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Joan Baez sings 'Mary Hamilton' from her self-titled 1960 Vanguard album. This song, perhaps the most popular folk ballad (Child #173), originated in Scotland in the 1500s. Mary Hamilton, an attendant to the Queen, is to be executed for casting her baby by the King of Scots out to sea. Its possible historical antecedents are not clear, but Baez' version places it in Glasgow with the king called the “highest Stuart of all“. Though finding images for the people, places, and actions of such a song is problematic, the emotion of the woman's narrative on her impending doom and the quiet, but intense, feeling of Baez' singing likely overcome any failings. The song is also known as 'The Four Marys' and has been recorded by Peggy Seeger, Robin Roberts, and others.
