Lady Peveril, it will be remembered, in spite of the 'good fellowship' and 'reconciliation' which the banquet was to celebrate, dared not permit the rival factions to dine together, so she adopted the unique expedient of placing the jovial Cavaliers in the hall, while the strict Puritans occupied the large parlour. The great hall ofHaddon is about thirty-five feet long and twenty-five feet wide. At one end is an ancient table, many centuries old, and at the other is a minstrel's gallery, with carved panellings and ornamented by stag's heads. A great open fireplace gives a suggestion of good cheer, even to the bare room. Back of this is another large dining-room on the oaken walls of which are some fine old carvings. It also has a large open fireplace, above which is the motto
Drede God and Honor the Kyng.
The room was formerly larger than now and may have been in the author's mind as the scene of the Puritan part of the banquet. Haddon Hall, however, although it doubtless furnished some few suggestions, must not be taken as an 'original' of Martindale Castle. The novelist never felt the necessity of an exact model, but freely used the places with which he was familiar for such suggestions as they might chance to furnish. In his later work he often described localities which he had never visited, frequently doing so with an exactness suggesting the most intimate personal knowledge.
This was true of the Isle of Man, which Scott had never seen, but which he describes in 'Peveril of the Peak' with great accuracy, relying for his information upon Waldron's 'Description of the Isle of Man,' published in 1731.
After an interval of several years following the events in Derbyshire, Julian Peveril appears as a visitor at Castle Rushen, in the southern end of the Isle of Man. Tradition says that this ancient castle was founded in the tenth century by Guttred, the son of a Norwegianchief named Orry, who took possession and with his sons and successors reigned for many years as kings of the Isle of Man. Later the Earls of Derby ruled as monarchs of the island and Castle Rushen was their royal residence.
The traditional castle of the Norwegians was replaced in the thirteenth century by a strong fortress of limestone. This was partly destroyed by Robert Bruce in 1313 and remained in ruins for three centuries. It was then rebuilt by the Earls of Derby in its present form. The central keep is a strong tower with walls twenty-two feet thick at the base and about seventy feet high. It is surrounded by an embattled wall twenty-five feet high and nine feet thick. On the tower facing the market square is a clock presented in 1597 by Queen Elizabeth.
In 1627, James Stanley, celebrated as 'the great Earl of Derby,' became lord of the island. This nobleman was executed in 1651, charged with the crime of assisting Charles II before the battle of Worcester. During his absence in England the Castle Rushen was heroically defended by his wife, the brave Charlotte de la Tremouille, Countess of Derby. William Christian, popularly known as William Dhône, or 'the fair-haired William,' had been entrusted by the Earl with the care of his wife and children. Whatever may have been his motive, the Receiver-General, by which title Christian was known, surrendered the island without resistance, on the appearance of the Parliamentary army, and the Countess was imprisoned in the castle. After the Restoration of Charles II, the Countess accused Christian of treachery to herself and brought about his execution in 1662.
These were the main facts which, coming to the novelist's attention through his brother, Thomas Scott, who for several seasons resided in the Isle of Man, attracted his fancy and suggested the writing of 'Peveril of the Peak.'
Peel Castle, to which the action of the story is soon transferred, stands on a rocky islet off the western coast of the island. It was once a vast ecclesiastical establishment and now contains the ruins of two churches, two chapels, two prisons, and two palaces. Of these the best preserved and most interesting is the Cathedral of St. Germain, a cruciform building, some parts of which were built in the thirteenth century. In a crypt below was the ecclesiastical prison where many remarkable captives were confined, the most notable of whom was Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who was accused of witchcraft and of devising a wicked plot to kill the King and place her husband upon the throne.
Higher up on the rock are the remains of St. Patrick's Church, in the walls of which are some good examples of the 'herring-bone' masonry indicating great antiquity. The walls are thought by antiquarians to date back to the fifth century. Behind this is the remarkable round tower, about fifty feet high, which Mr. Hall Caine has introduced in 'The Christian.'
The custodian, when he learned of our interest in Sir Walter Scott, could scarcely restrain his anxiety to show us Fenella's Tower. This is a bit of the surrounding wall, containing a small square turret. Beneath is a narrow stairway, forming a sally-port, through which entrance could be gained to a space between twoparallel outside walls. In time of siege, soldiers could go out and fire at the enemy from this place of concealment through openings in the walls. If hard-pressed they could retire to the tower and pour scalding water or hot lead upon an attacking body. In Scott's tale, Julian Peveril, seeking to leave the castle by this stair, is intercepted by Fenella, who is anxious to prevent his departure. Finally eluding her grasp, he hastens down the stair only to be confronted again by the deaf-and-dumb maiden, who has accomplished her purpose by leaping over the parapet. We gazed down from the walls upon a ledge of rocks at least fifteen feet below and concluded that, for a little girl, this was a pretty big leap!
THE SAXON TOWER, ISLE OF MANTHE SAXON TOWER, ISLE OF MAN
The keep and guard-house near the entrance was the scene of the Manx legend of the Moddey Dhoo, a large black spaniel with shaggy hair, which haunted Peel Castle. This dog is referred to in 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel':
For he was speechless, ghastly, wan,Like him of whom the story ranWho spoke the spectre-hound in Man.
The Moddey Dhoo was the terror of all the soldiers on the island, who believed he was an evil spirit, only awaiting an opportunity to do them harm. At length, a drunken soldier declared he would find out whether the animal were dog or devil. He departed bravely, with much noise and boasting, but none dared follow. When he returned the fellow was sober and silent. He never spoke again, but three days later died in agony.
The remaining scenery of 'Peveril of the Peak' is London in the time of Charles II. The 'dark and shadowy' city had now attracted nearly all the personages ofthe story. In St. James's Park, adjoining the Palace of Whitehall, Fenella danced with wondrous grace and agility before the King. As in 'The Fortunes of Nigel,' the Thames is the great highway of traffic, and Julian Peveril is carried by coach to the river from old Newgate Prison, and thence by boat to the Tower, which, like Nigel, he enters through the Traitor's Gate.
The Savoy, a dilapidated old pile, where Julian unexpectedly meets Fenella, was once a great palace. It was built by Simon de Montfort, the great Earl of Leicester, in 1245. In the following century it was almost demolished by a mob, but in 1509 King Henry VII restored and rebuilt the palace and converted it into a hospital. Half a century later, Queen Mary refounded and reëndowed the institution. In the time of the story the building was probably not so antiquated and ruinous as Scott describes it. Charles II, after the Restoration, used it as the meeting-place of the Savoy conference for the revision of the Liturgy. In Scott's time it was ruinous enough and since then has entirely disappeared. Westminster Hall, where the trial of the Peverils was held, is now the vestibule of the Houses of Parliament. It was originally built by William Rufus, son of the Conqueror, in 1097, but afterward destroyed by fire and rebuilt. In it some of the earliest English Parliaments were held and it has been the scene of many coronation festivals.
