Lady Mary Douglas

Lady Mary Douglas Miss Mary Douglas ~ RSCDS

Lady Mary Douglas is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2024. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars.

In his A Companion to the Ball Room, 1816, Thomas Wilson published Lady Mary Douglas:, wherein he writes:

SINGLE FIGURE Tune played straight thro and Da Capo
Whole figure at top lead down the middle up again turn your partner & lead outsides

OR THUS Cross over 2 Cu: cross up 1 Cu: towards the top and half figure round the top Cu: & the double triangle

DOUBLE FIGURE Tune played twice thro and Da Capo
Hey on your own sides chain figure 6 round lead down the middle up again lead thro the top Cu: whole figure round the bottom Cu: turn corners whole figure contrary corners

The music consists of 2 eight bar strains and is marked Da Capo. In his Introduction, Thomas Wilson defines Da Capo which signifies, after the Parts that compose the tune are played through, the first is played again. The RSCDS has chosen the DOUBLE FIGURE which means the music should be played ABABAA (I think). " " indicates a strain.

Wilson defines his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing.

The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.

The dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

A11-81s lead between 2s for mirror heys on the sides
B11-81s face partner, others neighbor, grand chain
A21-81s lead down, turn, lead up as 2s move up, lead above 2s and cast down to 2nd place
B21-81s full figure eight down through the 3s
A31-81s pass right, two hand turn 1st corners, pass right, two hand turn 2nd corners, return home
A41-41s half figure eight down through 3s
5-81s half figure eight up through 2s

If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.

If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=LadyMaryDouglas-Williams

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
Creative Commons License My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.