The Ground Beneath Our Feet

Well the 25th national Festival of Archaeology is just getting underway, so it got me thinking about a side of Scott's antiquarian pursuits that perhaps doesn't get as much coverage as it should: his interest in what we know today as archaeology and the early evolution of this discipline. 

The area around Abbotsford is extraordinarily rich in archaeology, with over sixty scheduled monuments/sites recorded within a 10km radius of the house. This tangible evidence of the past did not escape Scott's attention. In fact, it may well have drawn him to the landscape of Cartly Hole Farm in the first place as he recalled childhood memories of visiting the Turn-again stone with his father, a 'rude stone' marking the spot where the retreating followers of Buccleuch killed the persuing Kerr of Cessford in 1526. As the Abbotsford estate started to take shape and the years went by, Scott was proud to own the land that, amongst other things, encompassed the site of the Battle of Melrose, ''the last great battle of the Borders;'' a section of the old Roman road running from the camp on the Eildon hills to the ford of the Tweed after which Scott named his new home, and two Iron-age hill forts at Castlesteads and Huntlyburn. He also acquired Rhymer's Glen, a site powerfully associated with folklore traditions of the area. 

Section of the 1838 estate map showing the Castlesteads site 

Scott was a child of the Enlightenment and this movement spurred on a desire to understand and document the past in a more comprehensive manner. National and imperial agendas were rife as institutions and societies sought to amass impressive collections of exotic artefacts and curiosities to compete with one another. Excavations in the Middle East, Egypt and the heartlands of Roman Europe yielded up treasures that, for the most part, ended up very far from home. Remember that the silver urn given to Scott by Lord Byron in 1815 contained ‘bones found in certain ancient sepulchres within the land walls of Athens.' During Scott's lifetime, the importance of object association and stratigraphy (the study of layered deposits beneath the ground that reflect periods of human activity), was just beginning to capture the proto-archaeologist's imagination. Having said that, it was not until shortly after Scott's death that antiquarians started to understand that finds could be ordered chronologically by using this technique. 

The Egyptian Expedition under the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte, painted by Léon Cogniet. This painting shows a key element of the expedition 1798-1801: the very first overseas archaeological excavation conducted by scientific experts of the day.

In Scott's library, you will find early works such as 'Archaeologica Britannica,' published in 1707. There are also a fair few accounts of funerary monuments and sepulchral remains in churches and graveyards across Britain, a dissertation on the Roman tombs of Great Britain, and several of Sir Robert Sibbald's works on the antiquarian sites of Scotland (Sibbald was once Geographer Royal of Scotland). This was a time when 'archaeology' and 'antiquarian' were terms that could just as easily refer to philological study, and certainly there are many more books in Scott's library that explore the languages of past peoples, particularly those of the Britons. Etymologically, archaeology didn't acquire it's association with scientific study until the mid-1820s. Until that point, it had simply denoted the study of the ancient world. 

 Sir Robert Sibbald (1641–1722), Physician, Antiquary and Geographer

At Abbotsford there isn't a great deal of archaeological material on display. The wonderful Tors Chamfrein discussed in my last post is probably our key piece, on show in the Ante Room alongside a brass pot and hexagonal cup reputedly found in the ruins of Graham's Dyke near Kirkintilloch, the site of a Roman Fort situated on the Antonine Wall, on the 14th April 1822. 

In our collections stores we have a handful of pottery sherds, an ossuary urn, fragments of timber from Birdoswald Camp on Hadrian's Wall, and two Roman oil lamps. However, if you look outside it is a very different story. The niches of the South Court yield up some archaeological joys and were actually designed specifically to display this material. Five sculpted stone altars to the gods Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Mercury and Venus set in these niches actually come from the Roman fort of Voreda at Old Penrith. 

