The Fortunes of Nigel by Walter Scott (good summer reads txt) 📕

Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, “but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies.” It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of “auld debts due to them by the King,” which, it is observed with great naivete, “is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty.” The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations.

NOTE IV. p. 59.—KING JAMES

The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:—

“He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about——[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God.”—DALZELL'S Sketches of Scottish History , p. 86.

NOTE V. p. 78.—SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER

It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:—“Auld d'ye think my coat—auld-fashioned?—indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century.” Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of Meum and Tuum, addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the “chief's ancestors had stolen the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had killed them,”—fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop.

Note VI. p. 98.—MRS. ANNE TURNER

Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, “heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars.” Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James.

Note VII. p. 110.—LORD HUNTINGLEN

The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, “upon which,” proceeds the satirical historian, “Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King.”

Note VIII. p. 115.—BUCKINGHAM

Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, “the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word.”—WELDON'S Court of King James and Charles.