Sir Walter Scott documentary

the boat had touched this Silver Strand just as the hunter left his stand and stood concealed amidst the break to view this Lady of the Lake the maiden paused as if again she sought to catch the distant strain with head up raised and look intent and eye and ear attentive bent with locks flung back and lips apart like Monument of Grecian art in listening would she seemed to stand the guard United of the Strand and there did Grecian chisel trace a nymph a night or a Grace of finer form or Lovelier face that was how Walter Scott described his heroine Ellen in the poem The Lady of the Lake this poem was so popular that coach loads of tourists arrived in the trossacks as this district is called to Gaze on the beauties of lock Catherine where the story is set hotels had to be built in a hurry in nearby towns to contain the influx and the popularity of the area as a tourist center has continued to this day Scott never thought much of himself as a poet but his poems were written with fluency and Grace and his ability to tell a good story and describe characters and action quite captivated his audience the stories were about Gallant young men going through great dangers and eventually gaining the hand of the Charming heroines and that was very popular and then they were set in the rugged mountains and Glens of Scotland and throughout Europe such scenery was in the most fashionable taste perhaps these factors explain the amazing success among his contemporaries of the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott after his death this monument in Princess Street Edinburgh was put up in his memory not many writers have had quite such a grand tribute paid to them and at the time of its erection his worldwide readership would certainly not have considered the monument too Splendid for such a popular and respected Artist as he was today his rambling style his tendency to digress into long historical anecdotes his rather dry wit and his Delight in elaborate depiction of character perhaps mean that he's less popular than other 19th century writers but his best works like the heart of Midlothian or the antiquary Scott's own favorite will certainly repay the small effort required to get into them and it is not difficult to see why he was so much admired in his own day Walter Scott was born in 1771 into the fair City of Edinburgh capital of Scotland one of the kingdoms making up the United Kingdom and in many ways still a very independent country at this time in particular Scotland was blessed with a group of notable citizens like David Hume and Adam Smith philosophers of international renan painters like Alan Ramsey Rayburn Wilkie and the wonderful architecture of the Adam brothers and William Chambers all of whom combined to make Edinburgh one of the major centers of the 18th century enlightenment Scott's father also called Walter was a much respected Advocate or barrister Scotland had her own legal system and to be a part of it meant you moved in the top social and intellectual circles when Scott was born the family lived in an apartment of the college wind off the car gate one of the two great main streets of Edinburgh College wind like most other Edinburgh streets at the time was gloomy and Incredibly Dirty by all accounts and the buildings were amazingly High many of these tall buildings still exist in the area today 10 or 12 stories high tenements the Scots people call them very shortly after Walter's birth the family moved to a house in the much more agreeable George square one of the earliest new style classical developments that were to so improve the Edinburgh scene Scott's mother seen here in old age was the daughter of a university professor of medicine and had been well educated so the family was respectable on both sides very important in the Society of that time and important to Scott who was to develop a great respect for ancestry and breeding when he was just over two years old he contracted what we now know as polio and this left him permanently lame in his right leg as part of the attempt to cure him he was sent to live in the country farm of Sandy no near the town of Kelso about 40 miles south of Edinburgh the countryside around here is now referred to as Scots country with the easily recognized eildon Hills it was here that he came to live in later life and here too he set many scenes in the novels he was to write the old keep of smellholm stands nearby and just such a place occurs again and again in his Works wild windy Barren and lonely it's not hard to envisage figures on Horseback wrapped in their Tartan clothes or plates Galloping up the valley and bringing some terrible news or dire warning here then Sir Walter Scott spent those early years of his life influenced by the rugged natural beauties around him as well as by the stories his grandfather would tell of the battle's fought not so long ago to put The Pretender Prince Charles Stewart on the throne of Great Britain of course Charles was defeated and driven to Exile leaving behind numerous Tales of courage and drama to fill the imagination of the young Walter Scott and with the tar of smellhelm at the center of his young life no doubt in his eyes it all happened here as a child he found the romance of History tremendously fascinating and the fascination never left him in this he was perfectly in tune with his times and of course people all over Europe had much sympathy with the Scottish Steward cause even 50 years afterwards struggles for Freedom were admired the French were about to start their Revolution the Americans had had theirs and in general the idea that people all people should have a say in their own destiny was taking root everywhere for young Walter Scott