Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott to Lord Montagu of Boughton, 3 October 1819
“Abbotsford, 3d October, 1819.
“My dear Lord,
“I am honoured with your Buxton letter. . . . . .
Anent
Prince Leopold, I only heard of his
approach at eight o’clock in the morning, and he was to be at Selkirk by
eleven. The magistrates sent to ask me to help them to receive him. It occurred
to me he might be coming to Melrose to see the Abbey, in which case I could not
avoid asking him to Abbotsford, as he must pass my very door. I mentioned this
to Mrs Scott, who was lying quietly in bed,
and I wish you had heard the scream she gave on the occasion. ‘What
have we to offer him?’ ‘Wine and cake,’ said
I, thinking to make all things easy; but she ejaculated, in a tone of utter
despair, ‘Cake!! where am I to get cake?’ However, being
partly consoled with the recollection that his visit was a very improbable
incident, and curiosity, as usual, proving too strong for alarm, she set out
with me in order not to miss a peep of the great man. James Skene and his lady were with us, and we gave our carriages
such additional dignity as a pair of leaders could add, and went to meet him in
full puff. The ![]()
| VISIT OF PRINCE LEOPOLD. | 307 |
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Prince very
civilly told me, that, though he could not see Melrose on this occasion, he
wished to come to Abbotsford for an hour. New despair on the part of
Mrs Scott, who began to institute a domiciliary search
for cold meat through the whole city of Selkirk, which produced one shoulder of cold lamb. In the mean while, his Royal
Highness received the civic honours of the birse*
very graciously. I had hinted to Bailie
Lang,† that it ought only to be licked symbolically on the present occasion; so he flourished it three times
before his mouth, but without touching it with his lips, and the Prince
followed his example as directed. Lang made an excellent
speech, sensible, and feeling, and well delivered. The Prince seemed much
surprised at this great propriety of expression and behaviour in a magistrate,
whose people seemed such a rabble, and whose whole band of music consisted in a
drum and fife. He noticed to Bailie Anderson, that Selkirk
seemed very populous in proportion to its extent. ‘On an occasion like
this it seems so,’ answered the Bailie, neatly enough I thought. I
question if any magistrates in the kingdom, lord mayors and aldermen not
excepted, could have behaved with more decent and quiet good-breeding.
Prince Leopold repeatedly alluded to this during the
time he was at Abbotsford. I do not know how Mrs Scott
ultimately managed; but with broiled salmon, and black-cock, and partridges,
she gave him a very decent lunch; and I chanced to have some very fine old
hock, which was mighty germain to the matter.
“The Prince
seems melancholy, whether naturally or from habit, I do not pretend to say; but
I do not remember thinking him so at Paris, where I saw him
* See ante, vol. iii. p. 399. † Scott’s good friend, Mr Andrew Lang, Procurator-fiscal for
Selkirkshire, was then chief magistrate of the county town. |
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| 308 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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frequently, then a much poorer man than myself; yet he
showed some humour, for, alluding to the crowds that followed him every where,
he mentioned some place where he had gone out to shoot, but was afraid to
proceed for fear of ‘bagging a boy.’ He said he really thought of
getting some shooting-place in Scotland, and promised me a longer visit on his
return. If I had had a day’s notice to have warned the
waters, we could have met him with a very respectable number of the
gentry; but there was no time for this, and probably he liked it better as it
was. There was only young Clifton who
could have come, and he was shy and cubbish, and would not, though requested by
the Selkirk people. He was perhaps ashamed to march through Coventry with them.
It hung often and sadly on my mind that he was
wanting who could and would have received him like a Prince
indeed; and yet the meeting betwixt them, had they been fated to meet, would
have been a very sad one. I think I have now given your lordship a very full,
true, and particular account of our royal visit, unmatched even by that of
King Charles at the Castle of
Tillietudlem. That we did not speak of it for more than a week after it
happened, and that that emphatic monosyllable, The
Prince, is not heard amongst us more than ten times a-day, is, on the
whole, to the credit of my family’s understanding. The piper is the only one whose brain he seems
to have endangered; for, as the Prince said he preferred him to any he had
heard in the Highlands—(which, by the way, shows his Royal Highness knows
nothing of the matter),—the fellow seems to have become incapable of his
ordinary occupation as a forester, and has cut stick and stem without remorse
to the tune of Phail Phranse,
i. e. the Prince’s welcome.
“I am just going to the head-court with Donaldson, ![]()
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and go a day sooner to exhume certain old monuments of
the Rutherfords at Jedburgh. Edgerstone* is to meet me at Jedburgh for this research, and
then we shall go up with him to dinner. My best respects attend Lady Montagu. I wish this letter may reach you on
a more lively day than it is written in, for it requires little to add to its
dulness. Tweed is coming down very fast, the first time this summer. Believe
me, my dear Lord, most truly yours,
Hay Donaldson (d. 1822)
Writer to the Signet; he was the third son of Hay Donaldson (d. 1802) and Walter Scott's
friend and confidential solicitor.
Andrew Lang (1783-1842)
Son of John Lang; like his father he was Sheriff Clerk of Selkirkshire (1805-42). He was
a friend of Sir Walter Scott.
Leopold I King of Belgium (1790-1865)
The son of Prince Francis Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; after serving in the Russian
army he married Princess Charlotte in May 1816; in 1831 he was inaugurated as the first
king of the Belgians.
Jane Margaret Montagu [née Douglas] (1779-1859)
The daughter of Archibald James Edward Douglas, first Baron Douglas of Douglas; in 1804
she married Henry James Montagu-Scott, second Baron Montagu, son of the third Duke of
Buccleuch.
John Rutherford of Edgerston (1748-1834)
The son of John Rutherford; he was MP for Selkirkshire (1802-06) and Roxburghshire
(1806-12). Sir Walter Scott described him as the
beau ideal of a
country gentleman.
James Skene of Rubislaw (1775-1864)
A life-long friend of Sir Walter Scott, who dedicated a canto of
Marmion to him.
Jane Skene (1787-1862)
The daughter of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo (1739-1806); in 1806 she married James
Skene. Both Skenes were friends of Sir Walter Scott.