Altar to Mars, God of War, in the Abbotsford South Court

Chancellor Richard Ferguson, the President of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society (founded in the Victorian period), understood how much Voreda had captured Scott's imagination, claiming that the writer “ had made it a practice never to go south without stopping at it and meditating upon it.” Indeed Sir Walter’s journal entry of April 4 1828 mentions that “in our stage to Penrith I introduced Anne to the ancient Petreia, called Old Penrith.” Now, whether you agree with the circumstances in which Walter acquired such treasures or not, it is somewhat of a relief that the altars have been displayed together as a group - albeit interspersed with roundels from the Mercat Cross! Another inscribed stone in the South Court was carved by a detachment of a legion active 'between the walls'. At first this inscription was thought to come from Voreda, but, much like the brass pots, it may in fact hail from the Antonine Wall area. If the tiny figure outside of the border is interpreted as a depiction of Capricorn, it provides valuable information on the movements of the Twenty-second 'Primigenia' Legion, who used it as one of their symbols.

I thought I'd finish with a wonderful excerpt from the American author Washington's Irving's account of visiting the Abbotsford estate.  

'In the course of our morning's walk, we stopped at a small house belonging to one of the labourers on the estate. The object of Scott's visit was to inspect a relic which had been digged up at the Roman camp; and which, if I recollect right, he pronounced to have been a tongs...As he stood regarding the relic, turning it round and round, and making comments upon it, half grave, half comic, with the cottage group all around him...I seemed to see before me that prince of antiquarians and humorists, holding forth to his unlearned and unbelieving neighbours.'  

I hope you've enjoyed reading about a few of our true antiquities today. 
  

Thanks for joining us!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson
Heritage and Engagement Manager

Field Marshal Blücher's Tiny Teapot and Other Adventures...

Earlier this week, our volunteers were treated to a trip up to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. As with all staff get-togethers, it was long overdue and offered a rare opportunity for volunteers based in different areas to meet one another properly and have some fun!

Of course, this was a cultural outing and it was my mission to put together an itinerary that had some relevance to Scott. With a sprinkling of fairydust from external funders, we can ensure that this is the first of a series of excursions that will help our volunteers make associations and connections with other historical sites, people in history and major events that shaped Scott's worldview.

Perhaps no event is more significant in Scott's lifetime than the battle of Waterloo, especially when you consider it is the culmination of a pervading mood of fear and hostility that had been simmering away in Britain ever since the French Revolution, at least amongst the conservative faction. Now, I shan't harp on about Waterloo again after such a recent blog post on the subject (even if it is tempting within a whisker of the bicentenary itself), but I would like to draw attention to the first pitstop on our Scott-themed tour of NMS: an excellent little exhibition entitled 'Waterloo: After the Battle,' curated by Dr. Stuart Allan.

Our Volunteers Malcolm and Will putting Dr Allan through his paces

We were lucky enough to have Dr. Allan show us around the displays which really helped to bring everything to life. Perhaps most poignant for the Abbotsford troupe was the chance to see the captured bronze eagle of the French 45th Infantry, one of two Napoleonic totems taken by the British forces during the battle. 

The Eagle of the 45th

Why is it relevant to Scott? Well, we have an eagle at Abbotsford, albeit something a little less 'shiny...' For some time it was rumoured that this was the real deal, until it was pointed out that the whereabouts of the two captured imperial eagles was already known! Our wooden version is, we think, more likely to be a stage prop that accompanies a set of flags we have in the archives, one of which is a replica standard of the French 105th Infantry, the other regiment to lose its colours on the 18th June.  Other artfefacts on display in this exhibition included Napoleon's sugar bowl, part of a wonderfully ornate tea service (which I am sure Scott would have moved heaven and earth to get hold of if he could have done), commemorative Black Watch pottery fired in 1816, and my personal favourite: a tiny little silver teapot that supposedly belonged to Field Marshal Blücher, the septuagenarian commander of the Prussian forces. I guess he wasn't quite as butch as history would have you believe!

It appears the Prussians also marched on tea.

Wonderful rustic Scottish pottery from Portobello

After wolfing down a tasty lunch, we were treated to a fantastic tour of the Scottish galleries with George Dalgleish, Keeper of Scottish History and Archaeology. George is an Abbotsford Trustee and as such, he was able to give us a fantastic overview of the objects in the museum collection that Scott had owned, written about and seen exhibited. One of the real treasures of Abbotsford, the Torrs Chamfrein, actually resides at the National Museum after it was sold decades ago by Scott's descendents to avert ever-present financial difficulties. Luckily, the museum provided us with their Victorian replica of the artefact at the time of that transaction so visitors can still see a version of the piece in its rightful setting here at Abbotsford.

