Crown of Scotland

A Royal Commission had been issued in 1794 authorising certain persons to enter the jewel room in the Castle of Edinburgh, and by breaking the door if necessary, in order to ascertain whether the historical conjecture was true that the Crown of Scotland and its pertinent were there.  But that attempt to discover them had failed; because after breaking the lock of the door, a punctilious commissioner doubted whether their warrant sanctioned their also using force against a chest that they found within.  This obstacle was suggested, I have heard, by Blair the Solicitor-General; and it being formidable, the chest was left untouched, the outer door was relocked, and the commissioners retired.  After another pause of twenty-four years, the experiment was renewed by a better instructed Commission, and on the 4^th of February 1818 the Commissioners proceeded with due pomp to their work.  They unlocked the door and opened the chest.  And there, as Thomas Thomson had told them, they found the Regalia sleeping beneath the dust that had been gathering around them ever since the Union.  It was a hazy evening, about four o’clock, when a shot from the Castle and a cheer from a regiment drawn up on the Castle Hill announced to the people, that the Crown of heir old kings was discovered. ..John Kemble asked Scott If the Crown was not splendid?  “The last time that I saw you as Macbeth you had a much grander one.”

The text above, including the quote of Walter Scott, comes from Lord Henry Cockburn’s “Memorials of his Time”.

Honours of Scotland

On February 4, 1818 Sir Walter Scott wrote to John Wilson Croker about the experience he'd had that day of opening the chest that stored Scotland's crown jewels.  The jewels had been placed in the chest, and stored at Edinburgh Castle after the Act of Union, on March 7, 1707.

TO J. W. CROKER



EDINBURGH, 4th Feb. l8l8


MY DEAR CROKER,-I have the pleasure to assure you the Regalia of Scotland were this day found in perfect preservation.1 The Sword of State and Sceptre showed marks of hard usage at some former period ; but in all respects agree with the description in Thomson's work.  I will send you a complete account of the opening tomorrow, as the official account will take some time to draw up. In the meantime, I hope you will remain as obstinate in your belief as St. Thomas, because then you
will come down to satisfy yourself. I know nobody entitled to earlier information, save ONE, to whom you can perhaps find the means of communicating the result of our researches. The post is just going off.
Ever yours truly,                                                                          WALTER SCOTT


[Lockhart]
 
The letter is taken from Herbert Grierson's "The Letters of Sir Walter Scott", available at Edinburgh University's Walter Scott Digital Archive.  Scott wrote to Croker again on February 7, with additinal details.

The Old Pretender Departs

James Stuart's arrived from France at Peterhead in Scotland to lead the uprising of 1715 on December 22,1715.  Approximately 6 weeks later, on February 4, 1716, he was exiting from Montrose.  The Old Pretender found life different in France when he returned, as Louis XIV had died while he was away.  Stuart ended up in Rome, thanks to Pope Clement XI.  Here he established his Roman Jacobite Court.

Scott refers to this court in Waverly:

"...Footnote: Where the Chevalier St. George, or, as he was termed,
the Old Pretender, held his exiled court, as his situation compelled him
to shift his place of residence..."