FRANCIS

See also:

• SEMPILL
• SEMPILL (OR SEMPLE), SIR JAMES, ROBERT AND FRANCIS
• SEMPILL, ROBERT [the elder] (c. 1530-1595)

SEMPILL (1616?—1682)  was a son of Robert Sempill the younger . No details of his education are known . His fidelity to the Stuarts involved him in money difficulties, to meet which he alienated portions of his estates to his son . Before 1677 he was appointed sheriff-depute of Renfrewshire . He died at Paisley in March 1682 . Sempill wrote many occasional pieces, and his fame as a wit was widespread . Among his most important works is the " Banishment of Poverty," which contains some biographical details . " The Blythsome Wedding," long attributed to Francis Sempill, has been more recently asserted to be the work of Sir William Scott of Thirlestane . Sempill's claim to the authorship of the celebrated song " She raise and let me in," and of the ballad " Maggie Lauder," has been discussed at considerable length . It seems probable that he had some share in both . See the works mentioned below in the article on the elder Robert Sempill, and The Poems of the Sempills of Beltrees, ed . James Paterson (Edinburgh, 1849) ; A Literary History of Scotland, by J .

H .

Millar (1903); and Notes and Queries, 9th series (xi., 1903, pp . 436-437) .