Child Ballads - Additions and Corrections

173. Mary Hamilton

P. 379. Stanzas 1, 2, 10 of C are printed in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 315, and 4, 9 of L at p. 316.

380 a, line 13. Say Stewart, or Stewart.

384. A a. Found in a small Manuscript volume, with the title "Songs" on the cover, entirely in Sharpe's handwriting, p. 29. The only variations, besides a few in spelling, are these:

9¹. stairs.
17³. the night's.
18². they'l.

389. F. This version was rendered by Skene with comparative fidelity. Still, the original, 'Quin Mary's Marreys,' No 12 of "The Old Lady's Collection," would of course have been given if it had been in hand, and should be substituted, opportunity occurring. It is therefore printed here.

1	'My father was the Duck of York, My mother a lady frie, My sell a dainnty damisall, Quin Mary sent for me.
2	'The quin's meat it was so suit, An her clething was sae rair, It made me lang for Suit Willie's bed, An I ill rue it ever mare.
3	'Mary Beeten, an Mary Sitton, An Lady Livenston, a' three, We'll never mett in Quin Mary's bour nou, Marrys tho we be.'
4	Quin Mary satt in her bour, Suing her selver seam; She thought she hard a baby greet Bat an a lady mean.
5	She throu her neddel frae her, Her seam out of her han, An she is on to Lady Marry's bour, As fast as she could gang.
6	'Open yer dor, Lady Mary,' she says, 'An lat me come in; For I hear a baby greet, Bat an a lady meen.'
7	Ther is nae bab in my bour, madam the Quin, Nor never thinks to be, Bat the strong pains of gravell This night has sesed me.'
8	She paat her fitt to the dor, Bat an her knee, Bolts of brass an irn bands In flinders she gart flee.
9	She pat a ban to her bed-head A nether to her bed-feet, An bonny was the bab Was blabring in its bleed.
10	'Wae worth ye, Lady Mary, An ill dead sail ye die! For in ye widne keepet the bonny bab Ye might ha gen 't to me.'
11	Lay na the witt on me, madam, Lay na the witt on me, For my fals love bare the v[e]pan att his side That gared my bern dee.'
12	'Gett up, Lady Betton, get up, Lady Setton, An Lady Livenston, three, An we will on to Edenbrugh An tray this gay lady.'
13	As she cam in the Cannogate, The burgers' wives they crayed hon, ochon, ochree!
14	'O had yer still, ye burgers' wives, An make na mane for me; Seek never grace out of a graslass face, For they ha nan to gee.
15	'Ye merchants an ye mareners, That trad on the sea, Ye dinne tell in my country The dead I am gaine to dee.
16	'Ye merchants an ye mareners, That traid on the fame, Dinne tell in my countray Bat fatt I am coming hame.
17	Littel did my father think, Fan he brouch[t] me our the sea, That he woud see my yallou lokes Hang on a gallou-tree.
18	'Littel did my midder think, Fan she brought me fra hame, That she maugt see my yallou lokes Hang on a gallou-pine.
19	. . . had yer ban a wee! For yonder comes my father, I am sure he'll borrou me.
20	'O some of yer goud, father, An of yer well won fee, To safe me [fra the high hill], [An] fra the gallage-tree.'
21	'Ye's gett nane of my goud, Ner of my well wone fee, For I wead gee five hundred poun To see ye hanged hee.'
22	. . . O had yer ban a wee! Yonder is my love Willie, He will borrou me.
23	'O some of yer goud, my love Wille, An some of yer well wone fee, To save me fraa the high hill, An fraie the gallou-tree.'
24	'Ye's gett a' my goud, An a' my well won fee, To save ye fra the heading-hill, An fra the galla-tree.'

4². Perhaps silver.
6³. lady greet: cf. 4³.
7¹. nae.
11². watt.
11³. vpan?
23¹. son Wille.

392 a, H 8⁴. The nine. "Anciently the supreme criminal court of Scotland was composed of nine members." Kinloch's note, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 259. This may afford a date.

I. b. The three stanzas were given as written down from memory by Finlay: see VIII, 507 b.

P. 882. The passages following relate to the affair of the Frenchwoman and the apothecary. Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1563. (Indicated to me by Mr. Andrew Lang.)

The Queen's apothecary got one of her maidens, a Frenchwoman, with child. Thinking to have covered his fault with medicine, the child was slain. They are both in prison, and she is so much offended that it is thought they shall both die. Randolph to Cecil, Edinburgh, 21 Dec., 1563, p. 637. The apothecary and the woman he got with child were both hanged this Friday. Randolph to Cecil, Dec. 31, 1563, p. 650.

The heroine of this ballad is Mary Hamilton in all copies in which she has a full name, that is, twelve out of the twenty-four which have any name; Mary simply, or Mary mild,^[foot-note] is found in eleven copies, and Maisry in one. Finding in the history of the court of Peter the Great an exact counterpart of the story of the ballad with a maid of honor named Mary Hamilton filling the tragic role, and "no trace of an admixture of the Russian story with that of the Frenchwoman and the queen's apothecary," I felt compelled to admit that Sharpe's suggestion of the Russian origin of the ballad was, however surprising, the only tenable opinion (III, 382 f.). Somewhat later a version of the ballad (U) was found at Abbotsford in which there is mention of the apothecary and of the practices for which he suffered in 1563, and this fact furnished ground for reopening the question (which, nevertheless, was deferred).

Mr. Andrew Lang has recently subjected the matter of the origin of the ballad to a searching review (in Blackwood's Magazine, September, 1895, p. 381 ff.). Against the improbability that an historical event of 1718-9 should by simple chance coincide, very minutely and even to the inclusion of the name of the principal actor, with what is related in a ballad ostensibly recounting an event in the reign of Mary Stuart, he sets the improbability that a ballad, older and superior in style to anything which we can show to have been produced in the 18th, or even the 17th century,^[foot-note] should have been composed after 1719, a ballad in which a contemporary occurrence in a foreign and remote country would be transferred to Scotland and Queen Mary's day, and so treated as to fit perfectly into the circumstances of the time: and this while the ballad might entirely well have been evolved from a notorious domestic occurrence of the date 1563, the adventure of Queen Mary's French maid and the apothecary which has now turned out to be introduced into one version of the ballad.^[foot-note]

I wish to avow that the latter improbability, as put by Mr. Lang, has come to seem to me considerably greater than the former.

The coincidence of the name of the heroine is indeed at first staggering; but it will be granted that of all the "honorable houses" no one might more plausibly supply a forgotten maid of honor than the house of Hamilton. The Christian name is a matter of course for a Queen's Mary.

384 ff., IV, 507 ff., V, 246 f.

BB

The Queen's Maries

Communicated by Mr. Andrew Lang as received from Mrs. Arthur Smith; sung by a nurse. 4 is clearly modern.

1	Yestreen the queen had four Maries, But the nicht she'll hae but three; There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton, And Mary Carmichell, and me.
2	Oh little did my mither think, At nicht when she cradled me, That I wad sleep in a nameless grave And hang on the gallows-tree.
	Yestreen, etc.
3	They'll tie a kerchief round my een, And they'll na let me see t' dee, And they'll spread my story thro a' the land, Till it reaches my ain countrie.
4	I wish I micht sleep in the auld kirkyard, Beneath the hazel tree, Where aft we played in the long simmer nichts, My brithers and sisters and me.

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