Discussion
The poem refers to the ruins of
Loch Leven Castle, which stand on one of the
lakeʼs islands, opposite
Kinross. The Ruskins regularly passed near
Loch Leven,
journeying north from
Edinburgh to
Perth,
the home of
Ruskinʼs
Aunt Jessie Richardson and his Scottish cousins
(as opposed to his English cousins by the same last name, Richardson, who lived in
Croydon).
Between
Loch Leven and
Perth,
the family passed through
Glenfarg.
This historic setting had recently been made famous by
Walter Scottʼs novel,
The Abbot (
1820), which used the events surrounding the imprisonment of
Mary, Queen of Scots, in
Loch Leven Castle in
1567,
and her forced abdication to her infant son, the future
James VI, followed by the queenʼs
dramatic escape from the castle in
1568. According to
Scottʼs annotation for the
Magnum Opus
edition of the novel,
Mary escaped in
May 1568, aided by a young man,
William Douglas, who was probably related to the lords of the
castle.
Douglas stole the keys and freed the
queen and a waiting
woman, escorting them “out of the tower itself, [and] embarked with them in a small skiff, and rowed them to the shore”
(
Scott, Works, Caledonian Edition, 20:325). In the novel,
the role of
Douglas is taken by the young page,
Roland Graeme. A touristʼs
guide book of the period pictures the historical scene more melodramatically: “under a load of misery which might have subdued a mind more masculine than
herʼs [sic],
Mary exerted the potent witchery of her charms upon the heart of young
Douglas,
who, intoxicated with a romantic passion and ambitious hopes, sacrificed his duty and family interests at the shrine of all‐powerful love”
(
The Scottish Tourist, and Itinerary, 126).
If
Ruskinʼs poem reflects the familyʼs engagement with
Scottʼs novel,
the allusion predates
Ruskinʼs versification of
Scottʼs
The Monastery (
1820),
the novel to which
The Abbot forms a sequel (see
“The Monastery”).
John James Ruskin first recorded a purchase of
The Abbot in
1829
(too early for the version of the novel for the
Magnum Opus edition
[
Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters,
188 n. 4;
Millgate, Scottʼs Last Edition, 24]), but this proves nothing about the familyʼs first reading of the story.
Together, the novels rest on a historiography pointing favorably to the
Union of Scotland and England
under a
Protestant king. Kindred British sentiment is perhaps expressed in
Ruskinʼs poem,
“The Defiance of War”.
For a Romantic view of the
castle taken near the time of
Ruskinʼs poem, see the
engraving Loch Leven Castle by
Joseph Swan
after
John Fleming for
([
1839], 207 opp.), which shows, according to the letterpress by
John Leighton
(pp. 207–12), the great square keep, adjoined by the entrance to the courtyard and the ruins of the chapel. In the distance, the sun sets over the
shore of the
lake and the
Ochil Hills, perhaps suggestive of
Maryʼs escape.
Leighton also comments on the lakeʼs celebrated trout, which accounts for
Ruskinʼs interest in fishing boats in his poem, an attraction almost as
great as the legends about Queen Mary.