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Sir
Walter Scott
THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY (1816) Reviewed by Patrick Killough I. for amazon.com Reviewer's rating of THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY * * * * * FIVE STARS Title of this review: Extremists generate all the excitement. But moderates ultimately prevail. We all know that Sir Walter Scott invented the historical novel. Some scholars also call him father of the political novel. THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY (1816) is certainly a political novel. And a religious novel. And an historical novel. And a love story. And a masterpiece of psychological analysis. About all that a literate American reader might find a chore is the broad lowland Scots spoken by many of the characters, both aristocrats, servants, innkeepers and plowmen. Here is an example from Penguin Classics, Chapter 39, p. 317. It is ten years after novel's beginning. The hero, Henry Morton, using his mother's family name, Melville, has returned from political exile in the Netherlands. He had risen to major general serving King William of England and Scotland. He visits his old home and his old family domestic servant, Alison Wilson. Most people no longer recognize him. But his old cocker spaniel, Elphin, does. His servant is delighted to see her darling ("hinny") returned. For he had been thought drowned at sea. Here is some of her Scots as lightly "Europeanized" by Scott: "And what cam ye here, hinny? And
where hae ye been? -- And what hae been doing? --And what for did ye na
write till us? -- And how cam ye to pass yersel for dead? -- And what
for did ye come creeping to your ain house as if ye had been an unco
body, to gi'e pour auld Ailie sic a start?"
Heavy doses of even thicker Scots are but one reason for American readers to prefer the Penguin Classics "ideal" first edition of MORTALITY. That scholarly Edinburgh version abounds in notes, has a very ample glossary, explanations of Scots and English idioms. Also indispensable are the "Historical Notes" (pp. 354 - 358) and the follow-on map of the upper Clyde river where so much of the action takes place. On May 3, 1679 James Sharp, Archbishop of Saint Andrews in Scotland was dragged from his coach three miles from home and executed by representatives of the extreme wing of Scottish Presbyterians known as Covenanters. Scott's novel opens a day or two later along the Clyde River upstream from Glasgow in southwestern Scotland. We meet the hero, young Henry Morton, as a moderate Presbyterian attending a Royalist muster. He loves a local Episcopalian girl of noble birth. The next few months of the novel are driven by the armed rebellion of the most fanatical of the Presbyterians being put down by the most vicious of the Royalists. In the process Scott lays out the abuses of power of King Charles II, including the same which nearly a century later led to the American Revolution: empowering soldiers to arrest and kill suspects without trial, quartering soldiers in private houses against the will of the owners, etc. The future of Britain (and North America) belongs to moderates, but their day will be long in dawning and hard fought. True love is tested by difference in politics and religion. Drawing on contemporary documents, Walter Scott reproduces the torrents of Bible-based invective put together in sermons of fanatical Covenanters. He displays their bravery in the teeth of persecution. To the disgust of James Hogg and others, Sir Walter also finds redeeming features in the most violent of the Royalists, John Graham of Claverhouse. THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY sounds more and more like our own times as the pages race by. -OOO- your tags: walter scott, claverhouse, covenanters, the indulgence, duke of monmouth Your tags: walter scott, claverhouse, covenanters, the indulgence, duke of monmouth =-=-===-=-=-=-=-=- II. For barnesandnoble.com Reviewed by Patrick Killough (patrickkillough@charter.net), never let down by Sir Walter Scott., 05/16/2006 Reviewer's rating of THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY: * * * * * FIVE STARS Title of this review: Injustice inspires a young Scotsman to greatness Imagine you are a young man dragged willy nilly into a civil war. No, this book is not GONE WITH THE WIND or Georgia in 1861. It is about the west of lowland Scotland in 1679. Two months after tale's beginning the hero of the TALE OF OLD MORTALITY, Henry Morton, a moderate Presbyterian, has been arrested by the Royalists, seen them defeated in battle by downtrodden religious dissenters, saved the life of a defeated nobleman who is also a rival for the hand of Lady Edith Bellenden, joined the rebels himself, led them in both triumph and defeat, been condemned to death by a band of ultra-Puritanical Covenanters, then been rescued by a Royalist and finally exiled by the Council of Scotland to the Netherlands. Ten years later he returns to Scotland, having attained the rank of Major General while fighting against Louis XIV for the Prince of Orange who is now, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the King of both England and Scotland. After final flurries of action and danger, Henry Morton, representing Scotland's peaceful, rational, non-fanatical future, wins the hand of Edith, a relic of Scotland's aristocratic, loyalist past. They have sons and daughters and lead happy, prosperous lives. The old, violent, superstitious order of Scotland gives way to a stable, bright future for all the land. 