Annotation:Lady Mary Ann Carnegie's Favourite

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LADY MARY ANN CARNEGIE'S FAVOURITE. Scottish, Strathspey. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD'. The melody first appears in Edinburgh musician biography:Daniel McLaren's A Collection of Strathspey, Reels &c. (1794). One Lady Mary Ann Carnegie (there are others by that name) was the daughter of the Sixth Earl of Northesk. She was the second wife of the Rev. John Kemp DD., of the Tolbooth Church, who was the subject of one of Kay's charicatures. Lady Mary Ann died in 1798 (and Kemp remarried a third time, to Lady Elizabeth Hope, daughter of John, second Earl of Hopetoun). An effective clergyman, he was also something of a rake, and was accused by Sir James Colquhoun, Sherrif-Depute of Dumbartonshire, of having had a affair with his wife, Lady Colquhoun. The scandal was heightened by the fact that Kemp's son (by the first Mrs. Kemp, and a cloth manufacturer) married Sir James's daughter, leading to attacks in print:

To a weaver's arms consigns the high born Miss;
Then greets the mother with a holy kiss.

The matter was taken to court but remained unsettled at the time of death of both principals in 1805.

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