Annotation:Right Honorable Lord John Scot (The)
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RIGHT HONORABLE LORD JOHN SCOT, THE. Scottish, Country Dance or March (2/4 time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Composed by fiddler-composer biography:Duncan McKercher, the "Dunkeld Paganini." The title honors Lord John Montague Douglas Scott (1809-1860), a younger son of the 4th Duke of Buccleuch, who became an M.P. for Roxburghshirea, an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and a keen sportsman. He married Alicia Spottiswoode (1810-1900) in 1836 and the couple lived at Cawston Hall, Warwickshire, which he had inherited from his grandmother. It was in a very dilapidated state and he gradually rebuilt and added to the grounds from the copse-wood and neighboring fox covert.
Alicia is famous as a Scottish songwriter and composer known chiefly for the tune "Annie Laurie", to which the words of a 17th-century poet, William Douglas, were set. She was a champion of traditional Scots language, history and culture, her motto being 'Haud [hold] fast by the past'.
He was the first Lord of a Manor to choose to live in his location and to become part of his community, and despite being said to h"have ruled with a rod of iron," they were benefactors in Dunchurch and well-regarded by the populace. In 1841 Lord John had the seating of St. Peters entirely renewed to the open system, doing away with private box pews and asking for 'just a space where I may sit among the labouring men of the parish'. After his death the townsfolk raised funds to erect a memorial statue at a crossroads, inscribed, ..."erected by his tenantry in affectionate remembrance of him." The statue was erected in 1867 and blended into the fabric of the village, until the 1970's when a tradition arose in festive periods of clandestine dressing it up as a television or cartoon character. he first time it was a soldier complete with gas mask, since then it has taken many guises including Father Christmas, an angel, a Shepard, Harry Potter, Darth Maul from Star Wars, Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Mr. Blobby, Shrek and Martin Johnson.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Duncan McKercher (A Collection of Original Stathspeys and Reels), Edinburgh, c. 1830; p. 20.
Recorded sources: