Anne Hyde

‘Monday 10 December 1660…So hearing that the Duke of York is gone down this morning, to see the ship sunk yesterday at Woolwich, he and I returned by his coach to the office, and after that to dinner. After dinner he came to me again and sat with me at my house, ands among other discourse he told me that it is expected that the Duke will marry the Lord Chancellor’s daughter at last which is likely to be the ruin of Mr. Davis and my Lord Barkley, who have carried themselves so high against the Chancellor; Sir Chas. Barkley swearing that he and others had lain with her often, which all believe to be a lie…’

Samuel Pepys refers to the Lord Chancellor’s daughter, in his diary entry for December 10, 1660.  The woman in question is Anne Hyde.  The Duke of York did marry her.  Walter Scott mentions Ms. Hyde in his biographical sketch, the”Life of Dryden”:

 ‘  The conversion of Dryden [to Catholicism] did not long remain unrewarded, nor was his pen suffered to be idle in the cause which he had adopted. On the 4th of March, 1685-6, an hundred pounds a-year, payable quarterly, was added to his pension; and probably he found himself more at ease under the regular and economical government of James, than when his support depended on the exhausted exchequer of Charles. Soon after the granting of this boon, he was employed to defend the reasons of conversion to the Catholic faith, alleged by Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, which, together with two papers on a similar subject, said to have been found in Charles the Second's strong box, James had with great rashness given to the public. Stillingfleet, now at the head of the champions of the Protestant faith, published some sharp remarks on these papers. Another hand, probably that of a Jesuit, was employed to vindicate against him the royal grounds of conversion; while to Dryden was committed the charge of defending those alleged by the Duchess. The tone of Dryden's apology was, to say the least, highly injudicious, and adapted to irritate the feelings of the clergy of the Established.’

Mons Meg

On December 10, 1825, Sir Walter Scott is ruminating over Wallace's Sword and the cannon Mons Meg: 'A third rogue writes to tell me—rather of the latest, if the matter was of consequence—that he approves of the first three volumes of the H[eart] of Midlothian, but totally condemns the fourth. Doubtless he thinks his opinion worth the sevenpence sterling which his letter costs. However, authors should be reasonably well pleased when three-fourths of their work are acceptable to the reader. The knave demands of me in a postscript, to get back the sword of Sir W[illiam] Wallace from England, where it was carried from Dumbarton Castle. I am not Master-General of the Ordnance, that I know. It was wrong, however, to take away that and Mons Meg. If I go to town this spring, I will renew my negotiation with the Great Duke for recovery of Mons Meg.'

Mons Meg was originally a gift from Burgundian Duke Philip the Good to James II of Scotland.  It was taken from Edinburgh Castle to Woolwich England in 1757.  Scott's efforts to secure its return were eventually successful, and Mons Meg was returned to Edinburgh Castle in 1829.  Scott included Mons Meg in "Rob Roy": 'Andrew Fairservice was far from acquiescing in these arguments of expedience, and even ventured to enter a grumbling protest, "That it was an unco change to hae Scotland's laws made in England; and that, for his share, he wadna for a' the herring-barrels in Glasgow, and a' the tobacco-casks to boot, hae gien up the riding o' the Scots Parliament, or sent awa' our crown, and our sword, and our sceptre, and Mons Meg, to be keep it by thae English pock-puddings in the Tower o' Lunnon.'

Mississippi Scheme

On December 10, 1720, John Law, Scottish financier and former comptroller-general of France, was forced to leave Paris. Law was the son of Edinburgh goldsmith and banker William Law, who through a successful career in finance, was able to purchase Lauriston Castle, and settle the family there.

Son John was perhaps not as rigorous in his methods as William; more of an adventurer. He arrived in Paris after a long period of wandering the continent to avoid the law, after killing Beau Wilson (Law was later pardoned for this killing) in a duel.

In an appropriate corollary to today's economic bubbles, Law is responsible for one of the largest booms and busts in history. In the Mississippi scheme, Law purchased most of the Companie du Mississippi (1717), and was granted a 25 year monopoly on trade with North America and the West Indies. This company ultimately became the Company of the Indies, which, among other things, is responsible for building the city of New Orleans, in Louisiana.

Through successful marketing, shares in the Company of the Indies began to grow rapidly in value. Everyone in France, it seemed, wanted to buy in, and Law obliged by issuing more and more shares. Law himself could not appear in public without being accosted for a piece of the action. At the height of the bubble, in 1720, shares rose to 15,000 Livres, from 500 Livres the year before. This bubble ended the way all bubbles do; popped. By the end of 1720, shares had declined significantly, bankrupting many, and causing economic distress throughout the country.

Law's scheme, as Scott refers to it appears in his "The Bride of Lammermoor":

"...notwithstanding Captain Craigengelt had proposed to him a most advantageous mode of vesting the money in Law's scheme..."