Cecil Sharp's Note 14 (1916)

No. 14. The Golden Vanity

Many versions of this ballad have been published with tunes, for example, the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, p. 104; volume ii. p. 244); English County Songs (p. 182); Songs of the West (No. 64, 2d ed.); Tozer’s Sailors’ Songs and Chanties (No. 15); Songs of Sea-Labour (No. 42), etc.

Child (No. 286) reprints a 17th century broadside version, beginning:

⁠Sir Walter Raleigh has built a ship
⁠In the Netherlands,
⁠And it is called the Sweet Trinity
⁠And was taken by the false Gallaly,
⁠Sailing in the Lowlands.

Mr. Ebsworth, in his introduction to the ballad in the Roxburghe Ballads (volume v, p. 418), points out that the selfishness and ingratitude displayed by Raleigh in the ballad agreed with the current estimate of his character.

The ballad is still freely sung by English folksingers, from whom I have noted down twelve different versions.