[601] [For a reference to whistles used by naval commanders, see Statute of apparel, 24 Hen. VIII. c. 13 (Anstis's Order of the Garter, vol. ii. p. 121.)]
[602] Ver. 175, 6.... Erle of Nottingham, And soe was never, &c., MS.
XIII.
LADY ANNE BOTHWELL'S LAMENT.
A Scottish Song.
The subject of this pathetic ballad the Editor once thought might possibly relate to the Earl of Bothwell, and his desertion of his wife Lady Jean Gordon, to make room for his marriage with the Queen of Scots.
But this opinion he now believes to be groundless; indeed Earl Bothwell's age, who was upwards of 60 at the time of that marriage, renders it unlikely that he should be the object of so warm a passion as this elegy supposes. He has been since informed, that it entirely refers to a private story: A young lady of the name of Bothwell, or rather Boswell, having been, together with her child, deserted by her husband or lover, composed these affecting lines herself; which here are given from a copy in the Editor's folio MS. corrected by another in Allan Ramsay's Miscellany.
[The young lady alluded to above has since been set aside for the Hon. Anne Bothwell, daughter of Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney. Mr. James Maidment, in his elegant edition of Scottish Ballads and Songs (vol. ii. 1868), writes: "The late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esquire, whose knowledge of antiquated scandal was extraordinary, found in a MS. history of the family of Bothwell by Father Hay, that Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, had a daughter named 'Anne, who fell with child to a son of the Earl of Marre.'" Anne was the sister of the first Lord Holyroodhouse (created in 1607), and her seducer was Alexander, third son of John, seventh Earl of Mar, a cousin of her own, considered one of the handsomest men of his day. This is all very well for conjecture, but it is nothing more. The ballad does not appear to have been associated with a Bothwell, or in fact with any named person, until more than a century after it was written. In the Folio MS. it is simply called Balowe, and Percy therefore might well have hesitated before he gave it the heading he has, and before he Scotticised all the English words. The four earliest versions are in the following books: 1. Richard Brome's Comedy of the Northern Lass, or the Nest of Fools, printed in 1632, but acted somewhat earlier; 2. Percy Folio; 3. Pinkerton's MS. (1625-49), in the possession of David Laing; 4. John Gamble's MS., 1649; 5. Elizabeth Rogers' MS., 1658. Mr. Chappell drew up the following very valuable note for the edition of the Percy Folio (vol. iii. p. 518), which puts the matter very clearly:—