Sir Walter Scott

MARMION: A TALE OF FLODDEN FIELD (1808)

Reviewed by Patrick Killough

  I. Review for barnes and noble

Here is how your review will appear on the title page:

Reviewer: Patrick Killough (patrickkillough@charter.net), studying Scott's poetry as history, April 28, 2007.

Reviewer's Rating of Walter Scott's MARMION * * * * *  (Five Stars)

Title of this review: 'When First We Practise to Deceive!"
"O, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive."

If you think that couplet is by the Bard of Avon, you are in good company. But it is not. It comes not from William Shakespeare but rather from his great admirer, Sir Walter Scott, 1771 - 1832, and his long poem MARMION, Canto VI, 17. The couplet is not a bad summing up of the story line's villainous 'hero,"Lord Marmion. The six cantos of Sir Walter Scott's narrative poem MARMION are written in iambic tetramater rhyming couplets, like that from which this review's title is taken.

MARMION contains six cantos and before each Scott interspersed in the text a verse dedication to one or other individual. The dedications or introductions are designed to link in imagination the battle of 1513 with contemporary events, "contemporary" meaning from the 1770s when Scott was a boy till 1807 when most of the poem was written. My recommendation to first-time readers is to skip these introductions and come back to them after completing the six cantos.

The dedications are much studied by scholars as pertaining to Scott's developing art of the 'frame' for his tales. In the earlier LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL, an aging minstrel had provided the tale's frame.

Canto titles are: I THE CASTLE, II THE CONVENT, III THE INN, IV THE CAMP, V THE COURT and VI THE BATTLE.

In Canto One we meet a fictitious character, Lord Marmion, the gallant Falcon-Knight, who had fought in 1485 to unseat Richard III at Bosworth Field and put Henry VII on the throne of England. Now that Baron is en route as a peacemaker to King James IV and the Scottish Court at Holyrood in Edinburgh. Marmion is envoy of 22-year old King Henry VIII, whose personal favorite he is, and of Henry's Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey. The Scots are on the eve of invading northern England while Henry is off warring in France and Marmion's job is to talk them out of it.

As the poem develops, we learn that Lord Marmion is at least as evil as he is brave and conventionally good. Around 1510 through forged documents Marmion had ruined in the king's eyes Sir Ralph de Wilton, a rival for a lady, Clare de Clare, and has then killed him -- at least, as all believed -- in a joust. Marmion had earlier filched another young woman, Constance de Beverley, a vowed nun, from a Benedictine house. He has now sent Constance back to a convent because he wants to wed the orphaned Clare and take over her extensive lands.

To prevent this, Clare, in turn, has fled into a Benedictine convent, where her kinswoman is abbess. Constance is tried and judged, walled up in a convent dungeon and dies. De Wilton, on the other hand, has not died but after years of roaming as a Palmer (does this sound like Lord Wilfrid in IVANHOE?) is returning to Scotland to clear his name. His path intersects with Marmion's and all roads then lead to the dreadful '9-11' battle at Flodden Field in 1513.

Before then Marmion's deceits unravel. For the dying Constance successfully implicated him in the forging of documents used three or four years earlier to impeach Wilton for treason and Marmion is perceived as the knave he is. Marmion's only redeeming grace when he bled to death on the battle field is that

"... He died a gallant knight
With sword in hand, for England's right."
(Canto VI, 37)

The verses are grand. The tableaux of war and preparations for war, of nature and the court at Holyrood are riveting. MARMION, coming not long after THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL, cemented Walter Scott's fame as Europe's rising poet. -OOO-

Also recommended: Sir Walter Scott, THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL, HAROLD THE DAUNTLESS and IVANHOE. Jerome MITCHELL. THE WALTER SCOTT OPERAS: AN ANALYSIS OF OPERAS BASED ON THE WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. William Makepeace Thackeray, REBECCA AND ROWENA.

 II. Review for amazon

Here is your review the way it will appear:

* * * * *  (Five Stars)

Title of this review: Mine Sir Walter Scott's poem MARMION for familiar quotations.
April 28, 2007


There are many reasons to read Sir Walter Scott's long narrative poem, MARMION: A TALE OF FLODDEN FIELD. But one, surely, is to mine it for quotations you know you have heard but were never sure where.

Here are three familiar quotations from MARMION:

--(1) " Charge, Chester, Charge! On, Stanley, on!"

