Marmion by Sir Walter Scott

First published: 1808

Type of work: Poetry

Type of plot: Historical

Time of plot: Early sixteenth century

Locale: Scottish border

Principal characters

• Lord Marmion, an English knight
• Ralph de Wilton, wronged by Marmion, disguised as a palmer
• Clare Fitz-Clare, loved by de Wilton
• Constance de Beverley, betrayed by Marmion
• Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus

The Poem:

Wherever Lord Marmion goes, he is welcomed and honored as a brave and valiant knight. The English king has sent him to the Scottish court to try to persuade that country’s king to end armed raids in the Border country. Marmion asks a Scottish lord to furnish him a guide, someone of peaceful appearance, and since no one else is available the lord sends a palmer, a holy man who had made many pilgrimages to religious shrines.

At the same time, an abbess, accompanied by several nuns, is making a sea voyage to Cuthbert Isle to hold an inquisition over two prisoners of the Church. One of the young nuns aboard, still a novice, is Clare Fitz-Clare, a lovely young woman who had entered the abbey after her lover, dishonored, had, it was believed, died. One of the accused is Constance de Beverley, a nun who has broken her vows and run away from the convent. Before she is put to death, Constance tells the abbess and her other accusers the story of her fall from grace.

Constance’s betrayer is Lord Marmion. Believing his protestations of love for her, she escapes from the convent and follows him for three years as his page. Then Marmion meets lovely Clare Fitz-Clare, and, because she is an heir of great wealth, he abandons Constance to seek Clare for his bride. The king promises him that he should have Clare, but she loves another knight, Ralph de Wilton.

Marmion forges papers that offer false proof that Wilton is not true to the king. The two knights fight a duel, and de Wilton is left for dead. Constance, soon to die, gives the papers proving the forgery to the abbess and implores her to get the papers to the king to save Clare from a hateful marriage. Although the woman has entered a convent rather than marry Marmion, the king will force the marriage if Clare is found, for Marmion is a great favorite at court. Although her judges pity her, Constance is put to a horrible death after she tells her story.

Marmion continues on his way to the court. Guilty thoughts of Constance worry him; he had been responsible for her capture by the Church. He soothes his conscience with the belief that she will not be severely punished. One night as they stay at an inn a young boy sings a ballad about the soul’s disquiet of every man who would betray a maid. At the end of the song Marmion thinks he hears the tolling of a death bell. When the knight mentions the tolling sound he hears, the palmer speaks his first words, saying that it is the toll of death for a friend. That night Marmion, unable to sleep, goes out into the dark to ride. There he is attacked by what seems a devil, for the man has the face of de Wilton, long dead. The strangest part is that Marmion’s mysterious adversary could have killed him, but instead sheathes his sword and rides off into the night.

As Marmion and his men ride through the Border country, they notice everywhere huge numbers of armed clansmen readying for battle. On their arrival at the Scottish court, Marmion cannot persuade King James to halt preparations for battle. The Scots, claiming that the English wronged them, demand vengeance. Courtesy requires that Marmion be given safe conduct during his mission, however, and so the king puts him in the care of Archibald Douglas, one of the most powerful of all the lords of Scotland. Douglas also is charged with the care of the abbess and her nuns, who are to be returned safely to their convent but who have been taken captive, it being time of war, by the Scots. The abbess fears for Clare’s safety if Marmion should learn that she is among the party of nuns. To save Clare from a forced and hated union, the holy woman gives the papers proving Marmion’s forgery to the palmer and begs him to deliver them to the English king.

Marmion, learning the woman’s identity, secures an order directing him to take Clare to her home, with Douglas for an escort. Separated from the abbess, Clare fears for her safety with Marmion, but he plans not to press his suit until she has been returned to her kinsmen, who will be dominated by the king. Marmion and Clare are quartered in Tantallon Castle, owned by Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus, to await the impending battle between English and Scottish troops.

Clare, lonely and afraid, walks out onto the battlements of the castle. There she meets a young knight who proves to be de Wilton. Clare hears his story. He had not been mortally wounded in his combat with Marmion, but had been healed and cared for by one of his servants. The loyal servant asks one boon for saving his life, that should de Wilton’s deadliest enemy fall beneath his sword that enemy should be spared. The young knight wanders far, his name scorned by all who once loved him because he is now branded as a traitor. At last he disguises himself so well that no one recognizes in the lowly palmer the once-proud knight. It is de Wilton who had so frightened Marmion during his midnight ride, but he had kept his promise to his old servant and spared the life of the man who had ruined him. The young man told Douglas his story, which was confirmed by the papers given him by the abbess. That night Douglas restores to de Wilton his knightly honors, and the next day de Wilton joins the English troops.

Marmion, unable to resist the spectacle of troops drawn up for battle, defies Douglas and rides off to join the fight. Having learned from one of his company the palmer’s true identity and fearing that he will lose Clare, he takes her to a place of safety behind the English lines. When the battle begins, Marmion is mortally wounded. Clare, pitying the man she hates, tended him gently. Before he dies, Marmion learns of the death of Constance and repents all his sins.

The English defeat the Scots in a bloody battle on Flodden Field. De Wilton is everywhere in the thick of the fighting. After the battle, his lands and his titles are returned to him, and Clare is given to him with the king’s blessing. The proud name of de Wilton is known again through the land. Marmion, as he deserved, lay in an unmarked grave.

Bibliography

Alexander, J. H., and David Hewett, eds. Scott and His Influence. Aberdeen: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1983. Collection of scholarly papers on a variety of Scott topics, including a discussion of Marmion.

Cockshut, A. O. J. The Achievement of Walter Scott. London: Collins, 1969. A reasonable, centrist, and widely available introduction to Scott and his work. Chapters on Scott’s major poems precede those dealing with his novels and other works.

Felluga, Dino Franco. The Perversity of Poetry: Romantic Ideology and the Popular Male Poet of Genius. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. An examination of the nineteenth century reception for Romantic poetry, focusing on the work of Scott and Lord Byron. Demonstrates how Scott’s poetry was represented as a panacea for the era’s utilitarianism, capitalism, industrialism, and democracy.

Gamer, Michael.“’To Foist Thy Stale Romance’: Scott, Antiquarianism, and Authorship.” In Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Gamer analyzes Scott’s poetry and works by other Romantic writers to demonstrate how these authors were influenced by many of the conventions of earlier gothic literature.

Goslee, Nancy Moore. Scott the Rhymer. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988. Includes separate chapters on Marmion, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and The Lady of the Lake (1810). One of the few serious critiques of Scott’s long poems since modern techniques of analysis were developed.

Johnson, Edgar. Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Johnson’s critical biography is one of the most important modern books on Scott. Contains unsurpassed discussions of his major poems, including Marmion, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and The Lady of the Lake. Commemorates the two hundredth anniversary of Scott’s birth.

Lincoln, Andrew. “Towards the Modern Nation: The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, and Waverly.” In Walter Scott and Modernity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. In his examination of Scott’s novels and poems, Lincoln argues that these are not works of nostalgia; instead, Scott used the past as a means of exploring modernist moral, political, and social issues.