Baronet

The title “Baronet” has been mentioned since the 1300’s.  According to Chambers’ Book of Days, the current order of Baronets was created by James I of England on May 22^nd, 1611.  A little more than two hundred years later (1818), Walter Scott received his Baronet title from the future King George IV of England (then Prince Regent).  Scott received this honor for his role in rediscovering the crown jewels of Scotland.

First Battle of St. Albans

"We must not tarry," said Margaret; "let us part here — you for Dijon — I to Aix, my abode of unrest in Provence. Farewell — we may meet in a better hour — yet how can I hope it? Thus I said on the morning before the fight of St. Albans — thus on the dark dawning of Towton — thus on the yet more bloody field of Tewkesbury — and what was the event? Yet hope is a plant which cannot be rooted out of a noble breast, till the last heart-string crack as it is pulled away."

There were two battles fought at St. Albans during the Wars of the Roses.  The first occurred this day, May 22nd, in the year 1455.  This battle ended in victory for the Yorkists, under Duke of Warwick Richard Neville.  Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset led the defeated Lancastrians.

The text above is from Sir Walter Scott's "Anne of Geierstein".  Margaret of Anjou, wife of Lancastrian King Henry VI of England speaks in this passage.  Margaret was actually present at the Second Battle of St. Albans, which occurred in 1461; also Towton and Tewkesbury, as Scott credits her in her speech.

Gillespie Grumach

May 22. (1829)—I was detained long in the Court, though Ham. had returned to his labour. We dined with Captain Basil Hall, and met a Mr. Codman, or some such name, with his lady from Boston. The last a pleasant and well-mannered woman, the husband Bostonian enough. We had Sir William Arbuthnot, besides, and his lady.


By-the-bye, I should have remembered that I called on my old friend, Lady Charlotte Campbell, and found her in her usual good-humour, though miffed a little—I suspect at the history of Gillespie Grumach in the Legend of Montrose.
 
From Scott's Journal.
 
Lady Charlotte Campbell has not passed as a major historical figure, but she was well known to Scott and others.  Gillespie Grumach was based on Charlotte's ancestor.  An introduction by Andrew Lang to Scott's "A Legend of Montrose" (1898) includes the following comment:
 
"...and Gillespie Grumach, "gleyed Argyll," with all his wisdom, his caution, his intrigues, is hetter remembered for what never befell — his meeting with Dalgetty in the dungeon — than for his politics. Lady Charlotte Bury {nee Campbell}, it seems, did not easily forgive Scott for his attack on her celebrated ancestor. He might have made amends to the Clan Camphell by writing his Life of John Duke of Argyll, Jeanie Deans's Duke, but this, unluckily, he did not live to accomplish. "By the way, I should have remembered that I called on my old friend, Lady Charlotte Campbell, and found her in her usual good humour, though miffed a little, I suspect at the history of Gillespie Grumach, in the ' Legend of Montrose.' " The lady's resentment, then, had endured; in ten long years the sun had not quite gone down on her wrath...."