The following is printed, with corrections, from the editor's folio MS. collated with an old black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, intitled _A pleasant ballad of K. Henry II. and the Miller of Mansfield, &c._
[This ballad of _Henry II. and the Miller of Mansfield_ cannot be traced farther back than the end of Elizabeth's reign or the beginning of James's. One of the three copies in the Roxburghe Collection is dated by Mr. Chappell between 1621 and 1655, and the copy in the Folio MS. (ed. Hales and Furnivall, vol. ii. p. 147) was written about the same period. (See Roxburghe _Ballads_, ed. Chappell, vol. i. p. 538.)
As there are earlier copies than the one in the Folio MS. it has not been thought necessary to add Collations.
_John the Reeve_, referred to above, is one of the earliest and most interesting of this large class of tales. It was printed for the first time in Hales and Furnivall's edition of the MS. (vol. ii. p. 550) with a valuable introduction.
This spirited poem was probably written originally in the middle of the fifteenth century. "It professes to describe an incident that took place in the days of King Edward. It adds:
Of that name were Kings _three_ But Edward with the long shanks was he, A lord of great renown.
The poem then was written after the death of Edward III.; that is, after 1377, and before the accession of Edward IV., that is before 1461."]
Henry, our royall king, would ride a hunting To the greene forest so pleasant and faire; To see the harts skipping, and dainty does tripping: Unto merry Sherwood his nobles repaire: Hawke and hound were unbound, all things prepar'd 5 For the game, in the same, with good regard.
All a long summers day rode the king pleasantlye, With all his princes and nobles eche one;
Chasing the hart and hind, and the bucke gallantlye, Till the dark evening forc'd all to turne home. 10 Then at last, riding fast, he had lost quite All his lords in the wood, late in the night.
Wandering thus wearilye, all alone, up and downe, With a rude miller he mett at the last: Asking the ready way unto faire Nottingham; 15 Sir, quoth the miller, I meane not to jest, Yet I thinke, what I thinke, sooth for to say, You doe not lightlye ride out of your way.