Horace Walpole

Horace Walpole, writer and politician, was born on September 24, 1717.  Horace was the son of Prime Minister Robert Walpole.

Horace Walpole published his first novel much as Walter Scott did; anonymously.  “The Castle of Otranto” was published in 1764.  Of this work, Scott (“Miscellaneous Prose Works”) said:

‘The Castle of Otranto is remarkable, not only for the wild interest of the story, but as the first modern attempt to found a tale of amusing fiction upon the basis of the ancient romances of chivalry. The neglect and discredit of these venerable legends had commenced so early as the reign of queen Elizabeth, when, as we learn from the criticism of the times, Spenser's fairy web was approved rather on account of the mystic and allegorical interpretation, than the plain and obvious meaning of his chivalrous pageant. The drama, which shortly afterwards rose into splendour, and English versions from the innumerable novelists of Italy, supplied to the higher class the amusement which their fathers received from the legends of Don Belianis and the Mirror of Knighthood; and the huge volumes, which were once the pastime of nobles and princes, shorn of their ornaments, and shrunk into abridgements, were banished to the kitchen or nursery, or, at best, to the hall-window of the old-fashioned country manor house….’

Edward Balliol Crowned at Scone

The son of John Balliol, Edward became King of Scotland on September 24, 1332.  it wa an on again-off again kingship for about five years.  Edward gained the throne after the Battle of Dupplin Moor.  Sir Walter Scott provides some comments in his "History of Scotland":

'The Earl of March led back and dispersed his army, and ' afterward showed his real sentiments by acceding once more to the English interest. It was not, however, till the Scots lost the battle of Halidon Hill that this powerful earl and other barons on the eastern marches of Scotland, who had late and unwillingly exchanged their allegiance to England for that to the Bruce, were, now that the constraint imposed by his authority was removed, desirous of returning to their dependence on the English crown, which they found, probably, more nominal than that exacted by their closer neighbors, the Scottish monarchs.


The foreign invasion having thus succeeded, though made on a scale wonderfully in contrast with the extent of the means prepared, the domestic conspiracy was made manifest. The family of Comyn in all its branches, all who resented the proceedings against David de Brechin and the other conspirators condemned by the Black Parliament; all who had suffered injury, or what they termed such, in the disturbed and violent times, when so much evil was inflicted and suffered on both sides; all, finally, who nourished ambitious projects of rising under the new government, or had incurred neglect during the old one, joined in conducting Edward Baliol to Scone, where he was crowned king in their presence, when (grief and shame to tell 1) Sinclair, prelate of Dunkeld, whom the Bruce, on account of his gallantry, termed his own bishop, officiated at the ceremony of crowning a usurper, to the prejudice of his heroic patron's son.


However marvellous or mortifying this revolution certainly was, it was of a nature far more temporary than that which was effected by Edward I. after the battle of Falkirk. Then all seemed hopeless; and if some patriots still resisted, it was more in desperation than hope of success. Then, though there was a desire to destroy the English yoke, yet there was no agreement or common purpose as to the monarch or mode of government to be substituted. Now there was no room for hesitation. The sound part of the kingdom, which was by far the larger portion, was fixed in the unanimous and steady resolution to replace upon the throne the race of the deliverer of Scotland. And the faith of those who adopted this generous resolution, although not uniformly unchangeable, was yet, as already mentioned, constancy itself, contrasted with the vacillations of former times.


Edward Baliol, in temporary possession of the Scottish crown, speedily showed his unworthiness to wear it. He hastened to the border, to which Edward III. was now advancing, with an army, to claim the lion's share among the disinherited barons, to whom he had afforded private countenance in their undertaking, and whose ultimate success was finally to depend upon his aid. Unwarned by his father's evil fortune, Edward Baliol renewed in all form the subjugation of the kingdom of Scotland, took on himself the feudal fetters which even his father had found it too degrading to endure; and became bound, under an enormous penalty, to serve King Edward in his wars, he himself with two hundred, and his successors with one hundred men-atarms, and to extend and strengthen the English frontiers by the cession of Berwick, and lands to the annual amount of two thousand pounds.'