Note 71 — 204 JAMIE DOUGLAS

The Douglas Book, II, 450 f. “Lawrie is mentioned by Lord Fountainhall as ‘late chamberlain to the Marquis of Douglas, and repute a bad instrument between him and his lady in their differences.’ Decisions, I, 196.”

What should prompt Lawrie to malice against the marchioness is unknown. Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 58, accepting the story of the old woman from whom he obtained E, says: “The Laird of Blackwood and the Marquis of —— were rivals in the affection of a lovely and amiable young lady, who, preferring the latter, became his wife. Blackwood ... vowed revenge,” etc. Chambers, who repeats this account, Scottish Ballads, p. 150, remarks that Lawrie seems to have been considerably advanced in life at the time. Lawrie’s son made a “retour of services” in 1650, and may be supposed then to have been of age. The Marquis of Douglas was in his twenty-fourth year when he married, in 1670, and probably Lady Barbara Erskine was not older. Maidment is surprised that Lawrie, “a man of uncertain lineage,” should have succeeded with the widow Marion Weir. What is to be thought of his aspiring, at the age of sixty, or more, to “the affection of a lovely and amiable young lady” of the family of Mar, one of the most ancient in Scotland?