THE LATER ABBOTSFORD
Sir Walter's Abbotsford, as we saw, was completed in 1824. For the
next thirty years there was practically no alteration on the place.
At Scott's death the second Sir Walter came into possession. He
does not appear to have lived at Abbotsford after 1832, and indeed
for many years previous his time had been spent almost entirely
with his regiment, the 15th Hussars, of which, at his father's
death, he was Major. In 1839, as Lieutenant-Colonel, he proceeded
to Madras, and subsequently commanded the Hussars in India. At
Bangalore, in August, 1846, having exposed himself rashly to the
sun during a tiger-hunt, he was smitten with fever, from which he
never recovered. Obliged to return to England, his death took place
on board the _Wellesley_, near the Cape of Good Hope, February 8,
1847, in his forty-sixth year. His widow conveyed his remains to
this country for interment at Dryburgh Abbey on May 4 following.
Lady Scott--the pretty 'Jeanie' Jobson of Lochore,[27] as she was
affectionately called by the old people of Ballingry, in which
parish Lochore estate lies--continued to reside for the most part
in London, and only once visited Abbotsford. They had no family,
which put a pathetic finis to Scott's most cherished dream. Lady
Scott died at London, March 19,1877, in her seventy-sixth year, and
was buried at Dryburgh.[28] Charles Scott,[29] younger son of Sir
Walter, 'whose spotless worth tenderly endeared him to the few who
knew him intimately,' and with whom much of the Naples pilgrimage
was spent, died at Teheran, October 29, 1841, in his thirty-sixth
year. He was buried there, whither he had gone as attaché and
private secretary to Sir John McNeill, Commissioner to the Court of
Persia. Anne Scott, the 'Lady Anne' of many delightful pleasantries
(the original of Alice Lee in 'Woodstock'), Scott's younger
daughter, died June 25, 1833, less than a year after her father. A
handsome sarcophagus, still in excellent repair, covers her remains
in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Charlotte Sophia Scott--so named
in honour of a French lady, Sophia Dumergue, who had befriended the
first Lady Scott's mother on her arrival in England--wife of John
Gibson Lockhart, died May 17, 1837. Of her two sons, the elder,
John Hugh ('Hugh Littlejohn') died December 15, 1831, and, like
his mother and aunt, was interred at Kensal Green. Walter Scott
Lockhart, the younger, born April 16, 1826, became a Lieutenant
in the 16th Lancers, and succeeded to Abbotsford on the death of
his uncle in 1847, assuming the additional surname of Scott. He
died, unmarried, at Versailles, January 10, 1853, and was buried
in the Notre Dame Cemetery there. Charlotte Harriet Jane, born
January 1, 1828, only daughter of the Lockharts, and granddaughter
of Sir Walter Scott, then came into possession. She was the wife
of James Robert Hope, Q.C., who, on her succeeding to Abbotsford,
also assumed the family name of Scott. To Mr. Hope Scott and his
wife were born: A boy, who died at birth, 1848; Walter Michael,
born June 2, 1857, died December 11, 1858; Mary Monica, by-and-by
heiress of Abbotsford, born at Tunbridge Wells, October 2, 1852;
Margaret Anne, born September 17, 1858, died December 3 of the same
year. Mrs. Hope Scott died of consumption at Edinburgh, October
26, 1858, aged thirty. Mr. Hope Scott married January 7, 1861, as
his second wife, Lady Victoria Alexandrina Fitzalan Howard, eldest
daughter of the fourteenth Duke of Norfolk, by whom he had two
sons: Philip, born April 8, 1868, who died next day, and James,
born December 18, 1870, now M.P. for the Brightside Division of
Sheffield; also four daughters--Minna Margaret, born June 6,
1862, wife of Sir Nicholas O'Conor, G.C.M.G., British Ambassador
at Constantinople; and Catherine, a twin, who died the day of her
birth; Josephine Mary, born May 18, 1864, married Wilfred Philip
Ward, B.A., son of 'Ideal' Ward of the Oxford Movement, and himself
a well-known writer on ecclesiastical controversies; Theresa Anne,
born September 14, 1865, a Carmelite nun, who died November 1,
1891. Lady Victoria died December 20, 1870, aged thirty, the same
age, curiously, as Mr. Hope Scott's first wife. Mr. Hope Scott
himself died April 29, 1873. His remains were laid beside those of
Mrs. Hope Scott and her children in the vaults of St. Margaret's
Convent at Edinburgh, Lady Victoria and her children being buried
at Arundel.
