J. G. Lockhart: Life of Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott opens his brief account of his ancestry with a playful allusion to a trait of national character, which has, time out of mind, furnished merriment to the neighbours of the Scotch; but the zeal of pedigree was deeply rooted in himself, and he would have been the last to treat it with serious disparagement. It has often been exhibited under circumstances sufficiently grotesque; but it has lent strength to many a good impulse, sustained hope and self-respect under many a difficulty and distress, armed heart and nerve to many a bold and resolute struggle for independence; and prompted also many a generous act of assistance, which under its influence alone could have been accepted without any feeling of degradation.

We are told, that when the last bullock which Auld Wat had provided from the English pastures was consumed, the Flower of Yarrow placed on her table a dish containing a pair of clean spurs; a hint to the company that they must bestir themselves for their next dinner. Sir Walter adds, in a note to the Minstrelsy, “Upon one occasion when the village herd was driving out the cattle to pasture, the old laird heard him call loudly to drive out Harden’s cow. ‘Harden’s cow!’ echoed the affronted chief; ‘Is it come to that pass? by my faith they shall soon say Harden’s kye (cows).’ Accordingly, he sounded his bugle, set out with his followers, and next day returned with a bow of kye, and a bassen’d (brindled) bull. On his return with this gallant prey, he passed a very large haystack. It occurred to the provident laird that this would be extremely convenient to fodder his new stock of cattle; but as no means of transporting it were obvious, he was fain

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

to take leave of it with the apostrophe, now become proverbial, By my saul, had ye but four feet ye should not stand lang there. In short, as Froissart says of a similar class of feudal robbers, nothing came amiss to them that was not too heavy or too hot.”

Another striking chapter in the genealogical history belongs to the marriage of Auld Wat’s son and heir, afterwards Sir William Scott of Harden, distinguished by the early favour of James VI., and severely fined for his loyalty under the usurpation of Cromwell. The period of this gentleman’s youth was a very wild one in that district. The Border clans still made war on each other occasionally, much in the fashion of their forefathers; and the young and handsome heir of Harden, engaging in a foray upon the lands of Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank, treasurer-depute of Scotland, was overpowered by that baron’s retainers, and carried in shackles to his castle, now a heap of ruins, on the banks of the Tweed. Elibank’s “doomtree” extended its broad arms close to the gates of his fortress, and the indignant laird was on the point of desiring his prisoner to say a last prayer, when his more considerate dame interposed milder counsels, suggesting that the culprit was born to a good estate, and that they had three unmarried daughters. Young Harden, not, it is said, without hesitation, agreed to save his life by taking the plainest of the three off their hands, and the contract of marriage, executed instantly on the parchment of a drum, is still in the charter-chest of his noble representative.

Walter Scott, the third son of this couple, was the first Laird of Raeburn, already alluded to as one of the patrons of Satchells. He married Isabel Macdougal, daughter of Macdougal of Makerstoun—a family of great antiquity and distinction in Roxburgh-

PEDIGREE.

shire, of whose blood, through various alliances, the poet had a large share in his veins. Raeburn, though the son and brother of two steady cavaliers, and married into a family of the same political creed, became a Whig, and at last a Quaker; and the reader will find, in one of the notes to The Heart of Mid-Lothian, a singular account of the persecution to which this back-gliding exposed him at the hands of both his own and his wife’s relations. He was incarcerated (A.D. 1665), first at Edinburgh and then at Jedburgh, by order of the Privy Council—his children were forcibly taken from him, and a heavy sum was levied on his estate yearly, for the purposes of their education beyond the reach of his perilous influence. “It appears,” says Sir Walter, in a MS. memorandum now before me, “that the Laird of Makerstoun, his brother-in-law, joined with Raeburn’s own elder brother, Harden, in this singular persecution, as it will now be termed by Christians of all persuasions. It was observed by the people that the male line of the second Sir William of Harden became extinct in 1710, and that the representation of Makerstoun soon passed into the female line. They assigned as a cause, that when the wife of Raeburn found herself deprived of her husband, and refused permission even to see her children, she pronounced a malediction on her husband’s brother as well as on her own, and prayed that a male of their body might not inherit their property.”

