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Mary Hamilton
"Mary Hamilton", or "The Fower Maries" ("The Four Marys"), is a common name for a well-known sixteenth-century ballad from Scotland based on an apparently fictional incident about a lady-in-waiting to a Queen of Scotland. It is Child Ballad 173 and Roud 79.
In all versions of the song, Mary Hamilton is a personal attendant to the Queen of Scots, but precisely which queen is not specified. She becomes pregnant by the Queen's husband, the King of Scots, which results in the birth of a baby. Mary kills the infant – in some versions by casting it out to sea or drowning, and in others by exposure. The crime is seen and she is convicted. The ballad recounts Mary's thoughts about her life and her impending death in a first-person narrative.
Versions of the ballad have been recorded by a number of artists, including Joan Baez, The Corries, and Angelo Branduardi.
Most versions of the song are set in Edinburgh (Scotland's traditional capital), but Joan Baez set her version, possibly the best known, in Glasgow, ending with these words:
This verse suggests Mary Hamilton was one of the famous Four Maries, four girls named Mary who were chosen by the queen mother and regent Mary of Guise to be companion ladies-in-waiting to her daughter, the child monarch Mary, Queen of Scots. However their names were Mary Seton, Mary Beaton, Mary Fleming and Mary Livingston.
Mary Stuart could not be a real life source for the ballad in any of its current forms as these are in conflict with the historical record. She and the Four Maries lived in France from 1547 to 1560, where Mary was dauphine and then queen as the wife of King Francis II. Mary later returned home to Scotland (keeping the French spelling of her surname, Stuart). She married her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley in July 1565, and he was murdered 20 months later, when he was king of Scots and joint ruler with Mary. So there was not much time for Darnley to have got one of the four Maries (or any other mistress) pregnant, and there is no record of him having done so. Also the song refers to "the highest Stuart of all" – which between 1542 and 1567 was a woman not a man.
The ballad could contain echoes of James IV or James V, who both had several illegitimate children, but none of their mistresses were executed or tried to dispose of a baby.
In many versions of the song, the queen is called "the auld Queen". This would normally indicate a Queen Dowager or Queen Mother, but in this context suggests a queen consort who was an older woman, and married to a king of comparable age. If the reference is limited to Queens named Mary, another candidate would be Mary of Guelders (1434–1463), queen to James II, King of Scots.
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Mary Hamilton
"Mary Hamilton", or "The Fower Maries" ("The Four Marys"), is a common name for a well-known sixteenth-century ballad from Scotland based on an apparently fictional incident about a lady-in-waiting to a Queen of Scotland. It is Child Ballad 173 and Roud 79.
In all versions of the song, Mary Hamilton is a personal attendant to the Queen of Scots, but precisely which queen is not specified. She becomes pregnant by the Queen's husband, the King of Scots, which results in the birth of a baby. Mary kills the infant – in some versions by casting it out to sea or drowning, and in others by exposure. The crime is seen and she is convicted. The ballad recounts Mary's thoughts about her life and her impending death in a first-person narrative.
Versions of the ballad have been recorded by a number of artists, including Joan Baez, The Corries, and Angelo Branduardi.
Most versions of the song are set in Edinburgh (Scotland's traditional capital), but Joan Baez set her version, possibly the best known, in Glasgow, ending with these words:
This verse suggests Mary Hamilton was one of the famous Four Maries, four girls named Mary who were chosen by the queen mother and regent Mary of Guise to be companion ladies-in-waiting to her daughter, the child monarch Mary, Queen of Scots. However their names were Mary Seton, Mary Beaton, Mary Fleming and Mary Livingston.
Mary Stuart could not be a real life source for the ballad in any of its current forms as these are in conflict with the historical record. She and the Four Maries lived in France from 1547 to 1560, where Mary was dauphine and then queen as the wife of King Francis II. Mary later returned home to Scotland (keeping the French spelling of her surname, Stuart). She married her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley in July 1565, and he was murdered 20 months later, when he was king of Scots and joint ruler with Mary. So there was not much time for Darnley to have got one of the four Maries (or any other mistress) pregnant, and there is no record of him having done so. Also the song refers to "the highest Stuart of all" – which between 1542 and 1567 was a woman not a man.
The ballad could contain echoes of James IV or James V, who both had several illegitimate children, but none of their mistresses were executed or tried to dispose of a baby.
In many versions of the song, the queen is called "the auld Queen". This would normally indicate a Queen Dowager or Queen Mother, but in this context suggests a queen consort who was an older woman, and married to a king of comparable age. If the reference is limited to Queens named Mary, another candidate would be Mary of Guelders (1434–1463), queen to James II, King of Scots.