A Typical Day

Sometimes it’s good just to read Walter Scott’s words again, as they were put together.  The journal entry below shows a typical day for Scott, per the author.  Idyllic, but not without life’s anxieties.  It’s hard to imagine Scott stuck in a modern traffic jam.

April 1 [1826]--_Ex uno die disce omnes._ Rose at seven or sooner, studied,

and wrote till breakfast with Anne, about a quarter before ten. Lady

Scott seldom able to rise till twelve or one. Then I write or study

again till one. At that hour to-day I drove to Huntly Burn, and walked

home by one of the hundred and one pleasing paths which I have made

through the woods I have planted--now chatting with Tom Purdie, who

carries my plaid, and speaks when he pleases, telling long stories of

hits and misses in shooting twenty years back--sometimes chewing the cud

of sweet and bitter fancy--and sometimes attending to the humours of two

curious little terriers of the Dandie Dinmont breed, together with a

noble wolf-hound puppy which Glengarry has given me to replace Maida.

This brings me down to the very moment I do tell--the rest is prophetic.

I will feel sleepy when this book is locked, and perhaps sleep until

Dalgleish brings the dinner summons. Then I will have a chat with Lady

S. and Anne; some broth or soup, a slice of plain meat--and man's chief

business, in Dr. Johnson's estimation, is briefly despatched. Half an

hour with my family, and half an hour's coquetting with a cigar, a

tumbler of weak whisky and water, and a novel perhaps, lead on to tea,

which sometimes consumes another half hour of chat; then write and read

in my own room till ten o'clock at night; a little bread and then a

glass of porter, and to bed.

And this, very rarely varied by a visit from some one, is the tenor of

my daily life--and a very pleasant one indeed, were it not for

apprehensions about Lady S. and poor Johnnie Hugh. The former will, I

think, do well--for the latter--I fear--I fear--

Replacing Maida

'April 1.—Ex uno die disce omnes. Rose at seven or sooner, studied, and wrote till breakfast with Anne, about a quarter before ten. Lady Scott seldom able to rise till twelve or one. Then I write or study again till one. At that hour to-day I drove to Huntly Burn, and walked home by one of the hundred and one pleasing paths which I have made through the woods I have planted—now chatting with Tom Purdie, who carries my plaid, and speaks when he pleases, telling long stories of hits and misses in shooting twenty years back—sometimes chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy—and sometimes attending to the humours of two curious little terriers of the Dandie Dinmont breed, together with a noble wolf-hound puppy which Glengarry has given me to replace Maida...'

From Scott's Journal; April 1, 1826.  Losing a pet is losing a member of the family for many of us.  Maida the deerhound was named after the Battle of Maida which occurred during the Napoleonic Wars.  Maida remains aside Sir Walter Scott in the statue that John Steell sculpted for Scott's Monument.

Radical War

On April 1, 1820, a pamphlet calling for a national strike was circulated through Glasgow by a group calling itself A Committee for Forming a Provisional Government.  What became known as the Radical War, or Insurrection of 1820, had as an antecedent the Massacre of Peterloo (August 16, 1819 - dubbed Peterloo after the Battle of Waterloo four years earlier), in which a crowd of 60,000 - 80,000 protesters gathered at St. Peter's Field in Manchester was charged on by armed cavalry.

The Radicals were largely comprised of weavers, who, according to Rev. Robert Rennie, were among the better educated tradespeople.  The weavers saw their economic quality of life deteriorating in the first two decades of the 19th century, impacted by the Napoleonic Wars.  Earnings fell by half between 1800 and 1808, and much further over the next decade.  The pamphlets circulated on April 1st called for a national strike:

"Friends and Countrymen! Rouse from that state in which we have sunk for so many years, we are at length compelled from the extremity of our sufferings, and the contempt heaped upon our petitions for redress, to assert our rights at the hazard of our lives." by "taking up arms for the redress of our common grievances". "Equality of rights (not of property)... Liberty or Death is our motto, and we have sworn to return home in triumph - or return no more.... we earnestly request all to desist from their labour from and after this day, the first of April [until] in possession of those rights..." It called for a rising "To show the world that we are not that lawless, sanguinary rabble which our oppressors would persuade the higher circles we are but a brave and generous people determined to be free."



A footnote added: "Britons – God – Justice – the wish of all good men, are with us. Join together and make it one good cause, and the nations of the earth shall hail the day when the Standard of Liberty shall be raised on its native soil."

The following Monday, a strike did occur, followed by violent incidents at Bonnymuir and Greenock.  The Radical War had little chance of succeeding, and its main instigators, James Wilson, John Baird, and Andrew Hardie were captured, tried, and executed. 

Fallout from the Insurrection of 1820 included the scheduling of a visit by King George IV to Scotland, which Sir Walter Scott organized very effectively.  Scott authored a poem for this event, "Carle, now the King's Come":

"The news has flown frae mouth to mouth,
the North for once has bang'd the South;
The deil a Scotsman's die o' drouth,
Carle, now the King's come!
..."