Robert Scott, the son of Beardie, formed also an honourable alliance. His father-in-law, Thomas Haliburton,* the last but one of the “good lairds of New-

* “From the genealogical deduction in the Memorials, it appears that the Haliburtons of Newmains were descended from and represented the ancient and once powerful family of Haliburton of Mertoun, which became extinct in the beginning of the eighteenth cen-

PARENTAGE.

mains,” entered his marriage as follows in the domestic record, which Sir Walter’s pious respect induced him to have printed nearly a century afterwards: “My second daughter Barbara is married to Robert Scott, son to Walter Scott, uncle to Raeburn, upon this sixteen day of July, 1728, at my house of Dryburgh, by Mr James Innes, minister of Mertoun, their mothers being cousings; may the blessing of the Lord rest upon them, and make them comforts to each other and to all their relations;” to which the editor of the Memorials adds this note, “May God grant that the prayers of the excellent persons who have passed away may avail for the benefit of those who succeed them!—Abbotsford, Nov. 1824.”

Of Robert of Sandy-Knowe also there is a very tolerable portrait at Abbotsford, and the likeness of the poet to his grandfather must have forcibly struck every one who has seen it. Indeed, but for its wanting some inches in elevation of forehead (a considerable want it must be allowed), the picture might be mistaken for one of Sir Walter Scott. The keen shrewd expression of the eye, and the remarkable length and compression of the upper lip, bring him exactly before me as he appeared when entering with all the zeal of a professional agriculturist into the merits of a pit of marle discovered at Abbotsford. Had the old man been represented with his cap on his head, the resemblance to one particular phasis of the most changeful of countenances, would have been perfect.

Robert Scott had a numerous progeny, and Sir Walter has intimated his intention of recording several of them “with a sincere tribute of gratitude” in the contemplated prosecution of his autobiography. Two of the younger sons were bred to the naval service of the East India Company; one of whom died early and unmarried; the other was the excellent Captain Robert Scott, of whose kindness to his nephew some particulars are given in the Ashestiel Fragment, and more will occur hereafter. Another son, Thomas, followed the profession of his father with ability, and

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

retired in old age upon a handsome independence, acquired by his industrious exertions. He was twice married, first to his near relation, a daughter of Raeburn; and secondly to Miss Rutherford of Know-South, the estate of which respectable family is now possessed by his son Charles Scott, an amiable and high-spirited gentleman, who was always a special favourite with his eminent kinsman. The death of Thomas Scott is thus recorded in one of the MS. notes on his nephew’s own copy of the Haliburton Memorials:—“The said Thomas Scott died at Monklaw, near Jedburgh, at two of the clock, 27th January, 1823, in the 90th year of his life, and fully possessed of all his faculties. He read till nearly the year before his death; and being a great musician on the Scotch pipes, had, when on his deathbed, a favourite tune played over to him by his son James, that he might be sure he left him in full possession of it. After hearing it, he hummed it over himself, and corrected it in several of the notes. The air was that called Sour Plumbs in Galashiels. When barks and other tonics were given him during his last illness he privately spat them into his handkerchief, saying, as he had lived all his life without taking doctor’s drugs, he wished to die without doing so.”

I visited this old man, two years before his death, in company with Sir Walter, and thought him about the most venerable figure I had ever set my eyes on—tall and erect, with long flowing tresses of the most silvery whiteness, and stockings rolled up over his knees, after the fashion of three generations back. He sat reading his Bible without spectacles, and did not, for a moment, perceive that any one had entered his room, but on recognising his nephew he rose, with cordial alacrity, kissing him on both cheeks, and exclaiming, “God bless thee, Walter, my man, thou hast risen to

PARENTAGE.

