ROMAN CHRISTENDOM: Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott of Abbotsford came from the race of Scotts of Harden, one of many war-like families on the Borders of Scotland in the Middle Ages who made raids across the border with England.

He is collaterally related to the Montagu-Douglas-Scott, Dukes of Buccleuch, the Chief of Clan Scott. This, together with a time he spent with his grandfather at his home near Dryburgh Abbey, gave Scott his great interest in the ages of faith and the ancient history of Scotland.

He fairly lived and dreamed the romance of chivalry and the ages of faith, whilst all the time remaining a member of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. In the age he lived in, he could not contemplate the great sacrifice necessary for a Scotsman of his class and background to become a Catholic, even assuming that he really wanted to.

Nevertheless, although he tries to conceal it with the usual Georgian and Victorian prejudices against the Catholic Church, there is a constant, latent hint of sympathy and sneaking admiration for the towering strength and majesty of the Catholic Church and the fierce loyalty and courage it inspires in the best of its members. Once can feel Scott secretly admiring this. There is even a palpable but hidden yearning for it throughout all his novels and poems, albeit well-concealed.

The ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, Roxburghshire, where Scott played as a child and was later buried

Scott became a lawyer, a member of the Scottish Faculty of Advocates, and later Sheriff-Depute (a Judge) of Selkirk, and eventually, with the income from his writing, he was able to build Abbotsford, his Scottish baronial style home in the Borders, which stands to this day. His fame resulted in his being raised to the baronetcy by the King.

Scott had married, in December 1797, Mlle Margaret Charlotte Charpentier, a French royalist emigre whose family had escaped from the French revolutionary terror, one of those many, often aristocratic, French exiles who did so much to re-align British views of French Catholicism. She must surely have had some influence on Scott's views of the Catholic religion.

Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, Bt

However, Scott later fell into enormous debt when the legal firm of which he had remained a sleeping partner became insolvent and he was made liable for its debts. He escaped bankruptcy by putting Abbotsford into trust with his creditors as beneficiaries and then proceeded to write his way out of debt which, astonishingly, he eventually succeeded in doing, albeit the last remaining debts were only finally cleared shortly after his death from his estate, the ever-increasing wealth of which was due to the continuing huge success of his writings.

Here is one of his many poems with a Catholic flavour:

The Bare-footed Friar

I’ll give thee, good fellow, a twelvemonth or twain,
To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain;
But ne’er shall you find, should you search till you tire,
So happy a man as the Barefooted Friar.

Your knight for his lady pricks forth in career,
And is brought home at even-song prick’d through with a spear;
I confess him in haste—for his lady desires
No comfort on earth save the Barefooted Friar’s.

Your monarch? —Pshaw! many a prince has been known
To barter his robes for our cowl and our gown,
But which of us e’er felt the idle desire
To exchange for a crown the grey hood of a Friar!

The Friar has walk’d out, and where’er he has gone,
The land and its fatness is mark’d for his own;
He can roam where he lists, he can stop when he tires,
For every man’s house is the Barefooted Friar’s.

He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes
May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums
For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,
Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.

He’s expected at night, and the pasty’s made hot,
They broach the brown ale, and they fill the black pot,
And the goodwife would wish the goodman in the mire,
Ere he lack’d a soft pillow, the Barefooted Friar.

Long flourish the sandal, the cord, and the cope,
The dread of the devil and trust of the Pope;
For to gather life’s roses, unscathed by the briar,
Is granted alone to the Barefooted Friar.

It is typical Scott: he tilts, in good Protestant fashion, at the allegedly easy life of a mendicant friar, giving no credit whatever for the self-mortifications, strong discipline and nightly rising for prayer, which was then a part of the life of every good friar, but at the same time you sense that he knows he is both celebrating and short-changing the friar.

The tomb of Sir Walter Scott, Bt, in the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, Roxburghshire

Scott completely revolutionised the attitude of the English and Lowland Scots to the Celtic Highland clans and even to the Middle Ages and, thus, indirectly to the Catholic Church. Of course Victorian Protestants still maintained their false claims against the Catholic Church but with greater softening of former rigour which must, in its way, have contributed to Catholic emancipation in these islands.

"I love"
Badge of Clan Scott, containing the crest and motto of the Chief

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Robert Roy MacGregor, (1671-1734), called Rob Roy within the MacGregor Clan, was the most famous of the Gregor chieftains albeit not Clan Chief. The Chief of Clan Gregor is MacGregor of MacGregor. MacGregor means "son of Gregor".

The Highland chiefs often adopted the re-duplication of the name in the old Celtic style in preference to the Lowland custom of adding a “designation” to the name. A “designation” is the name of the lands whereon the Chief has his caput (Latin for "head"), his primary house or seat, for example “Cameron of Lochiel”, the Chief of Clan Cameron, has his seat at Achnacarry near Loch Eil.

This designative style is the same as that used by the European nobility who add the name of their primary estate to their name by custom or by royal or imperial permission.

Some other Highland chiefly styles are “The Chisholm” or “the Captain of Clan Chattan”, for example.

Clan Gregor – also called in Gallic, Gregarach - are one of the oldest of Highland Clans, the true “children of the mist”, as many call them whose origins stretch back to the earliest times.