The novel gives a graphic picture of the gay, dissipated, and scandalous court of Charles II, and an excellent portrait of that selfish, indolent, and sensual, but witty and good-natured monarch. His chief favourite, George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, is painted in no more flattering colours. He was a statesman of ficklecharacter who could not long be trusted by any one. He was a writer of verses, farces, and comedies, a musician, and a man of great talent and accomplishments; but he was a profligate, absolutely insincere and without principle.
'Peveril of the Peak' cannot be considered one of Scott's best novels. It has never been popular. Scott himself tired of it, and even Lockhart can find little to say in its praise.
Lady Louisa Stuart, who was one of Scott's most valued friends, summarized it all, at the end of a good-natured criticism, with the remark: 'However, in all this I recognize the old habit of a friend of mine, growing tired before any of his readers, huddling up a conclusion anyhow, and so kicking the book out of his way; which is a provoking trick, though one must bear it rather than nothavehis book, with all its faults on its head. The best amends he can make is to give us another as soon as may be.'
The true 'Scott Country' is limited strictly to Scotland, England, and Wales. So long as he remained upon the soil of his own native kingdom, Sir Walter wrote of what he had seen and for the most part traversed only familiar ground. In Scotland, he was equally at home in the Lowlands or Highlands. He visited England often enough to know well the inspiring mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland, the hills and valleys of Northumberland, the broad expanse of Yorkshire, with its delightful scenery and many historical associations, the moorlands of Derby, the charming roads and pleasant villages of Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, and Oxford, and the highways and by-ways of the ever-fascinating London. With the history, the legends and the poetry of his own country he was as familiar as a child would be with the environment of his own home. They were a part of the mental equipment that had been developing steadily from the time he was three years old.
When he stepped out of this familiar region, for the first time, there came a remarkable change, and in January, 1823, when he began the composition of 'Quentin Durward,' we find him floundering about in a sea of gazetteers, atlases, histories, and geographies. On the 23d of that month he wrote to Constable:—'It is a vile place, this village of Plessis les Tours, that can baffleboth you and me. It is a place famous in history ... yet I have not found it in any map, provincial or general, which I have consulted.... Instead of description holding the place of sense, I must try to make such sense as I can find, hold the place of description.'
Fortunately he had the assistance of his friend Skene, who about this time returned from a tour in France, and placed at the disposal of the author a great variety of sketches of landscapes and ancient buildings, besides a journal full of accurate notes; for the novelist's artist-friend knew from long companionship exactly what would be most appreciated.
Though a stranger in a strange land, Scott was not entirely alone, for he took with him into the unknown country three good Scotchmen, namely, Quentin Durward, whom he made an archer in the Scots Guard of King Louis XI; the picturesque and interesting Le Balafré, Quentin's uncle, already a guardsman; and Lord Crawford, the aged commander of the guard, a Scotch nobleman, whose great ability and experience had won the esteem and confidence even of the suspicious King. This was surely a stroke of genius. The old Scotch friends of the novelist could not help following with interest the thrilling adventures of their countrymen in a foreign land, while, on the other hand, the tale raised up a host of new admirers in France and throughout the Continent. The Frenchmen saw with amazement King Louis XI and Charles the Bold suddenly come to life and, under the skilful direction of the Scottish Wizard, walk about again amidst some of the most stirring scenes of European history. Not in all their literature had the French people seen such strikingportraiture of these famous men nor such vivid pictures of the ancient manners of their own people.
A line, nearly straight, drawn diagonally across the map of France and Belgium, representing a distance of perhaps three hundred and fifty miles, will fairly suggest the geography of 'Quentin Durward.' Its southwestern extremity would be Tours, about one hundred and forty-five miles from Paris. It would pass through Péronne, in the north of France directly east of Amiens; then dropping slightly to the south, and across the border of Belgium would reach its northeastern termination in the city of Liège.
The town of Tours was much favoured in the fifteenth century by the frequent visits of Charles VII, Louis XI, and Charles VIII, in consequence of which it then reached its highest state of prosperity. It was long famed for its silk industry, founded by Louis XI. Two miles west of the town, on a low marshy plain between the rivers Loire and Cher, and close by a hamlet of a few scattered cottages, is the famous Castle of Plessis les Tours, where the action of the story begins. Only a fragment of the original structure now remains, as part of a modern château.
The old castle looked more like a prison than a king's palace, and seemed well adapted to be the den of the 'universal spider,' as Louis came to be called, from which he could weave his dangerous web in every direction and ensnare the feet of those whom he selected for his prey. It was in this dismal place that Louis XI shut himself in the last days of his life, weak from illness and pain and almost insane from distrust. Here he died, in 1483, to the great joy of the kingdom.
Every year he had added new walls and ditches to his fortress. The towers were covered with iron as a protection against arrows. Eighteen hundred heavy planks bristling with nails were placed outside the ditches to impede the approach of cavalry. Four hundred crossbowmen manned the towers and the villainous Tristan l'Hermite had full authority to seize and hang any innocent stranger whom he might choose to suspect.
As I write, I have before me two pictures:—one a contemporary print of the ancient castle, the other a portrait of the King. The former, a group of low, irregular buildings, with slanting roofs and small barred windows, having a chapel attached to one end, contains nothing whatever to suggest a royal palace. The latter shows the face of a sly, cunning, unscrupulous plotter, full of cruelty, baseness, vulgarity, and hypocrisy, yet terribly in earnest and revealing the features that mark an irresistible will. I can almost fancy a resemblance between the two pictures. The mean unpretentiousness of the castle and its lack of symmetry suggest the unprepossessing appearance of the King, whose whole aspect was vulgar, his clothing purposely plain and often untidy and his manners completely devoid of dignity and common courtesy. Its numerous defences, including turrets, battlements, ditches, and drawbridges, suggest the constant fear of treachery in which the King lived, never daring to regard his most intimate companions with aught but jealous suspicion. The real strength of the fortress, in spite of its ugliness and apparent insignificance are typical of the tremendous power of this monarch, who pursued his purposes without regard to truth, decency, honour, or human rights, reducing thepeople to a state of abject poverty and misery, yet enlarging the borders of France to nearly their present extent, reorganizing the army, centralizing the government, and laying the foundations of the nation in its modern form.
One might almost indulge the whimsical notion that the little chapel to which I have referred, pointing heavenward with an attenuated spire of absurdly slender proportions, symbolizes the King's own feeble efforts to point in the same direction. His piety was manifested by a dozen 'paltry figures of saints stamped in lead' which he wore on the band of his hat. He endeavoured to atone for the most atrocious acts of selfishness and cruelty by gifts of money and outward penance, continuing his wickedness all the while, but apologizing for it in his prayers to the saints. But the crowning act of hypocritical piety, as well as the most absurd, was his attempt to insure his ultimate salvation by the unique expedient of creating the Virgin Mary a countess and an honorary colonel of his guards.
This was the strange, but intensely interesting, character, whom Scott, making free use of the 'Memoirs of Philippe de Comines,' one of the King's most intimate councillors, succeeded in portraying so vividly that the tale of which he is the real hero has won universal recognition as a novel of genuine historical value.
