Wardlaw, ELIZABETH, LADY

Wardlaw, ELIZABETH, LADY, Scottish poetess, was born in 1677, the second daughter of Sir Charles Halkett, Bart. of Pitfirrane. She married in 1696 Sir Henry Wardlaw, Bart. of Pitreavie, also near Dunfermline, and died in 1727. Her pseudo-archaic ballad, Hardyknote, a Fragment, was first published in 1719 as a genuine antique, and, expanded from 216 to 336 lines, had been two or three times reprinted, when Percy in the second edition of his Reliques revealed the secret of its authorship. To Lady Wardlaw also Dr Robert Chambers in 1859 ascribed 'Sir Patrick Spens,' 'The Douglas Tragedy,' and many more of our finest traditional ballads. Endorsed though it be by Professor Masson in his Edinburgh Sketches (1892), the theory is untenable; still our debt to Lady Wardlaw is a heavy one, for 'Hardyknote,' says Scott, was 'the first poem I ever learnt, the last I shall ever forget.'