by John Buchan
“To procure a temperate and moderate government, there is much in the king and not a little in the people. For let a prince command never so well, if there be not a correspondent obedience there is no temper. It is not the people’s part, towards that end, to take upon them to limit and circumscribe royal power; it is Jupiter’s thunder which never subject handled well yet; not the people’s part to determine what is due to a prince, what to his people. It requires more than human sufficiency to go so even a way betwixt the prince’s prerogative, and the subject’s privilege, as to content both, or be just in itself. For they can never agree upon the matter; and where it hath been attempted, as in some places it hath, the sword did ever determine the question, which is to be avoided by all possible means. But there is a fair and justifiable way for subjects to procure a moderate government, incumbent to them in duty; which is, to endeavour the security of Religion and just Liberties, the matter on which the exorbitancy of a prince’s power doth work; which being secured, his power must needs be temperate, and run in the even channel.
“‘But,’ it may be demanded, ‘how shall the people’s just liberties be preserved if they be not known, and how known if they be not determined to be such?’ It is answered, the laws contain them; and the Parliaments, which ever have been the bulwarks of subjects’ liberties in monarchies, may advise new laws against emergent occasions which prejudge their liberties; and so leave it to occasion, and not prevent it by foolish haste in Parliaments, which breeds contention, and disturbance to the quiet of the State. And if Parliaments be frequent, and rightly constituted, what favourite counsellor or statesman dare misinform or mislead a king to the prejudice of a subject’s liberty, knowing he must answer it upon the peril of his head and estate at the next ensuing Parliament, and that he shall put the king to an hard choice for him, either to abandon him to justice, or, by protecting him, displease the estates of his kingdom? And if the king should be so ill advised as to protect him, yet he doth not escape punishment that is branded with a mark of public infamy, declared enemy to the State, and incapable of any good amongst them.
3. “The perpetual cause of the controversies, between the prince and his subjects, is the ambitious designs of rule in great men, veiled under the specious pretext of Religion and the subject’s Liberties, seconded with the arguments and false positions of seditious preachers: 1st, that the king is ordained for the people, and the end is more noble than the mean; 2nd, that the constituter is superior to the constituent; 3rd, that the king and people are two contraries, like the two scales of a balance — when the one goes up the other goes down; 4th, that the prince’s prerogative and the people’s privilege are incompatible; 5th, what power is taken from the king is added to the Estates of the people. This is the language of the spirits of division that walk betwixt the king and his people, to separate them whom God hath conjoined; which must not pass without some answer; to slide upon which sandy ground these giants, who war against the gods, have builded their Babel.
“To the 1st: It is true that the true and utmost ends of men’s actions, which is the glory of God and felicity of men, are to be preferred to all means directed thereunto. But there is not that order of dignity among the means themselves, or mid instruments compounded together. If it were so, and a man appointed to keep sheep, or a nobleman to be tutor-in-law to a pupil of meaner quality, the sheep should be preferred to the man, and the pupil to his tutor. To the 2nd: He that constituteth so as he still retaineth the power to reverse his constitution, is superior to the constituted in that respect; but if his donation and constitution is absolute and without condition, devolving all his power in the person constituted, and his successors, what before was voluntary becomes necessary. It is voluntary to a woman to chuse such an one for her husband, and to a people what king they will at first; both being once done, neither can the woman nor the people free themselves, from obedience and subjection to the husband and the prince, when they please. To the 3rd: In a politic consideration, the king and his people are not two, but one body politic, whereof the king is the head. And so far are they from contrariety, and opposite motions, that there is nothing good or ill for the one which is not just so for the other. If their ends and endeavours be divers, and never so little eccentric, either that king inclineth to tyranny, or that people to disloyalty — if they be contrary, it is mere tyranny or mere disloyalty. To the 4th: The king’s prerogative and the subject’s privilege are so far from incompatibility, that the one can never stand unless supported by the other. For the sovereign being strong, and in full possession of his lawful power and prerogative, is able to protect his subjects from oppression, and maintain their liberties entire; otherwise, not. On the other side, a people, enjoying freely their just liberties and privileges, maintaineth the prince’s honour and prerogative out of the great affection they carry towards him; which is the greatest strength against foreign invasion, or intestine insurrection, that a prince can possibly be possessed with. To the 5th: It is a mere fallacy; for what is essential to one thing cannot be given to another. The eye may lose its sight, the ear its hearing, but can never be given to the hand, or foot, or any other member; and, as the head of the natural body may be deprived of invention, judgment, or memory, and the rest of the members receive no part thereof, so subjects, not being capable of the essential parts of government properly and primitively belonging to the prince, those being taken from him, they can never be imparted to them, without change of the government and the essence and being of the same. When a king is restrained from the lawful use of his power, and subjects can make no use of it — as under a king they cannot — what can follow but a subversion of government — anarchy and confusion?
