies and the density of the crowd prevented at the death of queen esther british gipsy royalty in its large old time sense came to an end no one ever aspired to her regal honors prince robert her son had become a worthless vagabond and even old princess helen with whom I 1 was once quite a favorite told me that she was so weel and fairly fan ly bicket in the original contest for succession that she had completely lost all ambition for royal life four years ago the present summer a study in oil of queen esthers face done by some vagrant artist was hanging in in a tobacconists shop in leith walk edinburgh attracted by the picture I 1 entered secured permission to examine it and just as I 1 was turning to depart I 1 encountered about as forbidding a looking tramp as I 1 ever set eyes upon in scotland some similarity between his pox pitted face and that of the dead queens caused me to regard him intently leering at me as he followed me into the street he touched my shoulder with one dirty paw and with the thumb of the other prodding backwards towards the shop asked me with royal familiarity dye ken me noo I 1 told him flatly that I 1 did not wish to ken him at all then yer nae gorgio chal lipsys Gip friend that yere famed he replied as b bluntly lu dinna be ill to thole difficult lucitty ritty c u it to get along with he continued whiningly I 1 was a little alarmed by his persistence but he had given me a gipsy challenge surely and I 1 told him to jaw the drom for a romany chor 11 which in plain english meant he should get out for a gipsy thie fill mon mon he exclaimed as if expecting instant arrest im nae chor im prince robert kung 0 a provincial Frovin provincial cial romany for gipsies I 1 if I 1 had my ain it was prince robert surely tenderly enough now I 1 took him with me down among the fishermen of new haven tenderly still heard his maudlin tale of a beggarly tramps life and the earth wide ostracism of his own people of his countless adventures on the borderland of law of his familiarity with |
