PARTICULARS REGARDING SCENERY, ETC.
Saint Leonard’s Crags, the scene of David Deans’s residence, are an irregular ridge, with a slight vegetation, situated in the south-west boundary of the King’s Park, at Edinburgh. Adjacent to them, and bearing their name, there exists a sort of village, now almost inclosed by the approaching suburbs of the city. The neighbouring extremity of the Pleasance, with this little place, seem to have formed at one period the summer residences or villas of the inhabitants of Edinburgh, some of the houses even yet bearing traces of little garden plots before the door, and other peculiarities of what is still the prevailing taste in the fitting up of boxes. None of these may, however, have existed in the time of David Deans. In former times, St. Leonard’s Crags and the adjoining valley used to be much resorted to by duellists. This part of their history is, however, to be found at full length in the “Heart of Midlothian.” There is a case of duel on record, in which a barber challenged a citizen, and fought him with swords. It happened in the year 1600. The citizen was slain; and his antagonist, being instantly apprehended, was tried, and, by the order of the King, executed, for having presumed to take the revenge of a gentleman.[34]
Muschat’s Cairn, so conspicuously introduced into this Tale, was a heap of stones placed upon the spot where a barbarous murder was committed in the year 1720. The murderer was descended of a respectable family in the county of Angus, and had been educated to the profession of a surgeon. When in Edinburgh, in the course of his education, it appears that he made an imprudent match with a woman in humble life, named Margaret Hall. He shortly repented of what he had done, and endeavoured by every means to shake himself free of his wife. The attempts which he made to divorce, to forsake, and to poison her, proved all unsuccessful; till at length he resolved, in the distraction caused by his frequent disappointments, to rid himself of his incumbrance by the surest method, that of cutting her throat. The day before the perpetration of this deed, he pretended a return of affection to the unfortunate woman, and in the evening took her to walk with him, in the direction of Duddingston. The unhappy creature was averse to the expedition, and intreated her husband to remain in Edinburgh; but he persisted, in spite of her tears, in his desire of taking her with him to that village. When they had got nearly to the extremity of the path which is called the Duke’s Walk, (having been the favourite promenade of the Duke of York, afterwards King James II.,) Muschat threw her upon the ground, and immediately proceeded to cut her throat. During her resistance he wounded her hand and chin, which she held down, endeavouring to intercept the knife; and he declared in his confession, afterwards taken, that, but for her long hair, with which he pinned her to the earth, he could not have succeeded in his purpose, her struggles being so great. Immediately after the murder, he went and informed some of his accomplices, and took no pains to evade apprehension. He was tried and found guilty upon his own confession, and, after being executed in the Grassmarket, was hung in chains upon the Gallowlee.[35] A cairn of stones was erected upon the spot where the murder took place, in token of the people’s abhorrence and reprobation of the deed. It was removed several years since, when the Duke’s Walk was widened and levelled by Lord Adam Gordon.
St. Anthony’s Chapel, among the ruins of which Robertson found means to elude the pursuit of Sharpitlaw, is an interesting relic of antiquity, situated on a level space about half-way up the north-west side of the mountain called Arthur’s Seat. It lies in a westerly direction from Muschat’s Cairn, at about the distance of a furlong; and the Hunter’s Bog, also mentioned in this Tale, occupies a valley which surrounds all that side of the hill. The chapel was originally a place of worship, annexed to a hermitage at the distance of a few yards, and both were subservient to a monastery of the same name, which anciently flourished on the site of St. Anthony’s Street in Leith. In the times of Maitland and Arnot the ruin was almost entire; but now there only remain a broken wall and a few fragments of what has once been building, but which are now scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding grey rocks;—so entirely has art in this case relapsed into its primitive nature, and lost all the characteristics of human handiwork. The slightest possible traces of a hermitage are also to be observed, plastered against the side of a hollow rock; and, further down the hill, there springs from the foot of a precipice the celebrated St. Anthony’s Well. Queen Mary is said to have visited all these scenes; and, somehow or other, her name is always associated with them by those who are accustomed to visit, on a Sunday afternoon, their hallowed precincts. They are also rendered sacred in song, by their introduction into one of the most beautiful, most plaintive, and most poetical of all Scotland’s ancient melodies:
“I leant my back unto an aik,
I thought it was a trusty tree:
But first it bowed and syne it brak,
Sae my true love’s forsaken me.
“Oh! Arthur’s Seat shall be my bed,
The sheets shall ne’er be pressed by me:
St. Anton’s well shall be my drink,
Sin’ my true love’s forsaken me,” etc.
