Annotation:Lady Elizabeth Crichton

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LADY ELIZABETH CRICHTON. Scottish, Reel (cut time). B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of the tune in print in Robert Ross's 1780 collection (p. 22). Lady Elizabeth Crichton (1772-1797) was the only daughter and heir of the 6th Earl of Dumfries. In 1792 she married John, Viscount Mountstuart (b. 1767), and was styled Viscountess Mountstewart. The marriage was a short one; John died in 1794 after falling from a horse and Elizabeth expired in 1797 at the age of 24, but not before she bore two sons. Henry Raeburn painted her portrait around 1791.

Lady Elizabeth Crichton, later Viscountess Mount Stuart, by Henry Raeburn, c. 1791.



See also Ross's "Crichton Castle," presumably Lady Elizabeth's childhood home.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Robert Ross (Choice Collection of Scots Reels or Country Dances B:& Strathspeys), Edinburgh, 1780; p. 22.

Recorded sources:




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