be great, but thou wast always good.” His remarks were lively and sagacious, and delivered with a touch of that humour which seems to have been shared by most of the family. He had the air and manner of an ancient gentleman, and must in his day have been eminently handsome. I saw more than once, about the same period, this respectable man’s sister, who had married her cousin Walter, Laird of Raeburn thus adding a new link to the closeness of the family connexion. She also must have been, in her youth, remarkable for personal attractions; as it was, she dwells on my memory as the perfect picture of an old Scotch lady, with a great deal of simple dignity in her bearing, but with the softest eye, and the sweetest voice, and a charm of meekness and gentleness about every look and expression; all which contrasted strikingly enough with the stern dry aspect and manners of her husband, a right descendant of the moss-troopers of Harden, who never seemed at his ease but on horseback, and continued to be the boldest fox-hunter of the district, even to the verge of eighty. The poet’s aunt spoke her native language pure and undiluted, but without the slightest tincture of that vulgarity which now seems almost unavoidable in the oral use of a dialect so long banished from courts, and which has not been avoided by any modern writer who has ventured to introduce it, with the exception of Scott, and I may add, speaking generally, of Burns. Lady Raeburn, as she was universally styled, may be numbered with those friends of early days whom her nephew has alluded to in one of his prefaces as preserving what we may fancy to have been the old Scotch of Holyrood.

The particulars which I have been setting down may help English readers to form some notion of the structure

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

of society in those southern districts of Scotland. When Satchells wrote, he boasted that Buccleuch could summon to his banner one hundred lairds, all of his own name, with ten thousand more landless men, but still of the same blood. The younger sons of these various lairds were, through many successive generations, portioned off with fragments of the inheritance, until such subdivision could be carried no farther, and then the cadet, of necessity, either adopted the profession of arms, in some foreign service very frequently, or became a cultivator on the estate of his own elder brother, of the chieftain of his branch, or of the great chief and patriarchal protector of the whole clan. Until the commerce of England, and above all, the military and civil services of the English colonies were thrown open to the enterprise of the Scotch, this system of things continued entire. It still remained in force to a considerable extent at the time when the Goodman of Sandy-Knowe was establishing his children in the world—and I am happy to say, that it is far from being abolished even at the present day. It was a system which bound together the various classes of the rural population in bonds of mutual love and confidence: the original community of lineage was equally remembered on all sides; the landlord could count for more than his rent on the tenant, who regarded him rather as a father or an elder brother, than as one who owed his superiority to mere wealth; and the farmer who, on fit occasions, partook on equal terms of the chase and the hospitality of his landlord, went back with content and satisfaction to the daily labours of a vocation which he found no one disposed to consider as derogating from his gentle blood. Such delusions, if delusions they were, held the natural arrogance of riches in check, taught the poor man to believe that

PARENTAGE.

in virtuous poverty he had nothing to blush for, and spread over the whole being of the community the gracious spirit of a primitive humanity.

Walter Scott, the eldest son of Robert of Sandy-Knowe, appears to have been the first of the family that ever adopted a town life, or any thing claiming to be classed among the learned professions. His branch of the law, however, could not in those days be advantageously prosecuted without extensive connexions in the country; his own were too respectable not to be of much service to him in his calling, and they were cultivated accordingly. His professional visits to Roxburghshire and Ettrick Forest were, in his vigorous life, very frequent; and though he was never supposed to have any tincture either of romance or poetry in his composition, he retained to the last a warm affection for his native district, with a certain reluctant flavour of the old feelings and prejudices of the Borderer. I have little to add to Sir Walter’s short and respectful notice of his father, except that I have heard it confirmed by the testimony of many less partial observers. According to every account, he was a most just, honourable, conscientious man; only too high of spirit for some parts of his business. “He passed from the cradle to the grave,” says a surviving relation, “without making an enemy or losing a friend. He was a most affectionate parent, and if he discouraged, rather than otherwise, his son’s early devotion to the pursuits which led him to the height of literary eminence, it was only because he did not understand what such things meant, and considered it his duty to keep his young man to that path in which good sense and industry might, humanly speaking, be thought sure of success.”