The situation is remarkably well adapted for a hermitage, though in the immediate neighbourhood of a populous capital. The scene around is as wild as a Highland desert, and gives an air of seclusion and peacefulness as complete. If the distant din of the city at all could reach the eremite’s ears, it would appear as insignificant as the murmur of the waves around the base of the isolated rock, and would be as unheeded.
CHAPTER VIII.
Bride of Lammermoor.
(The Plot, and Chief Characters of the Tale.)[36]
ohn Hamilton, second son of Sir Walter Hambledon of Cadzow, ancestor of the Dukes of Hamilton, married the heiress of Innerwick,[37] in East Lothian, in the reign of King Robert Bruce, and was the progenitor of “a race of powerful barons,” who flourished for about three hundred years, and “intermarried with the Douglasses, Homes,” etc. They possessed a great many lands on the coast of East Lothian, betwixt Dunbar and the borders of Berwickshire, and also about Dirleton and North Berwick. They had their residence at the Castle of Innerwick, now in ruins. Wolff’s Crag is supposed to be the Castle of Dunglas; and this supposition is strengthened by the retour[38] of a person of the name of Wolff, in the year 1647, of some parts of the Barony of Innerwick, being on record, and the castle having been blown up by gunpowder in 1640, a circumstance slightly noticed in the Tale, but too obvious to be mistaken.[39] Of this family the Earls of Haddington are descended. They began to decline about the beginning of the 17th century, when they seem to have lost the title of Innerwick[40] and began to take their designation from other parts of the family inheritance, such as Fenton, Lawfield, etc. The last of them was a Colonel Alexander Hamilton, who was in life in 1670, and had been abroad for some time—thus agreeing with the Story in one particular which had a material influence on the fortunes of the family. In him the direct male line became extinct, and, according to the prophecy, his name was “lost for evermore.” The circumstances of this family, and the period of their decline, agree so exactly with the Tale, that, unless the local scene of it be altogether a fiction, it appears, at first view, scarcely possible to doubt that the Lords of Ravenswood and the Hamiltons of Innerwick were the same.
Taking this supposition to be correct, a conjecture might be hazarded, in the absence of any authentic information on the subject, from the present possessors of the domains of the family of Innerwick, who Sir William Ashton was. Sir John Nisbet of Dirleton was Lord Advocate in the reign of King Charles II., and afterwards a Lord of Session, at the very time when Colonel Hamilton above mentioned was abroad. He seems to have been the founder of his family; and in this respect, as well as his having been a great lawyer, bears a remarkable resemblance to Sir William Ashton. He died without male issue, (another coincidence,) and in possession of the very estate which belonged to the Hamiltons of Innerwick, which his posterity still enjoy. From the want, however, of written memoirs of the family at Dirleton, or a knowledge of the manner in which they acquired their estates, any conjecture which can be founded on these circumstances must be entirely hypothetical.
Though silent regarding the house of Ravenswood, the subject of the story has received considerable elucidation from a note[41] annexed to the Review of it in the Edinburgh Monthly Review for August, 1819, wherein it is stated, that Lucy Ashton was one of the daughters of the first Lord Stair. This nobleman was certainly the only lawyer at that period who enjoyed the power and influence said to have been possessed by Sir William Ashton; and the circumstances mentioned in the above note, as related in Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s edition of “Law’s Memorialls,” particularly the expression made use of by the bride, of “Take up your bonnie bridegroom,” may, if well authenticated, be considered as decisive of the question. It is difficult, however, to trace any connection between Lord Stair and the family of Innerwick, or that he ever was in possession of their property. In this view of the case, the parallel between Ravenswood and Hamilton of Innerwick does not hold so well. But if the identity of Sir William Ashton with Lord Stair be considered as established, there was another family in more immediate contact with him, in the history of which there are several events which seem to indicate that the Author had it in his eye in the representation he has given of the Ravenswoods; unless, as is very probable, he has blended the history of both together in the manner that best suited his purpose. He indeed admits that he has disguised facts and incidents, for the obvious purpose of making the application less pointed to the real personages of the tale. The family here alluded to is that of Gordon, Viscount Kenmure, in Galloway, between which and the Lords of Ravenswood there are several points of resemblance. For instance, the barony of Gordon, in Berwickshire, where the Gordons had their first settlement in Scotland, and which continued for a long time in this branch of the name, is in the immediate vicinity of Lammermoor, and probably suggested the idea of laying the scene in that neighbourhood. The names of the Castle (or Barony) and of the Barons themselves, were the same. Their history was “interwoven with that of the kingdom itself,” a well-known fact. The Viscount of Kenmure[42] was engaged in the civil wars in the reign of King Charles I.,[43] and was forfeited by Cromwell for his steady adherence to that monarch. In him also the direct line of the family suffered an interruption, the title having at his death devolved on Gordon of Penninghame, who appears to have been much involved in debt, and harassed with judicial proceedings against his estate. This latter again espoused the sinking side in the Revolution of 1688, and commanded a regiment at the battle of Killiecrankie. These coincidences are too remarkable to be overlooked. And it may be added, in further illustration, that Lord Stair, on being advanced to an earldom about this period, took one of his titles from the barony of Glenluce, which once belonged to a branch of the house of Kenmure.
