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.
[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.
This is the version in Johnson's, Hogg's and MacColl's collections: Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear, Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, Ye Jacobites by name, Your fautes I will proclaim, Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear, you shall hear Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear.
To whet th' assassin's knife, Or hunt a Parent's life, wi' bluidy war?
They marched thro' our Land cruelly, cruelly, They marched thro' our Land cruelly, They marched thro' our Land with a bloody thievish Band To Edinburgh then they wan Treachery.