being a Scotsman was a wonderful thing he was proud of his Heritage and would defend it against anything although he was so very young at the time it is quite certain that when he was at Sandy no these feelings were nourished and developed feelings that were to be the backbone of much of his adult work bag in Edinburgh aged nine he began four years of study at the high school where he delighted his friends with his ability to tell stories he left the Edinburgh High School he wrote later with a great quantity of general information ill arranged and collected without system yet deeply impressed upon my mind and gilded if I may be permitted to say so by a vivid and active imagination he went back to the borders again for a few months to polish up his Latin at the grammar school of the lovely town of Kelso although his stay was not long he was impressed by the beauty of the place he also met there as fellow Scholars the brothers James and John Ballantine whose lives were to become so closely involved with his in later years although only 12 years old he entered the University of Edinburgh and by his second year was shining at metaphysics and logic illness prevented him from completing the course and when he was well he began a five-year course in the legal profession but it was the journeys he made around the country following up his father's law cases that were to give him much of the background to Scottish life that he needed for his poems and novels he was passionate about old castles and the grand features of Landscapes and the rivers and streams with which Scotland abounds he delighted in talking to people of all classes and walks of life who could tell him tales of the past give him accounts of battles they had fought in or seeing him the Ballads of their forebears the collecting of such material was more of a passion than a hobby for Scott and it certainly involved him much more than did his work as a lawyer Scott got on well with people of all classes he was interested in everyone paintings by the several fine contemporary artists in Scotland of everyday life among Ordinary People show that Scott Was Not Unusual in his interest just as he wanted to reflect the lives and the stories of the people in his writing so the painters did in their works Scott was interested in the old Scott songs and ballads and of course in the fiddle music too to which there was much dancing this is Neil GAO the most celebrated of the time painted by sahenry Rayburn GA was in the employ of the Duke of Athol and it was someone of his type that was the model for the blind Fiddler in red gauntlet as a lawyer and a university man Scott had a great many friends amongst the upper social classes in Edinburgh it was in this Society at the greyfires church that he met Miss Wilhelmina belchin the daughter of Sir John Stuart Belkin a rich landowner Scott was soon passionately in love and when the lady threw him over he was very disturbed and hurt a hurt the memory of which never left him fortunately he soon recovered and on a visit to the late District met a French girl Charlotte Carpenter or chapatier they fell in love and remarried just over a year later in 1797. Charlotte's parentage was rather obscure but she was the ward of a lord dansha which gave her some distinction in Scott's eyes she was cheerful and vivacious and she believed in Scott she made him an excellent wife through the many ups and downs that were to come they settled at 39 Castle Street in Edinburgh shortly after their marriage and they kept the house for over 25 years it was in the new town the Magnificent range of squares and Terraces and crescents which is still such a fine feature of the city today a grand Monument to the Age of Enlightenment in Edinburgh of which Scott himself was so Splendid to feature to complete the pattern of living part of the year in the city and part in the country which he was to keep up for the rest of his days Scott bought a small country cottage in last Wade a village about six miles south of Edinburgh here he began the literary work which was to become his life his first publication was a collection of ballads picked up on his travels curled from every source and edited and occasionally improved on by Scott into what was published as the minstrel say of the Scottish borders the work was an immediate success it was 1802. by 1804 their country home had become the attractive house known as Asha Steel Scott had been made the sheriff of Selkirk and with the income from that office and various inheritances of money and property that had come his way he decided to rent this place on the banks of the Tweed and a few miles from the town of Selkirk here in a drawing by Turner the next literary work was to lay the foundation stone of Scott's Fame and success the lay of the last Minstrel was published in 1805 and from then on Scott knew that the chief business of his life was to be literature at the same time he threw himself into The Business of Being A Country Gentleman on the Asha steel property hunting and fishing being very keen on dogs and making friends with his neighbors among the neighbors was the Duke of baklou and his family one of the leading Scottish Nobles Scott was to be closely involved with this family throughout the rest of his life Valentine his school friend from Kelso was the printer of the lay of the last Minstrel and to help Valentine cope with the work Scott began to invest money in the Valentine printing Works in Edinburgh at the time it seemed a shrewd thing to do a second narrative poem Marmion was published here in 1808 and in 1810 the Lady of the Lake as we have seen an immensely popular work set in some of the loveliest Countryside in Scotland poetry was the business of