The Torrs Chamfrein at NMS, once belonging to Sir Walter Scott

Chamfreins, being ceremonial or armoured headpieces for horses, are interesting things and this one in particular is a bit of a conundrum.  There are fine examples from Roman Britain in other institutions, but this Iron Age example, dated to approximately 200BC is more likely to have been ritual in function. Whether it was made for animal or human is very much open to debate; perhaps in a shamanistic ceremony it transformed an individual from one thing to another. The pony cap and horns were unearthed in a peat bog at Torrs Farm in Dumfries and Galloway in the 1820s and given to Scott as a curiousity worthy of his 'museum for living in'. Having been found initially as two separate items in the same location, it is unclear how the cap and horns marry together both physically and chronologically but they have been displayed as one piece for some time now. Until new research can find a way to navigate the minefield of 'cult archaeology', the enigma of the Torrs chamfrein continues. 

Passing through the medieval gallery, we caught a glimpse of the famous Lewis chessmen. We were all surprised to find that Scott narrowly missed out on acquiring these, in reality due to his ailing health.

A Selection of the Lewis Chessmen

An Edinburgh Antiques dealer had put his collection of chesspieces up for the consideration of the Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum on the 17th October 1831 and Sir Walter Scott happened to see the relics, being present to consult manuscripts for research purposes. His journal entry that day is as follows: 'the morning beautiful today, I go to look after the transcripts in the Museum and leave a card on a set of chess men thrown up by the sea on the coast of Scotland which were offered for £100.' As the twists and turns of fate would have it, it was actually his friend Charles Kirkpatrick-Sharpe who ended up owning eleven pieces of the much larger collection. I wonder how different things would have been if he hadn't been so unwell at the time and what a joy the chesspieces would have been to have at Abbotsford!

After having wended our way past the towering Scottish Maiden, a guillotine that features in Scott's novel The Abbot, the final highlight of our tour (and there were many more than I can possibly cover here) was seeing the sporran that inspired that famous passage in Rob Roy:

 "I advise no man to attempt opening this sporran till he has my secret,'' said Rob Roy; and then twisting one button in one direction, and another in another, pulling one stud upward, and pressing another downward, the mouth of the purse, which was bound with massive silver plate, opened and gave admittance to his hand. He made me remark, as if to break short the subject on which Bailie Jarvie had spoken, that a small steel pistol was concealed within the purse, the trigger of which was connected with the mounting, and made part of the machinery, so that the weapon would certainly be discharged, and in all probability its contents lodged in the person of any one, who, being unacquainted with the secret, should tamper with the lock which secured his treasure."

 

Gentlemen, beware! Sporran clasp concealing two small steel pistols

Some cautionary tales around the Scotch Maiden

 Now, as with all items that occupy that murky border country between history and myth, this NMS item is popularly referred to as Rob Roy's sporran, and indeed it must have inspired that passage in the novel, but there is no evidence whatsoever that it ever belonged to the folk hero. As ever with these things, the popular imagination sides with the storyteller. And isn't it more fun that way? Scott would have most certainly thought so. 

I hope you've enjoyed our little virtual excursion though the National Museum of Scotland. 

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson
Heritage and Engagement Manager

one button in one direction, another in another…when the mouth of the purse…opened… a small steel pistol was concealed within the mounting,…so that the weapon would be discharged’ - See more at: http://www.26treasures.com/creationstories/sporran-clasp-four-concealed-pistols-stuart-delves#sthash.NiWKwVcx.dpuf

one button in one direction, another in another…when the mouth of the purse…opened… a small steel pistol was concealed within the mounting,…so that the weapon would be discharged’ - See more at: http://www.26treasures.com/creationstories/sporran-clasp-four-concealed-pistols-stuart-delves#sthash.NiWKwVcx.dpuf

one button in one direction, another in another…when the mouth of the purse…opened… a small steel pistol was concealed within the mounting,…so that the weapon would be discharged’ - See more at: http://www.26treasures.com/creationstories/sporran-clasp-four-concealed-pistols-stuart-delves#sthash.NiWKwVcx.dpuf

          

On this day in History...