A few miles southeast of Tours is the ruin of a castle still more terrible in its suggestiveness than even Plessis, for here Louis XI perpetrated deeds of secret cruelty, which he shrank from committing within the walls of his own palace. It is the Castle of Loches, for many years a royal residence. It is interesting to Scotchmen fromthe fact that it was the scene of the royal wedding of King James V to the Princess Magdalene, in whose honour the Palace of Linlithgow was remodelled and greatly embellished.
The castle is now a pile of ruined buildings, standing on the summit of a lofty rock, where it dominates the landscape. Its principal tower is one hundred and twenty feet high, with walls eight feet thick. Its date is said to be the twelfth century. A part of it is now the local jail, and the building has been used as a prison for centuries. Beneath were dungeons under dungeons, dimly lighted by narrow windows, cut through small recesses in the walls, which are here ten or twelve feet thick. In two of these were the iron cages invented by Cardinal John de La Balue. He was a cobbler, some say a tailor, whom Louis elevated to the highest rank and employed in his secret devices. The cage was built of iron bars and was only eight feet square. The Cardinal proved a traitor to his king and the latter's severity kept him in the dungeon cells for eleven years, a part of which time, at least, was spent in one of the cages of his own invention. The governor and gaoler of this dreaded prison was Oliver le Daim, the King's barber and prime minister.
The events culminating in the murder of the Bishop of Liège were, of course, purely fictitious. Scott did not hesitate to 'violate history,' as he afterward expressed it, to meet the requirements of his story. The actual murder of the Bishop occurred in 1482, fourteen years after the period of the novel and five years after the death of Charles the Bold. William de la Marck, called the 'Wild Boar of Ardennes,' wishing to place the mitreon the head of his own son, entered into a conspiracy with some of the rebellious citizens of Liège, against their Bishop, Louis de Bourbon. The latter was enticed to the edge of the town, where he was met by the fierce and bloodthirsty knight, who murdered him with his own hand and caused the body to be exposed naked in St. Lambert's Place, before the cathedral. Scott's version, never intended to be historically accurate, places the scene of the murder in the fictitious Castle of Schonwaldt, outside the city.
The description of the meeting of Louis XI and Charles the Bold at the town of Péronne and the King's imprisonment in the castle, while somewhat amplified with fictitious details, is in the essential facts quite in accord with history. Péronne is a small town of great antiquity, ninety-four miles northeast of Paris, in the Department of the Somme. Its castle still retains four conical-roofed towers in fairly good repair. On the ground floor are many dark and dismal dungeons. In one of these miserable cells Charles the Simple, in the year 929, ended his days in agony. He was confined in the tower by the treachery of Herbert, Count of Vermandois, and left there to starve to death. Adjoining this room, in what is known as the Tour Herbert, is the chamber said to have been occupied by Louis XI.
Great was the surprise and alarm among the retainers of Louis when that monarch, trusting to an exaggerated notion of his own wit and powers of persuasion, proposed to visit his most formidable adversary, Charles of Burgundy, at the town of Péronne. The latter granted the King's request for a safe-conduct, and Louis set forth in October, 1482, accompanied by a smalldetachment of his Scots Guard and men-at-arms, and two faithless councillors, the Constable de St. Pol and the Cardinal de La Balue. The Duke met the King outside the town and together they walked in apparent friendliness to the house of the Chamberlain, Charles apologizing for not taking the King to the castle because it was not in fit condition. Some portion of the Duke's army arrived the same day and encamped outside the walls. Learning this, the King became greatly frightened and demanded quarters in the castle—a request which Charles granted with great, but secret, glee. The next day brought forth nothing but ill-feeling and misunderstanding, which was brought to a climax by the news from Liège. It was reported that the emissaries of Louis had stirred up sedition against the Duke, and had killed the Bishop of Liège, and the Lord of Humbercourt. Charles was a man of tremendous passions and this news threw him into a fury which he made little attempt to control. His royal guest became his prisoner, the gates of the town and the castle were closed, and for a time Louis was in danger of his life at the hands of his enraged vassal. Louis, meanwhile, remained calm, making full use of his native shrewdness, keenness of penetration, and unusual cunning. By a liberal use of money, with which he had sagaciously provided himself, the Duke's servants were corrupted wherever he could hope to secure information or assistance. His craftiness, however, proved unnecessary. Charles cooled off after a day or two and realized that he could not well afford to violate his safe-conduct. Meanwhile the news from Liège turned out more favourably. The Bishop had not been slain and the revolt had been less serious thansupposed. Charles, however, compelled the King to swear a new treaty, which Louis did by taking from one of his boxes a piece of the 'true cross,' a relic, formerly belonging, so it was said, to Charlemagne, which Louis regarded with great veneration. The oath upon the cross duly made, Louis accompanied his captor on an expedition against the town of Liège, the particulars of which were not essentially different from the version of Scott.
The novel brings out to great advantage the striking contrast between the King and the Duke. Charles was strong, vigorous, clear-sighted, and in the words of Philippe de Comines, 'a great and honourable prince, as much esteemed for a time amongst his neighbours as any prince in Christendom.' The great fault of his character was that expressed in the sobriquet, Charles the Rash; and this was the cause of his downfall. That, however, is a tale which Scott reserved for a later novel.
Though received at first with apparent indifference, 'Quentin Durward' came in time to be regarded as one of the best of the Waverley Novels, dividing the honours, in the minds of the boys, at least, with 'Ivanhoe' and 'The Talisman.'
If, as I have said in the preceding chapter, the true Scott Country comprises the United Kingdom, except Ireland, the inner circle of that country, theSanctum Sanctorum, so to speak, must be considered as including that part of Scotland lying between the Firth of Forth and the English border; or, more strictly, the counties of Edinburgh, Peebles, Selkirk, and Roxburgh. This was Scott's home, his workshop, and his playground. From the spring of 1806 to the early winter of 1830, a period of nearly twenty-five years, he performed the duties of Clerk of the Court of Session. This required his presence in Edinburgh usually from the 12th of May to the 12th of July and from the 12th of November to the 12th of March, excepting an interval at Christmas. This meant from four to six hours' work a day for four or five days each week, extending over about six months of every year. During the sessions of the court his residence was No. 39, North Castle Street, a three-story stone dwelling-house, within sight of Edinburgh Castle.
The day after the rising of the court usually found its distinguished clerk ready to 'escape to the country.' For six years his retreat was the little thatched cottage at Lasswade, in the vale of the Esk. The next eight summers found him at Ashestiel, and after that Abbotsford was the lodestone that drew him from the city. Scott loved the wide sweep of the bare hills, especiallywhen tinged with the purple hue of the heather. Their pure air was the tonic which had saved his life, when as a child he rolled about on the rocks of Smailholm, a companion of the sheep and lambs. Their streams gave him an opportunity to lure the salmon from their hiding-places. Their rounded summits gave him many a distant view of battle-fields, famed in the Border warfare, which filled up centuries of Scottish and English history. Their pleasant glens and thickets gave him delightful walks in the woods. Their hospitable cottages extended him a never failing welcome, and yielded up to him, from the lips of hundreds of old wives, a treasure of Scottish ballads, songs, and tales of Border chivalry. Their castles and mansions threw open their doors at his approach, rivalling the humbler dwellings in the cordiality of their greeting.
