Annotation:Essex's Last Goodnight

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ESSEX'S LAST GOODNIGHT. English, Air (6/4 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Chappell (1859) finds the air in Elizabeth Rogers' Virginal Book, a lute MS. at the University of Cambridge, and a MS. in the British Museum. The ballad appears in the Pepys and Roxburghe collections, while in other collections the tune appears under different names with different lyrics, including a 1661 Christmas carol. The name Essex derives from the people who invaded the region during the dark ages, and who claimed the land for the East Saxons (Matthews, 1972).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time), vol. 1, 1859; p. 132.

Recorded sources:

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