Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
Four Maries / The Four Marys / Mary Mild / Mary Hamilton (Child No. 173) - Sung by Ellen Mitchell on "Have a Drop Mair" (2015) MTCD315-6.
Liner Notes:
Ellen: I learned this from John Eaglesham. It is included in comprehensive collections of Burns songs and poems, and it's a version of the Mary Hamilton ballad. The background to the song is somewhat mysterious since there is no clear connection with an actual historical event. It seems that, in common with other ballads, events and dates have become displaced.
The highest steward (or Stewart) in the first verse is the king (Lord Darnley), and Mary Hamilton was one of the group of four ladies called Mary who attended Mary Queen of Scots. Historically they were Mary Fleming, Mary Livingston, Mary Seton and Mary Beaton—but the first two of these names appear in the ballad. No accusations of infanticide were made against any of these women, but a French woman in the Queen's service and her lover, a royal apothecary, were hanged for murdering their child in 1563.
The ballad is not known before 1790, however, so it could be linked to a later incident at the Russian court of Peter the Great. A maid-of-honour to Empress Catherine, named Mary Hamilton, was beheaded for infanticide. As Emily Lyle says in her notes (Scottish Ballads, Penguin, 1994): “It is not improbable that there are reminiscences of both these historical events in the ballad.”
More than half of Roud's 120 references to this ballad are from Scotland; the rest are from the USA and Canada, with just one each from England and Ireland. Oddly, there appears to have been only one broadside printing, by Sanderson of Edinburgh; however its publication in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1806) would have ensured its popularity.
Song transcription:
Oh word's gaed up and word's gaed doon
And word's gaed through the haa,
That Mary Mild is great wi child,
Tae the highest steward o aa.
They socht it east, they socht it west,
Aye and in ablaw the bed,
And there they've found this fair bairn
A-wallowin in its blood.
“It's lie doon by me Mary Mild,
Oh lie ye doon be me,
And every favour ye might ask,
Then I might grant tae ye.”
“It's happy, happy is the maid
That is born o beauty free,
For it's been ma red and rosy cheek
That has been the dule o me.
“For often hae I dressed ma queen
And pit gowd in her hair,
Ah, but noo I've gotten for my reward
The gallows to be my share.
“It's little did ma mither think
On the day she cradled me
O the lands I wis tae travel in
And the death I wis tae dee.”
“Oh will ye pit on the black, the black,
Or will ye put on the broon?”
“Oh, no, I'll put on the sky blue silk
And I'll shine through Edinburgh Toon.
“Yestreen the queen had four Marys,
And the nicht she'll hae but three,
There was Mary Seaton, and Mary Beaton,
Mary Carmichael and me.”
Four Maries / The Four Marys / Mary Mild / Mary Hamilton (Child No. 173) - Sung by Ellen Mitchell on "Have a Drop Mair" (2015) MTCD315-6.
Liner Notes:
Ellen: I learned this from John Eaglesham. It is included in comprehensive collections of Burns songs and poems, and it's a version of the Mary Hamilton ballad. The background to the song is somewhat mysterious since there is no clear connection with an actual historical event. It seems that, in common with other ballads, events and dates have become displaced.
The highest steward (or Stewart) in the first verse is the king (Lord Darnley), and Mary Hamilton was one of the group of four ladies called Mary who attended Mary Queen of Scots. Historically they were Mary Fleming, Mary Livingston, Mary Seton and Mary Beaton—but the first two of these names appear in the ballad. No accusations of infanticide were made against any of these women, but a French woman in the Queen's service and her lover, a royal apothecary, were hanged for murdering their child in 1563.
The ballad is not known before 1790, however, so it could be linked to a later incident at the Russian court of Peter the Great. A maid-of-honour to Empress Catherine, named Mary Hamilton, was beheaded for infanticide. As Emily Lyle says in her notes (Scottish Ballads, Penguin, 1994): “It is not improbable that there are reminiscences of both these historical events in the ballad.”
More than half of Roud's 120 references to this ballad are from Scotland; the rest are from the USA and Canada, with just one each from England and Ireland. Oddly, there appears to have been only one broadside printing, by Sanderson of Edinburgh; however its publication in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1806) would have ensured its popularity.
Song transcription:
Oh word's gaed up and word's gaed doon
And word's gaed through the haa,
That Mary Mild is great wi child,
Tae the highest steward o aa.
They socht it east, they socht it west,
Aye and in ablaw the bed,
And there they've found this fair bairn
A-wallowin in its blood.
“It's lie doon by me Mary Mild,
Oh lie ye doon be me,
And every favour ye might ask,
Then I might grant tae ye.”
“It's happy, happy is the maid
That is born o beauty free,
For it's been ma red and rosy cheek
That has been the dule o me.
“For often hae I dressed ma queen
And pit gowd in her hair,
Ah, but noo I've gotten for my reward
The gallows to be my share.
“It's little did ma mither think
On the day she cradled me
O the lands I wis tae travel in
And the death I wis tae dee.”
“Oh will ye pit on the black, the black,
Or will ye put on the broon?”
“Oh, no, I'll put on the sky blue silk
And I'll shine through Edinburgh Toon.
“Yestreen the queen had four Marys,
And the nicht she'll hae but three,
There was Mary Seaton, and Mary Beaton,
Mary Carmichael and me.”
