Lion of the North

"It came slow, my lord, dooms slow," replied Dalgetty; "but as my Scottish countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of those valorous Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany, began to fall pretty thick, what with pestilence and what with the sword, why we, their children, succeeded to their inheritance. Sir, I was six years first private gentleman of the company, and three years lance speisade; disdaining to receive a halberd, as unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I was ultimately promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call it (which signifies an ancient), in the King's Leif Regiment of Black-Horse, and thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master, under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the Lion of the North, the terror of Austria, Gustavus the Victorious."

Gustavus Adolphus, or Gustavus II, of Sweden was considered by Napoleon to be one of the eight great captains the world has known.  The Lion of the North, as he was nicknamed, died on November 6, 1632, during the Battle of Lutzen.  The loss of Gustavus II’s life was detrimental to the Protestant cause during the Thirty Years’ War, though the Swedes won the day at Lutzen. 

Sir Walter Scott’s character Captain/Major Dalgetty invokes the name Gustavus throughout his speaking parts in “A Legend of the Wars of Montrose”.  Many Scots fought alongside Gustavus against German soldiers in the Thirty Years War, including David Leslie, who later fell to Cromwell's forces at Dunbar (1650).  It was another military man who influenced Scott’s novel.  According to the historical note in the Edinburgh Edition of this work, one of Scott's primary resources was a book about the military experiences of one Colonel Robert Monro, who fought for Gustavus.  Dalgetty’s words are taken after Monro’s.  Monro’s book has an enormously long title: “Monro his Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment (called Mac-Keyes Regiment) levied in August 1626…”.  Scholars have even found Scott’s annotation on a volume that was in the Advocates Library during his lifetime. 

Scott’s Montrose is less than 200 pages long.  What better way to spend Gustavus Adolphus day?

Lord Auchinleck v. Samuel Johnson

"Boswell's Life of Johnson", compiled by George Birkbeck Norman Hill, includes a Walter Scott note discussing Boswell's father Lord Auchinleck.  The occasion for this note was a famous argument that the Anglican Tory Johnson and the Presbyterian Whig Lord Auchinleck engaged in during Johnson's visit to Auchinleck House, at the end of his Western Isles tour with James Boswell. 

The event which occurred at Auckhinleck House (wikipedia image below) on November 6, 1773 follows, along with Scott's note:

'Saturday, 6th November


I cannot be certain, whether it was on this day, or a former, that Dr Johnson and my father came in collision. If I recollect right, the contest began while my father was shewing him his collection of medals; and Oliver Cromwell's coin unfortunately introduced Charles the First, and Toryism. They became exceedingly warm, and violent, and I was very much distressed by being present at such an altercation between the two men, both of whom I reverenced; yet I durst not interfere. It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit my honoured father, and my respected friend, as intellectual gladiators, for the entertainment of the publick; and therefore I suppress what would, I dare say, make an interesting scene in this dramatick sketch this account of the transit of Johnson over the Caledonian hemisphere.


Yet I think I may, without impropriety, mention one circumstance, as an instance of my father's address. Dr Johnson challenged him, as he did us all at Talisker, to point out any theological works of merit written by Presbyterian ministers in Scotland. My father, whose studies did not lie much in that way, owned to me afterwards, that he was somewhat at a loss how to answer, but that luckily he recollected having read in catalogues the title of Durham On the Galatians; upon which he boldly said, 'Pray, sir, have you read Mr Durham's excellent commentary on the Galatians?' 'No, sir,' said Dr Johnson. By this lucky thought my father kept him at bay, and for some time enjoyed his triumph; but his antagonist soon made a retort, which I  forbear to mention.

In the course of their altercation, Whiggism and Presbyterianism, Toryism and Episcopacy, were terribly buffeted. My worthy hereditary friend, Sir John Pringle, never having been mentioned, happily escaped without a bruise.'

And the note:


' Old Lord Auchinleck was an think he has pinned himself to now, able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and highly valued his own advantages as a man of good estate and ancient family ; and, moreover, he was a strict presbyterian and Whig of the old Scottish cast. This did not prevent his being a terribly proud aristocrat; and great was the contempt he entertained and expressed for his son James, for the nature of his friendships and the character of the personages of whom he was engoue" one after another.  ' There's nae hope for Jamie, mon,' he said to a friend. ' Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon ? He's done wi' Paoli he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican ; and whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon ?'  Here the old judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. ' A dominie, mon—an auld dominie : he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.' Probably if this had been reported to Johnson, he would have felt it more galling,  for he never much liked to think of that period of his life]; it would have aggravated his dis like of Lord Auchinleck's Whiggery and presbyterianism. These the old lord carried to such a height, that once, when a countryman came in to state some justice business, and being required to make his oath, declined to do so before his lordship, because he was not a covenanted magistrate. 'Is that a' your objection, mon ?' said the judge ; ' come your ways in here, and we'll baith of us tak the solemn league and covenant together.' The oath was accordingly agreed and sworn to by both, and I dare say it was the last time it ever received such homage. It may be surmised how far Lord Auchinleck, such as he is here described, was likely to suit a high Tory and episcopalian like Johnson. As they approached Auchinleck, Boswell conjured Johnson by all the ties of regard, and in requital of the services he had rendered him upon his tour, that he would spare two subjects in tenderness to his father's prejudices ; the first related to Sir John Pringle, president of the Royal Society, about whom there was then some dispute current: the second concerned the general question of Whig and Tory. Sir John Pringle, as Boswell says, escaped, but the controversy between Tory and Covenanter raged with great fury, and ended in Johnson's pressing upon the old judge the question, what good Cromwell, of whom he had said something derogatory, had ever done to his country; when, after being much tortured, Lord Auchinleck at last spoke out,
'God, Doctor! he gart kings ken that they had a lith in their neck'— he taught kings they had a joint in their necks. Jamie then set to mediating between his father and the philosopher, and availing himself of the judge's sense of hospitality, which was punctilious, reduced the debate to more order. Walter Scott.

The Legend of Littlecote Hall

There is a legend that dates to the 6th of November, 1575, involving Littlecote Hall in Wiltshire England. The legend involves the Darrell family. Jane Seymour was the granddaughter of Elizabeth Darrell, and Jane was courted at Littlecote Hall by Henry VIII.

But the legend has little to do with Jane Seymour. It involves William Darrell, who married grandmother Elizabeth. William allegedly had an affair, with his neighbor Sir Walter Hungerford's wife. The legend comes in that a midwife named Mother Barnes was brought blindfolded to Littlecote one night, to deliver a baby. Immediately after the child was born, it was thrown on the fire to burn to death. Mother Barnes went to the authorities after that night, and was able to provide sufficient detail that it was determined that Littlecote was the scene of the murder. Darrell was brought to trial, and so the story goes, bought his freedom by transferring Littlecote Hall to the Judge, John Popham.

This story was told to Sir Walter Scott by Lord Webb Seymour. Scott included the legend as a romance in his poem "Rokeby", and also included the story in his published notes to the poem.

The Littlecote story has made its way into other artist's works. It is included in Charles Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities". JMW Turner painted his watercolor "Rokeby", depicting a gorge between Rokeby and Martham (County Durham, England). Turner painted in eight lines from Scott's poem on boulders in the foreground. The image of Turner's Rokeby above is courtesy of the Trustees, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, England.