another writer Lord barn with the publication in 1812 of his narrative poem child Harold Byron was clearly the new poet of the age as Scott himself at once recognized in 1813 Scott found the manuscript of a novel he had begun in 1805. he sat down there and then and finished it it is a story set on the eve of the Rebellion by the Scots which was meant to put Bonnie Prince Charlie back on the throne Scott reveled in depicting the struggles of the numerous characters of his story in the confusions and Terrors of the time of course the rebellion was crushed but in Scott's book those who were the victors were not all good just as the defeated were not all bad it is a marvelously intimate picture of the lies of a few intriguing people caught up in events they cannot control it has a sense of reality and an imaginative sweep which immediately captured the hearts of the reading public of the day Waverly is full of Highlanders and lonely castles the hero gets involved with a couple of attractive maidens and although he is an Englishman with no taste for the Stewart cause he gets drawn in to fight on their side and there is plenty of action to keep things Lively what really dominates the book though is not the history of the Rebellion itself which was certainly romantic enough but its effect on human nature Scott shows us how ordinary human beings react so it is his passion for observing and recounting the natures of men being butted about by the storms of life that drives the book along just after Waverly was published Scott set off from the harbor of Leith on a voyage around Scotland it was just the sort of thing he reveled in the lighthouse yacht on which he sailed visited among other places dunvegan Castle the home of the chief at the MacLeod clan on the island of sky in his journal he wrote The Towers have done vegan with the banners that floated over them in honor of their guests now showed to Great Advantage Far Behind These in the interior of the island arise the high and romantic mountains called Coolin Alpha with its remarkable caves also made a great impression which Scott's path of description were quite up to in his journal he wrote the stupendous columnar sidewalls the depth and strength of the ocean with which the cavern is filled the variety of tints formed by the stalactites dropping and petrifying between the pillars and resembling a sort of chasing of cream-colored marble filling the interstices of the roof the corresponding variety below where the ocean rolls over a red and in some places a violet colored Rock the basis of the basaltic pillars the Dreadful noise of those August Billows so well corresponding with the Grandeur of the scene are all circumstances elsewhere unparalleled while he was on his travels his novel Waverly was becoming an astounding success he returned to his new home in the borders a celebrated poet becoming a celebrated novelist Scott's lease at Asha Steele had run out in 1811 and he bought then a small house called clarty hole along the river at Abbotsford here he began another of the great pleasures of his life building the vast Stone Mansion we now see today he had the original House pulled down and gradually replaced over the next 12 years he earned huge sums from his novels and he spent huge sums on his house it was part of his romantic image of himself as the benevolent and kindly landowner which from all accounts he was he enjoyed entertaining his many friends here like William Wordsworth perhaps his most distinguished literary acquaintance of course he had to have a library at Abbotsford and it was decorated in a costly style so the room could have been a setting for any number of scenes in his novels he was a great collector of things of antiquary and interest and we find he had mementos of many great people of his day and of former times Rob Royce Dirk and purse the pistol of Montrose one of the main characters in the novel Earl mortality but his house and the lands around that he kept on buying he saw his provision for his children in his novels a good family life and an honorable marriage relationship were always held up as the most valuable things in life for himself he got great joy from his children his daughter Anne did not marry but remained at home to look after her father after her mother died Sophia the younger sister married a man called John Gibson Lockhart Lockhart had a literary background and got on very well with his father-in-law as well as being a great support to him after Scott's death it was Lockhart who wrote a vast and interesting biography of the writer the source of much of our knowledge of him Scott had two boys Walter his Heir seemed to succeed in living up to his father's expectations in every way he became a soldier and his father bought a commission for him in the hussars after Waverly there were only a few excursions into poetry and Scots main output became novels for many years he wrote them anonymously although it wasn't long before everyone knew the author of course he was already famous as a poet and his portrait was painted by many celebrated painters this one is by Sir Henry Rayburn as usual with the dogs for which he was well known outside the house my dad a Scottish deer hound and a great favorite sits sculpted in stone in Edinburgh he was what his countrymen call Ken speckle a well-known figure going about the city with his easily recognizable limp Scott followed contemporary Affairs of course and like everyone else was fired with excitement by Napoleon and his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo he had to go there the battle was only six weeks over when Scott was stomping about talking to observers citing the firing line looking for evidence in his journal he wrote