'Old Mortality' was a nickname given to the real Scotsman Robert Paterson whom Walter Scott had met around 1790. Like his younger American contemporary 'Johnny Appleseed' (John Chapman), Paterson had mounted a life-long one-man mission. For Old Mortality that mission was to move systematically around Scotland restoring graves of and memorials to increasingly forgotten Covenanting Presbyterian 'martyrs' to cruelty of the Stuart Kings. The novel supposedly draws on a retelling of tales told by Old Mortality, as corrected by a fictional narrator's research into other points of view. The Penguin edition of THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY is blessed by a glossary of Scots English words and phrases as well as hundreds of textual notes giving the historical background of Scotland in the late 17th century. That was a generally cruel and dreary era. Well described characters debate, contend and otherwise bring to life the complete spectrum of political and religious views in the dying years of three centuries of Stuart dynasty rule. Once this struggle was over, kings would rule by consent of the governed and no longer by divine right. This is a very good read. THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY blows the dust off otherwise mind-numbing minutiae of Scottish history. -OOO- Also recommended: Stephen Vincent Benet, JOHN BROWN'S BODY. Sir Walter Scott, WAVERLEY, ROB ROY. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= III. for epinions Aug 31 '07 Reviewer's rating of THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY * * * * * FIVE STARS Title of this Review: "Were Saint Paul on earth again and a presbyterian ... " Pros History, politics, religion, romance, chivalry, cruelty. Masterly analysis of Claverhouse, gentlemanly monster for the King. Cons Not many. Much lowland Scots language, hard but often witty, some of Scott's best writing. The Bottom Line If you read only three Walter Scott novels, read OLD MORTALITY. It rings true on interplay among private conscience, choice of faiths and the wrongheadedness of government imposing a religion. FULL REVIEW: Remember the July 4, 1776 Philadelphia Declaration of Independence? Recall a few of the abuses of power which Jefferson, Franklin et al. objected to when hurled their way by King George III: "He
has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies ... He has
affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the
Civil power. ... For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
... For protecting them ... from punishment for any Murders which they
should commit on the Inhabitants of these States... He has abdicated
Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War
against us."
King George's government dealt far more gently with His Majesty's North American colonies than King Charles II had done with the 20,000 dissident Presbyterians of Scotland called Covenanters. Sir Walter Scott wrote a history of Scotland for his grandson. He entitled Chapter 50, the first of several essays about this religious persecution, entitled "The Age of Martyrdom: 1665 - 1678." It was a cruel, give no quarter battle which George III would never have inflicted on man or beast. That age of martyrdom came to a head during a few months of 1679 when a handful of extreme Presbyterian fanatics, called Wanderers or Covenanters, murdered James Sharp, the Royalist Archbishop of St. Andrews and Primate of Scotland. The Royal Horse Guards under John Graham of Claverhouse were defeated in one skirmish but victorious in another much larger battle, thereby pacifying Scotland for a time. This persecution and its bloody resistance is the setting for Sir Walter Scott's great novel of 1816, THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY. It is about politics goading religion and liberty of conscience to the snapping point. A word on the book's title: "Old Mortality" was the name given by Covenanting admirers to a real Scotsman, Robert Paterson, older contemporary of the American Johnny Appleseed. Paterson made an annual circuit of Western Scotland preserving and beautifying the graves of the Presbyterian martyrs to Stuart barbarism. Like individual "Canterbury Tales" of Chaucer, Scott's THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY is but one (fictional) tale of many about the Covenanters' rising against an intolerant government in the name of liberty of conscience. The novel begins with a chance encounter between the