“Now, to any man that understands these things only, the proceedings of these times may seem strange, and he may expostulate with us thus:
“Noblemen and gentlemen of good quality, what do you mean? Will you teach the people to put down the Lord’s anointed, and lay violent hands on his authority to whom both you and they owe subjection, and assistance with your goods, lives, and fortunes, by all the laws of God and man? Do ye think to stand and domineer over the people, in an aristocratic way — the people who owe you small or no obligation? It is you, under your natural prince, that get all employment pregnant of honour or profit, in peace or war. You are the subjects of his liberality; your houses decayed, either by merit or his grace and favour are repaired, without which you fall in contempt; the people, jealous of their liberty, when you deserve best, to shelter themselves will make you shorter by the head, or serve you with an ostracism. If their first act be against kingly power, their next act will be against you. For if the people be of a fierce nature, they will cut your throats; as the Switzers did of old; you shall be contemptible; as some of ancient houses are in Holland, their very burgomaster is the better man; your honours — life — fortunes stand at the discretion of a seditious preacher!
“And you, ye meaner people of Scotland — who are not capable of a Republic, for many grave reasons — why are you induced by specious pretexts, to your own heavy prejudice and detriment, to be instruments of others’ ambition? Do ye not know, when the monarchical government is shaken, the great ones strive for the garland with your blood and your fortunes? Whereby you gain nothing; but, instead of a race of kings who have governed you two thousand years with peace and justice, and have preserved your liberties against all domineering nations, shall purchase to yourselves vultures and tigers to reign over your posterity; and yourselves shall endure all those miseries, massacres, and proscriptions of the Triumvirate of Rome, (till) the kingdom fall again into the hands of One, who of necessity must, and for reason of State will, tyrannize over you. For kingdoms acquired by blood and violence are by the same means retained.
“And you great men — if any such be among you so blinded with ambition — who aim so high as the crown, do you think we are so far degenerate from the virtue, valour, and fidelity to our true and lawful sovereign, so constantly entertain
ed by our ancestors, as to suffer you, with all your policy, to reign over us? Take heed you be not Aesop’s dog, and lose the cheese for the shadow in the well.
“And thou, seditious preacher, who studies to put the sovereignty in the people’s hands for thy own ambitious ends — as being able, by thy wicked eloquence and hypocrisy, to infuse into them what thou pleasest — know this, that this people is more incapable of sovereignty than any other known. Thou art abused like a pedant by the nimble-witted nobleman. Go, go along with them to shake the present government; not for thy ends to possess the people with it, but, as a cunning tennis-player lets the ball go to the wall, where it cannot stay, that he may take it at the bound with more ease.
“And whereas a durable peace with England — which is the wish and desire of all honest men — is pretended, surely it is a great solecism in us to aim at an end of peace with them, and overthrow the only means for that end. It is the King’s Majesty’s sovereignty over both that unites us in affection, and is only able to reconcile questions among us when they fall. To endeavour the dissolution of that bond of our union is nowise to establish a durable peace; but rather to procure enmity and war betwixt bordering nations, where occasions of quarrel are never wanting, nor men ever ready to take hold of them.
“Now, sir, you have my opinion concerning your desire, and that which I esteem truth set down nakedly for your use, not adorned for public view. And if zeal for my Sovereign and Country have transported me a little too far, I hope you will excuse the errors proceeding from so good a cause of
“Your humble servant,
“Montrose.”
James Marquesse of Montrose, Earle of Kingcairne,
Lord Græme, Baron of Mont dieue, etc.
Lieutenant Governour and Capt. General
ffor His Matie in the Kingdome of Scotland.
A. Matham se.
MONTROSE
From an engraving by A. Matham
forming the frontispiece
to the 1647 Hague translation of Wishart.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I. — ANTECEDENTS
CHAPTER II. — BOYHOOD AND YOUTH (1771-1792)
CHAPTER III. — EARLY MANHOOD (1792-1799)
CHAPTER IV. — LASSWADE AND ASHESTIEL (1799- 1810)
CHAPTER V. — FAREWELL TO POESY (1810-1814)
CHAPTER VI. — THE EARLY NOVELS (1814-1817)
CHAPTER VII. — THE BROKEN YEARS (1817-1819)
CHAPTER VIII. — EDINBURGH AND ABBOTSFORD (1820)
CHAPTER IX. — HIGH NOON (1820-1825)
CHAPTER X. — THE DARK DAYS (1825-1826)
CHAPTER XI. — SERVITUDE (1826-1831)
CHAPTER XII. — RELEASE (1831-1832)
CHAPTER XIII. — THE WRITER
CHAPTER XIV. — THE MAN
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) was the leading novelist of his time and a great hero for Buchan.