Every now and then, it's rather fun to pick up Sir Walter Scott's Journal or peruse a collection of letters and find out what was happening on a particular date during his life. We haven't done this yet with the Treasures of Abbotsford Blog and this story is a perfect reminder of why we should!

Today's gem of a letter was penned by Archibald Constable, Scott's publisher of the time. It was addressed to the author at his Edinburgh home on Castle Street and composed on 31st May 1822.

A rather portly Archibald Constable

 Ostensibly, the letter serves as an update on the reception and sales of his latest novel, the Fortunes of Nigel, and Constable claims with somewhat feigned surprise that 'the press is at work again,' meaning that avid readers had already devoured the first print run, quite literally acquiring their copies 'hot off the press.' The picture painted is reminiscent of the hype surrounding a new release in the Harry Potter franchise, or even the latest Apple gadget:

' A new novel from the author of Waverley puts aside, in other words puts down for a time, every other literary performance. The Smack Ocean, by which the new work was shipped, arrived at the wharf on Sunday; the bales were got out by one on Monday morning, and before half-past ten o'clock 7,000 copies had been dispersed from 90, Cheapside.'  

Granted, this is a Victorian piece of Scott memorabilia, but I love these Minton tiles featuring scenes from the Waverley novels. Not easy to come by so I shouldn't think I'll be fashioning my home with them any time soon!

Constable's letter is interesting to me for another reason, serving as a reminder of the number of Scott's high-profile friends and associates that contributed to the diversity of the Abbotsford collections. Archibald speaks of visiting the shop of a Mr. Swaby in Warden Street. Now, I assume this is Warden's Close in Edinburgh's Grassmarket, but I could well be wrong considering he has just been talking about book sales in London. He states that he had been directed to the premises of this 'curious person' Swaby, by his son, Thomas, in order to have a closer look at an antiquated portrait of a monarch spotted there. After some discussion they decide that this is a rare jewel, an unknown portrait of King James IV (perhaps painted by Maynard Wewyck), and Constable forwards it to Scott, trusting that 'ere long, [he] will see it in the Armoury at Abbotsford.' 

The Abbotsford Armoury Wall, complete with James IV portrait purchased by Constable

There are several things going on here, but primarily the portrait is a reminder of one of the greatest successes in their long partnership, the epic poem Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field published in 1808, the first work in literary history for which the author received a monetary advance from his publisher. Constable is well aware that Scott aims to furnish his baronial home with objects that tell stories, specifically his own version of history if he can help it, and he is keen to contribute to the creation of this shrine to storytelling. His motivation for doing so may well lie in his knowledge that Scott's collecting and his writing have a powerfully symbiotic relationship, as of course do a writer and his publisher.

When I read this letter,  it is not without a raised eyebrow and a smirk as the publisher recommends where in a home such artefacts should be displayed, but perhaps they were more 'jack of all trade' folk in the 1820s! His other purchases that day are no less important to our collection:  'two large elbow chairs, elaborately carved, in boxwood...Swaby assured me they came from the Borghese palace in Rome' and 'a slab of mosaic pavement, which I also destine for Abbotsford.' 

The Borghese Palace, original home of our beautiful boxwood chairs

Constable encourages Scott to accept the pair of chairs as furniture of a calibre appropriate for the Library at Abbotsford, and the mosaic as a hearth-stone for one of the fireplaces. The chairs do indeed still stand either side of the fireplace in the library today but, thankfully, Archibald's mosaic slab forms a handsome table top rather than a hearth, preserving the exquisite piece from excessive wear and tear over the last two centuries. Supposedly there were originally ten Borghese chairs, six of which went to Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire and still stand in their Picture Gallery there to this day. I would dearly like to know where the other two have ended up!