Sir Walter’s mother was short of stature, and by no

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

means comely, at least after the days of her early youth. She had received, as became the daughter of an eminently learned physician, the best sort of education then bestowed on young gentlewomen in Scotland. The poet, speaking of Mrs Euphemia Sinclair, the mistress of the school at which his mother was reared, to the ingenious local antiquary, Mr Robert Chambers, said that “she must have been possessed of uncommon talents for education, as all her young ladies were, in after life, fond of reading, wrote and spelled admirably, were well acquainted with history and the belles lettres, without neglecting the more homely duties of the needle and accompt book; and perfectly well-bred in society.” Mr Chambers adds, “Sir W. further communicated that his mother, and many others of Mrs Sinclair’s pupils, were sent afterwards to be finished off by the Honourable Mrs Ogilvie, a lady who trained her young friends to a style of manners which would now be considered intolerably stiff. Such was the effect of this early training upon the mind of Mrs Scott, that even when she approached her eightieth year, she took as much care to avoid touching her chair with her back, as if she had still been under the stern eye of Mrs Ogilvie.” The physiognomy of the poet bore, if their portraits may be trusted, no resemblance to either of his parents.

I find the following marginal note on his copy of Allan Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany (edition 1724): “This book belonged to my grandfather, Robert Scott, and out of it I was taught Hardiknute by heart before I could read the ballad myself. It was the first poem I ever learnt the last I shall ever forget.” According to Tibby Hunter, he was not particularly fond of his book, embracing every pretext for joining his friend the Cow-bailie out of doors; but ‘Miss Jenny was a grand hand at keeping him to the bit, and by degrees he came to read brawly.’* An early acquaintance of a higher class, Mrs Duncan, the wife of the present excellent minister of Mertoun, informs me, that though she was younger than Sir Walter, she has a dim remembrance of the interior of Sandy-Knowe:—‘Old Mrs Scott sitting, with her spinning-wheel, at one side of the fire, in a clean clean parlour; the grandfather, a good deal failed, in his elbow-chair opposite; and the little boy lying on the carpet, at the old man’s feet, listening

* This old woman still possesses ‘the banes’ (bones)—that is to say, the boards—of a Psalm-book, which Master Walter gave her at Sandy-knowe. ‘He chose it,’ she says, ‘of a very large print, that I might be able to read it when I was very auld—forty year auld; but the bairns pulled the leaves out langsyne.’

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

to the Bible, or whatever good book Miss Jenny was reading to them.’

Robert Scott died before his grandson was four years of age; and I heard him mention when he was an old man that he distinctly remembered the writing and sealing of the funeral letters, and all the ceremonial of the melancholy procession as it left Sandy-Knowe. I shall conclude my notices of the residence at Sandy-Knowe with observing, that in Sir Walter’s account of the friendly clergyman who so often sat at his grandfather’s fireside, we cannot fail to trace many features of the secluded divine in the novel of Saint Ronan’s Well.

Probably it was this performance that first tempted him to open the page of Shakspeare. Before he returned to Sandy-Knowe, assuredly, notwithstanding the modest language of his autobiography, the progress which had been made in his intellectual education was extraordinary; and it is impossible to doubt that his hitherto almost sole tutoress, Miss Jenny Scott, must have been a woman of tastes and acquirements very far above what could have been often found among Scotch ladies, of any but the highest class at least, in that day. In the winter of 1777, she and her charge spent some few weeks—not happy weeks, the “Memoir” hints them to have been—in George’s Square, Edinburgh; and it so happened, that during this little interval, Mr and Mrs Scott received in their domestic circle a guest capable of appreciating, and, fortunately for us, of recording in a very striking manner the remarkable developement of young Walter’s faculties. Mrs Cockburn, mentioned by him in his Memoir as the authoress of the modern “Flowers of the Forest,” born a Rutherford, of Fairnalie, in Selkirkshire, was as distantly related to the poet’s mother, with whom she had through life been in habits of intimate friendship. This accomplished woman was staying at Ravelstone, in the vicinity of Edinburgh, a seat of the Keiths of Dunnotar, nearly related to Mrs Scott, and to herself. With some of that family she spent an evening in George’s Square. She chanced to be writing next day

* Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. xx. p. 154.

