Source of book: I own this.
I have a running list of unjustly neglected authors from the
past. These are men and women who have fallen out of fashion in our own times.
Some have seen their reputations take a hit for one reason or another, but more
simply aren’t read by much of anyone anymore.
One of those authors is Sir Walter Scott.
Scott should be remembered, if for no other reason, for
founding the entire genre of historical fiction. And he was no hack either. He
extensively researched his books, often citing the original sources where
useful, and noting where the history ended and his fiction began. While not
possessed of all the resources we have today, he made every attempt at
authenticity. And even more than this, Scott is largely responsible for our
modern views of Robin Hood, Queen Elizabeth I, Richard the Lion-hearted, Rob
Roy, and others of British fame.
I first read Scott in my teens, when I picked up Ivanhoe.
That book, to my astonishment, contained much of Disney’s Robin Hood
movie in its pages. From there, I have read a number of others. Since starting
this blog, I reviewed Heart of Midlothian
and The Lady of the Lake.
Technically, Old Mortality wasn’t my first choice. I
was going to read The Abbot, but a few pages in, it became clear that it
was the second in a set of stories, of which The Monastery was the
first. Since I didn’t own that one, I grabbed another, namely this one. I
believe it was a good choice, a book considered one of Scott’s best - even if
nobody seems to have heard of it.
The book is set in the period of time between 1679 and 1689,
during a Scottish uprising by the Covenanters. Which, well, I didn’t know much
about, as I am neither Scottish nor Presbyterian. So, anyway, here is the
background history:
After the death of Elizabeth I without an heir, the Tudor
dynasty came to an end. The closest relative pursuant to the English system of
royal succession turned out to be James Stuart VI of Scotland, also known as
James I of England. Yes, King James should be familiar for the bible
translation he commissioned, and for founding the Stuart dynasty.
Thanks to John Knox, Scotland had its own Protestant
Reformation, and the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots overthown. From that point,
Presbyterianism became the official religion - and like the rest of Europe at
the time, doctrine was enforced by the sword.
The ascension of James I created difficulties, however.
England’s religion was - post Henry VIII - the Church of England - Anglicanism.
Which wasn’t particularly compatible with Presbyterianism. See, for just one
example of a doctrine people killed for, the Calvinist/Arminian scism. James
kind of let things ride. The Scots could do their thing, he would officially
convert to the Church of England so he could run the thing, and the boat stayed
mostly unrocked.
His son, Charles I, on the other hand, teamed up with
Archbishop Laud, and tried to force Anglicanism on the Scots. This did not go
well. Protests, bloodshed, etc. And Charles I got to be unpopular in England
too. Enter, the English Civil War (part 1). With the Irish Catholics likely to
provide aid to the Royalists, Cromwell’s Roundheads enlisted the Scots via a
document entitled The Solemn League and Covenant
- which gave the Covenanters their name. Basically, the Scots would fight with
the Puritans, and Presbyterianism would be adopted as the official religion of
England. No, that didn’t go well either.
So, after Cromwell’s rule crumbled after his death, and
Charles II came back to England, the Covenant was outlawed, and so on. Fast
forward to 1679. (I skipped a good bit here. For the English perspective on
this period, I recommend George Trevelyan’s excellent book, England Under
the Stuarts, although it only touches on the Scottish part of the
history.)
A compromise was reached, whereby certain Presbyterian
ministers could get a license and a church, but only with the Crown’s blessing
- and a pledge of loyalty. So, with the Covenanters being suppressed by Charles
II, and the moderates labeled heretics by the die-hards, things were set to
blow up. The Covenanters murdered Archbishop Sharp, and met the royalist troops
in battle. These events form the center of Old Mortality, particularly
the battles at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. For the specifics, Scott follows
the contemporary accounts closely, while adding characters and details. About
three quarters of the way through the book, these events come to a rather
gruesome end - the rebels are defeated and either executed or exiled. The story
then resumes ten years later when the protagonist comes back from exile after
William and Mary ascend the throne and proclaim religious tolerance. The
Covenanters attempted one final revolution, and were soundly defeated. From
then on, separation of the Presbyterian Church from the British government was
official and final.
