The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

CHAPTER XXVII
TALES OF THE CRUSADERS

The two stories published simultaneously under this title are widely different in character. In 'The Betrothed,' the reader gets no glimpse of the Holy Land, though he is amply compensated by a view of some of the most delightful portions of picturesque Wales. In 'The Talisman,' on the contrary, not only is the whole of the stage-setting in Palestine, but our old friend, Richard the Lion-Hearted, who made such strong appeals to our sympathies in 'Ivanhoe,' appears once more on the scene. Perhaps this fact accounts for the great popularity of 'The Talisman,' which has always gone hand in hand with 'Ivanhoe,' in the estimation of the younger readers, at least, and possibly the older ones, especially in England and America, as among the most attractive of Scott's novels. 'The Betrothed' is no more a tale of the Crusades than is 'Ivanhoe.' In the former the Constable de Lacy is supposed to be absent in the Holy Land a few years and returns in disguise. King Richard does the same in 'Ivanhoe.'

James Ballantyne, who was always a candid critic, found so much fault with 'The Betrothed' that Scott, bitterly disappointed, decided to cancel it altogether. The sheets were hung up in Ballantyne's warehouse, while Scott started a new tale which should be really a story of the Crusades. Ballantyne was as much pleased with 'The Talisman' as he had been disappointed with its predecessor. Both author and printer hesitated to destroy the sheets of an entire edition of the earlier production, and it was finally decided that 'The Talisman' was such a masterpiece that it might be relied upon to 'take the other under its wing.' The publication of the two volumes as the 'Tales of the Crusaders' seemed to justify Ballantyne's faith, for, says Lockhart, 'The brightness of "The Talisman" dazzled the eyes of the million as to the defects of the twin story.' Whether this opinion would be endorsed by careful readers of to-day is doubtful, for 'The Betrothed' has some excellent characters, notably Eveline Berenger, Wilkin Flammock, and his daughter Rose, Hugo de Lacy, and his high-minded nephew Damian. Moreover, Scott here adds to his 'country' a bit of the United Kingdom, which he had not previously touched, and does it with his usual charm.

The novelist's information regarding Welsh history and antiquities was derived largely from conversations with his friend, the Rev. John Williams, Archdeacon of Cardigan, who had made a special study of the subject. But he had always felt an interest in that region. 'There are,' he writes to Joanna Bailie in 1814, 'few countries I long so much to see as Wales. The first time I set out to see it I was caught by the way and married. God help me! The next time, I went to London and spent all my money there. What will be my third interruption, I do not know, but the circumstances seem ominous.' Whether he actually saw the country before writing the novel is doubtful. He did visit it, however, in August of 1825, just after 'The Betrothed' was published, and stopped at Llangollen, where he paid a visit to the famous 'Ladies' of that place. These two old ladies, one seventy and the other sixty-five when Scott saw them, had 'eloped' together from Ireland, when they were young girls, one of them dressed as a footman in buckskin breeches. Valuing their liberty above all the allurements of matrimony, they made a secret journey to Wales, and for fifty years lived a quiet and comfortable life in the beautiful vale of Llangollen.

Local tradition assigns this lovely valley as the scene of 'The Betrothed.' Although this may be doubted, it is nevertheless fairly representative of what Scott evidently had in mind. The river Dee winds among a maze of low, partially wooded, and well-rounded hilltops, here and there finding its way through green meadows, set off by hedges of full-grown trees, and at each turn glistening in the sun like a broad ribbon of silver.

I was induced to walk up a long sloping hillside for a distance of about three miles from the village, and was rewarded at the summit by a superb view of northern Wales, for many miles in every direction, and at the same time saw the ruins of the ancient Castell Dinas Bran. This, or something very like it, must have been the Garde Doloureuse of the novel. It certainly had all the natural advantages claimed for that ancient Welsh stronghold, for no army would have found it easy to ascend that hill in the face of a determined garrison. The ruin has the indications also of having been well fortified by the art of man, its walls enclosing an area two hundred and ninety feet long by one hundred and forty feet wide.

The castle may have been built by the Britons before the Roman invasion. A well-founded tradition fixes it as the seat of Eliseg, Prince of Powys, in the eighth century, and it figures in actual history as early as 1200, when it was the residence of a turbulent Welsh baron named Madog.

At Welshpool, directly to the south and near the English border, we visited the magnificent park and castle of the Earl of Powis. It stands on the site of the ancient Castell Coch, or Red Castle, famous as the seat of the great Welsh hero, Gwenwynwyn, who flourished in the latter part of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. That hero, whom Scott calls Gwenwyn, it will be remembered, upon seeing for the first time the beautiful damsel of sixteen, Eveline Berenger, the only child of his greatest rival and the heir of the strong fortress which he coveted, promptly resolved to marry her, thus starting the train of events which are recorded in the novel.