Peveril of the Peak

1823 novel by Walter Scott

Peveril of the Peak (1823) is the longest novel by Sir Walter Scott. Along with Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, and Woodstock this is one of the English novels in the Waverley novels series, with the main action taking place around 1678 in the Peak District, the Isle of Man, and London, and centring on the Popish Plot.

Julian Peveril, a Cavalier, is in love with Alice Bridgenorth, a Roundhead's daughter, but both he and his father are accused of involvement with the "Popish Plot" of 1678. Most of the story takes place in Derbyshire, London, and on the Isle of Man. The title refers to Peveril Castle in Castleton, Derbyshire.

On 25 February 1822 Scott informed his Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable that he was thinking of writing a novel about the Popish Plot. He seems to have begun composition of Peveril of the Peak immediately after completing The Fortunes of Nigel at the beginning of May and the first volume was complete by mid July. Thereafter progress slowed, and the second volume was not finished until October: much of Scott's summer was taken up with arranging and superintending George IV's visit to Scotland, and he was deeply distressed at the death of his close friend William Erskine on 14 August. It had been intended that Peveril should be in the normal three volumes, but by mid October Scott was proposing to extend it to a fourth volume, in the belief that the third volume was turning out better than the first two and that he would hope to sustain this improvement into a fourth. Composition was now up to speed again; indeed, it became frenetic. By 14 December the third volume was complete and the fourth well under way, and the novel was finished before Christmas. Scott's knowledge of the Restoration period was very likely unequalled. He had amassed a unique collection of tracts and pamphlets relating to the Plot. He had edited both the Memoirs of Count Grammont (Anthony Hamilton) in 1811 and the collection known as Somers' Tracts, which had appeared in 13 volumes between 1809 and 1815. Several historical studies of the period published after 1700 were also in his library and proved invaluable quarries: Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Time by Gilbert Burnet (1724‒34); Examen by Roger North (1740); The History of England by David Hume (originally published in 1754‒62; and Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, edited by William Bray (1818). For the Isle of Man, which he never visited, Scott had memories of lost notes prepared by his brother Tom, as well as two works in his collection: A Description of the Isle of Man by George Waldron (1731) and An Account of the Isle of Man by William Sacherevell (1702). For Restoration London an invaluable source was A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster by John Stow, of which Scott owned the revised edition by John Strype published in 1720.

The first edition was published in Edinburgh on 7 January 1823, and appeared in London on the 22nd, after frustrating delays caused by stormy weather. As with all the Waverley novels before 1827 publication was anonymous. The print run was 10,000, and the price two guineas (£2 2s or £2.10). There is no reason to think that Scott was involved with the novel again until the late summer of 1830, when he revised the text and provided new notes and an introduction for the 'Magnum' edition, in which it appeared as Volumes 28, 29 and 30 in September, October, and November 1831. The standard modern edition, by Alison Lumsden, was published in 2007 as Volume 14 of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels: it is based on the first edition with emendations mainly from Scott's manuscript; the Magnum material is included in Volume 25b.

