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. 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 the birth of his son, the Tutor of Blackwood.
The ballad first appeared in print in the second edition of Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776, but only as a fragment of five stanzas. Most of the versions have 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 (see Notes).
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