The MacGregors being Catholics and Jacobites who actively opposed the oppressive Whig government were treated with great harshness and severity by the government. Because they resisted so stoutly the oppressive way they were treated, they were declared outlaw and even the use of their name was banned. The Highland dress and language, called Gallic (Scots Gaelic), had already been banned.

The treachery of the government is famously remembered in the story of the Massacre of Glencoe. MacDonald of Glencoe, having indicated he would take up the amnesty for Jacobite "rebels", entertained a party of British troops commanded by a Campbell (the arch-enemies of the Jacobites and especially the McDonalds and Camerons) and gave them hospitality, in return for which the Redcoats treacherously slaughtered many of the MacDonalds in their beds.

Men like MacGregor set themselves against this treachery and oppression and were outlawed for it.

As a result he is sometimes known as the Scottish Robin Hood. Rob Roy is anglicised from the Scots Gaelic Raibeart Ruadh, or Red Robert. This is because Rob Roy had red hair, though it darkened to auburn in later life.

Rob Roy was born at Glengyle, at the head of Loch Katrine. His father was Donald MacGregor, and his mother Margaret Campbell (not all Campbells were anti-Jacobite).

He later met Mary Helen MacGregor of Comar, who was born at Leny Farm, Strathyre, and they were married in Glenarklet in January 1693 later and had four sons: James (known as Mor or Tall), Ranald, Coll, and Robert (known as Robin Oig or Young Rob). A cousin, Duncan, was later adopted.

Rob and his father joined the Jacobite rising led by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, along with many Highland chiefs and chieftains, to support the Stuart King James II and VII who had been deposed by William of Orange, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands and a scheming, ambitious Protestant but also the son-in-law of King James.

John Graham of Claverhouse (pronounced "Clavers"), Viscount Dundee, nicknamed "Bonnie Dundee" on account of his famous good looks.

“Bonnie Dundee”, as he was called on account of his handsome looks, was a brilliant Brigadier-General and persistently harried and defeated the government troops with his blue-bonneted Jacobite clansmen but, by an unfortunate chance, was killed at the point of victory in the Battle of Killiecrankie. Thereafter, lacking his brilliance, the Jacobite cause began to lose its advantage.

Rob’s father was taken to jail, where he was held on doubtful treason charges for two years. His mother’s health deteriorated during this time and she died upon Donald’s release.

Nevertheless, Rob Roy continued to fight in the Jacobite cause and led an army at the inconclusive Battle of Glen Shiel in 1719 in support of King James’s son, also James, the rightful King James III and VIII but who never regained his father’s throne. Rob Roy was badly wounded at Glen Shiel.

Thereafter, he was forced to become a cattleman and to sell protection for other men’s cattle, sometimes by taking them himself, robbing the rich to give to the poor. Needless to say, many Whig historians have – with consummate hypocrisy given their own legalised grand larceny and robbery – have much vilified him and his Clan for this “blackmailing”.

Rob Roy later borrowed a large sum of money to increase his own cattle herd, but due to a deception, some say by Whig skullduggery and some say by his own chief herder who was entrusted with the money to bring the cattle back, Rob Roy lost his money and cattle, and defaulted on his loan.

He was again re-branded an outlaw, and his wife and family were evicted from their house at Inversnaid, which was then burned.

His principal creditor was, ironically, James Graham, Marquess (later Duke) of Montrose who was close kinsman to John Graham, Viscount Dundee, the same “Bonnie Dundee” who had been the great Jacobite general.

Montrose seized his lands forcing Rob Roy to war with the Duke until 1722, when Rob was finally forced to surrender. Later imprisoned, Rob was finally pardoned in 1727 thanks to the fictionalised account of his life told by Daniel Defoe, the English novelist, entitled Highland Rogue which influenced King George I to pardon him. He died in his house at Inverlochlarig Beg, Balquhidder, on 28 December 1734.

His grave states, defiantly, “MacGregor despite them”, a reference to his determination to carry on his family name despite the oppressive ban upon it.

Sir Walter Scott, Bt, later glorified his name yet further in his 1817 novel Rob Roy.

The MacGregor seat, Glengyle House, on the shore of Loch Katrine, dates back to the early 18th century. It is built on the site of the 17th century stone cottage in which Rob Roy is said to have been born.

Glengyle House, Loch Katrine, in the heart of MacGregor country

In Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Catriona, sequel to Kidnapped, the hero. David Balfour of Shaws, meets and falls in love with Catriona MacGregor-Drummond, the daughter of James MacGregor-Drummond, also known as James Mor (meaning James the Great). There was a real James Mor MacGregor in the muster roll lists of the Battle of Culloden, the last great Jacobite battle in which “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, the grandson of James II and VII, was defeated and his wounded men massacred by the Whig general, “Butcher” Cumberland (Duke of Cumberland and a Hanoverian).

Catriona’s family append the name “Drummond” because the MacGregor name has been banned. Catriona engineers her father’s escape from prison. David marries her allying himself thereby with the Clan Gregor, the most ancient of the Jacobite clans.

The message is clear: the author, though a Protestant like Sir Walter Scott, is, like Scott, more in sympathy with the Jacobites than he is with those of his own background.

The grave of Rob Roy, his wife and children which defiantly states "MACGREGOR DESPITE THEM".