The Abbotsford Library. You can see one of our Borghese chairs to the left of the fireplace

Belvoir Castle has a very different interior to Abbotsford, but if you look closely you can see something familiar!

Hopefully this post illustrates how archival material can help bring collection pieces to life - in just one letter, we have mapped out where these pieces were purchased, by who and for what reasons. If only we were so lucky with mapping the stories of all of our gabions and curiousities! If you think you might know the whereabouts of Swaby's or indeed the other two Borghese chairs, please do get in touch and help us build a clearer picture of this fascinating springtime exchange one hundred and ninety-three years ago. 

'It occured to me that these three articles might prove suitable to your taste, and under that impression I am now induced to take the liberty of requesting you to accept them as a small but sincere pledge of grateful feeling. Our literary connexion is too important to make it necessary for your publishers to trouble you about the pounds, shillings and pence of such things.'  Archibald Constable, 31st May, 1822. 

Thanks for reading!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson
Heritage and Engagement Manager

             
     

Scott on Waterloo

'Bones of horses , quantities of old hats, rags of clothes, scraps of leather and fragments of books and papers strewed the ground in great profusion...'

This was the sight that greeted Sir Walter on his visit to the battlefield in August 1815. Indeed, he had felt full of such fire to make the trip that the venture would see him take his very first steps on foreign soil. The words themselves, although a reflection of Sir Walter's own experiences, come from the eponymous narrator of Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk, a strange work that purports to be a series of letters penned for five different recipients back home. In effect, this short work is Scott's closest brush with journalism. A brand new edition of this fascinating text, along with The Field of Waterloo and 'the Dance of Death,' was published at the end of April this year and we were delighted to assist Penguin Random House with the cover!

Front Cover Photograph showing the Soldier's Book and Tricolour Cockade from the Abbotsford Collections

On the evening of Tuesday 12th May we were very fortunate to welcome Dr. Paul O' Keeffe, the editor of this new publication, to Abbotsford to introduce his new book and talk a little more about Scott's battlefield visit in the run up to the bicentenary of Waterloo next month. The evening was a wonderful, theatrical affair (with belly laughs aplenty), but it was not without a suitable dose of the macabre.

A very charismatic Paul O' Keeffe as Ruskin at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

 Battlefield tourism seems a pretty alien pastime to our modern sensibilities; nowadays when we visit the sites

of previous conflict, say the Somme, Culloden or Waterloo,  we are fuelled by a thirst for knowledge or a need to pay our respects. Curiousity and the sense of reaching out and touching history was certainly still a motivating factor for visitors to Waterloo in 1815, but when you consider that a few intrepid onlookers started arriving the morning after the battle, presumably jostling with the local peasants ransacking valuables from the dead, something quite different was at work. There was a powerful sense that Waterloo was the key battle of the time and tourists were eager to acquire souvenirs from the field. 

Napoleonic Plaque displayed in the Abbotsford Entrance Hall

O'Keeffe had the audience grimacing suitably as he evoked the dizzying stench of poorly buried mass graves, human bodies slowly baking just below the surface in the stifling heat of summer. The battlefield area was relatively small and could be explored easily on a day excursion from Brussels but once visitors arrived, they would have found it essential to have packed both quantities of snuff and an iron constitution!

French Cuirassier's Steel and Brass Breast and Back Plate and to the right, a copy of the Imperial Eagle Standard

By the time Sir Walter Scott arrived on the scene, the craze for Waterloo relics had spawned a veritable marketplace where nearby villagers successfully flogged weaponry and cuirasses to awestruck tourists. The bodies had been long stripped but not long buried and Scott encounters an eerie landscape strewn with paper and rags. He set about picking up smaller relics and arranging the purchase of more impressive artefacts over the duration of his trip. One of his most treasured acquisitions, a French soldier's book now in the Abbotsford collections, is photographed on O' Keeffe's book cover. In amongst the cuirasses, sabres, pistols and Napoleonic totems, it is fitting that this little book has been given pride of place. With papers flitting in the breeze before him as far as the eye could see, these military livrets were far from a rarity but they offered a tangible link with an individual life. Scott finds his soldier's book to be a very personal snapshot of a life snuffed out, 'and with it, all his earthly hopes and prospects.'  