No wonder Scott loved the Border country. 'It may be partiality,' said he to Washington Irving, 'but to my eye, these grey hills and all this wild Border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die!'
It was while riding with Lockhart and Willie Laidlaw, along the brow of the Eildon Hills, looking down upon Melrose, one fine afternoon in July, 1823, that the suggestion came which led eventually to 'St. Ronan's Well.' 'Quentin Durward' had recently appeared and Scott, commenting upon its reception, remarked that hecould probably do something better with a German subject. 'Na, na, sir,' protested Laidlaw, 'take my word for it, you are always best, like Helen MacGregor, when your foot is on your native heath; and I have often thought that if you were to write a novel, and lay the scene here in the very year you were writing it, you would exceed yourself.' 'Hame 's hame,' smilingly assented Scott, 'be it ever sae hamely. There's something in what you say, Willie.' Although Laidlaw insisted that his friend should 'stick to Melrose in July, 1823,' Scott took a little broader field and made the scene of 'St. Ronan's Well,' the valley of the Tweed.
This was the country which he had pictured in 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' at the very beginning of his fame. He had come back to it for a bit of the scenery of 'The Monastery' and 'The Abbot.' These, however, were romances of an earlier period. He was now for the first time to write of his own country in his own time. The tale was to depict society life, not of the wholesome and genuine kind to which Scott was personally accustomed, whether in Edinburgh or the country, but of the type he had seen at various watering-places and summer resorts which he had visited.
THE TWEED AND EILDON HILLSTHE TWEED AND EILDON HILLS
'St. Ronan's Well' may be considered a true picture of this society or a caricature, according to one's own sympathies. Some of its readers have been able to find among their own 'social set,' Lady Penelope Penfeather, Sir Bingo and Lady Sinks, Mr. Winterblossom, Dr. Quackleben, and even the 'man of peace,' Captain Mungo MacTurk, and have praised or condemned the author's portraits according to their own predilections toward such personages.
Scott saw something of this life at Gilsland in the memorable summer of 1797, the year when he met Miss Carpenter at the dance in Shaw's Hotel. Below the hostelry is a deep and attractive glen, through which flows the river Irthing, and just above the bridge spanning the river, is one of those mineral springs, which have the strange power, whatever may be their medicinal virtues, of drawing hundreds of people away from their homes in the summer months. There is another of these springs at Innerleithen, on the banks of the Tweed, and for this reason—for I can see no other—the people of that town have laid claim to the honour of residing in the original 'St. Ronan's.'
Innerleithen, now a prosperous town of about three thousand inhabitants, is situated amid the hills which border the Tweed in the most picturesque part of its course. In Scott's time it was only a small village. Traquair, on the contrary, a few miles to the south, was of more importance in Scott's time than now, when it is a mere hamlet, remarkable for nothing except the fine old feudal mansion to which I have previously referred.[1] If we are to think of Innerleithen, then, as the 'ancient and decayed village of St. Ronan's' we must picture it, not as the thriving commercial town of to-day, but more like its neighbour on the south.
Of course I felt anxious to taste the waters of the real St. Ronan's Well, and made a journey to Innerleithen for the purpose. I gained nothing beyond the experience of exchanging a good shilling for a bad drink. One taste was enough, and when the girl was n't looking I threw the rest away. I found an old two-story house in thetown which claims to be the original 'Cleikum Inn'—a claim which is disputed by a public house in Peebles, 'The Cross Keys Hotel,' formerly a pretentious seventeenth-century mansion. The latter was kept in Scott's time by a maiden lady named Marian Ritchie, who seems to have possessed some of the characteristics which the novelist exaggerated in his delightfully humorous picture of Meg Dods. She found fault with the new 'hottle,' and did not hesitate to vent her sarcasm upon those travellers who ventured to stay there in preference to her own respectable inn. Scott, according to local history, was occasionally one of her guests. She ruled with a rod of iron, permitting no excesses, and did not hesitate to send a young man 'hame to his mither' if she suspected him to be imbibing too freely. Scott gave this model landlady the real name of a hostess whom he had patronized when only seventeen years old. It was on a fishing excursion to a loch near Howgate, in the Moorfoot Hills, when Scott and three of his boon companions stopped at a little public-house kept by Mrs. Margaret Dods. It was thirty-five years later when, in writing 'St. Ronan's Well' the novelist adopted the name of the real landlady for his fictitious character.
So far as the rival claimants of the 'Cleikum Inn' honours are concerned, I do not believe that Scott had any particular house in mind, either for the 'inn,' or the 'hottle.' Nor can I find any evidence of the existence of an 'original' for Shaw's Castle, the family seat of the Mowbrays, though Raeburn House, near St. Boswell's Green may be taken as a excellent type. The same doubt applies to the village of St. Ronan's itself. Scott'sdesign seems to have been merely to place the scene of his story, broadly speaking, in the valley of the Tweed.
This picturesque stream rises in the high lands near Moffat and flows north through a country still wild and solitary. A score of miles or less from its source, it makes a bend toward the east, above the town of Peebles, and from this point, until it discharges its waters into the North Sea at Berwick, there is scarcely a bend in the river or a village or town on its banks that does not suggest memories of Sir Walter Scott.
From the high ground overlooking the river, just at the point where it bends to the east, we had a view, through the trees, of surpassing beauty. Below was the ancient Castle of Neidpath, once a scene of stately splendour, when nobles and monarchs frequented its halls, and richly attired ladies promenaded in the well-kept gardens, laden with the perfume and brilliant with the hues of many flowers; when well-ordered terraces lined the banks of the stream and orchards smiled from the surrounding hillsides. Amid such scenes the 'Maid of Neidpath' sat in the tower,—
To watch her love's returning—
and broke her heart when the lover came and passed with heedless gaze—
As o'er some stranger glancing.[2]
Time and Nature, working together as landscape artists, have converted the castle into a picturesque ruin, and replaced the artificial gardens and terraces with thick groves of fine old trees, clothing the hillsideswith a richer and deeper verdure, and leaving only the river as of yore, still brightening the scene with the sparkle of its silvery tide. In the distance we could see the spires and chimneys of Peebles.
SCOTT'S TOMB, DRYBURGHSCOTT'S TOMB, DRYBURGH
Following the river, we passed Innerleithen, six miles below Peebles, and a short distance beyond we paused for a moment to look toward the ruins of Elibank, high up on the hillside. This was Scott's favourite objective point for a summer afternoon walk from Ashestiel, and the scene of the famous legend of 'Muckle-Mouthed Meg.'[3] Two miles farther on is Ashestiel, where Scott spent many happy summers. Keeping the left bank we soon came to a place where we could see Abbotsford on the opposite side of the river—and a charming view it makes. Then comes Melrose with all its varied associations. Driving toward the east, we ascended a hill near the summit of Bemerside Heights and halted to enjoy 'Scott's favourite view.' Below was a bend of the river marking the site of Old Melrose, the establishment which preceded the more pretentious abbey in the village. Far away were the summits of the Eildon Hills. On the day of Scott's funeral, the procession climbed this hill on the way to Dryburgh Abbey, the hearse being drawn by Sir Walter's own coach-horses. At the spot where we were standing, it is said, the faithful animals halted of their own accord, not knowing that their master could no longer enjoy his favourite view.
