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Sir Walter Scott
THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH, or ST. VALENTINE'S DAY (1828) reviews by Patrick Killough I. Review for barnesandnoble.com Here is how your review will appear on the title page: Patrick Killough (patrickkillough@charter.net), in awe of THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH, April 19, 2007, Reviewer's Rating of THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH * * * * * (FIVE STARS, OUTSTANDING) Title of this Review: Should a Pretty Girl Marry A Highland Chief or A Blacksmith? THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH, or ST. VALENTINE'S DAY, is an historical novel set in 1396. Its complex actions are staged both in the city of Perth, up and down Scotland's longest river, the Tay, and in Scotland's Southern Highlands. Real historical events which took place over six or seven years are compressed by Sir Walter Scott into as many weeks. All is not well in the recently established Royal House of Stewart. Robert III, grandson of King Robert the Bruce, reigns and is in residence in Perth. He is crippled, ruling ineptly with kindness over a brutal nation. He has two sons. In time and after captivity in England, his younger son will become King James I of Scotland. Meanwhile Robert III's older son David, Duke of Rothsay, is an angry young man, forced by politics into an unloving marriage with Marjorie, daughter of Earl Archibald ('The Black') Douglas. David's uncle Robert conspires with the Prince's Master of Horse, Sir John Ramorny, to imprison and poison Prince David with an eye to Robert's or Robert's heirs' succeeding to the throne. They employ the services of apothecary Henbane Dwining and a brutal henchman of Ramorny named Bothron. The cabal murders the Prince at Falkland Castle. Meanwhile, two Highland clans settle a hundred years of feuding in a combat of thirty versus thirty at the 'North Inch' of Perth in the presence of the King and Court. To fill a vacancy in the ranks of the ultimate winners a 'Crooked-leg Smith' steps in. This provides the general historical setting for the fiction. The ultimately losing Highland Clan had long ago sent its future chief called Conachar as apprentice to Simon Glover in Perth. Simon makes elegant gloves and is father of the most beautiful woman Perth has ever known, Catharine Glover. She is wooed simultaneously by Conachar, Henry Smith, the bow-legged smith and armorer, and by Prince David. Before dawn on Valentine's day, the Prince and Sir John Ramorny lead a party to kidnap Catharine Glover. Henry Smith surprises them and strikes off the hand of Sir John, jeweled glove and all. And the story is off and running. Conachar, young, weak, awkward and unwillingly a coward, tries unsuccessfully to stab Smith to death. He then returns to the Highlands where he becomes chief of the clan which will ultimately lose all it has in the Palm Sunday melee of the North Inch before the King. Catharine will marry Henry Smith, slowly turning him away from his violent ways. In the process she learns that 'men
rarely advance in civilisation or refinement beyond the ideas of their
own age' (Ch. 36).
In the iron age of Scotland it better for the Fair Maid to wed a brave fighter like Smith than a high-ranking peace-loving leader like Conachar. The novel is full of tensions: Scots versus English, Lowlanders against Highlanders, laymen against clergy, guildsmen (focus is on glovers, smiths, bonnet-makers and others) versus nobles and nobles versus the king. Lovers of peace (the King, Conachar, Catharine Glover and a charismatic Carthusian monk, Father Clement Blair) are in a distinct minority. Sir Walter Scott blames for this national violence a still powerful Chivalry, a potent mixture of glorification of both combat to settle disputes, courtly exaltation of women and the songs of minstrels. Scott also includes a saucy visitor from France, the minstrel Louise and her little dog. The Prince's off-handed flirtation with Louise enrages the Black Douglas and sets in motion events leading to his murder. Walter Scott invented the historical novel. And of his 27 novels THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH is one of his five or six finest. This is must reading for lovers of Scotland and of high adventure. -OOO- Also recommended: --Sir Walter Scott: THE BETROTHED, THE LADY OF THE LAKE, THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. --Georges Bizet opera, LA JOLIE FILLE DE PERTH. =-=-===-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-= II. Review for amazon.com TITLE OF THIS REVIEW: A beautiful pacifistic lass of 1396 has to choose among violent wooers, April 20, 2007 Reviewer: T. Patrick Killough Reviewer's Rating of THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH: * * * * * (FIVE STARS) THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH, or ST VALENTINE'S DAY by Sir Walter Scott has a fiendishly intricate plot. The novel's major elements revolve around Scotland in the very violent 1390s when King Robert III is old, ill and weak and Crown Prince David is an angry young man pouting unhelpfully about being forced by politics into a loveless marriage with the daughter of the Black Douglas. Earl Douglas: no sensible Scot would want to make him an enemy but Prince David does so through scorning his princess, the Douglas's daughter Marjorie. The Prince and his men are foiled by Henry Smith (or Henry Gow) in a St Valentine's Eve attempt to kidnap Catharine Glover, the Fair Maid of the City of Perth on Scotland's beautiful River Tay. Smith cuts off the sword hand of Sir John Ramorny, the Prince's Master of Horse. Smith also makes an enemy of a young highlander named Conachar who shortly becomes hereditary chief of the Clan Quhele. At novel's end that clan is defeated in an agreed Palm Sunday battle when 30 champions on either side settle a century old feud before weak King Robert III. The clan thus brings upon itself what today we might call genocide. Henry Smith joins the winning clan on the North Inch field of battle outside Perth and then wins the hand of the peace-loving Catharine. Henry has a good heart despite his love of brawling. After all he is Britain's best maker of swords and armor and likes to try out his wares. Even Catharine concedes early on that "Thy
faults are those of this cruel and remorseless age -- thy virtues are
thine own" (Ch. 2).
