#A.# ‘Lord Douglas,’ or, ‘The Laird of Blackwood,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 93.
#B.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 387.
#C.# ‘Lady Douglas and Blackwood,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 207, I, 103.
#D.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Kinloch MSS, I, 107.
#E.# ‘The Laird o Blackwood,’ Kinloch MSS, VII, 127; Kinloch’s Ancient
Scottish Ballads, p. 58.
#F.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 507.
#G.# ‘Lord Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 345.
#H.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 297.
#I.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 500.
#J.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 299.
#K.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 302.
#L.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Finlay’s Scottish Ballads, II, 4.
#M.# Herd’s MSS, I, 54; Herd’s Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 144.
#N.# ‘Lord Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. v,
the last three stanzas.
#O.# ‘Jamie Douglas,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xvii, IX,
one stanza.
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 betwixt the said marquis and his lady, which have risen to a
great height, so as neither of them are satisfied longer to continue
together.”[70]
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.”[71]
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!”[72]
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 #E# 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.[73]
#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.[74] 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#).[75]