As with most of Scott’s books, the title Old Mortality
has next to nothing to do with the book itself. “Old Mortality” is an invented
character to set up the framing story. In this set of books, “Tales of my
Landlord,” the anonymous Scott claims that these are tales told by his
fictitious landlord. In this case, the landlord claims he heard them from “Old
Mortality,” an ancient man who has dedicated his life to keeping the graves of
the Covenanters in good repair. Obviously, the book isn’t much about him at
all. He is there in the first chapter, and then he is gone for good.
The plot itself centers on the romance between Henry Morton,
the young son of a deceased Covenanter, and Edith Bellenden, the daughter of a
loyalist. Henry would prefer to be left out of the wars altogether, but is
drawn in when Covenanter John Balfour of Burley, on the run after the murder of
Sharp, calls in a favor in the name of Morton’s father. Henry shelters him for
the night, but is then arrested for treason as a result, even though he knew
nothing of the murder.
Side note here: Balfour was a real person, but he was NOT
Balfour of Burley (Burleigh) - Scott made a mistake here. He meant Balfour of
Kinloch - and even uses the name in a few places - who was indeed a Covenanter.
It may be that either Burley sounded better, or Scott confused the two.
As a result of circumstances, Morton gets freed and asked to
help lead the Covenanters. He reluctantly agrees to do so, essentially leading
the moderate party willing to settle for religious toleration, rather than a
new theocracy, which is what Burley wants.
This being Scott, you know at the outset that the lovers
will get together eventually, and that the battles will play out roughly as
they did in real life. But there is more than that.
One of the things that has struck me about Scott over the
years is that he is delightfully modern in sensibility. Sure, his writing style
is very early 1800s, and his deference to the aristocracy seems a bit odd to us
Americans. But his values are modern, and have aged extremely well.
Better, in my view, than those of many later Victorian writers.
Because Scott wrote historical novels, his characters are of
their time in many ways. You won’t for example, find a modern feminist in the
days of King Richard. But you will find marvelously strong and three
dimensional female characters. (Um, hi there, Dickens…) Scott doesn’t place his
women on a pedestal like a true Victorian either. He celebrates strong women,
and shows the obvious that women have always run things more than patriarchists
would prefer.
The best values that Scott stands for are the moral and
humane values. In every book - but particularly this one - he advocates for
freedom of religion and conscience. He fully supports the separation of church
and state, one of the greatest ideas mankind has had in the last five hundred
years. And more than that, Scott shows respect for diversity, whether between
the Anglican and the Presbyterian, or between Christianity and Islam. Scott
assumes that men of good will are admirable even when they differ.
Old Mortality, in particular, addresses the question
of religious tolerance, and advocates strongly for the separation of church and
state. I wrote down a number of quotes that resonated with me in our own times.
First is this one, from the opening pages, where the fictitious landlord
expounds on the Covenanters and their loyalist opponents.
Although I am far from venerating the peculiar tenets
asserted by those who call themselves the followers of those men, and whose
intolerance and narrow-minded bigotry are at least as conspicuous as their
devotional zeal, yet it is without depreciating the memory of those sufferers,
many of whom united the independent sentiments of a Hampden with the
suffering zeal of a Hooper or Latimer.
Good lord, if you want to describe the Dominionists of today
(who often claim a connection to the Covenanters) - or pretty much all of the
Religious Right, that surely fits. Their devotional zeal is indeed overshadowed
by their intolerance and bigotry expressed as political violence against
everyone else.
Henry Morton is clearly intended from the start to be the
noble hero. Here is how Scott describes him.
