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Barbara MacKay, Lady Reay (c. 1615 – c. 1690) was a Scottish poet born in Scourie. Her main collection of poems is a manuscript composed of ten mainly religious poems dedicated to the Countess of Caithness. She also wrote on political matters: some of her best known works is a poem called Anagramme on his Maty, intend to encourage Charles II to be a good king, and a eulogy to Lord Lovat. She was the daughter of Ann Corbett of Arkboll, and Hugh MacKay of Scourie and the second wife of John MacKay, 2nd Lord Reay, with whom she had at least six children. Like her father and husband, Barbara MacKay was both a Royalist and a Presbyterian. Reverend James Fraser mentions that she was "admired for sharpness and eloquence a great historian, a smart poet, and, for virtue and housekeeping, few or none her parallel".

References

1. The biographical dictionary of Scottish women : from the earliest times to 2004. Ewan, Elizabeth., Innes, Sue., Reynolds, Sian. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2006. ISBN 9780748626601. OCLC 367680960.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
2. Fraser, James (1905). Chronicles of the Frasers: The Wardlaw Manuscripts Entitled, Polichronicon Seu Policratica Temyorum, Or, the True Genealogy of the Frasers 916-1674 (PDF).

• 1610s births
• 1690 deaths
• Scottish women poets
• 17th-century Scottish women writers