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But little wist Marie Hamilton,

As she rode o'er the lea,

That she was gaun to Edinbro' town,
Her doom to hear and dree:

When she came to the Netherbow-port,
She laughed loud laughters three;
But when she reached the gallows' foot,
The tears blinded her ee.

O often have I dress'd my queen,
And put gold in her hair-
The gallows tree is my reward,

And shame maun be my share!
O often have I dress'd my queen,
And soft, soft made her bed-
And now I've got for my reward
The gallows' tree to tread!

I charge ye all, ye mariners,
When ye sail o'er the faem,

Let neither my father nor mother know,

But that I'm coming hame:

I charge ye all, ye mariners,

That sail upon the sea,

Let neither my father nor mother know

The death that I maun die!

O little did my mother ken,
The day she cradled me,

The lands I was to travel in,

Or the death I was to die!
Yestreen the queen had four Maries,
The night she'll have but three;

There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaton,
And Mary Carmichael and me.

Of the Marie Hamilton which this song mentions as one of the maids of honour to Mary, queen of Scotland, history has taken no heed; and the history of that period is too accurate and minute to have passed unnoticed the sin and the tragic close of the life of a court beauty. It is true that a Frenchwoman sinned and suffered in this manner, but she was not one of the "Queen's Maries ;" and I would more willingly believe that the song alludes to the crime and punishment of miss Hamilton, one of the maids of honour to the empress Catherine of Russia. She had murdered her illegitimate children, and was beheaded. Peter, the emperor, attended her on the scaffold, embraced her with the utmost tenderness, and when the head was struck off, he took it up and kissed the lips while they yet trembled with life.

From John Knox, who spares neither rich nor poor, lofty nor low, we learn that the maids of honour to queen Mary set no example of chastity to their unfortunate mistress, and it would be unjust to her "Maries" to say that the queen was a spotless example to them. After describing the sin and punishment of the French follower

of Queen Mary, the apostle proceeds: "But yet was not the court purged of whores and whoredoms, which was the fountain of such enormities; for it is well known that shame hasted marriage betwixt John Sempill, called the Dancer, and Mary Levingstone, surnamed the Lusty. What bruit the Maries and the rest of the dancers of the court had, the ballads of that age do witness, which we, for modesty's sake, omit; but this was the common complaint of all godly and wise men, that if they thought such a court could long continue, and if they looked for no better life to come, they would have wished their sons and daughters rather to have been brought up with fiddlers and dancers, and to have been exercised with flinging upon a floor, and in the rest that thereof follows, than to have been exercised in the company of the godly and exercised in virtue, which in that court was hated, and filthiness not only maintained but also rewarded; witness the abbey of Abercorn and barony of Auchvermuchty, and divers others pertaining to the patrimony of the crown, given in heritage to skippers and dancers and dalliers with dames."

In arranging this song I have omitted some verses which were not necessary to the story nor remarkable for their beauty. There is one verse, however, which deserves to be noticed, and which has been quoted in the preface of Mr. Finlay :

She wadna put on her gown of black,
Nor yet wad she of brown,

But she wad put on her gown of gowd,

To glance through Embro' town:
O saddle me not the black, she says,
Nor saddle to me the brown,

But saddle to me my milk-white steed,
That I may ride in renown.

It ought to be mentioned, as an excuse for all this bravery of appearance on the way to death, that she blames her nurse for the murder of her child in a preceding verse, and resolves to die as one who was doomed unjustly. The first four lines of the concluding verse of the song have been quoted and praised by Burns.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

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BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM,

AUTHOR OF SIR MARMADUKE MAXWELL, TRADITIONAL TALES,

ETC.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JOHN TAYLOR,

WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL.

1825.

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