EDINBURGH 1777

to Dr Douglas, the well-known and much respected minister of her native parish, Galashiels; and her letter, of which the doctor’s son has kindly given me a copy, contains the following passage:

Another lady, nearly connected with the Keiths of Ravelstone, has a lively recollection of young Walter, when paying a visit much about the same period to his kind relation,* the mistress of that picturesque old mansion, which furnished him in after days with many of the features of his Tully-Veolan, and whose venerable gardens, with their massive hedges of yew and holly, he always considered as the ideal of the art. The lady, whose letter I have now before me, says she distinctly remembers the sickly boy sitting at the gate of the house with his attendant, when a poor mendicant approached, old and woebegone, to claim the charity which none asked for in vain at Ravelstone. When the man was retiring, the servant remarked to Walter that he ought to be thankful to Providence for having placed him above the want and misery he had been contemplating. ‘The child looked up with a half wistful, half incredulous expression,’—and said Homer was a beggar! How do ‘you know that? said the other Why, don’t you remember, answered the little Virtuoso,—that

‘Seven Roman cities strove for Homer dead,

Through which the living Homer begged his bread?’

The lady smiled at the ‘Roman cities,’ but already

‘Each blank in faithless memory void

The poet’s glowing thought supplied.’

His uncle Thomas, whom I have described as I saw him in extreme old age at Monklaw, had the management of the farm affairs at Sandy-Knowe, when Walter returned thither from Prestonpans; he was a kindhearted man, and very fond of the child. Appearing on his return somewhat strengthened, his uncle promoted him from the Cow-bailie’s shoulder to a dwarf of the Shetland race, not so large as many a Newfoundland dog. This creature walked freely into the house, and was regularly fed from the boy’s hand. He soon learned to sit her well, and often alarmed aunt Jenny, by cantering over the rough places about the tower. In the evening of his life, when he had a grandchild afflicted with an infirmity akin to his own, he provided him with a little mare of the same breed, and gave her the name of Marion, in memory of this early favourite.

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Mark Akenside (1721-1770) English poet and physician, author of The Pleasures of Imagination (1744); his Odes on Several Subjects (1743) was also widely admired.

Lady Margaret Alexander [née Douglas] (d. 1660) The daughter of William Douglas, first Marquess of Douglas; in 1629 she married William Alexander, son of the poet.

William Alexander, first earl of Stirling (1577-1640) Scottish poet and courtier, author of Aurora (1604), a collection of sonnets. He was a friend of Drummond of Hawthornden.

William Alexander, Lord Alexander (d. 1638) Son of the poet of the same name, whom he predeceased.

Anne, queen of Great Britain (1665-1714) Queen of England (1702-1714) and of Great Britain following the Union of 1707.

Robert I, king of Scots [Robert the Bruce] (1274-1329) The Scottish national hero who defeated Edward II at Bannockburn.

Robert Burns (1759-1796) Scottish poet and song collector; author of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786).

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) The author of Childe Harold and Don Juan.

Robert Chambers (1802-1871) Scottish miscellaneous writer and journalist; his chief works are Cyclopaedia of English Literature, 2 vols (1841-43) and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844). He partnered with his brother William (1800-1883).

Alison Cockburn [née Rutherford] (1713-1794) Scottish poet and literary hostess; she married the advocate Patrick Cockburn in 1731 and late in life was a friend of David Hume, Henry Mackenzie, and Walter Scott.

Archibald Constable (1774-1827) Edinburgh bookseller who published the Edinburgh Review and works of Sir Walter Scott; he went bankrupt in 1826.

George Constable (1719-1803) A friend of Sir Walter Scott's father; he is said to be the original of Jonathan Oldbuck in The Antiquary.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) English general and statesman; fought with the parliamentary forces at the battles of Edgehill (1642) and Marston Moor (1644); led expedition to Ireland (1649) and was named Lord Protector (1653).

Archibald Douglas, third earl of Douglas [Archibald the Grim] (1320 c.-1400) The illegitimate son of Sir James Douglas, lord of Douglas (d. 1330); he was Scottish politician and warrior who fought in France.

Archibald James Edward Douglas, first baron Douglas (1748-1827) Originally Stewart; he inherited his uncle's estates and took his name after a protracted legal contest. Frances, his second wife, was the sister of the third duke of Buccleuch

Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie, sixth baronet (1694-1770) Compiler of The Peerage of Scotland (1764).

Robert Douglas (1747-1820) Son of John Douglas, minister of Jedburgh, he was minister of Galashiels (1770-1820), D.D. Aberdeen (1797), and a friend of Sir Walter Scott who purchased Abbotsford from him.

