Annotation:Lady Christian Montgomery's Hornpipe
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LADY CHRISTIAN MONTGOMERY'S HORNPIPE. Scottish, Triple Hornpipe (3/2 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). This melody, in old hornpipe metre, appears in the Drummond Castle Manuscript (in the possession of the Earl of Ancaster at Drummond Castle), inscribed "A Collection of Country Dances written for the use of his Grace the Duke of Perth by Dav. Young, 1734." See also David Young's "Lady Susan Montgomery's Hornpipe," another 3/2 hornpipe that is adjacent to "Lady Christian Mongomery's Hornpipe" in his manuscript. Lady Susan and Lady Christian were sisters, two of eight daughters (and three sons) of the beautiful and accomplished Susanna Montgomery, Countess of Eglinton (1690-1780), third wife of Alexander Montgomerie, 9th Earl of Eglinton. Poet and writer Thomas D'Urfey dedicated his pastoral comedy The Gentle Shepherd (1725) to Susanna and presented her with the original manuscript. It was said that when she and her daughters were in Edinburgh the caddies at the Cross were dumbfounded by their beauty as they stepped from their Sedan chairs. Lady Christian Montgomery (c. 1717-1748), the sixth daughter, married James Moray of Abercairny (1705-1777), a patron of Niel Gow, who commemorated him in a famous fiddle lament (see "Niel Gow's Lamentation for James Moray Esq. of Abercairny").
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: David Young (Drummond Castle/Duke of Perth Manuscript), 1734; No. 18.
Recorded sources: