Elizabeth Paton
Elizabeth Paton | |
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Elizabeth Burns |
Elizabeth "Betsey" Paton or later Elizabeth Andrew of Lairgieside (1760 – c. 1799) was the daughter of James Paton and Eleanor Helen Paton of Aird Farm, Crossroads, Ayrshire. Following an affair with
Life and character
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She is said to have had a plain face but a good figure. She eventually married John Andrew, a ploughman and widower,[5] on 9 February 1788 in Tarbolton, Ayrshire, Scotland. They had four children; she is said to have been a model housewife.[5] She is presumed to have died before 1799, when John remarried one Jean Lees.[6]
Isabella Begg had heard of Elizabeth Paton as "rude and uncultivated to a great degree... with a thorough (though unwomanly) contempt for every sort of refinement."'[4] In a letter to Robert Chambers she describes Elizabeth as "A well developed, plain-featured peasant girl, frank and independent .." and for these reasons a favourite with Burns's mother. She goes on to say that Elizabeth Paton had a "masculine understanding" and contempt for anything that savoured of culture.[4]
Association with Robert Burns
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Elizabeth gave birth to Robert Burns's first illegitimate child.
When baby "bonnie Betty" was born, Burns expressed fatherly tenderness, forgetting his earlier masculine posturing. In a Poet's welcome to his 'Love-begotten Daughter'[5][8] or alternatively 'his bastard wean' we find:
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No poems seem to have been inspired directly by Elizabeth Paton,[1] but she may have been in the poet's mind when he wrote "The Rantin' Dog." A few lines in Burns's first Commonplace Book dated September 1784 relate to her.
In 1784, in the song "O Tibbie, I hae seen the day", which were addressed to Isabella Steven, the daughter of a Tarbolton farmer, Burns addresses her with:
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In this piece the poet may have been referring to Elizabeth as the "lass beside yon park" although he never confirms this.[9]
Elizabeth Bishop
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Elizabeth Bishop (22 May 1785 – 8 January 1817) was
Elizabeth Bishop lived as a child at Mossgiel Farm, under Burns's mother's care, until Robert Burns's death. She then returned to her own mother, who was by this time married to John Andrew, a ploughman.[10] At the age of twenty-one, Elizabeth received two hundred pounds from the money raised for the support of Burns's family.
When Burns contemplated emigration to Jamaica, he made over his heritable property and the profits from the 'Kilmarnock Edition' of his poems to his brother, Gilbert Burns, to enable him to bring up Elizabeth as if she was one of his own.[11]
See also
References
- Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g Burns Encyclopedia Retrieved : 13 February 2012
- ^ Hecht, Page 54
- ^ a b Mackay, Page 137
- ^ a b c d e Hecht, Page 55
- ^ a b c Hecht, Page 56
- ^ Mackay, Page 139
- ^ Annandale, Page 31
- ^ Burns Encyclopedia Retrieved : 6 November 2017
- ^ Mackay, Page 80
- ^ Hans Hecht, Robert Burns: The Man and his Work, 1936, p. 56
- ^ Hans Hecht, Robert Burns: The Man and his Work, 1936, p. 88–89
- Sources
- Annandale, Charles (1890). The Works of Robert Burns. Vol 1. Glasgow : Blackie & Son.
- Hecht, Hans (1936). Robert Burns. London : William Hodge.
- Mackay, James (2004). Burns. A Biography of Robert Burns. Darvel : Alloway Publishing. ISBN 0907526-85-3.