Henry Morton was one of those gifted characters which possess
a force of talent unsuspected by the owner himself. He had inherited from his
father an undaunted courage and a firm and uncompromising detestation of
oppression, whether in politics or religion. But his enthusiasm was unsullied
by fanatic zeal, and unleavened by the sourness of the Puritanical spirit. From
these his mind had been freed, partly by the active exertions of his own
excellent understanding, partly by frequent and long visits at Major
Bellenden’s, where he had an opportunity of meeting with many guests whose
conversation taught him that goodness and worth were not limited to those of
any single form of religious observance.
One hundred percent yes. Again, Scott proves to be both
progressive and a direct rebuke to the religious (and racist) fanatics of our
time. Hey, and Scott also completely nails a major source of the
problem: a theonomic and literalist approach to scripture. Throughout the book,
the Covenanters are continually “proof texting”: applying verses out of context
in justification of abhorrent behavior. There is quite a generation gap here
too, as Morton represents the more moderate younger generation, against the
older, fanatical generation represented by Burley. Here is, in part, Morton’s
response to Burley during a discussion of their goals. Morton wants freedom of
conscience. Burley wants to purge the land of heretics. Morton listens, but
notes that he is unmoved by the fanatical language.
“I revere the Scriptures as deeply as you or any Christian
can do. I look into them with humble hope of extracting a rule of conduct and a
law of salvation. But I expect to find this by an examination of their general
tenor, and of the spirit in which they uniformly breath, and not by wresting
particular passages from their context, or by the application of Scriptural
phrases to circumstances and events with which they have often very slender
relation.”
I find a lot of myself here. And to draw a necessary line,
so did the abolitionists, who argued against a literal, theonomic defense of
slavery using the “general tenor and spirit” argument. (See this post,
as well as Mark Noll’s excellent book, The Civil War as a Theological
Crisis for more.) In my experience - and in history, as
Scott details - theonomy and literalism are used to weaponize scripture, and
justify atrocities. Scott circles back to this idea near the end - see
below.
Scott, like many authors, chooses to name minor characters
in ways that describe them. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the names used
for the various preachers associated with the Covenanters. The most moderate
(although not by that much) is Poundtext, while a more radical one is
Kettledrummle. The craziest, though, is Habakkuk Mucklewrath, which is both fun
to say, and deliciously Scottish. It is these preachers who combine with
violent men like Burley to stir up the masses toward violence, alas.
While Morton is the hero, he has a counterpart on the
Loyalist side, Lord Evandale. Evandale shares a great deal with Morton,
actually, as both acknowledge the legitimate grievances that the Presbyterians
have suffered, and would like to see a humane compromise and peace. Evendale
ends up receiving aid from Morton, and also from other compassionate
Covenanters. He notes the aid from a peasant woman who aids him despite hating
his side.
“[S]he was in principle a rigid recusant, but she saw my
danger and distress, considered me as a fellow-creature, and forgot that I was
a Cavalier and a soldier.”
Later, Evandale expresses his view of the political
situation:
“I give you my honor, Major Bellenden, that I have been for
some time of opinion that our politicians and prelates have driven matters to a
painful extremity in this country, and have alienated, by violence of various
kinds, not only the lower classes, but all those in the upper ranks whom strong
party feeling or a desire of court interest does not attach to their standard.”
And yes, so very relevant today - but not in the way that my
former Evangelical tribe believes. Rather it is they, the corrupt
prelates, in unholy marriage with a violently oppressive political movement,
who are alienating all those who abhor both political ambition and racist and
religious violence.
Again, Morton sounds the same call, in a letter to Bellenden:
“My most earnest and anxious desire is to see this unnatural
war brought to a speedy end by the union of the good, wise, and moderate of all
parties, and a peace restored which...may substitute the authority of equal
laws for that of military violence, and, permitting to all men to worship God
according to their own consciences, may subdue fanatical enthusiasm by reason
and mildness, instead of driving it to frenzy by persecution and intolerance.”
And later:
“I wish to have free exercise of my own religion, without
insulting any other; and as to your family, I only desire an opportunity to
show them I have the same friendship and kindness as ever.”
