This ballad first appeared in print in the second edition of Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776, but only as a fragment of five stanzas. Pinkerton repeats three stanzas from Herd, very slightly "polished by the editor," Tragic Ballads, 1781, pp. 83, 119. A stall-copy, says Motherwell, was printed in 1798, under the title of 'Fair Orange Green.' A and C were used by Aytoun for the copy given in his second edition, 1859, I, 133, and D for Part Fourth of Chambers's compilation, Scottish Ballads, p. 157. The "traditionary version," in thirty-four stanzas, given in the Appendix to Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. v (see his Introduction, p. lxiii, note 5), is made up, all but the fifth stanza and the three last, from F-J and O: see note to N.
Lady Barbara Erskine, eldest daughter of John, Earl of Mar, was married to James, second Marquis of Douglas, near the end of the year 1670. The marriage did not prove to be happy, and the parties were formally separated in 1681. They had had one child, James, Earl of Angus, and he having been killed in battle in the Netherlands in 1692, the Marquis of Douglas married again, and had two sons and a daughter. The second of the sons was Archibald, the third marquis, and first and only duke of Douglas.
In an affectionate letter of December, 1676 (succeeding several others to which no answer had been returned), the Marchioness of Douglas writes to her husband: "I am not such a stranger to myself to pretend to the exactness of obedience and duty that my humor or frowardness may not have offended you, and all I can say is, that hereafter I shall so study yours and what may please you that I shall endeavor a conformity to your good will so near as I can. This only I must (most) complain of, that you should retain those in your service or company who takes the liberty of talking so much to the prejudice of your honor and mine. Sure I am I never give the least occasion for it, neither do I think, my dear, that you really believe it. If religion and virtue were not ties strong enough, sense of your honor and mine own, and of that noble family of yours and our posterity, could not but prevail against such base thoughts, and God, who knows my heart, knows my innocence and the malice of those who wounds us both by such base calumnies." In February, 1677, the marchioness (not for the first time, as it appears) invokes the interposition of the Privy Council in her domestic affairs, and applies for an "aliment" on which she may live apart from her husband, whom she charges with shunning her company and treating her with contempt. The marquis in his reply alleges that his wife had not treated him with due respect, but seems to be averse to a separation. Four years after, a separation was mutually agreed to, and in the contract to this effect the ground is expressed to be "great animosities, mistakes and differences be twixt the said marquis and his lady, which have risen to a great height, so as neither of them are satisfied longer to continue together."[foot-note]
The blame of the alienation of Douglas from his wife is imputed by tradition to William Lawrie, the marquis's principal chamberlain or factor, who was appointed to that place in 1670, the year of the marriage. Lawrie married Marion Weir, of the family of Blackwood, then a widow. He is often styled the laird of Blackwood, a title which belonged to his son by this marriage, his own proper designation being, after that event, the Tutor of Blackwood. "The belief that Blackwood was the chief cause of this unhappy quarrel was current at the time among the Douglas tenantry, with whom he was very unpopular, and it is corroborated by letters and other documents in the Douglas charter-chest. The marchioness, indeed, evinces temper, but the marquis appears to have been morose and peevish, and incapable of managing his own affairs. In this matter he consulted, and was advised by, Blackwood at every step, sending him copies of the letters he wrote to his wife, and subscribing whatever document Blackwood thought fit to prepare. Members of the family and dependents alike characterized Lawrie as hypocritical and double-dealing; but on the other hand, it is only fair to mention that on two occasions, Charles, Earl of Mar, wrote to Blackwood thanking him for his kindness to his sister, and assuring him of his esteem."[foot-note]
John, Earl of Mar, the father of Lady Barbara Erskine, died in 1668, before his daughter's marriage, and it would have been her brother Charles, the next earl, who took her home. He was colonel of a regiment of foot at the time of the separation, whence, probably, the drums, trumpets, and soldiers in the ballad. Barbara Douglas died in 1690, two years before the marquis's second marriage.
The reciter of A, who got her information from an old dey at Douglas castle, as far back as 1770, told Kinloch that the ballad was a great favorite with Archibald, Duke of Douglas, who lived till 1761. "The Duke used often to get the old dey to sing it to him while he wheeled round the room in a gilded chair ... and muttered anathemas against Lourie, saying, O that Blackwood must have been a damned soul!"[foot-note]
The story of the ballad is very simple. A lady, daughter of the Earl of Mar, B, I, married to Lord James Douglas, Marquis of Douglas, D, lives happily with him until Blackwood (Blacklaywood, Blackly) makes her husband believe that she has trespassed (with one Lockhart, A). Her protestations of innocence and the blandishments with which she seeks to win back her lord's affections are fruitless. Her father sends for her and takes her home. He offers to get a bill of divorce and make a better match for her, but she will listen to no such proposal.
The lady is daughter of the Earl of York, D; her brother is the Duke of York (a somewhat favorite personage in ballads), B; her mother is daughter of the Duke of York, G, and her father is the Lord of Murray. Her husband is the Earl of March, I (and F?). Had she foreseen the event of the marriage with Douglas, she would have staid at Lord Torchard's gates (Argyle's, Athol's, Lord Orgul's) and have been his lady, G, H, I, L, or in fair Orange green and have been his (Orange's?) K. (Orange gate appears in D, also, and so it may be Orange wine, and not orange, that Jamie Douglas is invited to drink in I 5.) A handsome nurse makes trouble in F 6, but nowhere else. It is not Blackwood that whispers mischief into the husband's ear in J 4, but a small bird; a black bird, fause bird, in two of Finlay's three copies, a blackie in the other, L. In B 7 the lady will not wash her face, comb her hair, or have fire or light in her bower: cf. Nos 69, 92, II, 156, 317. In I 15, when the lady had returned to her father's and the tenants came to see her, she could not speak, and "the buttons off her clothes did flee;" "an affecting image of overpowering grief," says Chambers. See also 'Andrew Lammie.'
D 10-15, N, are palpable and vulgar tags to a complete story. James Douglas comes to his father-in-law's house with his three children, and sends a soldier to the gate to bid his lady come down; he has hanged false Blackwood, and she is to come home: N. In D the hanging of Blackwood is not mentioned; Douglas calls for wine to drink to his gay lady, she takes a cup in her hand, but her heart breaks.[foot-note]
A-M have all from one stanza to four of a beautiful song, known from the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and printed fifty years earlier than any copy of the ballad.[foot-note] This song is the lament of an unmarried woman for a lover who has proved false, and, as we find by the last stanza, has left her with an unborn babe. A, C have this last stanza, although the lady in these copies has born three children (as she has in every version except the fragmentary E).[foot-note]
A stanza closely resembling the third of this song occurs in a Yule medley in Wood's Manuscripts, about 1620.[foot-note]
Hey trollie lollie, love is jolly A qhyll qhill it is new; Qhen it is old, it grows full cold, Woe worth the love untrew!
The Orpheus Caledonius has for the fourth stanza this, which is found (with variations) in A-M, excepting the imperfect copy E:
When cockle-shells turn siller bells, And mussles grows on evry tree, When frost and snaw shall warm us a', Then shall my love prove true to me. Ed. 1725.
Several stanzas occur in a song with the title 'Arthur's Seat shall be my bed,' etc., which is thought to have been printed as early as the Tea-Table Miscellany, or even considerably earlier. This song is given in an appendix.
Aytoun's ballad, 1859, I, 135, is loosely translated by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 59.
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