William Douglas, first marquess of Douglas (1589-1660) The son of William Douglas, tenth Earl of Angus; he fought with the Marquess of Montrose at Philiphuagh for which he was imprisoned and fined.

Sir William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) Scottish poet, essayist, and historian; author of Poems (1616), Flowres of Sion (1623), Cypresse Grove (1623), and History of the Five Jameses (1655).

Thomas Alexander Erskine, sixth Earl of Kellie (1732-1781) The son of Alexander Erskine, fifth Earl of Kellie; he was a friend of Sir Walter Scott's father. He died unmarried.

William Erskine, Lord Kinneder (1768-1822) The son of an episcopal clergyman of the same name, he was a Scottish advocate and a close friend and literary advisor to Sir Walter Scott.

Jean Froissart (1337 c.-1404 c.) French courtier and poet; author of Chronicles (1373-1400).

James Gardiner (1686-1745) Scottish soldier wounded at the Battle of Ramillies (1706) and killed at the Battle of Prestonpans (1745); he was the subject of a pious biography by Philip Doddridge (1747) and figures in Scott's Waverley.

David Garrick (1717-1779) English actor, friend of Samuel Johnson, and manager of Drury Lane Theater.

Jean Gordon (1670 c.-1745 c.) The gipsy of Kirk-Yetholm who was the model for Meg Merilees in Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering. Scott met her granddaughter, Madge Gordon.

Thomas Haliburton of Newmains (1670-1753) On of several of this name; he married Janet, daughter of Robert Campbell of Northwoodside. In 1728 their daughter Barbara married Robert Scott, grandfather of Sir Walter Scott.

Homer (850 BC fl.) Poet of the Iliad and Odyssey.

King James VI and I (1566-1625) King of Scotland (1567-1625) and England (1603-1625).

King James VII and II (1633-1701) Son of Charles I; he was king of England and Scotland 1685-88, forced from office during the Glorious Revolution.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English man of letters, among many other works he edited A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and Shakespeare (1765), and wrote Lives of the Poets (1779-81).

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) English dramatist, critic, and epigrammatist, friend of William Shakespeare and John Donne.

Joanna Keith [née Swinton] (d. 1792) The daughter of Sir John Swinton (d. 1723); she married Alexander Keith of Dunnottar and Ravelston (1705-92), Walter Scott's grand-uncle.

John Leyden (1775-1811) Scottish antiquary, poet, and orientalist who assisted Walter Scott in compiling the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

John Milton (1608-1674) English poet and controversialist; author of Comus (1634), Lycidas (1638), Areopagitica (1644), Paradise Lost (1667), and other works.

Sir Gideon Murray, Lord Elibank (1560 c.-1621) Scottish judge and politician, a sometimes favorite of James I; his daughter Agnes married Sir William Scott of Harden.

Archibald Pitcairn (1652-1713) Scottish physician, poet, and Jacobite; he was professor of medicine at Leyden (1692).

Allan Ramsay (1684-1758) Scottish poet, author of the pastoral comedy, The Gentle Shepherd (1725).

Jean Rutherford [née Swinton] (1739 fl.) The daughter of Sir John Swinton of Swinton; in 1731 she married Professor John Rutherford, who remarried in 1743. She was the maternal grandmother of Sir Walter Scott.

Anne Scott [née Murray] [Muckle Mou'd Meg] (1611 fl.) The daughter of Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank; in 1611 she married Walter Scott, the fourth laird of Harden.

Anne Scott [née Rutherford] (1739 c.-1819) Walter Scott's mother, the daughter of Professor John Rutherford who married Walter Scott senior in 1755.

Barbara Scott [née Haliburton] (1706-1775 fl.) The daughter of Thomas Haliburton of Newmains and grandmother of Sir Walter Scott; in 1828 she married Robert Scott of Sandyknowe.

Charles Scott (d. 1854) The cousin of Sir Walter Scott; he was the son of Thomas Scott and Jean Rutherford; he lived at Nisbet-Mill and farmed Milsington.

Janet Scott (d. 1805) Walter Scott's aunt, the daughter of Robert Scott of Sandyknowe; she died unmarried.