I was reading aloud to my wife from Canto VI, 32. I had no sooner said, "Charge, Chester, charge!" when she interrupted with "On, Stanley, on!" She added that her mother used many years ago to quote that line when a little more exertion  by my wife or her two older sisters would see a job through -- whether hanging clothes on a line or racing home through a pouring rain. Of course, my wife had no idea that it came from MARMION. I myself was hearing it for the first time. In context: Lord Marmion, champion of young King Henry VIII, has failed to dissuade the Scots under King James IV from invading England in a time of peace. Marmion fights September 11, 1513 (foreshadowing America's infamous "nine-one-one") and wins for his king at Flodden Field. But he falls. His dying message to other English leaders about to turn the tide against the Scots reads:
"A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye.
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted 'Victory!
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!'
Were the last words of Marmion."

"Nine-One": the date.

September 11th down through the centuries has sometimes been a dreadful day of slaughter, and for more than the victims in America of suicide bombers in 2001. In Scotland 9/11/1297 saw the total defeat of English arms by William Wallace at Stirling Castle Bridge. And Sir Walter Scott in MARMION took for his theme the largest battle between Scottish and English armed forces ever recorded on British soil, Flodden Field in England on September 11, 1513.

(2) "LOCHINVAR." If you studied in an American Catholic high school in the 1950s, as did my wife and I, albeit four years and 800 miles apart, you very likely memorized set pieces in various languages for declamation contests. These might be by Daniel Webster or Cicero or Shakespeare. Several were by Sir Walter Scott. And though both she and I had forgotten who wrote it, we both remembered memorizing and reciting
 
"Oh! young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide border his steed was the best."

That piece is from MARMION, Canto V, 12. It is a bit of public flirting, a song by an English enchantress before the court of soon to die King James IV of Scotland. This ballad was sung in the palace at Holyrood in Edinburgh on the day before James invaded England.
"This feast outshone his banquets past:
It was his blithest -- and his last." (Canto V, 7)

(3) Then there is the couplet which nine of ten Americans will swear is by Shakespeare:
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive." (Canto VI, 17)

These words the villainous Lord Marmion thinks to himself as he schemes ways of restoring the complex web of lies he has woven in no good cause.

There are other elegant turns of phrases that will make you say "Aha!" when you read or hear them. But I leave to you the pleasure of discovering them in MARMION.

A final comment: the simple rhythms and simple stories of MARMION are made to order for any American, young or old, to imitate and express herself or himself in English. Aspiring poets from Walter Scott to Steven Vincent Benet cut their teeth on these much older rhythms and rhymes. For a thorough discussion of ballads consult http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ballads/early_child/. Why not, then, recreate Elizabethan England's "nest of singing birds" and give every child from 4 to 12 the tools with which to create and record lines such as Scott's. A 21st Century MARMION,  RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER and a new JOHN BROWN'S BODY must be out there somewhere. Why not look for them in America's schools? -OOO-

III. Review for epinions

Title of This Review:  "Oh, what a tangled web"
by aohcapablanca, Apr 29 '07

The main story line of Sir Walter Scott's war poem MARMION is so simple that it makes it easy to skip over the lesser plots.

Basically, King Henry VIII of England, age 22, is off to the wars in France in  early pursuit of glory. He thinks that his northern flank is secured by a treaty of perpetual peace with the Scots. But the Caledonians are restless. The King of Scotland, James IV, is assembling a host to invade England. So Henry sends (fictional) Lord Marmion, an aging supporter of his usurping father Henry VII, on a mission to the Court of Holyrood in Edinburgh to talk James IV out of an invasion. Baron Marmion is a valiant knight and personal favorite of the young English King.

But James is not for turning. After rampaging successfully for months, the Scots are confronted at Flodden Field on September 11, 1513 by English forces commanded by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. After genteel arrest in Scotland, Lord Marmion joins the English host just before the battle. Marmion is slain. The English win. The Scots are annihilated, losing everything but their honor. As for Marmion:
"But say, 'He died a gallant knight,
With sword in hand, for England's right. (Canto VI, 37)

End of story.

Or is it?

For Marmion is a thoroughly rotten piece of work: seducer, forger, liar, greedy for lands and not squeamish about how he acquires them. Other tales within tales are there primarily to show us how Marmion made himself Marmion.

