Mary Hamilton [Child 173]

DESCRIPTION: Mary Hamilton, servant to the queen, is pregnant (by the queen's husband). She tries to hide her guilt by casting the boy out to sea, but is seen and convicted. She is condemned to die
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1790
KEYWORDS: pregnancy homicide abandonment punishment execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1542 - Accession of Mary Stewart
1548 - Mary Stewart sent to France (later married to King Francis II)
1561 - Mary Stewart returns to Scotland
1567 - Death of Lord Darnley. Mary Stewart deposed
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber,Bord)) US(Ap,MW,NE,SE,So,SW) Canada(Mar) Ireland
REFERENCES (44 citations):
Child 173, "Mary Hamilton" (27 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #5}
Bronson 173, "Mary Hamilton" (12 versions+1 in addenda)
Bronson-SingingTraditionOfChildsPopularBallads 173, "Mary Hamilton" (4 versions: #3, #5, #6, #11.1)
Lyle/McAlpine/McLucas-SongRepertoireOfAmeliaAndJaneHarris, pp. 86-89, "Mary Hamilton" (2 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #5}
Barry/Eckstorm/Smyth-BritishBalladsFromMaine pp. 258-264, "Mary Hamilton" (2 texts plus some variants and a verse of "Peter Amberley" they claim floated in from this song, 1 tune plus some cited extracts) {Bronson's #7; the first short excerpt is from Bronson's #6}
Randolph 26, "The Four Maries" (1 fragment)
Abrahams/Riddle-ASingerAndHerSongs, pp. 133-136, "Four Marys" (1 text, 1 tune, plus some variants)
Gainer-FolkSongsFromTheWestVirginiaHills, pp. 70-71, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text, 1 tune)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 35, "The Four Marys" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 63-65, "The Four Marys" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #9}
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-2ed, pp. 27-28, "The Four Marys" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Olney-BalladsMigrantInNewEngland, pp. 79-80, "The Four Marys" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #7}
Flanders-AncientBalladsTraditionallySungInNewEngland3, pp. 163-169, "Mary Hamilton" (2 texts plus a fragment, with the fragment containing parts of "MacPherson's Lament"; 3 tunes) {B=Bronson's #7}
Davis-TraditionalBalladsOfVirginia 36, "Mary Hamilton" (2 fragments from the same informant, 1 tune) {Bronson's #6}
Davis-MoreTraditionalBalladsOfVirginia 32, pp. 245-252, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text plus 2 fragments, 1 tune) {Bronson's #8}
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 481-483, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text)
Leach-HeritageBookOfBallads, pp. 86-88, "Mary Hamilton (The Four Maries)" (1 text)
Friedman-Viking/PenguinBookOfFolkBallads, p. 184, "Mary Hamilton"; p. 219, "Mary Hamilton's Last Goodnight" (2 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #6}
Creighton-MaritimeFolkSongs, pp. 22-23, "Mary Hamilton" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Creighton-FolksongsFromSouthernNewBrunswick 3, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pottie/Ellis-FolksongsOfTheMaritimes, pp. 94-95, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text, 1 tune)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 83, "The Queen's Marie" (1 text)
Grigson-PenguinBookOfBallads 61, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text)
Niles-BalladBookOfJohnJacobNiles 51, "Mary Hamilton" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Gummere-OldEnglishBallads, pp. 159-161+334-335, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text)
Combs/Wilgus-FolkSongsOfTheSouthernUnitedStates 32, pp. 124-126, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 160, "Last night there were four Marys" (2 fragments)
Hodgart-FaberBookOfBallads, p. 138, "Marie Hamilton" (1 text)
Buchan-ABookOfScottishBallads 33, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text)
Chambers-ScottishBallads, pp. 106-111, "Marie Hamilton" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan2 195, "The Four Maries" (4 texts, 3 tunes) {B=#6, C=#11}
Porter/Gower-Jeannie-Robertson-EmergentSingerTransformativeVoice #74, p. 249-250, "Mary Hamilton (Child 173)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Buchan/Moreira-TheGlenbuchatBallads, pp. 27-29, "The Queen's Mary" (1 text)
Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 123, "Marie Hamilton" (1 text)
Ord-BothySongsAndBallads, p. 457, "The Queen's Maries" (1 text)
Whiting-TraditionalBritishBallads 23, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text)
