Annotation:Lord Falconberg's March
Back to Lord Falconberg's March
LORD FALCONBERG'S MARCH. English (?), March (whole time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. One Lord Falcondale (or, properly, Fauconberg), Thomas Belasyse, viscount Falconberg, took for his second wife Mary, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, who was then Protector of England. They were married at Hampton Court in November of 1657. Falconberg (who was aged 24 at the time) had a great estate in Yorkshire, and, despite his marriage, seemed to have had Royalist tendencies. His father-in-law came to distrust him and then to hate him. Upon the restoration of Charles II, General Monk conferred on him a regiment, and he thrived in service to the monarchy. He eventually was raised to an Earldom. Cromwell's daughter seems to have been a remarkable woman. Bishop Burnet wrote that she "was a wise and worthy woman, more likely to have maintained the post (of Protector) than either of her brothers; according to a saying that went of her, that those who wore breeches deserved petticoats better; but if those in petticoats had been in breeches they would have held faster."
Falconberg died in 1700, without issue, and the Earldom became extinct, although the other titles descended to a nephew and namesake, Thomas, the 3rd Viscount (son of Sir Rowland Belasyse). There title descended to several other Thomas Belasyse's in succession until 1802, and finally all titles became extinct in 1815.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Aird (Sixth and Last Volume of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs), 1803; No. 75, p. 71.
Recorded sources: