The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

The castle stands on an island in Loch Leven, a pretty sheet of water, about three or four miles long, on the western border of which lies the town of Kinross. Two sturdy fishermen rowed us out to the island where we found the ruin of a square building. The tower is in good repair, but the remaining walls are quite ruinous. In one corner the room where Queen Mary was imprisoned was pointed out by the guides. It is very small, but has windows overlooking the lake, and there is room on the island for a pleasant garden. Except for the loss of her liberty, Queen Mary might have found the castle a pleasant abode.

Loch Leven Castle was the property of Sir William Douglas, whose wife was the mother of the Earl of Murray, the illegitimate son of James V. The Lady Douglas could be supposed to have little sympathy for the legitimate daughter of the king to whom she pretended to have been married. In placing Mary in the hands of such a custodian, the lords who opposed her felt reasonably secure.

Scott gives a wonderfully dramatic picture of the visit of Lord Lindsay, Lord Ruthven, and Sir Robert Melville to the castle, and the method by which they extorted Mary's signature to deeds abdicating the throne in favour of her infant son and creating the Earl of Murray regent, and although the scene is purely fictitious, the facts of history are not distorted. Roland Graeme is represented as unsheathing his sword and discovering a hidden parchment rolled around the blade. It proved to be a secret message from Lord Seyton, advising Mary to yield to the necessity of the situation. The incident is based upon the fact that Sir Robert Melville was sent to accompany the ruffianly Lindsay, and his no less harsh associate Ruthven, to prevent violence to the Queen, and to carry, concealed in the scabbard of his sword, a message from her friends advising submission and carrying the assurance that deeds signed under such compulsion would not be legally binding when she regained her liberty.

The escape of the Queen is told in substantial accordance with the facts, though with a variation of details which the license of the novelist would easily permit. George Douglas, a younger brother of the lord of Loch Leven, was much impressed by the beauty of the Queen, and captivated by her pleasant manners and fair promises. He devised a plan of escape, but this was discovered and George was expelled from the castle by his brother. Another attempt was more successful. An inmate of the castle, called 'the Little Douglas,' had also felt a sympathy for the Queen. He was a lad of seventeen or eighteen and really played the part which Scott assigned to Roland Graeme. He stole the keys and set the prisoner at liberty in the night. Placing her in a boat, he paused long enough to lock the iron gates of the tower from the outside so that pursuit would be impossible, then, throwing the keys into the lake, rowed his passenger ashore. George Douglas, Lord Seyton, and other friends were waiting to receive her and conveyed her in triumph to Hamilton.

An army of six thousand men was quickly assembled, the plan being to place the Queen safely in the fortress of Dumbarton, and then give battle to the Regent Murray. The latter was too quick for the allies, however. He was then at Glasgow and marched at once, though with an inferior force, to intercept the advancing army. They met at Langside, now a suburb of Glasgow, and after a fierce struggle the Queen's forces were scattered. Mary herself continued her flight, until she reached the Abbey of Dundrennan, in the County of Kirkcudbright, where she spent her last night in Scotland.

CATHCART CASTLE

The novelist represents Queen Mary as viewing the battle from the Castle of Crookston, and the unfortunate lady dramatically exclaims, 'O, I must forget much ere I can look with steady eyes on these well-known scenes! I must forget the days which I spent here as the bride of the lost—the murdered'—Here Mary Fleming interrupts to explain to the Abbot that in this castle 'the Queen held her first court after she was married to Darnley.'

Mary could not have witnessed the battle of Langside from Crookston, unless, indeed, she had had, in the language of Sam Weller, instead of eyes, 'a pair o' patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power,' for Langside is at least four miles away and the contour of the country would make such a view impossible. She really watched it from a knoll near the old Castle of Cathcart, which has since been known as Court Knowe. Scott admitted the error, but did not much regret it, as Crookston seemed the place best suited to the dramatic requirements of the tale, because of Mary's former association with the castle. Here again the facts are against him. Crookston was the property of the Earl of Lennox, Darnley's father, but Darnley himself never lived there, except possibly as a boy, before he went to France at the age of sixteen. It seems to be certain to those who have investigated the facts that after his return he had no opportunity of going there and that he and Queen Mary could not have visited the place together, either before or after their marriage.