Walter Scott once said that the point of a plot is simply to provide a frame for colorful characters high and low. There are many such people in THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH. Here are five of them: Clement Blair, Carthusian monk and priest; Oliver Proudfute, bonnet-maker; Conochar, a clumsy young Highlander apprenticed to Simon the Glover; Sir John Ramorny, Prince David's Master of Horse; and Henbane Dwining, apothecary . Each is important to the plot. Each is a mixture of good and bad, with notable variations in how much is bad and whether it outweighs the good. --Father Clement Blair is the closest thing to a great, prophetic and good man in the novel. He is a Carthusian monk with reform of the Catholic Church on his mind. His Christian pacifism has great influence over Prince David, Catharine Glover and the young highlander Conachar. Yet he tempts Catharine to become the Prince's mistress (possibly even his wife, despite the gulf between their ranks) to develop his good qualities to the point that he will give over his bad practices and grow into a good king. Catharine declines. --Oliver Proudfute is a bonnet maker, a strutting, boastful bantam who models himself on the huge and mighty warrior Henry Smith. Proudfute discovers the severed hand and identifying glove of Sir John Ramorny and likes to be thought a doughty bully boy. He models himself on Smith to the extent of imitating his walk, his gestures, his whistling and his singing. But he is a coward and pays for it with his life while wearing Smith's armor as protection during revelry on the eve of Ash Wednesday. --Conochar's mother was fleeing for her life from the clan Chattan that ultimately destroyed the Quheles when she gave birth to Conachar who was then suckled by a white doe, a terrible omen. He was able to rise to the chieftainship only because all his other brothers had been slain and his forester foster father invoked a spirit that indicated that Conachar would survive any final contest with the Chattans. To be a highland chief one had to be brave but Conachar was a coward. He was also a pacifist thanks to the teaching of Father Clement. Was he a coward because a pacifist or vice versa? --When Prince David's mother died she entrusted his education and moral upbringing to Sir John Ramorny who idolized the Queen. Ramorny taught David many good things but so indulged his weaknesses and foibles as to sink into being the Prince's tool in endless, mindless merry pranks and even the attempted kidnapping of Catharine Glover. He and David fall out and that spells the death of David. --Henbane Dwining, vastly learned world traveling apothecary and poisoner, is another mixture of good and evil, mainly evil. He loves gold and fancies himself superior to everyone he knows. He behaves nonetheless obsequiously to all and is undervalued as a danger by everyone. He teams up with Sir John to capture and murder Prince David. Yet he is kind to the poor and beloved of the women of Perth for his attention to the sick. He wills his fortune to Catharine Glover, the too-good-for-this-world Fair Maid of Perth (who distributes it to the churches of her city). How is such a morally mixed personality as Dwining's created? THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH is extraordinarily fine writing. The book bears reading and rereading. It lays bare the structural violence of all sectors of Scotland in the 1390s and suggests the foreseeable likelihood that centuries will pass before all of Britain becomes of necessity a peaceable nation of shopkeepers. The novel also dissects personal courage and cowardice and why one person is brave and another not. Your tags: clan quhele, clan chattan, carthusian monks, king robert iii of scotland, sir walter scott --OOO- Black Mountain, 04/20/2007 III. Review for epinions.com Review Summary TITLE OF THIS REVIEW: "The whole world is one great church" -- not! Apr 21 '07 Author's Product Rating: * * * * * FIVE STARS Pros Explores why some are brave and some cowards. Critiques chivalry's mixing violence and courtly love. Cons Scots language words like tuilzie, dink, pirn, propine, haffits and more. An intricate plot. The Bottom Line Read THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH as an exciting introduction to the history of Scotland, her kings, her people, their religion, dress and mores. Read it also for unforgettable characters. Full Review Sir Walter Scott's late-in-life (1828) work THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH OR ST. VALENTINE'S DAY was the final great one among the 27 novels he wrote. Most of the story unfolds in seven or eight weeks in the spring of 1396, between the eve of St. Valentine's Day and Palm Sunday. The plot is complicated. And yet, as is usual with Scott, plot is mainly a framework, a stage, a set of boundaries within which memorable, colorful characters say their say and strut their roles. THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH is an "historical" novel by the man who created the genre. In Scott's