Mary Monica Hope Scott, the sole surviving descendant of Sir Walter
Scott, now succeeded to the estate, and on July 21, 1874, married
the Hon. Joseph Constable-Maxwell, third son of William, eleventh
Baron Herries of Terregles, and Marcia, eldest daughter of the
Hon. Sir Edward Marmaduke Vavasour, first Bart., of Hazlewood,
Yorkshire, then Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade. Their children are:
1. Walter Joseph, born April 10, 1875, Captain in the Cameronians.
He volunteered for South Africa, and was in Ladysmith throughout
the siege.
2. Joseph Michael, born May 25, 1880, a Lieutenant R.N., H.M.S.
_Dominion_.
3. Malcolm Joseph Raphael, born October 22, 1883, Sub-Lieutenant
R.N., H.M.S. _Pegasus_.
4. Herbert Francis Joseph, born March 14, 1891, a student at
Stonyhurst.
5. Mary Josephine, born June 5, 1876; married (1897) Alexander
Dalglish.
6. Alice Mary Josephine, born October 9, 1881; married (1905)
Edward Cassidy of Monasterevan, County Kildare.
7. Margaret Mary Lucy, born December 13, 1886.
JAMES ROBERT HOPE SCOTT, who may be styled the second
maker of Abbotsford, was born at Great Marlow, in Berkshire, July
15, 1812. He was the third son (not second, as the 'Abridged
Lockhart' has it) of General the Hon. Sir Alexander Hope of
Rankeillour and Luffness, G.C.B., M.P., sometime Governor of
Chelsea Hospital. His mother was Georgina Alicia, youngest
daughter of George Brown of Elleston, Roxburghshire. The family of
Hope, honourable in Scottish history to the present day, is of
considerable antiquity. The name is derived from the Saxon _hop_
or _hope_, signifying a sheltered place among hills. The names
of Adam le Hope and John de Hope appear on the Ragman Roll as
swearing fealty to Edward I. in 1296. Edward Hope was a leading
Edinburgh citizen in Queen Mary's time. His grandson was the
celebrated King's Advocate, Sir Thomas Hope, of Craighall, whose
great-grandson, again, Charles Hope, of Hopetoun, became the first
Earl of that name. His son, the second Earl, had for his third wife
Lady Elizabeth Leslie, daughter of the Earl of Leven and Melville,
and of two sons born to them, the second was General Sir Alexander,
father of James Robert Hope.
Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, young Hope was called
to the Bar in 1838, and specializing as a Parliamentary Counsel,
soon found himself in a large and lucrative practice. On August
19, 1847, he married Lockhart's daughter. Her description is
that of 'a very attractive person, with a graceful figure, a
sweet and expressive face, brown eyes of great brilliance, and a
beautifully shaped head. The chin, indeed, was heavy, but even this
added to the interest of the face by its striking resemblance
to the same feature in her great ancestor, Sir Walter Scott.'
There is a portrait of her at Abbotsford. The following year Mr.
Hope Scott rented Abbotsford from his brother-in-law, removing
thither in August. Five years after, on the death of the latter,
Abbotsford fell to him as possessor in right of his wife, and
for the remainder of his life it became his principal residence.
The place had been sadly neglected since Scott's death in 1832,
and everything needed restoration. But the new laird's purse was
splendidly equal to the occasion. He did wonders for Abbotsford.
Between the years 1855 and 1857 he built a new west wing to the
house, consisting of a Chapel, hall, drawing-room, boudoir, and a
suite of bedrooms. The old kitchen was turned into a linen-room,
and a long range of new kitchen offices facing the Tweed was
erected, which materially raised the elevation of Scott's edifice,
and improved the appearance of the whole pile as seen from the
river. An ingenious tourist access was also arranged, with other
internal alterations. Outside, the grounds and gardens were
completely overhauled, the overgrown plantations thinned, and the
old favourite walks cleaned and kept as Scott himself would have
wished. In the lifetime of the Great Magician the ground on which
he fixed his abode was nearly on a level with the highway running
along the south front, and wayfarers could survey the whole domain
by looking over the hedge. A high embankment was now thrown up
on the road-front of Abbotsford, the road itself shifted several
yards back, the avenue lengthened, a lodge built, and the new mound
covered with a choice variety of timber, which has now grown into
one of the most pleasing features of the Abbotsford approach. The
courtyard was at the same time planted as a flower-garden, with
clipped yews at the corners of the ornamental grass-plots, and beds
all ablaze with summer flowers. The terraces on the north, so rich
and velvety, date from this period.
These, with much elaborate and costly furnishing for the new
interior, make up the Abbotsford of to-day. Mr. Hope Scott had not
the 'yerd-hunger' of his illustrious predecessor. His was rather
a 'stone-and-lime mania,' all to most excellent purpose, however.
