Annotation:Honorable Mrs. Maule's Strathspey

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HONORABLE MRS. MAULE'S STRATHSPEY. Scottish, Strathspey (whole time). A Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Composed by Perthshire fiddler-composer biography:Duncan McKercher, the "Dunkeld Paganini."

Honorable Mrs. Maule, c. 1842

There were two 'Honorable Mrs. Maule's', both wives of reforming Liberal politician William Ramsay Maule (1771-1852), elected M.P. for Forfarshire in 1805, who continued to be elected until 1831, when he was elevated to the Peerage as Baron Panmure of Brechin and Navar (entitling him to a seat in the House of Lords). Maule was also a keen sportsman, particularly field sports such as fox hunting and horse racing. He was also renowned for the drunken frolics and practical jokes that his 'convicial events' often turned into. He married his first wife, Patricia Heron Gordon, in 1794, and, although they had nine children together, they became estranged (causing a family quarrel with his eldest son, who sided with her). Patricia died in 1821 and the next year in a clandestine ceremony he married Elizabeth, the daughter of John William Barton, Hospitalfield, Forfar. See also McKercher's companion "Honorable Mrs. Maule's Reel."

"Mrs. Maule, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton", a very early c. 1845 photograph from the Edinburgh studios of David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848). 'Mrs. Maule' may or may not have been Elizabeth Maule.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Duncan McKercher (A Collection of Original Stathspeys and Reels), Edinburgh, c. 1830; p. 4.

Recorded sources:

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