on Wednesday last I rode over the field of Waterloo now forever consecrated to immortality the more ghastly tokens of the Carnage are now removed the bodies both of men and horses being either buried or burned but all the ground is still torn with the shot and shells and covered with cartridges old hats and shoes and various relics of The Fray which The Peasants have not thought worth removing his trip took him to Paris where he met his hero Wellington and many other prominent people his visit to Paris was of course to provide him with much material for his writing three novels followed his return guy mannering the antiquary and though he began to suffer from a severe illness which troubled him for over three years he completed Rob Roy also in December 1817. the next year he was involved in what was for him a most exciting event the recovery of the Scottish regalia from a chest in Edinburgh Castle the crown and the crown jewels had Lain there unsought since the coronation of the last Scottish King James VI who became James the first of England Scott's involvement in this helped to fix him in most people's minds as the man who most represented the spirit of Scotland for his personal Glory he was created a baronet in the year following it was a great pleasure to him to be the first Sir Walter Scott and to know that the title would pass on into his family he was as he saw it the founder of a dynasty in the peace and Tranquility of Abbotsford more novels flowed some that have become particular favorites in the cinema in modern times Kenilworth and Quentin derwid for example Benton Derwood Drew in particular on his experiences in France and was one of his greatest successes then Ivanhoe and red gauntlet he was finding that dramatized versions of his stories appeared in theaters all over the country a situation which delighted him in 1821 Sir Walter attended the coronation of George IV a monarch whom he knew personally and greatly admired in London Society Scott was as highly honored of course as in Edinburgh or Paris Scott himself arranged the visit of George IV to Scotland in 1822 and was successful in presenting the king wearing a kilt to the Scottish people as their rightful monarch in 1821 Abbotsford was more or less completed in the form we know it today the library containing his vast collection of books was fitted with a compressed air Bell push a sign of Sir Walter's fascination with things up to date and modern his study next door to the library has a gas fitment quite new at the time and an important Aid to the writer in an otherwise dark little room here he wrote many of his greatest novels 1825 saw two more novels published and worked begun on the massive biography of Napoleon he had long considered however on November 23rd a terrible Cloud descended on Abbotsford and its famous owner Valentine his printer and Constable his publisher with both of whom Scott was a business partner went bankrupt pulling Scott to financial disaster along with them it was a terrible blow not just to him but to all those proud people of his country and his native City of Edinburgh by whom he was so much respected and beloved a friend who saw him at Endra at this time wrote he walked into court one day in January 1826. there was no affectation no look of indifference or Defiance but the manly and modest air of a gentleman conscious of some Folly but of perfect rectitude and of most heroic and honorable resolutions it was on that day I believe that he said a very fine thing some of his friends offered to help him with money he said proudly know this right hand shall work it off and back to abbots but he went and began to write it was a heroic effort the biography of Napoleon alone took him two years to complete and earn ten thousand pounds and he worked on up to the end of his life to clear his debts he wrote The Fair Maid of Perth and three more novels as well as numerous short stories and tales of a grandfather Scottish history for his grandson John Hugh Lockhart fortunately he still had Abbott's foot he had given it to his son and was not forced to sell it at the time of the crash by 1831 he was ill and tired he was 60. he suffered from chilled lanes and rheumatism and his lameness was worsening the government became aware of his condition and offered him the naval frigate Barrow for a cruise in the Mediterranean during the winter with his daughter Anne and his son-in-law Lockhart he made the trip spending some time in Naples but his health began to fail and he longed to return to Scotland to view the Eldon Hills again so close to home and to enjoy Also the view from his window of the Parkland and the river tweet flowing by he returned at the beginning of July by September 21st he was dead and all Scotland mourned the passing of a great writer and a beloved friend for that was certainly how the people viewed him his remarkable sense of History had done much to awaken the Scots to their romantic past and to Value themselves more in the present so Walter Scott was buried in the ruined Abbey of driver beside his wife and the tombs of his ancestors in his many books his attractive characters his imaginative tales and sense of humor crusty wisdom and above all of course his development of the historical novel form made a lasting impact on world literature and his countless thousands of readers thank you [Applause] foreign [Music]

Channel: Author Documentaries

Views: 17,405

Keywords: sir walter scott biography, sir walter scott documentary, sir walter scott, ivanhoe, rob roy, waverley, old mortality, the bride of lammermoor, the heart of mid-lothian, the lady of the lake, marmion

Id: vR5Yx-tCmx4

Length: 30min 18sec (1818 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 23 2022