Sir Walter Scott and Rosslyn Chapel

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Many visitors come to visit Rosslyn Chapel each year, because they have read a best-selling book or have seen a Hollywood movie. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, has made this small Scottish Chapel famous world-wide.

But you may not be aware that over 200 years ago another best-selling piece of writing attracted visitors to Rosslyn Chapel.

The author of this work was Sir Walter Scott, one of Scotland’s most prolific writers. Scott is credited with creating the modern historical novel, and he is immortalised in monuments from Edinburgh to New York. Edinburgh’s famous Waverley railway station is named after Scott’s novel of the same name.

Suffering from polio as a child, Scott was sent to his grandparents in the Scottish Borders, and it was here he developed a lifelong love of poetry and songs of the area. He returned to Edinburgh to study, but after graduating from the University of Edinburgh he settled in the Borders as Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. This post afforded him the luxury of travelling around Scotland, where he was able to gather much material which he could use in his own creative writing.

From 1798-1803 Scott rented a small thatched cottage in Lasswade village, Midlothian. In 1802 he published a substantial work, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders. Many traditional Borders ballads which are popular today can be found in this collection.

Sir Walter Scott’s success as a poet and author brought him lasting fame and he is also remembered for his promotion of Scottish history and culture.

1 Sir Walter Scott and Rosslyn Chapel

It is interesting that William and Dorothy Wordsworth paid Scott an unexpected visit in 1803 – the same period in which they visited Rosslyn Chapel. Dorothy Wordsworth wrote of the Chapel’s beauty in her Recollections of a tour made in Scotland, 1803:

'We ordered dinner on our return to the inn, and went to view the inside of the Chapel of Roslin, which is kept locked up, and so preserved from the injuries it might otherwise receive from idle boys; but as nothing is done to keep it together, it must in the end fall. The architecture within is exquisitely beautiful. The stone both of the roof and walls is sculptured with leaves and flowers, so delicately wrought that I could have admired them for hours, and the whole of their groundwork is stained by time with the softest colours . . .' Dorothy Wordsworth visited Rosslyn Chapel in 1803 when she described the Chapel as 'exquisitely beautiful'.

The same visit also inspired her brother William Wordsworth to write the poem, Composed in Roslin Chapel during a Storm:

THE wind is now thy organist;--a clank (We know not whence) ministers for a bell To mark some change of service. As the swell Of music reached its height, and even when sank The notes, in prelude, ROSLIN! to a blank Of silence, how it thrilled thy sumptuous roof, Pillars, and arches,--not in vain time-proof, Though Christian rites be wanting! From what bank Came those live herbs? By what hand were they sown Where dew falls not, where rain-drops seem unknown? Yet in the Temple they a friendly niche Share with their sculptured fellows, that, green-grown, Copy their beauty more and more, and preach, Though mute, of all things blending into one.

Who knows, Scott’s interest in Rosslyn Chapel may William Wordsworth visited the Chapel three times and penned the poem Composed in Roslin Chapel during a Storm following one of this visits. have been sparked by the Wordsworth’s obvious love of the ruined Chapel.

2 Sir Walter Scott and Rosslyn Chapel

The Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Sir Walter Scott, Illustration from The Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Sir Walter Scott, W J Gage edition, 1901 raised the profile of Rosslyn Chapel.

But it was Scott’s ballad, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, published in Seemed all on fire that chapel proud, 1805 and a best seller of its day, which brought Rosslyn Chapel Where Roslin’s chiefs uncofinned lie to wider public attention, turning it into a visitor attraction for Each Baron, for a sable shroud, the first time. Scott’s biographer, Edgar Johnson, wrote that: Sheathed in his iron panoply. Seemed all on fire within, around, ‘In the entire history of British poetry there has Deep sacristy and altar’s pale; never been anything like the popularity of the Shone every pillar foliage-bound, Lay of the Last Minstrel.’ And glimmered all the dead men's mail. Blazed battlement and pinnet high, It is a verse romance in the Gothic manner, dealing with a Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair 16th century border feud. The story is narrated one and a half So still they blaze, when fate is nigh centuries after the events, from the point of view of an ageing The lordly line of high St Clair. Minstrel. The part that relates to Rosslyn Chapel appears in Canto 6. The Dirge of Rosabelle tells of the legendary fire that lit up the Chapel when a member of the St Clair family was about to die. It also sheds light on what may be found in the vaults of the Chapel.

3 Sir Walter Scott and Rosslyn Chapel

As well as finding fame as a poet, Scott is credited with Scott’s novels sparked a passion for the historical novel creating the historical novel, with the publication of among readers and writers that remains strong to this day. Waverley in 1814. His work blended fictional dialogue Rosslyn Chapel benefited from the interest sparked by with historical fact, and his Waverley series of novels The Lay of the Last Minstrel and The Talisman, as horse-drawn made him one of the most successful authors of all time. buses brought tourists out to the village, and the house at College Hill became an Inn to accommodate visitors. In his novel, The Talisman, about a Knight Templar, Scott used the interior of Rosslyn Chapel as his bewitching From the mid-twentieth century, interest in Rosslyn had chapel of the Hermit of Engaddi. And so taken was waned, and the Chapel was in a perilous state Scott by the carvings at Rosslyn Chapel he had of repair. There was a small congregation, and visitors wooden/plasterwork copies made of some of them came, but not enough to pay for the substantial structural which can be seen in the library at Abbotsford House, repairs that were needed to save the building from ruin. Scott’s home in the Scottish Borders. It has even been The formation of Rosslyn Chapel Trust heralded a major said that some of the characters in Scott’s novels were fundraising campaign, and the popularity of a modern mix based on members of the St Clair family. of history and fiction called The Da Vinci Code, sparked renewed interest in the Chapel. We do thank Dan Brown for bringing us so many paying visitors, but we are also extremely grateful to Sir Walter Scott, who brought the Chapel into the public eye in the first place!

Adapted from an audio podcast by Rosslyn Chapel guide Margaret Grainger, Autumn 2019.

A chaffeur outside Rosslyn Chapel at the start of the 20th century.