George Eliot

‘…At all events, she is greatly inferior to Scott in play and richness of pictorial imagination, in rapidity of movement, and in warmth of colour.  “Romola”, her one historical romance – though it is full of subtlety of conception, contains some very striking figures, and is painted with a surprising minuteness of realistic detail – is a doubtful success.  Sir Walter Scott never failed in making the chief historical figure of his historical romances the most interesting in his group…’

The text above comes from Chambers’s Cyclopedia of English Literature, in a passage on George Eliot.  Chambers seems to prefer Scott, though three of Eliot’s novels are extremely well known (“The Mill on the Floss”, “Silas Marner”, “Middlemarch”).  The English author George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) died on December 22, 1880.

The Air of Bonnie Dundee

December 22, 1825 finds Sir Walter in a fine mood,.  Among other things that day, he records 'The air of "Bonnie Dundee" running in my head to-day, I [wrote] a few verses to it before dinner, taking the key-note from the story of Clavers leaving the Scottish Convention of Estates in 1688-9....'

The full poem is published in "Scott's Poetical Works".

To the Lords of Convention 'twas Clavers who spoke,
'Ere the King's crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke;
So let each Cavalier who loves honour and me,
Come follow the bonnet of Bonny Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Come saddle your horses, and call up your men;
Come open the West Port and let me gang free,
And it's room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!

Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street,
The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat;
But the Provost, douce man, said, "Just e'en let him be,
The Gude Town is weel quit of that Deil of Dundee."...

Landing at Peterhead

The Jacobite Rising was a favorite backdrop for Scott, and in particular Rob Roy is set with "The Fifteen"; the rising of 1715. This First Jacobite Rebellion moved into action during the summer of 1715. James Stuart, The Old Pretender as he came to be known, was in communication with John Erskine, the Earl of Mar. Stuart convinced Mar to raise the clans in rebellion to the English throne. Mar traveled to Braemar, in Aberdeenshire, for a clan "hunting match" in August of that year. On September 6th, Mar proclaimed James Stuart as lawful sovereign. Mar and the clans in attendance at the hunting match began taking the highlands by force.

Success was short lived, as the English soon reacted, and Highlanders found fewer recruits than necessary. Two of the larger battles during this uprising were the Battles of Preston and Sheriffmuir during November 1715. Finally, on December 22, 1715, James Francis Edward Stuart landed on Scottish soil, at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. Stuart was feverish and apparently depressed over his prospects. He briefly set up a court at Scone, in Perthshire, but retreated to France on February 4, 1716, leaving the Highland Chieftans to fend for themselves.