Swinton Family

‘June 6 [1826]…Worked hard. John Swinton, my kinsman, came to see me,--very kind and

affectionate in his manner; my heart always warms to that Swinton connection, so faithful

 to old Scottish feelings…’

The Swinton connection Scott mentions in his journal is explained by the author, as published in

 Lockhart’s  “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott”:

‘In [April, 1758] my father married Anne Rutherford, eldest daughter of Dr. John Rutherford,

professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh. He was one of those pupils of Boerhaave,

to whom the school of medicine in our northern metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished

for professional talent, for lively wit, and for literary acquirements. Dr. Rutherford was twice

married. His first wife, of whom my mother is the sole surviving child, was a daughter of

Sir John Swinton of Swinton, a family which produced many distinguished warriors during

the Middle Ages, and which, for antiquity and honorable alliances, may rank with any in Britain.’

Feast of Saint John the Evangelist

December 27 is the feast day of Saint John, son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of James the Greater.  Salome may have been a cousin of Mary (Jesus' mother).  The two sons of Zebedee may then have been Jesus' first cousins, as well as ultimately his apostles.  John, the "disciple who Jesus loved" was the only apostle to die a natural death.  Not that life was easy for him.  At one point, he was accused by Roman authorities of subverting the religion of the Roman Empire.  His punishment was to be cast in a vat of boiling oil.  Legend has it he remained in the cauldron for an extended period of time, emerging unscathed and invigorated.

In Edinburgh, on Princes Street, is Saint John the Evangelist, a Scottish Episcopal Church.  It was completed in 1818.  One of it's early residents, in the burial sense, is Anne Rutherford, Sir Walter Scott's mother.  She is buried in the Dormitory, along with painter and cousin Henry Raeburn, who painted Walter in 1822.