Lady Grizel Baillie Biography

Lady Grizel Baillie (25 December 1665 – 6 December 1746) was a Scottish songwriter.

The eldest daughter of Sir Patrick Hume (or Home) of Polwarth, afterwards earl of Marchmont, Lady Grizel Baillie was born at Redbraes Castle, Berwickshire. When she was twelve years old, she carried letters from her father to Scottish patriot Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, who was then in prison. Home's friendship for Baillie made him a suspected man, and the king's troops occupied Redbraes Castle. He remained in hiding for some time in a kirkyard, where his daughter kept him supplied with food; but on hearing of the execution of Baillie (1684), he fled to the United Provinces, where his family soon after joined him. They returned to Scotland after the Glorious Revolution.

In 1692, Lady Grizel married George Baillie, son of the patriot. She had two daughters: Grizel, who married Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope; and Lady Rachel Binning. Lady Murray had in her possession a manuscript in prose and verse of her mother's. Some of the songs had been printed in Allan Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. "And werena my heart light I wad dee," the most famous of Lady Grizel's Scots songs, originally appeared in Orpheus Caledonius (1725).

She died at age 80.