Chapter XXIX: The Fair Maid of Perth

Twoscore years elapsed between the day when Walter Scott, a lad of fifteen, felt a thrill of rapture as he viewed the valley of the Tay from the Wicks of Baiglie and the time when the same Walter, a worn-out man, first used the beautiful scene as the setting of a novel. The 'inimitable landscape,' as he called it, took possession of his mind and retained its influence during the greater part of his life. During the sad years of discouragement, when the 'Canongate Chronicles' had met with a cold reception, and his critical publishers were expressing their views somewhat too sharply, Scott turned once more to his well-loved Highlands for the theme of a story, and the picture which had so aroused his 'childish wonder' came back again after more than forty years.

Naturally our first thought upon arriving at Perth was to find the Wicks of Baiglie and enjoy the same sensation of wonder which Sir Walter had so graphically described. We accordingly drove out over the hills south of the town, on the Edinburgh road, till we came to the Inn of Baiglie, but all to no purpose. A burly blacksmith, who looked as if he might have been a descendant of Henry Gow himself, told us that many people sought the view which Scott had described, but 'it did not exist.' Changes in the road and the growth of foliage had completely destroyed the prospect from the {379} Wicks of Baiglie. We were compensated for our disappointment, however, by several glimpses of the valley from Moncreiff Hill and by a superb view, which we enjoyed the following day, from the summit of Kinnoull Hill, east of the city. At the foot of this hill is the modern Castle of Kinfauns, replacing the seat of Sir Patrick Charteris, to which the burghers of Perth made their memorable journey.

Perthshire is one of the largest counties in Scotland and excels all the others in the beauty and variety of its scenery. Along its southern border lies a region of moorlands, set with sparkling lochs and rippling streams, in the midst of which are the famous Trossachs. On the north are the rugged summits of the Grampian Mountains. In the centre is Loch Tay, one of the loveliest of Highland lakes, fed by the pure mountain streams that come down through the wild passes of Glen Lochay and Glen Dochart. Its outlet is the pleasant river Tay, passing down the eastern border through a valley of green meadows, waving groves, fertile fields, and princely palaces. In a drive of one hundred miles from Perth to Taymouth and back again by another route, we saw not so much as half a mile of scenery that might be called commonplace or uninteresting.

North of the city is the Palace of Scone, which became the seat of government in the eighth century, at which time the famous Stone of Scone was brought from Dunstaffnage. Most of the Scottish kings were crowned here, until Edward I, in the fourteenth century, carried the stone to Westminster Abbey. Farther north, in the same valley, is a bit of Shakespeare's scenery. We {380} passed through the Birnam Wood of 'Macbeth,' though we saw no trees. Perhaps this was natural, for according to Shakespeare they all went to Dunsinane Hill many years ago and the bard does n't say that they ever came back.

Perth is an ancient city, having received a charter from David I in the early part of the twelfth century. For nearly three hundred years it was the residence of the Scottish kings, who occupied during the greater part of that time the monastery of the Dominicans or Black Friars, formerly situated near the west end of the present bridge. This is the church to which Simon Glover and his daughter were walking when they were accosted by the frivolous young Duke of Rothsay, heir to the throne of Scotland. It was founded in 1231. The city was well provided with other religious houses, notably the Carthusian Monastery founded in 1429, the Grey Friars in 1460, and the Carmelites or White Friars, west of the town, dating from 1260. All of these have disappeared, the result of a famous sermon preached by John Knox, in 1559, in the old Church of St. John, which aroused the populace to a frenzy of excitement against the Church of Rome. St. John's Church was itself despoiled of everything which the mob thought savoured of popery, its altars, its images, and even its organ being destroyed. The building itself remained unhurt. Old St. John's was established as early as the fifth century. The transept and nave of the present building were erected in the thirteenth century and the choir in the fifteenth. At present the structure is divided into three churches, the East, the Middle, and the West. The appeal to the direct judgment {381} of Heaven, to determine the identity of the murderer of Oliver Proudfute, which is described as taking place within this building, was based upon a widespread belief that the corpse of a murdered person would bleed upon the approach of the guilty person,--the same superstition which Hawthorne used in 'The Marble Faun.'