TO TWO FRIENDS — LOVERS OF SIR WALTER
STANLEY BALDWIN & GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN
PREFACE
The centenary of the death of Sir Walter Scott is my excuse for the re-cutting of some of the lines of Lockhart’s imperishable memorial, and for an attempt at a valuation of the man and his work after the lapse of a hundred years. It is a book which I was bound one day or other to write, for I have had the fortune to be born and bred under the shadow of that great tradition.
The following abbreviations have been used: —
A. Constable
Archibald Constable and His Literary Correspondents. 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1873.
Ballantyne Humbug
The Ballantyne-Humbug Handled in a Letter to Sir Adam Ferguson. Edinburgh, 1839.
Cockburn, Mem.
Memorials of His Time, by Henry, Lord Cockburn. Edinburgh, 1856.
Dom. Manners
The Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott, by James Hogg. Glasgow, 1834.
Fam. Letters
Familiar Letters of Sir Walter Scott. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1894.
Gillies
Recollections of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by
R. P. Gillies. London, 1837.
Journal
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1891.
Lang
The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, by Andrew Lang. 2 vols. London, 1897.
Lockhart
Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by John Gibson Lockhart. 7 vols. Edinburgh, 1837-8.
Misc. Prose Works
The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 28 vols. Edinburgh, 1843-6.
P.L.B.
The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott. London, 1930.
Refutation
Refutation of the Misstatements and Calumnies Contained in Mr Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh, 1838.
Reply
A Reply to Mr Lockhart’s Pamphlet, by the authors of the Refutation. Edinburgh, 1839.
S.Q.
The Sir Walter Scott Quarterly. Edinburgh, 1927-8.
Sederunt Book
The Sederunt Book of James Ballantyne and Company’s Trust. 3 vols. in National Library of Scotland.
Skene
Memories of Sir Walter Scott, by James Skene. London, 1909.
I have given authority for most of my references, since Scott’s own writings and the books about him are bulky works, and the reader may be glad of finger-posts.
J. B.
Elsfield Manor, Oxon.
December 1931
CHAPTER I. — ANTECEDENTS
I
In the autumn of the year 1771 an Edinburgh citizen, returning after many years’ absence, would have noted certain changes in his native city. If, on the morning after his arrival at the White Horse Inn in the Canongate, he had ascended to the high places of the Castle hill, and looked north and east, he would have missed one familiar landmark. The Nor’ Loch, his haunt on youthful holidays and the odorous grave of city refuse, had been drained, and its bed was now grass and shingle. Across the hollow which once had held its waters a huge mound of earth had been thrown, giving access to the distant fields. Farther east, another crossing was in process of making, a bridge to carry a broad highway. Before he had left home the Canongate had burst its bonds into New Street and St John Street, and he noted that the city had spilled itself farther southward beyond the South Bridge of the Cowgate into new streets and squares. But now the moat of the Nor’ Loch was spanned, and on its farther shore building had begun according to the plans of the ingenious Mr Craig. He had heard much of these plans that morning in Lucky Boyd’s hostelry — of how a new Register House, with the Adam brothers as architects, and paid for out of the forfeited Jacobite estates, was designed to rise at the end of the new bridge. And the spectator, according as he was a lover of old things or an amateur of novelties, would have sighed or approved. The little city, strung from the Castle to Holyroodhouse along her rib of hill, where more history had been made than in any place of like size save Athens, Rome and Jerusalem — which, according to the weather and the observer’s standpoint, looked like a flag flung against the sky or a ship riding by the shore — was enlarging her bounds and entering upon a new career.
Another sight of some significance was to be had in the same year at the same season. From every corner of the north droves of black cattle were converging on Falkirk moor for the great autumn Tryst. It was the clearing-house of the Highlands, as Stagshawbank on the Tyne was the clearing-house of Scotland. The drover from Glen Affric, herding his kyloes among the autumn bracken, could see from his bivouac a cloud of dark smoke on the banks of the Carron river, and hear by day and night the clang of hammers. This was the Carron Ironworks, now eleven years old, and a canal was being made from Grangemouth-on-Forth to carry their products to the world. There, within sight of the Highland Line, a quarter of a century after a Jacobite army had campaigned on that very ground, the coal and iron of the Sco
ttish midlands were being used in a promising industry. Cannon were being made for many nations, and the Carron pipes and sugar-boilers and fire-grates were soon to be famous throughout the land. The Highland drover, already perplexed by the intrusion of Lowland sheep on his hills and the cutting of his native woods by English companies, saw in the flame and smoke of the ironworks a final proof that his ancient world was crumbling.