Thanks for reading!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson

Heritage and Engagement Manager

Bookish Banter

On the 23rd April many countries around the world will be celebrating World Book Day (something that the UK has done in recent years a month earlier). This date was originally chosen to coincide with the date of William Shakespeare's death, probably the most famous wordsmith in history. In honour of Sir Walter's lifelong admiration for the Bard, I thought bookish banter should be the order of the day!

Over the past week or so we have been beavering away, armed with our trusty gloves, archival tape and camera, condition-assessing the books on display in our free to access exhibition in the Abbotsford Visitor Centre. Walter Scott's library at Abbotsford is a rare thing indeed, and not just because Sir Walter thought it the 'handsomest room in Scotland'! Most personal libraries of writers, statesmen and academics end up dispersed or at the very least, depleted after the death of the original owner as items are discarded or claimed by various living relations. Particularly significant collections may be absorbed in their entirety into larger museum or institutional collections. The fact that Scott's library remains wholly intact and that the volumes sit on their shelves in the very position they occupied during the author's life, is remarkable, and one of the many reasons that we now treat the collection as a conservation library. Direct access to the books, even for researchers, is something strictly governed to ensure their long-term survival.  For this reason, one of the most rewarding parts of  my work is selecting a handful of these books for public display, offering visitors a rare glimpse inside the front covers. In the last changeover alone we added an edition of Tam o' Shanter annotated in Robert Burns' own hand, a manuscript revealing Scott's first attempts at copying Icelandic sagas and one of the world's first historical novels, Guerras civiles de Granada. 

Scott's 1791 edition of Tam o' Shanter

Now, it would of course be a travesty for the literary property of a lifelong bookworm such as Scott not to form a significant part of the exhibition on his life and work. However, from the standpoint of a Heritage team, paper is one of our more high-maintenance friends! Every January we have a complete changeover of all the books displayed in the Visitor Centre and then every three months, all those books have to be assessed to see how they are coping with display, with very few books permitted to remain on display for more than six months at a time. On the face of it, this may seem nonsensical. How could a book visibly change in a matter of months whilst locked away in a case?! You'd be surprised.   

Scott's personal bindings displaying his portcullis symbol and motto: Clausus Tutus Ero (roughly translates to 'Closed in I am safe), quite appropriate for the contents of a conservation library! 

When shelved, the books at Abbotsford are kept in an stable, environmentally controlled setting, packed fairly tightly with a gap at the back to ensure adequate air flow. Some of the books owned by Scott are contemporary with his life and writings but others were antiquarian treasures even by his standards. For books, the display process is all about finding the right angle for pitch and opening that puts the least strain on the binding. Sometimes, fascinating books we would love to display simply don't make the cut because they're too fragile. Others need to be carefully monitored to ensure they don't start to warp or gape when you attempt to close them and this is what we've been checking and photographing over the last few days for those books currently on open display. Pages also need to be turned to try and mitigate the damaging effects of UV light. For those books that are already showing any signs of structural deterioration at this three months check, it is the end of the road for their display and replacements on a similar theme must be sought. And thus the cycle continues.... but we wouldn't have it any other way!

The visual warning signs that a volume is not suited to prolonged display - Scott's copy of Halidon Hill.

The moral of the story is this: if you are a particular fan of an exhibition or museum that displays rare books, make sure you return every few months because you're always likely to see something new. For Abbotsford this time will come in the summer, so why not come and see our latest discoveries for yourself? 

Thanks for reading!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson
Heritage and Engagement Manager    

   

Welcome to our Blog!

Welcome to our Blog!