This is all powerful stuff, and surely resonates today, in our
own time, when a fanatical group in our nation wishes to impose its own purity
rules on others, and is more concerned about purging heretics (and anyone
outside their own tribe) than in showing love for neighbor.
The problem for the Mortons and Evandales of the world,
though, is that a mere call for decency and tolerance falls on deaf ears for
the fanatics. They, like Fascists throughout history (that’s a whole other
post…), have no use for modern Enlightenment values. Their values are that of
tribalism, idolatry of the past, and worship of violence. Ultimately, they must
first be defeated, politically, and sometimes militarily. Ultimately, all the
peacemaking of Evandale and Morton goes to complete waste. It is left to the
Crown to utterly crush the Covenanters, and deprive them of political
power.
But this is only part of the story. The Covenanters didn’t
actually go away; they just went underground. And they continued to insist on
the restoration of the Solemn League and Covenant - the establishment of a
theocracy. They railed against the edicts of tolerance issued by the Crown.
The principles of indulgence thus espoused and gloried in by
the government gave great offense to the more violent party who condemned them
as diametrically contrary to Scripture; for which narrow-spirited doctrine they
cited various texts, all, as it may well be supposed, detached from their
context, and most of them derived from the charges given to the Jews in the
promised land.
Um, yep. America Scotland as the new Israel, and Fundamentalist
Calvinist doctrine as the only True Christianity™, and the call for violence
and political crushing of everyone else. The theonomic and literalist use of
Scripture. The more things change…
But Scott also notes that the Covenanters bore the seeds of
their own destruction. And perhaps suggests a constructive way forward. First,
obviously, the fanatics and hatemongers have to be deprived of political and
military power. But after that is done (as in the case of the Nazis), the key
is to defuse the next generation. The Burleys of the world - I would say the
white Evangelical Baby Boomers of today as an analogy - will mostly never
change. They will spit hate to the end of their days, dream of crushing their
enemies, and long for the days when they were in power. Just like Burley. But
the next generation won’t be with them.
Scott notes the result of the edicts of William and Mary.
The average Scot didn’t understand their fanaticism and persecution complex.
Life was basically good. They could worship as they pleased, and the idea of a
Puritanical theocracy looked increasingly ludicrous to them. Without the
legitimate persecution, the Covenanters became either a laughingstock, or, like
Old Mortality himself, and anachronism of a bygone age.
We are seeing this play out as we speak. As Boomer (white)
Evangelicals sell their souls to a racist demagogue
and a pack of anti-Christian
xenophobic theocrats, their grandchildren are fleeing
the insanity.
Sir Walter Scott, writing more than 200 years ago, got it
right. Those who are most concerned with “doctrinal purity” are the exact same
people who lust to do violence to those outside the “pure” tribe. For some
weird reason, a belief that God is obsessed with purity leads to actions to
purge the “filthy” Others from the faith - and indeed existence itself. Scott
also gives some hope: that after the fires of hate and violence are isolated
and die out, a better day can dawn, and the Mortons and Evandales can
ultimately win out over the Burleys and Kettledrummles of the world.
***
Just a note for Scott neophytes:
Although many of the “Waverly” novels are quite good, I
wouldn’t necessarily start with them. Old Mortality, like Heart of
Midlothian and others, contain quite a bit of dialect. I found that my
collection of Robert Burns’ poetry was helpful, as it has an extensive glossary
in the back. Basically, Scott’s language and style take some getting used to
even without the language barrier.
If I had to pick one to start with, I would go with the well
known trifecta: Ivanhoe, The Talisman, or Kenilworth. Any
of these are a good introduction to Scott. One possible alternative option
would be Quentin Durward, which has little to do with the title
character, and everything to do with Louis XI of France, and the transition
from Feudalism to Modernism. Although it does lack interesting female
characters. For those, well, Ivanhoe and Heart of Midlothian are
excellent...
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