First, he seduced Constance de Beverley a vowed Benedictine nun, and kept her with him disguised as his page until he tired of her for land-rich, orphaned Clare de Clare. To break Clare's engagement to Sir Ralph de Wilton, Marmion had his paramour Constance forge documents which convinced Henry VIII that Wilton is a traitor. To save honor, Wilton challenged Marmion but was felled, and either died or fled abroad (at first we do not know which) in ignominy. Meanwhile Clare sought sanctuary from Marmion's unwanted advances as an unvowed novice with her kinswoman, the Abbess at Whitby in England.

Then Baron Marmion turned Constance back over to the enraged Benedictines, to whom, after they convicted her for other crimes and before they walled her up to starve to death, she revealed the forgeries and other misdeeds of the Baron.

Sir Ralph de Wilton was not, it slowly emerges, killed. He went abroad as a penitent and roamed the world. Now like Ivanhoe he has returned unrecognizable as a gaunt Palmer to restore his good name. His paths and Marmion's cross. Soon Marmion has gained power over Clare de Clare and on King Henry's writ has her out of her protecting convent. But Clare and Wilton meet and that bodes no happiness for the Baron. As his schemes unravel, Marmion mutters to himself:
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!" (Canto VI, 17)

Sir Walter Scott's great poem also holds the reader for its lush, loving descriptions of landscapes, nature, a Royal ball in Edinburgh and a brief overview of the slaughter at Flodden Field.

Pathetic is the tale of the fall of the great Stuart King, James IV.  A polyglot (last King of Scotland known to be fluent in Highland Gaelic), Renaissance Prince, founder of his Kingdom's navy, patron of arts and learning, deeply religious, James IV was also impatient, victim of moods and unfaithful to his English Queen.

Lord Marmion finally meets up with James at a great celebration in Edinburgh the evening before the Scots march south.
"This feast outshone his banquets past;
It was his blithest -- and his last."  (Canto V, 7)

Present at that banquet is also the King's latest amour, a noble Englishwoman who may be a spy for Henry VIII. Early tradition attributed certain coming lapses of nerve or judgment by James at Flodden Field to his infatuation. She, deliberately misidentified by Scott as Dame Heron, sings for the King and Court an enchanting ballad beginning:
"Oh! Young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide border his steed was the best."

And concluding,
"So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?" (Canto V, 12)

I leave the denouement of this colorful narrative poem either to your imagination or better yet to your reading MARMION for yourself, preferably aloud.

One caution: Scott is famed among scholars for his continually evolving practice of putting "frames" around his stories. In his earlier THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL, an ancient bard provided the frame. In MARMION, Scott himself is the framer. Before each Canto there is an Introduction. Each Introduction is in the form of a letter in verse from Scott to one of his friends.

These Dedications link events of the story (1513) with episodes in the times of life of Walter Scott from 1771 up till 1807 when he finished composing. These include the deaths of Horatio Nelson and William Pitt, reminiscences from childhood and criticisms of Scott's own methods of writing as some of his friends might have put them. All this is fascinating, especially for Scott scholars. But I recommend that when you first read MARMION, you read only the six Cantos, and leave the Introductions for later. Those Introductions are, to be fair, very well done and have their own flashes of wisdom.

For instance: in the gloomy year of 1807 of the War with Napoleon, Scott, in the Introduction to Canto One agonizes,
"But oh! my country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?"

Similarly, in the Introduction to Canto Four, Scott reminds his friend James Skene, Esq.
"To thee, perchance, this rambling strain
Recalls our summer walks again;
When, doing naught -- and to speak true,
Not anxious to find aught to do --
The wild unbounded hills we ranged,
While oft our talk its topic changed,"

Good stuff, those Introductions. But, interspersed among the Cantos as they stand, they interrupt the basic story line more obtrusively than did the ancient minstrel in THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. -OOO-


Pros:
Rollicking yarn. Gorgeous scenery. Famously quoted. MARMION has love, folly, treachery, tragedy, triumph and wisdom.

Cons:
Each Canto of the poem is preceded by a verse Introduction. This interrupts the story.

The Bottom Line:
Read MARMION. Shout aloud its grand speeches. Do read, afterwards, those Introductions. They are splendid links of old to new. See how many famous quotations you can find in MARMION.

Overall Product Rating: * * * * * Five Stars  EXCELLENT

Recommended:
Yes


04/29/2007


http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/sirws_marmion.html