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Show "Annie Laurie," World's Greatest Love Song, Still Recalls Ancient Romance The world's greatest love-song is 1 what "Annie Laurie" has been called and with justice. It is only fitting that this famous old ballad should have been woven out of the stuff of which true romance Is made. Yet, though millions have sung of her, few there are who can tell you just who "Annie Laurie" was and how she came to "break her promise true." It has been suggested sug-gested that she never existed at all. Cut she did. She was born in 1GS-J, and in her girlhoid was known far and wide as the most beautiful woman In all Dumfriesshire. Dumfries-shire. Her father was Robert Laurie Lau-rie of Maxwelton, and she was his oldest daughter. Three years after her birth he was made a baronet. Annie, the girl with many suitors, suit-ors, apparently was swept off her feet, and "gave her promise true." But she did not keep it, and the real reason why has never been revealed. re-vealed. I myself like to think that his fiery nature brought about a quarrel quar-rel which he later regretted bitterly, bit-terly, but which reft the Idyll none the less, says a writer in Pearson's Weekly. Whether it be so or no it is a fact that Annie did marry another an-other Alexander Fergusson, of Craigdarroch, a man with a mansion man-sion and a country estate, and a descendant of one who in bis day had been a noted freebooter, Jon-kyne Jon-kyne Fergusson. She was then twenty-seven and still a beauty. So at any rate 1 t r-v 1 .V,rt f h cot She grew up in stirring times days of war and Stuart rivalries. The " men who came to woo the lleauty of Maxwelton were men of deeds' and mettle. And probably the most mettlesome of them all was one William Douglas, of Fing land, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Kirk-cudbright. There was nothing of the dreamy poetic swain about Douglas. He fought under Marlborough In Flanders, was a noted duelist and a fiery supporter of the Stuart cause. One can picture him as he came to woo Annie among the braes of ! bonnie Maxwelton a merry-eyed gallant, wilh the handsome, devil-may-care appearance one might expect ex-pect would sweep any girl off her ' feet. tnougnt lhiui;i, 1,1,11 01 down, not with too much delicacy perhaps, with wilh verses which soon became a ballad of the countryside. coun-tryside. Annie lived to a good old age some records say she was eighty-two eighty-two when she died, ner resting place has been variously given as the old graveyard at Craigdarroch and the churchyard at Glencairn. where her husband was buried. A curious point, however, is that there is no mention of her on the tombstone tomb-stone of her husband. cq,e pnssed. but the ballad she had inspired lived on. Turns sang it. and revised somewhat the version ver-sion lie had known in the Maxwelton Maxwel-ton countryside. And in 12:1 it first appeared as a printed song. |