We soon came to the beautiful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, where Scott lies buried. It is a place he was fond of visiting, so much so that in a letter to Miss Carpenter, before they were married, he referred to itwith enthusiasm, adding, 'When I die, Charlotte, you must cause my bones to be laid there.' This brought a lively reply from the young lady: 'What an idea of yours was that to mention where you wished to have yourbones laid. If you were married, I should think you were tired of me. A very pretty complimentbefore marriage.... Take care of yourself if you love me, as I haveno wishthat you shouldvisitthatbeautifulandromanticscene, the burying-place.'
Still farther to the east lies Kelso, where Scott spent several summers with a relative and attended the village school; while in the valley below lie the principal scenes of 'Marmion.' In the hills to the north, between Melrose and Kelso, is Sandy Knowe, the farm of the poet's grandfather, where the fresh air of the Scottish hills gave a new lease of life to the child of three years. Some recollections of these early days found their way into 'St. Ronan's Well,' published nearly half a century later. A frequent visitor at the fireside of Sandy Knowe was the parish clergyman, Dr. Duncan, who perhaps failed to appreciate the presence of a poet in embryo. Scott had early committed to memory long passages from Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany' and one or two other favourite volumes, which he would shout at the top of his voice, regardless of the presence of the good minister, who would testily exclaim, 'One may as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child is.' The old gentleman lived to be nearly ninety. 'He was,' says Scott, 'a most excellent and benevolent man, a gentleman in every feeling, and altogether different from those of his order who cringe at the tables of the gentry or domineer and riot at those of the yeomanry.' Thereseems to be no doubt that in the personage of Mr. Josiah Cargill, the shy, absent-minded, but learned and conscientious, and always lovable, clergyman of 'St. Ronan's Well,' Scott drew a portrait of the excellent divine whom he had learned to respect in his early days.
[1] Seeante, p. 106, Chapter viii, 'Waverley.'
[2]The Maid of Neidpath, 1806.
[3] Seeante, Chapter 1, page 36.
I was standing, one afternoon, among some rugged rocks, half covered with sand and seaweed, which lined the shores of the Solway Firth, when my attention was suddenly attracted by a large black horse ridden by a woman. They were far away from shore and the animal seemed to be lightly cantering over the surface of the water. I suddenly realized the peculiar characteristic of the Solway. The tide was going out and what seemed to be the surface of a wide, inland sea was in reality a broad stretch of glistening white sand, still wet enough to catch and reflect the rays of the sun.
In spite of the fact that the rider was a woman, I was reminded of the thrilling incident that marks one of the earlier chapters of 'Redgauntlet.' Darsie Latimer had wandered out in the late afternoon over the wet sands of the Solway, watching with great interest the exertions of some horsemen, who were intent upon the sport of spearing salmon. The ebb of the tide leaves numberless little pools, formed by the inequality of the surface, and in these the fish dart about, making frantic efforts to escape to deeper water. The horsemen chase the salmon at full gallop, striking at them with their spears,—a form of amusement requiring great skill and perfect horsemanship. The riders had ceased their sport and were returning to the shore, while Darsie lingered on the sands. Suddenly he heard an abrupt voice, calling out,'Soho, brother! you are late for Bowness to-night'; and, turning, recognized the most expert of the salmon fishers, a tall man riding a powerful black horse. Darsie replied that he was a stranger and about to return to the shore. 'Best make haste, then,' said the fisherman. 'He that dreams on the bed of the Solway, may wake in the next world. The sky threatens a blast that will bring in the waves three feet abreast.' The young man, not realizing the danger, had to be warned a third time, and finally was pulled up on the horse behind his rescuer, who was compelled to gallop to safety at full speed.
At a later time, the tall fisherman, who proved to be Hugh Redgauntlet, kidnapped young Latimer, whom he had recognized as his long-lost nephew, and carried him in a cart across the Solway to England. While lying on his back upon some sacks of straw, his arms and legs tightly bound with cloth bandages, Darsie again heard the rush of the advancing tide. He 'not only heard the roar of this dreadful torrent, but saw, by the fitful moonlight, the foamy crests of the devouring waves, as they advanced with the speed and fury of a pack of hungry wolves.' One or two of the great waves of the 'howling and roaring sea' had reached the cart, when he was again rescued by Redgauntlet in much the same manner as before.
The reality of these fearful tides exceeds even Scott's vivid description. In a volume published more than eighty years ago[1] by a local writer, I find this account:—
During spring tides, and particularly when impelled by a strong southwester, the Solway rises with prodigiousrapidity. A loud booming noise indicates its approach, and is distinguishable at the distance of several miles. At Caerlaverock and Glencaple, where it enters the Nith, the scene is singularly grand and imposing; and it is beautiful to see a mighty volume of water advancing, foam-crested, and with a degree of rapidity which, were the race a long one, would outmatch the speed of the swiftest horses. The tide-head, as it is called, is often from four to six feet high, chafed into spray, with a mighty trough of bluer water behind—swelling in some places into little hills, and in others scooped into tiny valleys, which, when sunlit, form a brilliant picture of themselves. From the tide-head proceed two huge jets of water, which run roaring along, searching the banks on either side—the antennæ, as it were, which the ocean puts forth, and by which it feels its way when confined within narrow limits. A large fire-engine discharging a strong stream of water bears a close resemblance to this part of the phenomena of a strong spring tide; but the sea-water is broken while the other is smooth, and runs hissing, or rather gallops, along in a manner to which no language of ours can do justice.
Between Bowness, the northernmost point of Cumberland, and Whinnyrig, south of Annan in Dumfriesshire, the Solway is only two miles wide. It is now safely crossed by a railroad bridge, but two generations ago the Scottish farmers and dealers were in the habit of crossing the sands at low tide to save a long and tedious detour of about thirty miles by way of Carlisle. Many a belated traveller, missing his way in the darkness or the fog, has been overtaken by the tide and lost.
All the scenes of 'Redgauntlet,' except those in Edinburgh and Dumfries, are laid near the shores of the Solway. Shepherd's Bush and Brokenburn, imaginary places, of course, may be considered to be somewhere on the Scottish side near Annan. Mount Sharon, theresidence of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, supposed to be in the same vicinity, was really modelled after some pleasant recollections of the author's boyhood at Kelso. It was a place of quiet contentment, where one might wander through fields and pastures and woodlands by convenient paths amid scenes of peaceful beauty. Even the partridges and the hares had learned the kindly nature of the good Quaker and his amiable sister, and did not fear their approach.
Scott drew the charming picture of the Quaker household from his early friendship for the Waldie family in Kelso. Their son Robert was one of his school-fellows. He spent many happy hours in their hospitable home, where he was treated with the utmost kindness by Robert's mother, universally known in the neighbourhood as Lady Waldie. A privilege which Scott particularly appreciated was the permission to 'rummage at pleasure' through the small but well-selected library which the good lady's deceased husband had left her.