Scott gives the Black Friars' Monastery a conspicuous place in his story, as the residence of King Robert III. That well-meaning but weak monarch had three sons: the eldest, David, Duke of Rothsay, died at Falkland Palace, under suspicious circumstances; the second, John, died in infancy; while the third, known in history as James I, nominally succeeded to the throne on the death of his father in 1406, but was held a prisoner by the English and did not actually come into his inheritance until 1424. One of his first acts was to throw Murdoch, the son and successor of the Duke of Albany, into prison, and a little later he punished the treachery of that nobleman by execution at Stirling Castle. James I was a great contrast to his weak-minded father and by the decisiveness of his character, the sagacity of his statesmanship, and the brilliancy of his literary attainments gave Scotland a memorable reign. It was due to his untimely death that Perth lost her prestige as the seat of the Scottish kings. He was suddenly surrounded by a band of three hundred Highlanders, who entered his apartment at the Dominican Priory and stabbed him to death with their daggers. The horror inspired by this assassination caused the abrupt transfer of the Court to Edinburgh and the King's successor, James II, was crowned at Holyrood Abbey instead of at Scone.

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The house of the Fair Maid of Perth may still be seen in Curfew Street, near the site of the old monastery. A comparison of its neat, well-kept appearance with the pictures of the same house as it was before the 'restoration' shows that it has improved with age as wonderfully as Shakespeare's birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon. Not far away, in a very narrow and squalid close, is another house celebrated in the story--the veritable residence of Hal o' the Wynd. The rapid multiplication of the Smith family may cause the sceptical to doubt the authenticity of this landmark, but to the citizens of Perth it is the original dwelling of the famous Henry Smith, or Henry Gow.

The great public park and playground, north of the bridge, known as the North Inch, was the scene of the famous Battle of the Clans which took place in 1396. Thirty sturdy representatives of the Clan Chattan fought to the death with an equal number of the Clan Kay, or as Scott calls them, the Clan Quhele. When the conflict was about to commence, it was discovered that the Clan Chattan numbered only twenty-nine, whereupon a citizen of Perth, having no interest in the struggle, volunteered, for the paltry sum of half a mark, to risk his life in the frightful battle, and thus made up the required number. An ancient chronicler sums up the result in these quaint words:--

At last, the Clankayis war al slane except ane, that swam throw the watter of Tay. Of Glenquhattannis, was left xi personis on live; bot thay war sa hurt, that thay micht nocht hold thair swerdis in thair handis.

There is a touch of contrition in Scott's portrayal of the cowardice of Conachar. The novelist's brother, {383} Daniel, a man of dissipated habits, had been employed in the island of Jamaica in some service against a body of insurgent Negroes, and had shown a deficiency in courage. He returned to Scotland a dishonoured man and Scott refused to see him. A stern sense of duty impelled him to refuse even to attend the funeral of the man who had disgraced his family. In later years he bitterly repented this austerity and atoned for it by tenderly caring for the unfortunate brother's child.

Something of these feelings may have been in his mind when he wrote in his Diary on December 5, 1827: 'The fellow that swam the Tay would be a good ludicrous character. But I have a mind to try him in the serious line of tragedy.... Suppose a man's nerves, supported by feelings of honour, or say by the spur of jealousy, sustaining him against constitutional timidity to a certain point, then suddenly giving way, I think something tragic might be produced.... Well, I'll try my brave coward or cowardly brave man.'

Campsie Linn, where Conachar made his final appearance, and with a last despairing shriek 'plunged down the precipice into the raging cataract beneath,' is a pleasant little waterfall in the Tay, seen through a small clearing in the woods. It is scarcely a cataract nor are the precipices formidable. The religious house where Catharine took refuge has completely disappeared.

