1. Jean Armour, known as the "Belle of Mauchline", was the wife of the poet Robert Burns.
13 Facts About Jean Armour
2.
Jean Armour inspired many of his poems and bore him nine children, three of whom survived into adulthood.
3.
Jean Armour met Robert Burns on a drying green in Mauchline around 1784 when she chased his dog away from her laundry.
4.
The certificate of an informal marriage agreement between Burns and Jean Armour was probably mutilated by the lawyer Robert Aiken at James Jean Armour behest and he removed his daughter to Paisley to prevent local scandal.
5.
Jean Armour remained with her parents in the village of Mauchline, and Robert at Mossgiel Farm.
6.
Jean Armour returned intermittently to Mauchline, during which time Jean became pregnant by him again.
7.
Jean Armour lived at the nearby Kemmishall Farm with her father William and mother Agnes.
8.
Jean Armour outlived her husband by 38 years, and lived to see his name become celebrated throughout the world.
9.
Statues of Jean Armour were erected in Mauchline in 2002, and in Dumfries, opposite St Michael's Kirk, in 2004.
10.
James Jean Armour was a man of some standing in the Mauchline community, and it is highly unlikely that he would have neglected the education of his children.
11.
Jean Armour is known to have used the services of the aforementioned John Lewars, as well as James McLure, James Thomson and possibly a close friend, John McDiarmid.
12.
Actual surviving letters wholly written by Jean Armour include a letter to Lady Hastings in 1816 concerning her son James Glencairn Burns and a second written in 1818, which implied that the Marchioness had travelled to Dumfries where Jean Armour met her.
13.
Jean Armour wrote to her son James Glencairn in 1818 regarding his engagement.