HarvardClassics-EnglishPoetryChaucerToGray, pp. 117-119, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text)
Abrahams/Foss-AngloAmericanFolksongStyle, pp. 49-52, "Mary Hamilton" (2 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #6}
Wells-TheBalladTree, pp. 48-49, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text, 1 tune)
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishBallads, pp. 261-263, "The Queen's Marie"; pp. 263-264, "Mary Hamilton" (2 texts)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 211, "The Four Maries" (1 text)
SongsOfAllTime, p. 11, "Mary Hamilton" (1 text, 1 tune, with Mary's crime omitted but the fact of her execution told)
DT 173, MARYHAM1* MARYHAM2 MARYHAM3* MARYHAM4*
ADDITIONAL: Andrew Lang, "The Mystery of 'The Queen's Marie,'" article published 1895 in _Blackwoods Magazine_; republished on pp. 19-28 of Norm Cohen, editor, _All This for a Song_, Southern Folklife Collection, 2009
Roud #79
RECORDINGS:
Texas Gladden, "Mary Hamilton" (AFS 5323 A5; on USTGladden01)
Jeannie Robertson, "Mary Hamilton (The Four Marys)" (on FSB5 [as "The Four Maries"], FSBBAL2)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Purple Dress
Mary Mild
The Duke o' York's Dother
NOTES [563 words]: Mary Stewart (the French used the spelling "Stuart") became Queen of Scotland in December 1542 when she was six days old (so Keay/Keay, p. 682, Magnusson, p. 319; I have seen a figure of eight days elsewhere), following the early death of her father James V.
Scotland being the chaotic place that it was, and under attack by Henry VIII who wanted to marry Mary to his son Edward VI (the "rough wooing"; Keay/Key, p. 683; Magnuson, pp. 321-329) she was only a child when she was sent abroad to marry into and be brought up at the court of France (1548). To keep her good company, since her mother Mary of Guise would remain behind to manage Scotland four well-bred Scots girls were sent with her to keep her company (it should be noted, though, that none of them was named Hamilton; the four were Mary Beaton, Mary Fleming, Mary Livingston, and Mary Seton; Magnusson, p. 330). Her husband Francis II died in 1560, however, and Mary Stewart went home (KeayKeay, pp. 682-683).
There she married her cousin, Henry, Lord Darnley. It does not seem to have been an overly happy match, so Darnley might well have engaged in extracurricular activities. In any case, Darnley was murdered in 1567. Soon after, Mary was (forcibly?) married by the Earl of Bothwell; in that same year she was deposed in favor of her son and fled to England (Magnusson, pp. 348-363). Thus if this song is truly set in the reign of Mary, it must be in the period 1542-1567, and if it is during Mary's time in Scotland it is 1560-1568, and if Darnley (who was given the crown matrimonial, and who was just as much as Stewart as Mary herself) was in fact the father it must be between 1565, when Mary married Darnley (Keay/Keay, p. 683) and his murder in 1567.
Nowhere in her troubled reign do we find reference to a serving girl's pregnancy; one theory has it that the story arose with the troubles of a Mary Hamilton at the Russian court. Another theory, first advanced by Scott, connects it with members of Mary Stuart's court *other than* the four Maries and Lord Darnley.
It also occurs to me that there is the case of the son of George III, who in due time would become George IV. According to Sinclair-Stevenson, p. 118, Prince George at one time "had fallen in love with Mary Hamilton, one of his sisters' governesses." Whether this is relevant depends of course on the earliest date of the song. There are a number of mentions in the early nineteenth century. If we can push it before about 1780, then of course this Mary Hamilton is out of the question. Of course George IV's Mary Hamilton didn't kill her baby. In fact, she never even had an affar with the prince -- he was 16, she was six years older, and he wrote her a bunch of pathetic love letters, but she was not willing to get involved (Smith, p. 17). But the talk of an affair with the Prince of Wales might have influenced the character in this song.
Another hypothesis claims that Mary Hamilton lived in Tsarist Russia, but how that story managed to make it to Scotland has never been satisfactorily explained that I know of.
For extensive discussion of the matter (which is, however, rather more theoretical than practical) see Davis-MoreTraditionalBalladsOfVirginia, pp. 246-248. - RBW
Also collected and sung by Ellen Mitchell, "Mary Mild" (on Kevin and Ellen Mitchell, "Have a Drop Mair," Musical Tradition Records MTCD315-6 CD (2001)) - BS
Bibliography Last updated in version 6.5
File: C173

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