S
Finlay sent Scott, March 27, 1803, the following copy of ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ as he “had written it down from memory:” Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, I, No 87, Abbotsford. Stanzas 10, 9, 12 appear in the second volume of the Minstrelsy, 1802, p. 154, with the variation of a couple of words, as ‘The Lament of the Queen’s Marie’ (here I b). Perhaps Finlay adopted these three stanzas into his copy. Stanzas 1, 3, 6, 8, with very slight variations, were printed by Finlay in the preface to his Scottish Ballads, 1808 (O).
1
There lived a lord into the South,
An he had daughters three;
The youngest o them’s gaen to the king’s court,
To learn some courtesie.
2
She had na been in the king’s court
A twelvemonth an a day,