Most visitors to Abbotsford have the impression that Sir Walter was
responsible for every part of the present edifice, whereas it is
at least a third larger from that of Scott's day. From the south,
the Hope Scott addition is easily recognisable, being of light
freestone, in contrast to the darker hue of the 1824 pile, which
is built of native red whin. The Hope Scott succession practically
rescued Abbotsford when its fortunes were at their lowest, and its
history almost at a standstill. After sixteen years, Abbotsford had
once more a family life and a domestic happiness of a singularly
exalted type. Everybody must admit the ideally happy life spent
by Scott himself at Abbotsford--prior to 1826, at any rate. Few
men enjoyed life more. His happiness, in the main, sprang from the
physical side of things--the out-of-doors sports and exercises in
which he revelled, and which were among the chief attractions of
his Abbotsford. Scott was never happier than when he was making
others happy. No man sacrificed himself more on that side. And
surely that was religion at its reallest. Scott did not say much
about religion. He had, like Lockhart, all a Scotsman's reticence
on the subject. But that he gave it profound and reverent
thought--that there was in him a vein of earnest religious
feeling,[30] goes without saying, strong man of the world though he
was, and exhibiting, as he did, many things outré to the ordinary
religious sense--seldom going to church, for instance, (he read the
Church of England Service-Book, however, to his household); and
'writing his task' on Sundays more often than he should.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN, ABBOTSFORD]
'Trim Abbotsford so gay,
The rose-trees flaunting there so bold,
The ripening fruits in rind of gold,
And thou their lord away.'
Mr. Hope Scott's happiness, on the other hand, was the outcome of
striking spiritual experiences. He had always been eminent for
piety, and his views in connection with the Oxford Movement were
well known. In 1851, after anxious deliberation, he became a Roman
Catholic, and was received on the same day as Cardinal Manning.
Shortly afterwards his wife followed him into the same communion.
Mr. Hope Scott's religion was consequently a dominating influence
at Abbotsford, permeating, as was said, the whole atmosphere of
the place. 'The impression left by that most interesting and
charming family,' writes a lady visitor in 1854, 'could never be
effaced from my mind. It always seemed to me the most perfect type
of a really Christian household, such as I never saw in the world
before or since. A religious atmosphere pervaded the whole house,
and not only the guests, but the servants, must, it seems to me,
have felt its influence. Mr. Hope Scott was the beau-idéal of an
English gentleman, and a Christian.' There were many guests at the
later Abbotsford--a different order from those of an earlier day.
Hither came John Henry Newman for five weeks during the winter of
1852-53, and again, for a fortnight, in 1872. 'We have a Chapel in
the house, but no Chaplain,' wrote Hope Scott to Newman. 'You can
say Mass at your own hour, observe your own ways in everything, and
feel all the time perfectly at home.' Newman replied: 'It would
be a pleasure to spend some time with you; and then I have ever
had the extremest sympathy for Walter Scott, that it would delight
me to see his place. When he was dying, I was saying prayers for
him continually (whatever they were worth), thinking of Keble's
words, "Think on the Minstrel as ye kneel."' And, again, we have
Newman writing: 'I have ever had such a devotion, I may call it,
to Walter Scott. As a boy, in the early summer mornings, I read
"Waverley" and "Guy Mannering" in bed, when they first came out,
before it was time to get up; and long before that--I think when
I was eight years old--I listened eagerly to the "Lay of the Last
Minstrel," which my mother and aunt were reading aloud. When he
was dying I was continually thinking of him. Hope Scott was one
of the Cardinal's 'intimates.' He was also on affectionate terms
with Manning and Gladstone, to the latter of whom he dedicated
his edition of Lockhart's 'Abridgment of the Life.'[31] Several
passages in Morley's 'Gladstone' show how strong and genuine was
the bond between them. 'Hope especially had influence over me
more than, I think, any other person at any period of my life. My
affection for him during those latter years before his change was,
I may almost say, intense; there was hardly anything, I think,
which he could have asked me to do, and which I would not have
done.' When Hope Scott joined the Roman Church, Gladstone, the day
after, made a codicil to his will, striking him out as executor.
Friendship did not die, however, but only lived 'as it lives
between those who inhabit separate worlds.'
A man of great wealth,[32] Mr. Hope Scott never spared his means
when the interests of religion were in question. As an example of
his Christian zeal and affection for Romanism, it may be stated
that he built the Church of Our Lady and St. Andrew at Galashiels
at a cost of £10,000, also the Chapel at Selkirk, the Church on
Loch Shiel, and the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Kelso.
He helped churches and schools and convents all over the country.
Following his death in 1873 (Newman preaching his funeral sermon),
Abbotsford went to Mary Monica[33] (named from a favourite saint).
So we are thankful that there is still a Scott--one of Sir Walter's
blood--his great-granddaughter, 'Lady of Abbotsford.'
THE TREASURES OF ABBOTSFORD