On the English side of the Solway, the Wampool River, where the Jumping Jenny landed Alan Fairford, along with a cargo of contraband goods, including gunpowder for the use of the Jacobites, may be easily found on the map. The English scenes were laid between here and Carlisle, but the story of the visit to this region of Charles Edward, disguised as Father Buonaventure, is pure fiction, and of course the localities cannot be identified, except Burgh-upon-Sands, where there is a monument to Edward I, to which Hugh Redgauntlet refers as the party is passing by.
The English residence of Hugh Redgauntlet to which Darsie was conducted by his captor, described as ancientand strong, with battlemented roof and walls of great thickness, but otherwise resembling a comfortable farmhouse, is purely fictitious. We visited, however, on the Scottish side of the Solway, a splendid modern castle, which, judged by an old painting of the place as it was in 1789, would admirably fit the description. This is Hoddam Castle, five miles southwest of the village of Ecclefechan, Carlyle's birthplace, where we spent a night in one of the quaintest little inns in Scotland, a survival of the time when Scottish inns offered few comforts to the traveller, but made up for it in proffered sociability.
Hoddam Castle is beautifully situated in the midst of a grove of fine trees overlooking the river Annan. A battlemented tower, surmounted by conical turrets, rises high above the extensive modern structure surrounding it. This is the ancient building, for centuries occupied by the Herries family. Scott originally intended to call his novel 'Herries' instead of 'Redgauntlet,' and was with much difficulty persuaded by Constable to accept the latter title. The old castle was built in the fifteenth century by John, Lord Herries, to whom was granted an extensive tract of land, extending over three or four counties.
The Herries family, to which Hugh Redgauntlet is supposed to belong, was always powerful. In their later years, like their fictitious descendant, its members were ardent supporters of the Stuart family. John Maxwell, who took the name of Lord Herries upon his marriage, was a zealous defender of Mary Queen of Scots. He assisted her escape from Loch Leven Castle, fought for her at Langside, escorted her, after the battle, to hisown house in Galloway, and thence to Dundrennan Abbey, and finally conducted her, in a small vessel, to England. His descendant, William, the ninth Lord Herries and fifth Earl of Nithsdale, participated in the Jacobite uprising of 1715. He was made a prisoner at Preston and sent to the Tower, where he was tried and condemned to death. His countess, with rare courage and resourcefulness, first forced her way to an audience with the King in St. James's Palace, and pleaded on her knees for her husband's life. Finding this ineffectual, she paid a last farewell visit to her husband, taking several lady friends with her. They succeeded in disguising the Earl in feminine apparel and thus effected his escape. When Darsie Latimer was obliged, at his uncle's command, to wear petticoats as a means of concealing his identity, he was only following the example of one of his ancestors.
HODDAM CASTLEHODDAM CASTLE
In 1690 the castle and Barony of Hoddam passed from the Herries family to John Sharpe, and remained in the hands of his heirs until very recent times. One of these was Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Scott's intimate friend, who helped collect the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' to which he contributed two ballads. Scott was a frequent guest at his house, and he often dined with Scott's family in Edinburgh or at Abbotsford. He was a man of distinction in letters and an artist as well. Two well-known etchings by him, the 'Dish of Spurs' and 'Muckle-Mouthed Meg,' besides a caricature of Queen Elizabeth, adorn the walls of Abbotsford. His ancestors, like the Herries family, were ardent Jacobites.
The Sharpes claimed relationship to the notoriousGrierson of Lag, who was the original of Sir Robert Redgauntlet in 'Wandering Willie's Tale.' Sir Robert Grierson, who was born in 1655 and died in 1733, was an infamous scoundrel who took fiendish delight in persecuting the Covenanters. In his drunken revels he made them the theme of scurrilous jests. In a vaulted chamber of his Castle of Lag, now in ruins, he had an iron hook upon which he hanged his prisoners. Often he would amuse himself by rolling his victims down a steep hill in barrels filled with knives and iron spikes. He was an object of terror and hatred through all the neighbouring country and for many years after his death was represented in theatrical productions as a hideous monster. Scott heard in his youth the wild tales of the terrible Grierson, and made them the basis of the story told by Wandering Willie.
If by Redgauntlet Castle we mean the house of the blind fiddler's hero, we must take for its original the ancient ruin of Lag Castle, built in the fourteenth century; but if the seat of the Herries family is meant, Hoddam Castle is of course the prototype, even though Scott places it on the English side of the Solway.
A bit of scenery worth recalling in connection with this novel is the Marquis of Annandale's Beefstand, or as it is now called, the Devil's Beef Tub, the place where the Laird of Summertrees had his wonderful adventure, escaping from his captors by rolling, over and over, like a barrel, down the steep incline that leads to the bottom of the hollow. It is as lonely and desolate a spot as we saw anywhere in Scotland. The hills circle about to form a huge bowl, in the rim of which there is apparently no break, so that one wonders how the little brook at thebottom manages to find an outlet so as to remain a brook at all, instead of accumulating its waters to form a great natural lake. The old Border raiders used the hollow as a convenient place in which to collect stolen cattle. From the road on the rim it seems to be a dark, dismal hole, without sign of life except an occasional ring of earth and stone, built for the protection of the sheep. Scott knew personally a Jacobite gentleman, who escaped at this place in precisely the same manner as 'Pate-in-Peril,' while being taken to Carlisle a prisoner for participation in the 'affair of 1745.'
'Redgauntlet' is autobiographical to a greater extent than any other of Scott's novels. It is true that 'Waverley' gives a hint of his own early love of reading, while 'The Antiquary' reflects his interest in the relics of an older civilization. Indeed, bits of personal reminiscence are woven into nearly all his tales. But 'Redgauntlet' more directly reveals Scott himself and those nearest to him than any or all of the others.
The voluminous correspondence of Alan Fairford and Darsie Latimer is full of recollections of school days in Edinburgh, when as a boy Scott climbed the 'kittle nine stanes,' a difficult and dangerous passage over the steep granite rock upon which the castle stands, or helped 'man the Cowgate Port,' an ancient gateway to the city from which the youngsters in snowballing time annoyed the passers-by and defied the town guard. One of his most intimate companions in the days when he was reading law was William Clerk, whom he describes as a man of acute 'intellect and powerful apprehension,' but somewhat trammelled with 'the fetters of indolence.' There is no doubt that Scott himself was the original ofAlan Fairford nor that William Clerk was the model for Darsie Latimer. The fine portrait of Saunders Fairford, who was so anxious to have his son 'attain the proudest of all distinctions—the rank and fame of a well-employed lawyer,' was drawn from Scott's own father, many years after the death of that worthy gentleman.
Mr. Saunders Fairford, ... was a man of business of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical and even niggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting his own affairs and those of his clients, but taught by long experience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the clock of St. Giles tolled nine, the neat dapper form of the little hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the Court-hall ... trimly dressed in a complete suit of snuff-coloured brown, with stockings of silk or woolen, as suited the weather; a bob wig and a small cocked hat; shoes blacked as Warren would have blacked them; silver shoe-buckles and a gold stock-buckle. A nosegay in summer, and a sprig of holly in winter, completed his well-known dress and appearance.
