Broadside entitled 'Elegy'

Commentary

This elegy begins: 'AH! Fatal Stroak, That from us has remov'd / A Peer, and Patriot, justly well belov'd. / By King and People, as he well deserv'd, / Because he both Unbayas'dly has served'. In common with many broadside elegys, this piece is surrounded by a thick black border. No publication details are given, although we are told that the Earl died on March 13th, 1720.

David, 3rd Earl of Wemyss (b. 1678) married Anne Douglas in 1697 and they had two children, David and James. He remarried, to Mary Robinson, in 1708, and took a third wife, Elizabeth Sinclair, in 1716. They had two children together, Elizabeth and Margaret.

The family name, Wemyss, began with John MacDuff, who was made Earl of Wemyss in 1056 by Malcolm III of Scotland. 'Wemyss' is the Gaelic word for the coves that indented the east coast of Scotland.

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