personal view history requires the primitive to give way over the centuries to the refined, and violence to yield to reason and compromise as methods for settling social disputes. Scotland in 1396 had barely begun that trek. In the 1390s the part of Scotland just below the Southern Highlands needed leaders who offered their subjects something better than war, raiding, greed, lust and palace intrigue. But the national culture was violent and Scotsmen got the government that most of them deserved. If you are Catharine Glover, the exquisite young pacifist Fair Maid of the Fair City of Perth, your glove-maker father's middle class status determines whom you must and will wed: not the already unhappily married Prince David Stewart who lusts for you, not the future Highland Chief Conachar who wants you for his bride but someone of your own class. You are virtually programed to tie the knot with an adoring but warlike type like Henry Gow (Gow = Smith), armorer to the best upper class fighting men of Britain. For even the emerging urban middle classes have their own version of the heady upper-class brew of violence and love of women called "chivalry." Yet Catharine, like both the Prince and Conachar, is a disciple of a saintly, pacifist, reform-bent Carthusian monk, Father Clement Blair. Father Clement is, however, suspected of heresy by the Dominicans of Perth, who will soon persuade the weak King to set up a commission to enforce religious orthodoxy. King Robert III's younger brother, the Duke of Albany, like almost everyone along the lower reaches of the River Tay, hates, fears and despises Highlanders as cattle thieves and primitive savages better exterminated than tolerated. He therefore persuades his peace-loving brother the King to authorize combat to the death in the Royal presence of 30 representative per side of two clans that have feuded for a 100 years: the Chattans and the Quhelens. Conachar, a reluctant but genuine coward, becomes chief of the Quhelens upon his father's death and leads his 30 to annihilation at the hands of the Chattans, whose number is augmented for pay by the blacksmith Henry Gow. The Duke of Albany is happy to see so many highland troublemakers killed before his eyes and Clan Quhele forced into genocide and oblivion. In addition, Albany, Prince David's uncle, encourages others to take his nephew captive and kill him to enable the Duke or his heirs to rule in Scotland. Catharine Glover and several others, including Louise, a French female minstrel ("glee-woman") are swept into that part of the plot. The novel also lays out pre-Reformation dislike by greedy nobles of the Pope in Rome and of rich monasteries and priories of Scotland. We see King and privileged town guilds contending with nobles, we read of lowlanders fighting off highlanders and all Scotsmen keeping a wary eye on the dangerous English "Southrons" just below the border. THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH, unlike Shakespeare's plays and works of novelists before Walter Scott, does not simply transplant characters from the author's century to an earlier one. Scott knows his history, clothing, crafts from bonnet-makers to glovers, tradesmen and ancient ballads. Sir Walter brings an entire age to time-true life through loving details. This novel is thematic and two themes play out in every chapter: violence and peace. The Fair Maid, Catharine Glover, saintly, other-worldly religious pacifist, is going willy-nilly to marry Henry Smith, a small-scale arms manufacturer and tough guy. But Henry complains to Catharine's glove-making father: "I believe she thinks the whole
world is one great minster-church, and that all who live in it should
behave as if they were at an eternal mass" (Ch. 3).
Another set of themes is bravery mixed with cowardice. Walter Scott also probes why there is so much weakness in strong characters and some good even in bad people. In the early 19th century Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels splashed small, ignored, backwater Scotland across the world's "must see" tourist maps. "Scotland" became an instant international synonym for passion, astonishing landscapes and grand orators in three languages: standard English, Highland Gaelic and in border Scots. Border or "broad" Scots is a tantalizing near kinsman to standard English. Scots has its own vocabulary which not every reader will enjoy making time for. But what lover of Scotland can resist learning words like kennel (gutter), tuilzie (quarrel), dink (scornful), pirn (difficulty) propine (gift) and haffits (temples of the head)? Walter Scott's moderate showcasing of his mother tongue in novels about Scotland drives it home that you are not in 21st Century Miami, Atlanta or even London. You are steadily reminded that you are in an olden time and you are forced to hear and cope with alien sounds. That is realism! But dozens of Scots and Gaelic words and phrases do slow the pace of your reading. Recommended: Yes =-=-=-=- http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/sirws_perth.html |