Scott's 'Kenilworth' 1821

 

First edition - 1821

Kenilworth is set squarely in 1575, the year that the Earl of Leicester played host to Queen Elizabeth at his magnificent castle. Dudley's father had been given the fortress in 1553 and it was restored to his son by the Queen in 1563. The famous festivities lasted 19 days.`

Cumnor Place, now in Oxfordshire

Walter Scott's novel centres on the secret marriage of the Earl of Leicester to Amy Robshart, daughter of Sir Hugh Robshart. Leicester's ambition (even the chance of marriage to the Queen) means Amy is kept  (really imprisoned) at Cumnor Place, then in Berkshire, by henchmen, including Anthony Foster - Tony Fire-the Faggot - the drunkard Michael Lambourne and, off-and-on, Richard Varney, Dudley's evil squire. Trying first to find Amy, and then extricate her from the villains, is the Cornishman, Tressillian, once Amy's suitor and delegate from her distraught old father. He is joined by Wayland Smith** and, later, by Dickie Sludge (Flibbertigibbet). Amy is spirited away to Kenilworth, but disaster follows, leading to Amy's murder by Lambourne back at Cumnor. He is executed and Foster is found years later - a skeleton in the secret room found at the Place (shades of Francis Lovel and Minster Lovel!).

The Earl of Leicester in 1575

The problem is that, for all the splendid scenes - at Greenwich Palace, at Cumnor Place and in Kenilworth Castle - the basic plot is historical nonsense!

• Amy Robshart had been dead for 15 years in 1575. She was never Countess of Leicester. Far from being a clandestine affair taking place in Elizabeth's Reign, her marriage to Lord Robert Dudley was known to all. It took place at Sheen Palace, in the presence of Edward VI, on 4 June 1550. She was the only child of a substantial Norfolk (not Cornish) gentleman, Sir John Robshart. She broke her neck falling downstairs at Cumnor in September 1560. She may have died from breast cancer, but many thought the death suspicious and not an accident. Dudley was suspended from Court, Elizabeth ordered an enquiry which exonerated him; but few outside his family were convinced. Elizabeth resumed her indiscreet visits to Dudley. The latter was made Earl of Leicester in September 1564. 

Amy Robshart's death

• William Shakespeare, mentioned in the novel as being an adult and as being known at Court, was born in 1564, so would have been an unknown twelve year-old. Elizabeth also quotes from Troilus and Cressida, which was written around 1602.
• Walter Raleigh was not knighted by Elizabeth until 1585. He only settled at Court from 1581.

Raleigh lays down his cloak

** Of interest is the English local tradition, which places Wayland's forge in a Neolithic long barrow mound known as Wayland's Smithy, close to the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire. If a horse to be shod, or any broken tool, were left with a sixpenny piece at the entrance of the barrow, the repairs would be executed.

Do these major historical inaccuracies matter? Not really. They are no worse than the Americans winning single-handedly every war they fought in. One should enjoy the novel for what it is - fiction and 'poetical fancy'. So, what are its plus sides? The rivalry between Leicester and the Earl of Sussex is well done , with their very different characters delineated; Raleigh is believable, in his first attempts to catch and then keep the queen's eye; the evil of Varney is sustained throughout, always skilfully playing to his master's ambition and weaknesses; Foster has some principles, alien to Varney; Lambourne is more than just a caricature of a drunkard. Scott appears to have eventually got bored (?) with Wayland Smith and, after a mesmerising start, the character loses individuality. Scott's Queen Elizabeth is shrewdly done - here is depicted the true daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, in all her majesty, pomp and circumstance, but also with a woman's heart and longing. The ruler trumps the queen, as it did in real life. 

The fight on the tiltyard - Kenilworth Castle

There is much to admire in the book - both in character drawing and dramatic incidents;  in the claustrophobic, crumbling Cumnor and the magnificent pageantry of Kenilworth. I do feel, though, with John Buchan, that if Scott's understanding was fully engaged in the business, his heart was a little aloof...[it is his] masterpiece in sheer craftsmanship as distinct from inspiration...his learning was more voluminous than exact, and he took bold liberties with history.

Kenilworth Castle

My first edition has been grangerised*, with 133 engravings/copper plates inserted into the three volumes. They are nearly all from the 18th or early 19th centuries.  

* an eponym, commemorating James Granger (vicar of Shiplake in Oxfordshire from 1747 until his death in 1776). He was an early and avid collector of portrait prints, amassing in his lifetime some 14,000 of them. The method was to mount illustrations on sheets of the same size as the book you were grangerising, remove the binding, interpolate the extra sheets and rebind the book. The irony is that Granger himself never grangerised!