"Ye Jacobites by Name" (Roud # 5517) is a traditional Scottish folk song which goes back to the Jacobite risings in Scotland (1688–1746). While the original version simply attacked the Jacobites from a contemporaneous Whig point of view, Robert Burns rewrote it in around 1791 to give a version with a more general, humanist anti-war, but nonetheless anti-Jacobite outlook. This is the version that most people know today [1][2] and has been performed and recorded by Scottish folk groups such as The Corries and The McCalmans.[3]
The song (no. 371) was published in 1793 in volume 4 of James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum[4] and in James Hogg's Jacobite Reliques of 1817 (no. 34).[5] It also appears in a collection of Scottish songs entitled Personal Choice by Ewan MacColl.[6] The tune[7] is taken from "My Love's in Germany" by Hector Macneill.