Hello and a very warm welcome to our very first blog post on behalf of the Abbotsford Heritage and Engagement team! Here at Sir Walter Scott's 'Conundrum Castle', quite literally stuffed to the rafters with antiquarian treasures, we thought it was high time that we shared some of the more quirky and unusual things that we intrepid souls in the Curatorial Department experience on a daily basis. Over the coming weeks and months we will try and shed some more light on particular objects in the collection, discuss potential research projects and interesting unanswered questions and share amusing anecdotes of the weird and wonderful things we end up turning our hands to. Now, as is so often the case with museums and charitable institutions, we are a busy team of two and will be seeking funding and voluntary support to allow us to really develop this blog to act as a tool for anyone who is curious (or indeed serious) about Scott to get something really meaningful from following us. In the meantime, we will try and share as much as we can.

The digital reconstruction of Robert the Bruce's tomb 

Abbotsford has been open to the public following a major restoration project for almost two years now, so you might be wondering 'why start a blog now?' Well, this week seems like a particularly good time to start sharing our stories as we celebrate the opening of our new 2015 exhibition: 'The Lost Tomb of Robert the Bruce.' This exhibition is the fruit of our first collaborative project with a number of other Scottish heritage bodies, making sharing new ideas and research something that is right at the forefront of our minds. Now, of course, it is our aim that readers will come to the house and see the display for themselves so don't expect to read too many exhibition spoilers here! What I do want to discuss is why I think Scott would have been pleased as punch to have the remaining fragments of the Bruce's tomb here in his beloved home, particularly as so many of the other fragments are far more ornate that the one he managed to acquire!

The remaining medieval marble fragments found when work was beginning on building the new parish kirk at Dunfermline in 1818 

Scott and the Bruce

Now, considering his penchant for augmenting history with myth, particularly with regard to reimagining the past of his native Scotland, it will come and no surprise that King Robert I fascinated Scott. 2015 is actually the bicentenary of The Lord of the Isles, one of his final poetical works and one that focuses on the exploits of the exiled Bruce in the seven years leading up to the famous victory at Bannockburn. Not only do we now know that he managed to acquire a piece of the Bruce's impressive marble tomb long since destroyed, but he also proudly displayed a cast of the monarch's skull here at Abbotsford. We know that the original cast of the skull was made by the sculptor, William Scoular, following the exhumation of what was believed to be the King's remains in 1818 whilst building work was going on at Dunfermline Abbey. This cast is now kept in the Anatomy Department of the University of Edinburgh and we know that further casts were taken from this original, one of which proved irresistible to the magpie eye of Sir Walter Scott.

Scott's Cast of the Bruce's Skull

Another rather fun fact is that Scott also seems to have had a hand in bringing that famous scene of the industrious spider inspiring the downtrodden king into the popular consciousness, along with the sentiment of the popular expression 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' The spider story appears in Tales of a Grandfather,written primarily for his beloved six year-old grandson, John Hugh Lockhart and published in 1828:

    "Bruce, seeing the success of the spider, resolved to try his own fortune; and as he had never before gained a victory, so he never afterwards sustained any considerable check or defeat. I have often met with people of the name Bruce, so completely persuaded of the truth of this story, that they would not on any account kill a spider; because it was that insect which had shown the example of perseverance, and given a signal of good luck, to their great namesake." 

Although this was the first time this parable of perseverance had entered the public sphere in any major way, the first reference to this small arachnid catalysing events in Scotland's history is buried in an account by David Hume of the exploits of the 'Black' Douglas, Bruce's ally. Now it turns out that Scott has a 1644 edition of this particular book in his library here at Abbotsford: The history of the house and race of Douglas and Angus written by Mr. David Hume of Godscroft , along with a host of other antiquarian historical books on the subject, so we can be pretty sure of where his inspiration for the moral lesson came from! 

Throughout Scott's writings you get the sense that he was captivated by the romanticised outlaws of the past and he collected items connected with them, sometimes very spuriously, as if they were magical amulets or totems. As Scotland's most famous warrior king, the tomb fragment is one of the most powerful example of this activity in relation to a monarch and I am positive that the great man himself would be thrilled to see the remaining fragments on public display together; sadly all that now remains of a once grand medieval monument to rival the French tombs of old. 

You can visit 'The Lost Tomb of Robert the Bruce' free of charge with a house admission ticket until November 30th 2015.  To find out more about visiting us, click here.

Thanks for reading!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson 
Heritage and Engagement Manager