Charlotte Carpenter

May 15.--Received the melancholy intelligence that all is over at

Abbotsford.

Walter Scott’s wife Charlotte passed on May 15^th, 1826, as Scott’s Spartan journal entry indicates.  A good source of Scott’s involvement with Ms. Carpenter is found in John Gibson Lockhart’s “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott”.

‘Riding one day with Ferguson, they met, some miles from Gilsland, a young lady taking the air on horseback, whom neither of them had previously remarked, and whose appearance instantly struck both so much that they kept her in view until they had satisfied themselves that she also was one of the party at Gilsland. The same evening there was a ball, at which Captain Scott produced himself in his regimentals, and Ferguson also thought proper to be equipped in the uniform of the Edinburgh Volunteers. There was no little rivalry among the young travellers as to who should first get presented to the unknown beauty of the morning's ride; but though both the gentlemen in scarlet had the advantage of being dancing partners, their friend succeeded in handing the fair stranger to supper—and such was his first introduction to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter.

Without the features of a regular beauty, she was rich in personal attractions; "a form that was fashioned as light as a fay's;" a complexion of the clearest and lightest olive; eyes large, deep-set and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown; and a profusion of silken tresses, black as the raven's wing; her address hovering between the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman who has not mingled largely in general society, and a certain natural archness and gayety that suited well with the accompaniment of a French accent. A lovelier vision, as all who remember her in the bloom of her days have assured me, could hardly have been imagined; and from that hour the fate of the young poet was fixed…’

Canning's Appointment

'May 15 [1827].—Parliament House a queer sight. Looked as if people were singing to each other the noble song of "The sky's falling—chickie diddle." Thinks I to myself, I'll keep a calm sough.

"Betwixt both sides I unconcerned stand by; Hurt, can I laugh, and honest, need I cry?"

I wish the old Government had kept together, but their personal dislike to Canning seems to have rendered that impossible...'

Sir Walter Scott's journal entry of May 15, 1827, laments the fallout from King George IV's appointment of George Canning as Prime Minister, in place of the ailing Earl of Liverpool, Robert Jenkinson.  Sir Robert Peel and Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, soon resigned.  Wellington became Prime Minister himself, less than half a year after Canning died , and Peel succeeded him.  Canning became PM on April 10, 1827, and passed just 119 days later, on August 8, 1827, rendering his term as Prime Minister the shortest on record.

Mary, Queen of Scots and Jame Hepburn, Earl Bothwell Wed

On May 15, 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Earl of Bothwell, James Hepburn married.  Their time together was to prove short, and they were on the run for most of that time, as there were powerful interests opposed to their marriage.  Only a month later (June 15, 1567), Bothwell left Mary at the Battle of Carberry Hill, where their forces, consisting largely of Hamilton men, were defeated by a larger, well-trained force under Earls Morton, Hume, Mar, Glencairn, and Atholl.

The two sides met, with the Lords offering terms to Bothwell and Mary's.  The options to avoid all out battle were for Bothwell to meet one of the Lords in a one-on-one duel, or for Mary to leave Bothwell for the Lords, who promised their loyal support. 

Bothwell chose the duel, and Lord Patrick Lindsay was selected to oppose him.  In the meantime, the Lords' forces were maneuvering for position to gain advantage.  As told in "Life of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell" by Frederik Schiern, before the duel began, Mary mounted her steed, and summoned the Laird of Grange, who had offered terms saying "Laird of Grange, I render myself unto you, upon the conditions you ' rehearsed unto me, in the name of the Lords."  Mary thus surrendered to the Lords, while Bothwell left the field of battle.

Just prior to their marriage (May 12, 1567), Mary had conferred on Bothwell the title Duke of Orkney.  Orkney, until 1472, had been under the rulership of the Sinclair's from which family Hepburn's mother Agnes Sinclair derived.  It was to Orkney that Bothwell fled, after Carberry Hill.  Mary, as Bothwell had forseen, was betrayed, and was ultimately imprisoned at Lochleven Castle.

Walter Scott's "The Abbot" focuses on Mary, beginning at the time of her incarceration at Lochleven.