"The Romish Lady" is described by George Pullen Jackson as a "spiritual ballad". This belongs more to ballad tradition than church tradition. It is the type of narrative song sung by an individual instead of a group. This song dates to a time when Catholic-Protestant tensions were high, though it is not clear whether this dates it from before Henry VIII's break with Rome (1533), or during the reign of Mary I (1553-1558). The song is known to have been in existence in the time of Charles II, 1660-1685 and a fragment is apparently found in John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont's 1611 play The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1611). It was collected by John Lomax for the Library of Congress from Mrs. Leander Wilson in Zionville, N.C. in 1936. It was also sung by Almeda Riddle. It was printed in Randolph's Ozark Folksongs (1946-1950), The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Volume Two: Folk Ballads from North Carolina (1952), Belden's Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society (1955), Laws' American Ballads from British Broadsides (1957), Jackson's Spiritual Folk-songs of Early America (1937) and many other publications. It is in the Roud Index of Folk Song as #1920.