Sir John Mandeville

—I will lay my foundations better than on quick-sands —I will rear my structure of better materials than painted cards ;—in a word, I will write History."

There was a tumult of surprise, amid which our reporter detected the following expressions :—" The devil you will !"—" You, my dear sir, you ?"—" The old gentleman forgets that he is the greatest liar since Sir John Mandeville."

" Not the worse historian for that," said Oldbuck, " since history, you know, is half fiction."

According to “Chambers’ Book of Days”, English traveler Sir John Mandeville died in Liege on November 17^th, 1372.  As Sir Walter Scott characterizes him in “The Betrothed” (text above), Mandeville may be a great fictionalist.  He may not even exist under the name given by history.  But he is known for his stories of travel to exotic places, which according to more recent investigation appear to have been taken from the journals of other travelers. Mandeville's work is titled "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville".  From that work:

TO TEACH YOU THE WAY OUT OF ENGLAND TO CONSTANTINOPLE


IN the name of God, Glorious and Almighty!

He that will pass over the sea and come to land [to go to the city
of Jerusalem, he may wend many ways, both on sea and land], after
the country that he cometh from; [for] many of them come to one
end.  But troweth not that I will tell you all the towns, and
cities and castles that men shall go by; for then should I make too
long a tale; but all only some countries and most principal steads
that men shall go through to go the right way.

First, if a man come from the west side of the world, as England,
Ireland, Wales, Scotland, or Norway, he may, if that he will, go
through Almayne and through the kingdom of Hungary, that marcheth
to the land of Polayne, and to the land of Pannonia, and so to
Silesia...

John Balliol Crowned King of Scotland

'In 1292, the candidates, called upon to that effect, solemnly acknowledged Edward's right as lord paramount of Scotland, and submitted their claims to his decision. We shall endeavor to explain hereafter why these Norman nobles were not unwilling to consent to a submission which, as children of the soil, they would probably have spurned at. The strengths and fortresses of the kingdom were put into the king of England's power, to enable him to support, it was pretended, the award he should pronounce. After these operations had lasted several months, to accustom the Scots to the view of English governors and garrisons in their castles, and to disable them from resisting a foreign force, by the continued disunion which must have increased and become the more embittered the longer the debate was in dependence, Edward I. preferred John Baliol to the Scottish crown, to be held of him and his successors, and surrendered to him the Scottish castles of which he held possession, being twenty in number.'

The text above is from "Scotland" by Walter Scott and Mayo Hazeltine.  On November 17, 1292, John Balliol became King of Scotland, officially succeeding Margaret, the Maid of Norway, who had died two years earlier.  It was to be a short reign, lasting less than four years.  Balliol was in power when the Auld Alliance was formalized with France, after which Edward I of England marched on Scotland.  The Battle of Dunbar began the Scottish Wars of Independence.

Mary I of England

On this day in 1558, Queen Mary I of England died. Mary earned the sobriquet "Bloody Mary" for her persecution of non-Catholics. The only surviving child of Catherine of Aragon and King Henry Viii, Mary's reign was short; only 5 years.

Mary is covered in Scott's Kenilworth, with reference to the Dudley family, which attempted to raise Lady Jane Grey to the throne, following the death of King Edward VI, Henry's only son (by Jane Seymour).