Off With Her Head

‘Roland Graeme slept long and sound, and the sun was high over the
horizon, when the voice of his companion summoned him to resume their
pilgrimage; and when, hastily arranging his dress, he went to attend
her call, the enthusiastic matron stood already at the threshold,
prepared for her journey. There was in all the deportment of this
remarkable woman, a promptitude of execution, and a sternness of
perseverance, founded on the fanaticism which she nursed so deeply,
and which seemed to absorb all the ordinary purposes and feelings of
mortality. One only human affection gleamed through her enthusiastic
energies, like the broken glimpses of the sun through the rising
clouds of a storm. It was her maternal fondness for her grandson--a
fondness carried almost to the verge of dotage, in circumstances where
the Catholic religion was not concerned, but which gave way instantly
when it chanced either to thwart or come in contact with the more
settled purpose of her soul, and the more devoted duty of her life.
Her life she would willingly have laid down to save the earthly object
of her affection; but that object itself she was ready to hazard, and
would have been willing to sacrifice, could the restoration of the
Church of Rome have been purchased with his blood. Her discourse by
the way, excepting on the few occasions in which her extreme love of
her grandson found opportunity to display itself in anxiety for his
health and accommodation, turned entirely on the duty of raising up
the fallen honours of the Church, and replacing a Catholic sovereign
on the throne. There were times at which she hinted, though very
obscurely and distantly, that she herself was foredoomed by Heaven to
perform a part in this important task; and that she had more than mere
human warranty for the zeal with which she engaged in it. But on this
subject she expressed herself in such general language, that it was
not easy to decide whether she made any actual pretensions to a direct
and supernatural call, like the celebrated Elizabeth Barton, commonly
called the Nun of Kent; [Footnote: A fanatic nun, called the Holy Maid
of Kent, who pretended to the gift of prophecy and power of miracles.
Having denounced the doom of speedy death against Henry VIII. for his
marriage with Anne Boleyn, the prophetess was attainted in Parliament,
and executed with her accomplices. Her imposture was for a time so
successful, that even Sir Thomas More was disposed to be a believer.]
or whether she dwelt upon the general duty which was incumbent on all
Catholics of the time, and the pressure of which she felt in an
extraordinary degree.’

The paragraph above, from Walter Scott’s “The Abbot”, was lengthy, but too good to pass up for the introduction to today’s subject; Anne Boleyn.  The unfortunate queen lost her head this day, May 19^th, in 1536. 

Legion of Honor

'The Legion of Honour was destined to form a distinct and particular class of privileged individuals, whom, by honours and bounties bestowed on them, he resolved to bind to his own interest.

This institution, which attained considerable political importance, originated in the custom which Napoleon had early introduced, of conferring on soldiers, of whatever rank, a sword, fusee, or other military weapon, in the name of the state, as acknowledging and commemorating some act of peculiar gallantry. The influence of such public rewards was of course very great. They encouraged those who had received them to make every effort to preserve the character which they had thus gained, while they awakened the emulation of hundreds and thousands who desired similar marks of distinction. Bonaparte now formed the project of embodying the persons who had merited such rewards into an association, similar in many respects to those orders, or brotherhoods of chivalry, with which, during the middle ages, the feudal sovereigns of Europe surrounded themselves, and which subsist to this day, though in a changed and modified form. These, however, have been uniformly created on the feudal principles, and the honour they confer limited, or supposed to be limited, to persons of some rank and condition: but the scheme of Bonaparte was to extend this species of honourable distinction through all ranks, in the quality proper to each, as medals to be distributed among various classes of the community are struck upon metals of different value, but are all stamped with the same dye...'

As related in Sir Walter Scott's "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte", Napoleon formed his Legion of Honor on May 19, 1802.

James Boswell

History is replete with examples of people who die on or around significant dates in their lives.  Former US Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson dying on July 4 are prime examples.  The date May 19 was very close to a significant date for James Boswell.  Boswell met Samuel Johnson in London on May 16, 1763.  He published his "Life of Johnson" on May 16, 1791.  The 9th Laird of Auchinlech passed on May 19, 1795.

Auchinlech was close to Walter Scott's Abbotsford, and Scott knew Boswell's family.  John Croker enlisted Walter Scott's help in attempting (unsuccessfully) to obtain material from Boswell's children for his edition of Boswell's "Life of Johnson", published in 1831.  Scott did, however, provide numerous contributions for notes, etc., including:

From "Life of Johnson":
I  told Dr. Johnson I was in some difficulty how to act at Inverary. I had reason to think that the Duchess of Argyle disliked me, on account of my zeal in the Douglas cause.1

Scott's Note:
1 [Elizabeth Gunning, celebrated (like her sister, Lady Coventry) for her personal charms, had been previously Duchess of Hamilton, and was mother of Douglas, Duke of Hamilton, the competitor for the Douglas property with the late Lord Douglas: she was, of course, prejudiced against Boswell, who bad shown all the bustling importance of his character in the Douglas cause, and it was said, I know not on what authority, that he headed the mob which broke the windows of some of the judges, and of Lord Aucbinleck, his father, in particular.—Walter Scott.