Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux is remembered in part for developing rules for the Knights Templar, and for building the Cistercian order. On March 31, 1146, at Vezelay France, Bernard preached on embarking on a second crusade.

Walter Scott includes a reference to Bernard and the Cistercians in "The Monastery":
 
"Not I," said Father Philip, in a tone as deferential as he thought could possibly become the Sacristan of Saint Mary's,--"Not I, but the Holy Father of Christendom, and our own holy father, the Lord Abbot, know best. I, the poor Sacristan of Saint Mary's, can but repeat what I hear from others my superiors. Yet of this, good woman, be assured,--the Word, the mere Word, slayetlh. But the church hath her ministers to gloze and to expound the same unto her faithful congregation; and this I say, not so much, my beloved brethren--I mean my beloved sister," (for the Sacristan had got into the end of one of his old sermons,)--"This I speak not so much of the rectors, curates, and secular clergy, so called because they live after the fashion of the _seculum_ or age, unbound by those ties which sequestrate us from the world; neither do I speak this of the mendicant friars, whether black or gray, whether crossed or uncrossed; but of the monks, and especially of the monks Benedictine, reformed on the rule of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, thence called Cistercian, of which monks, Christian brethren--sister, I would say--great is the happiness and glory of the country in possessing the holy ministers of Saint Mary's, whereof I, though an unworthy brother, may say it hath produced more saints, more bishops, more popes--may our patrons make us thankful!--than any holy foundation in Scotland.

Barbary

On February 16, 1804, US Lieutenant Stephen Decatur retook the USS Philadelphia from Barbary Coast pirates burning the ship to render it useless to pirate or anyone.  This event was part of the First Barbary Coast War. 

The Barbary Coast has long been a rough one and Sir Walter Scott includes this anecdote in "The Monastery":

'Thomas Stukely, another distinguished gallant of the time, was bred a merchant, being the son of a rich clothier in the west. He wedded the daughter and heiress of a wealthy alderman of London, named Curtis, after whose death he squandered the riches he thus acquired in all manner of extravagance. His wife, whose fortune supplied his waste, represented to him that he ought to make more of her. Stukely replied, "I will make as much of thee. believe me, as it is possible for any to do ." and he kept his word in one sense, having stripped her even of her wearing apparel, before he finally ran away from her.
Having fled to Italy, he contrived to impose upon the Pope, with a plan of invading Ireland, for which he levied soldiers and made some preparations: but ended by engaging himself and his troops in the service of King Sebastian of Portugal. He sailed with that prince on his fatal voyage to Barbary, and fellwith him at the battle of Alcazar.'

Battle of Pinkie Cleugh

"So please your noble fatherhood," answered Dame Glendinning with a deep curtsy, "I should know somewhat of archery to my cost, seeing my husband--God assoilzie him!--was slain in the field of Pinkie with an arrow-shot, while he was fighting under the Kirk's banner, as became a liege vassal of the Halidome. He was a valiant man, please your reverence, and an honest; and saving that he loved a bit of venison, and shifted for his living at a time as Border-men will sometimes do, I wot not of sin that he did. And yet, though I have paid for mass after mass to the matter of a forty shilling, besides a quarter of wheat and four firlocks of rye, I can have no assurance yet that he has been delivered from purgatory."


The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh referenced in Walter Scott's "The Monastery" (above), occurred on September 10, 1547.  Pinkie Cleugh was part of the War of the Rough Wooing, which phrase Scott himself coined.

The object of these battles, five year old Mary, Queen of Scots' hand in marriage to Henry VIII's son Edward VI, failed to materialize, as Mary escaped to France.  Pinkie Cleugh is remembered in part for being the first instance of the use of British naval artillery in a land battle.  Despite a larger force, the Scottish death toll was in the thousands, while numbering only hundreds for the English.

Saint Bernard

'...but of the Monks, and especially of the Monks Benedictine, reformed on the rule of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, thence called Cistercian, of which Monks, Christian brethren—sister I would say—great is the happiness and glory of the country in possessing the holy ministers of Saint Mary's, whereof I, though an unworthy brother, may say it hath produced more saints, more bishops, more popes—may our patrons make us thankful!—than any holy foundation in Scotland...'

References to Saint Bernard appear in several of Walter Scott's works, including "The Monastery" (above).  Bernard was known for his eloquence and his discipline, and at the behest of King Louis VI, helped decide that Innocent II would succeed Pope Honorius II after Honorius died rather than the alternative candiidate Anacletus II.  Bernard of Clairvaux died in 1153.  His feast is celebrated on August 20,

Allan Ramsay

Scots poet Allan Ramsay, who died on January 7, 1757, was best known for his pastoral, "The Gentle Shepherd".  This work, which later inspired John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera".  Ramsay was not a career poet, having established himself as a wig maker in Edinburgh.  In 1712, he founded the Easy Club, which was a Jacobite literary society.  It was here that his writing skills gained an audience.

Ramsay was well known to Walter Scott.  Scott references Ramsay in his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border", crediting Ramsay as the source of a Presbyterian march, called Lesly's March, which was first published in Ramsay's "Evergreen".  Scott created a parody of Lesly's March, and included it in his novel "The Monastery":

I.
March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale,
 Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order!
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale,
 All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the Border.
       Many a banner spread,
       Flutters above your head,
 Many a crest that is famous in story.
       Mount and make ready then,
       Sons of the mountain glen,
 Fight for the Queen and our old Scottish glory.        

II.
Come from the hills where your hirsels are grazing,
 Come from the glen of the buck and the roe;
Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing,
 Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow.
       Trumpets are sounding,        
       War-steeds are bounding,
 Stand to your arms, then, and march in good order;
       England shall many a day
       Tell of the bloody fray,
When the Blue Bonnets came over the Border.

Mary, Queen of Scots

"...It was with these feelings of hope and apprehension, that I venture to awaken, in a work of fiction, the memory of Queen Mary, so interesting by her wit, her beauty, her misfortunes, and the mystery which still does, and probably always will, overhang her history."

Thus Scott introduced his new work "The Abbot"; January 1, 1831. The Abbot followed The Monastery as one of the two "Tales from Benedictine Sources" novels (following "The Monastery"). The novel is set between July 1567 and May 1568, and covers Mary's imprisonment at Lochleven Castle, abdication, escape, and eventual flight to England.

Mary Stuart was born on December 8, 1542