narrator and Robert Paterson who gives his version of events. The hero is Henry Morton, moderate Presbyterian, initially willing to live and let live and worship on the not impossible terms dictated by the King and the Council of Scotland. By chance young Morton meets and unknowingly gives a night's shelter to the principal murderer of Archbishop Sharp. Morton is then arrested by a vengeful Claverhouse but escapes after the latter is defeated at Loudon Hill. Morton then becomes a leader of the combined moderate/fanatic Presbyterian resistance which is smashed a few weeks later at Bothwell Bridge on the River Clyde east of Glasgow. Because Morton had saved the life of Lord Evandale, a Royalist foe and friend of the enigmatic Claverhouse, Morton is spared and exiled to the Netherlands. En route there, his ship is sunk. He survives but lets his family think him dead. Enlisted with Prince William of Orange, he takes his mother's maiden name of Melville and rises to Major General in that Prince's wars with Louis XIV. A decade later, sometime in 1689, after William of Orange and his Stuart wife Mary, rule England, Scotland and Ireland, Henry Melville Morton returns to Scotland, still incognito. From another point of view, OLD MORTALITY probes what happens when a Presbyterian woos an ardent Episcopalian in time of civil strife. The girl is Edith Bellenden, an orphaned victim of the wars, who lives with her grandmother, Lady Margaret. Edith also has another, noble suitor, Lord Evandale. They live in the partially ruined castle of Tillietudlem high above the Clyde river. The most striking dimension of OLD MORTALITY is religion. Scott shows how moderate Presbyterians can be driven to frenzy by years and years of persecution, their churches closed, their ministers deprived of their livings. These hard pressed Wanderers reassemble in deserted mountains and moors for four hour worship services. They identify completely with ancient Israel, believing that Scotland has been designated by God as the land chosen to best exemplify Christianity at its purest. They therefore abominate King Charles II who, over a decade earlier, in his days of greatest distress, had made a solemn Covenant with them. He promised that the purest form of Presbyterianism would become the national religion not only of Scotland but of England and Ireland as well. But once back securely on his throne after 1660, King Charles II firmly repudiated the Covenant and savagely persecuted dissidents in Scotland. Scott shakes his head over Covenanter fanaticism in twisting Biblical passages out of context for their own purposes, while at the same saluting the bravery with which they underwent defeat, torture and death. Condemned to torture and death after Bothwell Bridge by the Privy Council of Scotland, a very young Covenanter preacher named MacBriar went thus to meet his God: "My Lords, I thank you for the only favour
I looked for, or would
accept at your hands, namely, that you have sent the crushed and maimed
carcase which has this day sustained your cruelty to this hasty end.
... I forgive you ... Ye send me to a happy exchange -- to the company
of angels and the spirits of the just for that of frail dust and ashes
... and may your last moments be as happy as mine!"
There are many Covenanter prayers and sermons in THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY. If you have not studied the Old Testament recently, never mind, Covenanter Saints will show you how their inspired texts gave them the courage to do or die for liberty of conscience and the glory of God. Covenanters exasperated both their Episcopalian foes and uneasy moderate Presbyterian allies. Henry Morton's royalist Episcopalian older friend Major Bellenden sums up the hero's (moderate) Presbyterianism this way: "I
should have remembered that he was a
presbyterian ... Were Saint Paul on earth again and a presbyterian, he
would be a rebel in three months -- it is in the very blood of them."
Robert Gordon has written a great book of 1969 on Walter Scott's Waverley Novels called UNDER WHICH KING? Regarding what the hero is trying to do in THE TALE OF OLD MORTALITY, Gordon writes (Chapter 4, p. 61): (Henry Morton takes steps) "to make Scotland a safe place for men and women of good will." And thank heavens, Scott implies, that the fanatics lost! For the lovers Henry Morton and Edith Bellenden, divided in faith, could never have married, as they eventually did, in a Scotland of unending wars of religion. And though Scott could shed a sincere tear for the vanished Stuarts, he could only approve the succession of the House of Hanover. For that family kept the tolerance of King William and proved a friend to liberty conscience. Hanoverian rulers cautiously made the United Kingdom more and more "a safe place for men and women of good will." -OOO- Recommended: Yes =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 08/31/2007 Black Mountain, North Carolina http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/sirws_oldmortality.html |