Jean Scott [née Scott] (1737-1828) The third daughter of Robert Scott of Sandyknowe; in 1772 she married Walter Scott, fifth laird of Raeburn. She was Sir Walter Scott's aunt.

Mary Scott [née Scott] [The Flower of Yarrow] (1590 fl.) Walter Scott's ancestor, the daughter of John Scott of Dryhope; in 1567 she married Walter Scott of Harden and was dead by 1598 when he remarried.

Robert Scott (1699-1775) The grandfather of Sir Walter Scott; he was a younger son of Walter “Beardie” Scott who farmed Sandyknowe near Roxburgh. He married Barbara, daughter of Thomas Haliburton.

Robert Scott of Rosebank (1739-1804) The uncle of Sir Walter Scott; he was a naval officer who retired to Rosebank near Kelso in 1771.

Thomas Scott (1731-1823) Walter Scott's uncle, the second son of Robert Scott of Sandyknowe. He was twice married, first to Anne Scott, daughter of the fourth laird of Raeburn, and secondly to Jean Rutherford of Knowsouth.

Thomas Scott (1774-1823) The younger brother of Walter Scott rumored to have written Waverley; after working in the family legal business he was an officer in the Manx Fencibles (1806-10) and Paymaster of the 70th Foot (1812-14). He died in Canada.

Walter Scott, third laird of Harden [Auld Wat] (1550 c.-1629 c.) Walter Scott's ancestor, the son of William Scott of Todrig; he was a border reiver and founder of the Harden dynasty.

Walter Scott, first laird of Raeburn [Wat Wudspurs] (1680 fl.) Walter Scott's ancestor, son of Sir William Scott, fourth laird of Harden. He married Anne Isabel Makdougall of Makerstoun, a Quaker.

Walter Scott of Satchells (1613-1688 fl.) In his youth he served in the Netherlands under Walter Scott, earl of Buccleuch; in his old age he published, in rhyme, True History of several honourable Families of the right honourable Name of Scot (1688).

Walter Scott [Beardie] (1653-1729) Walter Scott's great-grandfather, son of Walter Scott, first laird of Raeburn. He was a Jacobite said to have let his beard grow in mourning for the demise of the Stuarts.

Walter Scott (1729-1799) Walter Scott's father, son of Robert Scott of Sandyknowe; he was Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh.

Walter Scott, fifth laird of Raeburn (1744 c.-1830) Walter Scott's uncle; in 1772 he married Jean, daughter of Robert Scott of Sandy-know.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

William Scott, first laird of Harden [Bolt Foot] (d. 1561) He was twice married.

William Scott, fourth laird of Harden [Auld Wat] (d. 1655) Walter Scott's ancestor, son of Walter Scott (“Auld Wat”); he is the subject of Sir Walter Scott's comic ballad “The Reiver's Wedding.”.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) The Bard of Avon.

Euphemia Sinclair (1770 fl.) The granddaughter of Robert Sinclair of Longformacus; she kept a school for gentlewomen in Blackfriars' Wynd in Edinburgh. Among her pupils was Anne, the mother of Sir Walter Scott.

Sir Robert Sinclair of Longformacus, first baronet (d. 1678) Advocated before the Court of Session, created baronet in 1664.

James Skene of Rubislaw (1775-1864) A life-long friend of Sir Walter Scott, who dedicated a canto of Marmion to him.

Sir John Swinton (1350 c.-1402) A retainer of John of Gaunt, he fought in France and then in the Otterburn campaign; he was killed at the battle of Homildon Hill.

Sir John Swinton (d. 1723) The son of John Swinton (d. 1679); he was Sir Walter Scott's maternal-great-grandfather.

Thomas of Erceldoune (1220 c.-1297 c.) Scottish poet and prophet; author (or supposed author) of the romance, Sir Tristrem.

Sir William Wallace (1272 c.-1305) Scottish hero in the conflict with Edward I, whom he defeated at the battle of Stirling in 1297; he was afterwards captured and brutally executed in London.

Mark Akenside (1721-1770) “The Virtuoso; in imitation of Spencer's Style and Stanza” in Gentleman's Magazine. Vol. 7 (April 1737): 244-45. An uncollected early burlesque.