Even Peter Peebles, the poor old derelict, ruined by a lifetime of perpetual litigation, was a real character, well known in Edinburgh, and Scott himself, in common with most young lawyers, took his turn in 'practising' on this case.
The re-introduction of Charles Edward, who was so fascinating as a figure in 'Waverley,' was not so successful. In the earlier novel, his movements are, in the main, historically accurate. His reappearance, twenty years later, under circumstances purely fictitious, is by comparison almost wholly lacking in interest. There is, however, a certain attractiveness about the enthusiasm of his ardent supporter, Hugh Redgauntlet, and thebook is not lacking in minor characters, who are almost as fascinating as any of the novelist's earlier creations. Wandering Willie is one of these—the blind fiddler who holds communication with the captive Darsie, by the rendering of appropriate tunes, the words of which the latter is quick to recall and clever enough to interpret. Another is Nanty Ewart, the skipper of the Jumping Jenny, who can read his Sallust like a scholar, and appeals to one's sympathies in spite of his dissipation.
Although 'Redgauntlet' was at first received somewhat coldly, it is nevertheless true, in the words of Lady Louisa Stuart, that 'the interest is so strong one cannot lay it down.' Its lack of value historically is more than offset by the personal interest of its characters and the many episodes of intense dramatic realism.
[1]Picture of Dumfries, with Historical and Descriptive Notices, by John McDiarmid, 1832.
The two stories published simultaneously under this title are widely different in character. In 'The Betrothed,' the reader gets no glimpse of the Holy Land, though he is amply compensated by a view of some of the most delightful portions of picturesque Wales. In 'The Talisman,' on the contrary, not only is the whole of the stage-setting in Palestine, but our old friend, Richard the Lion-Hearted, who made such strong appeals to our sympathies in 'Ivanhoe,' appears once more on the scene. Perhaps this fact accounts for the great popularity of 'The Talisman,' which has always gone hand in hand with 'Ivanhoe,' in the estimation of the younger readers, at least, and possibly the older ones, especially in England and America, as among the most attractive of Scott's novels. 'The Betrothed' is no more a tale of the Crusades than is 'Ivanhoe.' In the former the Constable de Lacy is supposed to be absent in the Holy Land a few years and returns in disguise. King Richard does the same in 'Ivanhoe.'
James Ballantyne, who was always a candid critic, found so much fault with 'The Betrothed' that Scott, bitterly disappointed, decided to cancel it altogether. The sheets were hung up in Ballantyne's warehouse, while Scott started a new tale which should be really a story of the Crusades. Ballantyne was as much pleased with 'The Talisman' as he had been disappointed withits predecessor. Both author and printer hesitated to destroy the sheets of an entire edition of the earlier production, and it was finally decided that 'The Talisman' was such a masterpiece that it might be relied upon to 'take the other under its wing.' The publication of the two volumes as the 'Tales of the Crusaders' seemed to justify Ballantyne's faith, for, says Lockhart, 'The brightness of "The Talisman" dazzled the eyes of the million as to the defects of the twin story.' Whether this opinion would be endorsed by careful readers of to-day is doubtful, for 'The Betrothed' has some excellent characters, notably Eveline Berenger, Wilkin Flammock, and his daughter Rose, Hugo de Lacy, and his high-minded nephew Damian. Moreover, Scott here adds to his 'country' a bit of the United Kingdom, which he had not previously touched, and does it with his usual charm.
The novelist's information regarding Welsh history and antiquities was derived largely from conversations with his friend, the Rev. John Williams, Archdeacon of Cardigan, who had made a special study of the subject. But he had always felt an interest in that region. 'There are,' he writes to Joanna Bailie in 1814, 'few countries I long so much to see as Wales. The first time I set out to see it I was caught by the way and married. God help me! The next time, I went to London and spent all my money there. What will be my third interruption, I do not know, but the circumstances seem ominous.' Whether he actually saw the country before writing the novel is doubtful. He did visit it, however, in August of 1825, just after 'The Betrothed' was published, and stopped at Llangollen, where he paid a visit to thefamous 'Ladies' of that place. These two old ladies, one seventy and the other sixty-five when Scott saw them, had 'eloped' together from Ireland, when they were young girls, one of them dressed as a footman in buckskin breeches. Valuing their liberty above all the allurements of matrimony, they made a secret journey to Wales, and for fifty years lived a quiet and comfortable life in the beautiful vale of Llangollen.
Local tradition assigns this lovely valley as the scene of 'The Betrothed.' Although this may be doubted, it is nevertheless fairly representative of what Scott evidently had in mind. The river Dee winds among a maze of low, partially wooded, and well-rounded hilltops, here and there finding its way through green meadows, set off by hedges of full-grown trees, and at each turn glistening in the sun like a broad ribbon of silver.
I was induced to walk up a long sloping hillside for a distance of about three miles from the village, and was rewarded at the summit by a superb view of northern Wales, for many miles in every direction, and at the same time saw the ruins of the ancient Castell Dinas Bran. This, or something very like it, must have been the Garde Doloureuse of the novel. It certainly had all the natural advantages claimed for that ancient Welsh stronghold, for no army would have found it easy to ascend that hill in the face of a determined garrison. The ruin has the indications also of having been well fortified by the art of man, its walls enclosing an area two hundred and ninety feet long by one hundred and forty feet wide.
The castle may have been built by the Britons before the Roman invasion. A well-founded tradition fixes itas the seat of Eliseg, Prince of Powys, in the eighth century, and it figures in actual history as early as 1200, when it was the residence of a turbulent Welsh baron named Madog.
At Welshpool, directly to the south and near the English border, we visited the magnificent park and castle of the Earl of Powis. It stands on the site of the ancient Castell Coch, or Red Castle, famous as the seat of the great Welsh hero, Gwenwynwyn, who flourished in the latter part of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. That hero, whom Scott calls Gwenwyn, it will be remembered, upon seeing for the first time the beautiful damsel of sixteen, Eveline Berenger, the only child of his greatest rival and the heir of the strong fortress which he coveted, promptly resolved to marry her, thus starting the train of events which are recorded in the novel.
POWIS CASTLE, WALESPOWIS CASTLE, WALES
The present Powis Castle Park is a magnificent demesne of nearly a thousand acres. Its most important portion is a great deer-park, in the midst of which stands the imposing modern palace. The herds of deer quietly feeding on the lawn were kind enough to pose for me, when I made a picture of the castle, and added greatly to its picturesque aspect. On the south, the sloping ground has been cut into broad and beautiful terraces, surmounted by huge yews, trimmed smoothly in conical form. The stone walls are broken by a series of arches, above which are balustrades and statuary in great variety. Clinging vines and garden flowers of every description add colour to the beauty of the arrangement. Below the terraces is a gentle slope, planted with fruit trees, and then a level lawn, in themidst of which is a stately elm. The whole is a triumph of landscape gardening which would have amazed the famous Gwenwynwyn.
