_Margaret Burr._--It is related in Allan Cunningham's _Life of
Gainsborough_, that he married a young lady named Margaret Burr, of
Scottish extraction; and that
"On an occasion of household festivity, when her husband was high
in fame, she vindicated some little ostentation in her dress by
whispering to her niece, now Mrs. Lane, 'I have some right to
this, for you know, my love, I am a prince's daughter.'"
The biographer of the _British Painters_ prefaces this by saying,
"Nor must I omit to tell that rumour conferred other attractions
(besides an annuity) upon her; she was said to be the natural
daughter of one of our exiled princes, nor was she, when a wife
and a mother, desirous of having this circumstance forgotten."
As I just now read in Vol. iv., p. 244., some account of Berwick, and
other natural children of James II., I was put in mind of the above
anecdote, and should be glad of any information respecting the Miss
Burr's parentage in question. Myself a collateral descendant of her
husband, I know from other sources that the tradition is worthy of
credit; and to the genealogist and antiquary it may be a historically
interesting enquiry.