Falkland Castle, to which the Duke of Rothsay was carried, a prisoner, is in Fifeshire, about fifteen miles southeast of Perth. The rooms in which the Prince was quartered were probably in the old tower, which has completely disappeared. Excavations made by the Marquis of Bute in 1892 show it to have been an {384} extensive building fifty feet in diameter. The present castle, or the greater part of it, was built at a period somewhat later than that of the story. As early as 1160, Falkland was known as part of the property of the Earls of Fife, who were descendants of Macduff, the famous Thane of Fife, who put an end to the reign of Macbeth in 1057. On the death of Isabel, Countess of Fife, the last of her race, Falkland came into the hands of the Duke of Albany, the brother of King Robert III. Albany was intensely jealous of his nephew, the Duke of Rothsay, who, after attaining his majority, began to display traits of character more worthy than those ascribed to him in the novel. He was entrusted by the King with affairs of some importance and gave promise of developing into an active and vigorous successor to his father. This was, of course, a menace to the plans of Albany, who sought the crown for himself, and he therefore managed to exaggerate the young man's faults to the King and to stir up suspicions against him, until the feeble monarch consented to allow his son to be imprisoned for a time as a cure for his profligacy. The Queen, who might have interceded for the Prince, was dead, as was also the Bishop of St. Andrew, who had often been a mediator in the royal quarrels. Sir John de Ramorny, the young man's tutor, who had suggested to him the assassination of Albany and had been indignantly repulsed, revenged himself by false reports to his pupil's uncle, and was commissioned by the latter to arrest his former charge. The Duke of Rothsay was thereupon waylaid and carried to the Castle of Falkland. The common report was that he was placed in a dungeon and starved to death. It was said that a poor woman, who heard {385} his groans while she was passing through the garden, kept him alive for a time by passing small pieces of barley cake through the bars. Another woman fed him with her own milk, which she conveyed through a small reed to the famished prisoner. Another story is that the daughter of the governor of the castle was the one who took compassion on the Prince, and that her wicked father put her to death as a punishment for showing mercy. The Duke of Albany and the Earl of Douglas were charged with the murder, but maintained that the Prince had died from natural causes and the Parliament unanimously acquitted them. Lord Bute, who gave much study to the records of the case, was inclined to doubt the commission of an actual murder, but admitted that the cause of the young Duke's death must always remain uncertain.

James I and James II made important additions to Falkland, and James V, who found it in a ruinous condition, made many extensive repairs and additions. It was here that the latter king died of a broken heart, at the early age of thirty-two. A few moments before his death, when informed of the birth of his daughter, Mary, who became the Queen of Scots, he exclaimed prophetically, referring to the crown, 'It cam' wi' a lass and it'll gang wi' a lass.' Mary herself visited the castle annually for five or six years, before her marriage with Darnley and spent many happy days there. Her son, James VI, also made it his residence and was living there at the time he was enticed away in the 'Gowrie Conspiracy.' The last king to visit the palace was Charles II, who came for a stay of several days, after his coronation at Scone in 1651. Later the troops of Cromwell {386} occupied the place, and its historical interest ceased soon afterward.

'The Fair Maid of Perth' was finished in the spring of 1828. When the author laid down his pen, it was to mark the real close of the Waverley Novels. True, others were yet to be written, but they were the work of a broken man, and failed to come up to Scott's high standard. It is one of the marvels of literature that a novel so attractive and interesting as 'The Fair Maid' could be produced under circumstances so distracting and painful. No one places it in the same rank as 'Guy Mannering' and 'Ivanhoe,' yet it was popular at the time of publication and has always been regarded as entirely worthy of the reputation of the 'Great Wizard.' The indomitable will of the master was still able to hold his matchless imagination to its task, though the days of its power were now numbered.

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