Following the course of the tale our next objective was the city of Gloucester, the crowning glory of which is the great cathedral, founded by the Saxon earl, Osric, in 680 A.D. The massive Norman nave was commenced in 1088 and the fine choir was completed in the fourteenth century. The great east window, measuring seventy-two feet in height, thirty-eight feet in width, and containing two thousand seven hundred and thirty-six square feet of glass, is the largest in England if not in the world. Passing around the cathedral we found a house which figures in the story,—the Deanery, as it is now called. It was formerly the prior's lodge of the old Benedictine abbey, and is the oldest house in Gloucester. Within its walls a meeting of Parliament is said to have been held by Richard II.
Of the scenery of 'The Talisman' it is difficult to say much beyond what is generally known about the Holy Land. Scott never visited Palestine and wrote only in general terms. He did contrive, however, to inject a bit of Scottish scenery with which he was familiar, just as he managed to begin the novel with the adventures of a Scottish knight, and to find another countryman among the retainers of King Richard, in the person of Sir Thomas de Multon, the Lord of Gilsland, whose 'love and devotion to the King was like the vivid affection of the old English mastiff to his master.'
Readers of 'The Talisman' will recall, in the mansion of the hermit of Engaddi, the beautiful miniature Gothic chapel, and will quickly note the resemblance to RoslinChapel, near Edinburgh. The famous feudal baron, William St. Clair, built the latter in a spirit of penitence. An old manuscript informs us that 'to the end he might not seem altogether unthankfull to God for the benefices received from Him, it came in his minde to build a house for God's service of most curious work, the which, that it might be done with greater glory and splendour he caused artificers to be brought from other regions and forraigne kingdoms and caused dayly to be abundance of all kinde of workemen present.'
The foundation was laid in 1446. It is called 'florid Gothic' for want of a better name. There is no other architecture like it in the world. It is a medley of all architectures, the Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, and Saracenic being intermingled with all kinds of decorations and designs, some exquisitely beautiful and others quaint and even grotesque. There are thirteen different varieties of the arch. The owner possessed wealth and wanted novelty. He secured the latter by engaging architects and builders from all parts of Europe. The most striking feature of an ulterior crowded with beautiful forms is the 'Prentice's Pillar, a column with spiral wreaths of exquisitely carved foliage.
It is curious to think of such a chapel as this concealed in a mysterious mansion in the desert of Engaddi, but it is the only touch of realistic description in the whole book, and Scott makes use of it with his usual skill.
Between the completion of the 'Tales of the Crusaders' and the next novel, 'Woodstock,' came the distressing change in Scott's affairs, that set apart the remaining years of his life as a period of sadness, disappointment, grief, and physical pain. They were years of almost superhuman exertion, when the superb personal character of the man, backed by an unconquerable will, triumphed over an accumulation of afflictions that would have broken the heart of an ordinary person. The victory cost him his life—but it was only after a battle of six hard years, and even then it was the frail body and not the heart of the man that succumbed.
In the year 1825, when 'Woodstock' was commenced, the old, happy days, when writing a story was a joyous pastime, came to an end forever, and in their stead came a sense of toil and conscious effort. 'It was a pleasant sight,' said Lockhart, 'when one happened to take a passing peep into his den, to see the white head erect, and the smile of conscious inspiration on his lips, while the pen, held boldly and at a commanding distance, glanced steadily and gayly along a fast-blackening page of "The Talisman." It now often made me sorry to catch a glimpse of him, stooping and poring with his spectacles, amidst piles of authorities, a little notebook ready in his left hand, that had always used to be at liberty for patting Maida.'
Lockhart is here referring to the vast toil required in the preparation of a 'Life of Napoleon,' which Scott had undertaken immediately after returning from the tour through Ireland and Wales, made soon after the completion of 'The Talisman.' It was the year when rumours of financial troubles in London began to reach his ears, followed swiftly by the failure of Constable and the Ballantynes, and later by the sickness and death of Lady Scott and his own physical suffering. Undaunted by misfortune he bravely continued his 'Napoleon,' and soon conceived the idea of composing a work of imagination at the same time. The first of three volumes of 'Woodstock' was, under these trying circumstances, completed in fifteen days and the entire novel in three months.
The news of Scott's distress had spread throughout Scotland and England and into many parts of Europe, and there was naturally a keen interest in the story which he was known to be writing. The announcement that Scott was the author of the Waverley Novels and that the man who had accomplished this marvellous success had met with financial failure came as a shock and a thrill. 'Scott ruined!' exclaimed the Earl of Dudley; 'the author of "Waverley" ruined! Good God! Let every man to whom he has given months of delight give him a sixpence, and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than Rothschild!' The result of this state of the public mind was that 'Woodstock' was successful beyond the author's fondest dreams.
The village of Woodstock, where practically the whole of the scene is laid, lies about eight miles north-west of Oxford. The market-place still has an ancientlook, though the houses are in fairly good repair. To readers of the novel the chief place of interest in the village is the old parish church where the Reverend Nehemiah Holdenough was rudely crowded from his pulpit by the canting Independent soldier, Trusty Tomkins, who proceeded to preach one of those weird sermons, common enough at that time, in which the texts of Scripture were perverted to apply to current events, with whatever significance the orator might choose. A fine Norman doorway on the south side marks the oldest part of the edifice, dating back probably as far as the twelfth century. The north side is modern, having been built to replace the older walls that were torn down. The tower was built in 1783.
The real interest of Woodstock lies not in the church nor the village, but in the vast park and palace, now called Blenheim, the property of the Duke of Marlborough. As early as the reign of William the Conqueror, Woodstock was a royal forest, and was so designated in the Domesday Book. His son, Henry I, enclosed it with a wall six miles in circumference (not so large as its present extent) and rebuilt the house. It was here that Thomas à Becket in 1162 began the quarrel with King Henry II, which led to his murder at Canterbury. King Henry added to the old palace of Woodstock the famous tower and maze, where 'the fair Rosamond' might be safely concealed from the jealous eyes of Queen Eleanor. 'Rosamond's Well,' where Tomkins met his well-deserved death at the hands of Joceline Joliffe, is the only remnant of the old palace in existence. It is a spring, walled in and paved, and guarded by an iron fence. We drank of its watersand, following the instructions of the old woman who acts as its keeper, threw what was left in the glasses over our left shoulders 'for luck.' The well was originally within the walls of the palace, so that its occupant could obtain water without the risk of stepping outside. It may, therefore, be considered as marking approximately the site of the old palace.
Richard the Lion-Hearted and John were visitors to Woodstock. Henry III made some improvements in the house. Edward III and Queen Philippa were much attached to Woodstock and often made it their residence. It was during their reign that the poet Chaucer, who was first a page and later a royal 'esquire,' was frequently at Woodstock. He married one of the Queen's maids of honour, and lived in a house in the village which is still standing. As late as the time of James II, Woodstock continued to be occupied, as a favourite country seat, by the English sovereigns. During the great Civil War it was the scene of frequent skirmishes and in the time of the Commonwealth was in the possession of Cromwell.
The fantastic performances by which the commissioners of the Long Parliament were imposed upon and badly frightened when they visited Woodstock, after the execution of Charles I, for the purpose of destroying it, are fully explained in Scott's Introduction.