William Alexander, first earl of Stirling (1577-1640) Recreations with the Muses. (London: Tho. Harper, 1637).

James Boaden (1762-1839) Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, esq., including a History of the Stage, from the Time of Garrick to the Present Period. 2 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1825).

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) The Deformed Transformed: a Drama. (London: J. and H. L. Hunt, 1824). A drama in two parts, based partly on a novel, The Three Brothers, and partly on Goethe's Faust.

Robert Chambers (1802-1871) Traditions of Edinburgh. 2 vols (Edinburgh: W. & C. Tait, 1838). Several times reprinted.

Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie, sixth baronet (1694-1770) The Baronage of Scotland; containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Gentry of that Kingdom. (Edinburgh: Bell & Bradfute, 1798).

Allan Ramsay (1684-1758) The Tea-table Miscellany: or, a Collection of Scots Sangs. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Allan Ramsay, 1724-1727). An oft-reprinted anthology of Scottish poetry.

Walter Scott of Satchells (1613-1688 fl.) A True History of several Honourable Families of the Right Honourable Name of Scot, in the Shires of Roxburgh and Selkirk, and others adjacent. Gathered out of Ancient Chronicles, Histories, and Traditions of our Fathers. (Satchelo's Post'ral, etc.). (Edinburgh: The Heir of Andrew Anderson, 1688). Fondly admired by Sir Walter Scott.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “Ashestiel Fragment” in Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, bart.. 7 vols (Edinburgh: R. Cadell, 1837-38). An autobiographical fragment written in 1808 and first published in 1837.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “Eve of St John” in Tales of Wonder. 2 vols (London: J. Bell, 1801). Composed in 1799 and originally printed in Apology for Tales of Terror, Kelso, 1799.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Guy Mannering, or, the Astrologer. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Ballantyne, 1815). The second of Scott's historical novels, published only a few months after Waverley.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Halidon Hill: a Dramatic Sketch from Scottish History. (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1822).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “The Heart of Mid-Lothian” in Tales of my Landlord, second series. 4 vols (Edinburgh: Constable, 1818). The story of Effie Deans, set in eighteenth century Edinburgh.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Lady of the Lake: a Poem. (Edinburgh: John Ballantyne, 1810). A metrical romance set in the Highlands, often regarded as Scott's most successful poem.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Lay of the Last Minstrel: a Poem. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805). The first of Scott's metrical romances, the Lay recounts the love of Margaret of Branksome for Henry of Cranstoun during a sixteenth-century border raid.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) “Life of John Kemble” in Quarterly Review. Vol. 34 No. 93 (June 1826): 197-248. A review of James Boaden's biography.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field. (Edinburgh: Constable, 1808). A narrative poem set in the sixteenth century; the six cantos are introduced by epistles addressed to William Stewart Rose, James Marriot, William Erskine, James Skene, George Ellis, and Richard Heber.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Memorials of the Haliburtons. (Edinburgh: J. Ballantyne and Co., 1820). Thirty copies were printed for private distribution.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland, with a few of modern date, founded upon Local Tradition. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Longman and Rees, 1802-1803). A collection of border ballads collected by Walter Scott with extensive introductions and notes, modeled on Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, bart.. 28 vols (Edinburgh: R. Cadell, 1834-40). An earlier edition in six volumes had been published in Scott's lifetime.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Rob Roy. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1818). Published anonymously, as the rest of the Waverley novels.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) St. Ronan's Well. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Constable & Co, 1824).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Waverley: or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Constable, 1814). Scott's first historical novel, set against the backdrop of the Jacobite rising of 1745.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) As You Like It. (London: 1623). A comedy first performed about 1600 and first published in the first folio.

Elizabeth Wardlaw, Lady Wardlaw [née Halket] (1677-1727) Hardyknute, a Fragment. (Edinburgh: James Watson, 1719). The ballad relates the battle between Haco, king of Norway, and Alexander III of Scotland; the first publication was anonymous.

INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Author: Lockhart, J. G. (John Gibson), 1794-1854

Title: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 7 vols (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1837).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed. Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed January 2011

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License