Baillie, Lady Grizel
BAILLIE, LADY GRIZEL (1665-1746), Scottish song-writer, eldest daughter of Sir Patrick Hume or Home of Polwarth, afterwards earl of Marchmont, was born at Redbraes Castle, Berwickshire, on the 25th of December 1665. When she was twelve years old she carried letters from her father to the Scottish patriot, Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, who was then in prison. Home's friendship for Baillie made him a suspected man, and the king's troops occupied Redbraes Castle. He remained in hiding for some time in a churchyard, where his daughter kept him supplied with food, but on hearing of the execution of Baillie (1684) he fled to Holland, where his family soon after joined him. They returned to Scotland at the Revolution. Lady Grizel married in 1692 George Baillie, son of the patriot. She died on the 6th of December 1746. She had two daughters, Grizel, who married Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope, and Rachel, Lady Binning. Lady Murray had in her possession a MS. of her mother's in prose and verse. Some of the songs had been printed in Allan Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. "And werena my heart light I wad dee," the most famous of Lady Grizel's songs, originally appeared in Orpheus Caledonius (1725).
Memoirs of the Lives and Characters of the Right Hon. George Baillie of Jerviswood and Lady Grisell Baillie, by their daughter, Lady Murray of Stanhope, were printed in 1822. George Baillie's Correspondence (1702-1708) was edited by Lord Minto for the Bannatyne Club in 1842. "The Legend of Lady Grizelda Baillie" forms one of Joanna Baillie's Metrical Legends of Exalted Character.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
