Lady Grizel Baillie
1665—1746
Scottish poet and songwriter Lady Grizel Baillie was born at Redbraes Castle in Berwickshire, the eldest daughter of Covenanter Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth. At age 12, she smuggled letters from her father to the imprisoned patriot Robert Baillie of Jerviswood. Sir Hume publicly defended Baillie, and after Baillie’s execution, Sir Hume’s castle was confiscated, forcing Sir Hume into hiding in a vault beneath Polwarth Church in Edinburgh. The family later fled to Holland, finally returning to Scotland to participate in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. In 1692, Grizel Hume married Robert Baillie’s son George, and in 1696, Sir Hume was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland.
Lady Grizel’s verses bear mournful witness to suffering. Only two of Lady Grizel’s songs survive: “The ewe-butchin’s bonnie,” which may have been inspired by her father’s ordeal, and “Werena my Heart’s licht I wad dee,” which appeared in the Scottish folk song collection Orpheus Caledonius (1725) and in volume 4 of Tea Table Miscellany (1724-37).
The Household Book of Lady Grisell Baillie 1692-1733 (1911) offers a detailed portrait of domestic expenditures and daily life at a Scottish country house. Lady Grizel Baillie is buried on the grounds of Mellerstain House, her home in the final decades of her life. The handheld wooden lantern the young Lady Grizel took on nightly visits to her father is now in the collections of the National Museums Scotland.
Lady Grizel’s verses bear mournful witness to suffering. Only two of Lady Grizel’s songs survive: “The ewe-butchin’s bonnie,” which may have been inspired by her father’s ordeal, and “Werena my Heart’s licht I wad dee,” which appeared in the Scottish folk song collection Orpheus Caledonius (1725) and in volume 4 of Tea Table Miscellany (1724-37).
The Household Book of Lady Grisell Baillie 1692-1733 (1911) offers a detailed portrait of domestic expenditures and daily life at a Scottish country house. Lady Grizel Baillie is buried on the grounds of Mellerstain House, her home in the final decades of her life. The handheld wooden lantern the young Lady Grizel took on nightly visits to her father is now in the collections of the National Museums Scotland.