I struck good strokes more than one

‘April 20 [1826]…The day was so tempting that I went out with Tom Purdie to cut some trees,

the rather that my task was very well advanced. He led me into the wood, as the blind 

King of Bohemia was led by his four knights into the thick of the battle at Agincourt or Crecy,

and then, like the old King, "I struck good strokes more than one," which is manly exercise.’

Blind King John of Bohemia wouldn’t have it said that a Bohemian king had avoided battle.

Lockhart’s note to Scott’s journal suggests turning to Jean Froissart’s description of the Battle

 of Crecy: ‘…The valiant king of Bohemia called [John] of Luxembourg, son to the noble

 emperor Henry of Luxembourg, for all that he was nigh blind, when he understood the order

 of the battle, he said to them about him: 'Where is the lord Charles my son?' His men said:

 'Sir, we cannot tell; we think he be fighting.' Then he said: 'Sirs, ye are my men, my 

companions and friends in this journey: I require you bring me so far forward, that I may strike

 one stroke with my sword.' They said they would do his commandment, and to the intent

 that they should not lose him in the press, they tied all their reins of their bridles each to other

 and set the king before to accomplish his desire, and so they went on their enemies.

The lord Charles of Bohemia his [King John’s] son, who wrote himself king of Almaine

and bare the arms, he came in good order to the battle; but when he saw that the matter

 went awry on their party, he departed, I cannot tell you which way. The king his father was 

so far forward that he strake a stroke with his sword, yea and more than four, and fought 

valiantly and so did his company; and they adventured themselves so forward, that they 

were there all slain, and the next day they were found in the place about the king, and all

 their horses tied each to other…’

"If you give away your money before you are dead..."

A man who may have been a model for Charles Dickens' character Ebenezer Scrooge died on April 20, 1836. James (Jemmy) Wood was an early private banker, and was reputedly stingy; also exceedingly rich. He owned the Gloucester Old Bank, which had been founded by his grandfather. William Haig Miller discusses Wood in his "On the bank's Threshold...".

'The private bankers grew up under the shadow of the Bank of England, like dwarfs beside a giant. Many of them were men of penurious habits, and accumulated great wealth. We remember in our day James Wood, of Gloucester, who left upwards of two millions sterling. His will caused much litigation. To the end of his days he kept a little draper's shop next his bank, and was very particular that his banking customers should continue to buy their drapery from him when once they had begun to do so. He appears to have been of a sadly miserly spirit. We have looked over two folio volumes of printed matter, containing the pleadings in the Probate Court relative to his will, which, as we have said, was the subject of legal proceedings. They contained many proofs of his niggardliness. He was fond, we are told by one witness, of quoting, as a reason for not parting with his money during his lifetime, some verses said to be inscribed in a country church on a tombstone, which had on it the figure of a man with an axe beside him. The lines were to the following effect:—

"If you give away your money before you are dead,
Then take up this axe and chop off your head."

Miller weaves Sir Walter Scott into his work several times. Based on the following, it's possible that Scott could have developed an aversion to bankers:

'The private banking establishment of Sir William Forbes & Co. also long flourished in Edinburgh. Its first partner was the friend and biographer of Beattie, the poet, and a man so full of benevolence that it was said of him by the author of " Marmion :"

"If mortal charity dare claim
The Almighty's attributed name,
Inscribe above his mouldering clay,
'The widow's shield—the orphan's stay.'''

His son and banking successor was an attached friend of Sir Walter Scott, and also his rival in love, having carried off the hand of the young lady—the daughter of Sir John Stuart—for whom Sir Walter, then a youth, had formed a romantic passion, he having become acquainted with her by offering her the share of his umbrella as she walked home on a rainy day from Greyfriars Church. To the end of his days, Sir Walter, it may be remembered, cherished the recollection of this youthful episode; and after the lady's death, and when he was himself a widower, he poured out his sorrows in his diary in the following touching words: "I went to make a visit, and fairly softened myself with recalling old stories, till I was fit for nothing but shedding tears and repeating verses for the whole night. This is sad work. The very grave gives up its dead, and time rolls back thirty years to add to my perplexities,"...'

Rump Parliament Dissolved

" And as for the rumps of beeves," continued Tomkins, with the same solemnity, " there is a rump at Westminster, which will stand us of the army much hacking and hewing yet, ere it is discussed to our mind."


Sir Henry paused, as if to consider what was the meaning of this innuendo; for he was not a person of very quick apprehension. But having at length caught the meaning of it, he burst into an explosion of louder laughter than Joceline had seen him indulge in for a good while.

" Right, kuave," he said, " I taste- thy jest-It is the very moral of the puppetshow. Faustus raised the devil, as the Parliament raised the army, and then, as the devil flies away with Faustus, so will the army fly away with the Parliament, or the rump, as thou call'st it, or sitting part of the so-called Parliament. And then, look you, friend, the very devil of all hath my willing consent to fly away with the army in its turn, from the highest general down to the lowest drum-boy. Nay, never look fierce for the matter; remember there is daylight enough now for a game at sharps."
 
Scott's novel Woodstock, from which the above passage was taken, was set in 1651 during the English Civil Wars.  The Rump Parliament came into being on December 6, 1648, when Colonel Thomas Pride removed members of the Long Parliament that didn't support the Grandee faction of the army in its efforts to try Charles I for treason (Pride's Purge).  Retained members were termed "Rump"; as in the remainder.
 
Grandees were comprised largely of landed gentry, as opposed to Levellers, who we today might consider more populist, favoring equality before the law and religious tolerance.  Oliver Cromwell was a Grandee.
 
On April 20, 1653, Cromwell dissolved the Rump.  The Rump had previously agreed to disolve, but hadn't Cromwell felt that rumpers were "designing to spin an everlasting thread".  According to The Book of Days, Cromwell took control of the Parliament stating 'You are no parliament! Some of you are drunkards '—bending a stern eye upon Mr. Chaloner; 'some of you are _______ {whores},' a word expressive of a worse immorality, and he looked here at Henry Marten and Sir Peter Wentworth —'living in open contempt of God's commandments. Some of you are corrupt, unjust persons—how can you be a parliament for God's people? Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. Go!'