It was formerly mentioned, that the Author admits his having disguised dates and events, in order to take off the application to the real personages of the story, which they must otherwise have pointed out. Of this sort are several anachronisms which appear in the work, such as a Marquis of A. (evidently Athol, from the letter to Ravenswood dated at B. or Blair), when the Tory Ministry of Queen Anne got into power, which was only in 1710, when M. Harley succeeded Lord Godolphin as Treasurer; whereas the nobleman here alluded to was a Duke so far back as 1703. The time at which the events really took place must also have been long prior to this period, for Lord Stair died in 1695; and the change in administration by which Sir William Ashton lost his influence probably refers to Lord Stair’s removal from his office in 1682.
It may here be remarked, that the family of Stair was by no means so obscure and insignificant as that of Sir William Ashton is represented to have been. They possessed the barony of Dalrymple[44] in the reign of King Alexander III.; they acquired the barony of Stair by marriage in 1450. They made a considerable figure during the reign of Queen Mary; and took an active part in the Reformation along with the confederate lords who had associated in defence of the Protestant religion. It must be admitted, however, that they made a greater figure at this time, and during a subsequent period, than they ever did before.
Note annexed to the Review of the Bride of Lammermoor, in the Edinburgh Monthly Review for August, 1819—referred to in the foregoing Conjectures.
“The reader will probably feel the interest of this affecting story considerably increased, by his being informed that it is founded on facts. The particulars, which have been variously reported, are given in a foot-note to Mr. Sharpe’s edition of ‘Law’s Memorialls,’ p. 226; but are understood to have been sometimes told in conversation by the celebrated Poet to whom public opinion assigns these Tales. The ingenious author, whoever he is, has adopted that account of the circumstances which Mr. Sharpe deems less probable. The prototype of Lucy Ashton was one of the daughters of James, first Lord Stair, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Ross of Balneil, County of Wigton, a lady long reputed a witch by the country people in her neighbourhood, and considered as the cause, per fas et nefas, of the prosperous fortunes of the Dalrymple family. However this may have been, there was also ascribed to her supposed league with Satan, or her extreme obduracy, the miserable catastrophe now alluded to. The first version of the story in Mr. Sharpe’s note decidedly and directly implicates the old lady and her potent ally in the murder of her daughter on the night of her marriage, which had been contracted against the mother’s will; and, according to this account, it is the bridegroom who is found in the chimney in a state of idiocy. The other edition, which is that of the Tale, seems to require nothing beyond the agency of human passions wrought up to derangement. According to it, the young lady, as in the case of Lucy, was compelled to marry contrary to her inclination, her heart having been previously engaged elsewhere. After she had retired with her husband into the nuptial chamber, and the door, as was customary, had been locked, she attacked him furiously with a knife, and wounded him severely, before any assistance could be rendered. When the door was broken open, the youth was found half dead upon the floor, and his wife in a state of the wildest madness, exclaiming, ‘Take up your bonnie bridegroom.’ It is added, that she never regained her senses; and that her husband, who recovered of his wound, would bear no questions on the subject of his marriage, taking even a hint of that nature as a mortal affront to his honour. The coincidence of circumstances, and the identity of expression used by the bride, are much too striking to be purely accidental, and altogether deserved to be noticed, though at the hazard of making a long note. Lady Stair, it may not be irrelevant to state, was conspicuous in her time for what Mr. Sharpe denominates, ‘her violent turn towards Conventicles, and the fostering of silenced preachers in her house,’—peculiarities quite of a piece with the attachments and habits of Lady Ashton. Of the prejudices and malignity of her enemies, we may form some opinion from the satiric lines upon her long-wished-for and timely death, which Mr. Sharpe very justly denominates most unchristian. Let the epitaph contrived for her bear testimony:—
‘Here lyes our Auntie’s coffin, I am sure,
But where her bodie is I cannot tell,
Most men affirm they cannot well tell where,
Unless both soul and body be in h——.
It is just if all be true that’s said,
The witch of Endor[45] was a wretched sinner,
And if her coffin in the grave be laid,
Her bodie’s roasted to the D——l’s dinner.’
“The author of the ‘Tales of my Landlord,’ it must be allowed, has never showed any backwardness to join in the cry against people of her principles, but he has never been so summary in his conclusions as to their fate.”