Lady Madelina Sinclair (1772-1847) was the second daughter of Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon, and William Marshall's employer and patron. Her second husband was named Charles Fyshe Palmer Esq. of Luckley Hall, Berkshire, (shown above) whom she wed in 1804. Her first husband was Sir Robert Sinclair of Murtle, who died in 1795 when she was twenty-three. Madelina's wealth and family connections were of considerable benefit to Palmer's career.

MacDonald, in his Skye Collection, repeats the composer credit Niel Gow (1727-1807) awarded himself that appears in the Gow's Third Collection of Strathspey Reels of 1792. However, Charles Duff had a prior claim to authorship of (at least a prototype of) the tune under the title "Braes of Aberarder," which he earlier published in 1790 (Emmerson, 1971). The tune also appears in Angus MacKay's c. 1840's collection of pipe tunes. Christine Martin (2002) notes the tune is the vehicle for a popular Scots song (albeit with sometimes bawdy words) in the Gaelic puirt a beul tradition, called "A' bhean a bh'aig an taillear chaol" (The skinny tailor's wife). A version of "Lady Madelina Sinclair" was also printed in Glasgow piper, pipe teacher and pipe maker William Gunn's Caledonian Repository of Music Adapted to the Bagpipe (1848) as "A bhean a bh'aig an Tàiller Chaol"/"The Tailor's Wife."