Sir Geoffrey Peveril and Major Bridgenorth had been boys together; and although they adopted different views in religion and politics, the major's influence had saved the Royalist's life after the battle of Bolton le Moors, and Lady Peveril had brought up his motherless girl, Alice, with her own son. After the Restoration, the Countess of Derby, who, through treachery, had suffered a long imprisonment by the Roundheads, sought protection at Martindale Castle, where Bridgenorth would have arrested her for having caused his brother in law, William Christian, to be shot as a traitor, had not the knight interfered by tearing up the warrant, and escorting her through Cheshire on her return to the Isle of Man. Alice was of course withdrawn from his wife's care, and it was supposed the major had emigrated to New England. Several years afterwards Sir Geoffrey's son Julian became the companion of the young earl, and, with the nurse Deborah's connivance, renewed his intimacy with his foster sister, who was under the care of her widowed aunt, Dame Christian. At one of the secret interviews between them, they were surprised by the entrance of her father, who related some of his religious experiences, and vaguely hinted that his consent to their marriage was not impossible. The next night, having undertaken to proceed to London, to clear the countess and her son from the suspicion of being concerned in Titus Oates's pretended Popish plot, Julian was conducted to a sloop by Fenella, his patron's deaf and dumb dwarf, and, as she was being taken ashore against her will while he was asleep, he dreamt that he heard Alice's voice calling for his help. At Liverpool he met Topham with a warrant against Sir Geoffrey, and on his way to the Peak to warn him, he travelled with Edward Christian, passing as Ganlesse, a priest, who led him to an inn, where they supped with Chiffinch, a servant of Charles II. On reaching Martindale Castle, he found his father and mother in the custody of Roundheads, and he was taken by Bridgenorth as a prisoner to Moultrassie Hall, where Alice received them, and he recognised Ganlesse among a number of Puritan visitors. During the night the Hall was attacked by the dependents and miners of the Peveril estate, and, having regained his liberty, Julian started, with Lance as his servant, in search of his parents, who he ascertained were on their way to London in charge of Topham. At an inn where they halted, Julian overheard Chiffinch revealing to a courtier a plot against Alice, and that he had been robbed of the papers entrusted to him by the countess, which, however, he managed to recover the next morning. Meanwhile, Christian, under whose care Bridgenorth had placed his daughter, communicated to the Duke of Buckingham a design he had formed of introducing her to Charles II, and, at an interview with her father, endeavoured to persuade him to abandon the idea of marrying her to young Peveril. Having reached London, Julian met Fenella, who led him into St. James's Park, where she attracted the notice of the king by dancing, and he sent them both to await his return at Chiffinch's apartments. Alice was already under the care of Mistress Chiffinch, and escaped from an interview with the duke to find herself in the presence of Charles and her lover, with whom, after he had placed the countess's papers in the king's hands, she was allowed to depart. Julian, however, lost her in a street fray, and having been committed to Newgate for wounding his assailant, he was placed in the same cell with the queen's dwarf, and conversed with an invisible speaker. After startling Christian with the news that his niece had disappeared, the duke bribed Colonel Blood to intercept his movements, so that he might not discover where she was, and was then himself astonished at finding Fenella instead of Alice, who had been captured by his servants in his house, and at her equally unexpected defiance of and escape from him. A few days afterwards, Sir Geoffrey Peveril, his son and the dwarf were tried for aiding and abetting Oates's Plot; but after nearly three years and the execution of at least fifteen innocent men, opinion had begun to turn against Oates. The last high profile victim of the climate of suspicion was Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, whose unjust slaughter is retold by Scott with no small dose of bitterness. Sir Geoffrey, his son and the dwarf are, at length, all acquitted. In order, however, to avoid the mob, they take refuge in a room, where they encounter Bridgenorth, who convinces Julian that they are in his power, and allows Christian to propose to the Duke of Buckingham that several hundred Fifth Monarchy men, led by Colonel Blood, should seize the king, and proclaim his Grace Lord Lieutenant of the kingdom. The same afternoon Charles has just granted an audience to the Countess of Derby, when the dwarf emerges from a violoncello case and reveals the conspiracy which Fenella had enabled him to overhear. It then transpires that Bridgenorth had released the Peverils, and that Christian had trained his daughter Fenella, whose real name was Zarah, to feign being deaf and dumb, in order that she might act as his spy; but that her secret love for Julian had frustrated the execution of his vengeance against the countess. He is allowed to leave the country, and the major, who on recovering Alice by Fenella's aid, had placed her under Lady Peveril's care, having offered to restore some of Sir Geoffrey's domains which had passed into his hands as her dowry, the king's recommendation secures the old knight's consent to the marriage which within a few weeks unites the Martindale Moultrassie families and estates.

Peveril of the Peak divided critical opinion. Half the reviewers thought highly of it, noting especially the richness of the incidents and the variety of the characters. All of the characters had many admirers, with the exception of Sir Geoffrey Hudson who was almost universally judged an excrescence, even by critics otherwise favourably disposed to the work. Fenella fascinated several reviewers, but rather more thought that she was generally improbable, or at any rate that she became less convincing as the story progressed. Several of the other characters provoked diametrically opposed assessments: thus Bridgenorth was either masterly or hopelessly inconsistent, the lovers were either unusually spirited or vapid, and Buckingham and Christian also divided opinion. The novel was praised for its picture of the age, though some found the period unrewarding or distasteful. The plot was either unusually skilful or typically confused. Those reviewers who were generally hostile objected to the money making four volume format, with the repetition and inflation of material from earlier novels in the series. The scene with Ganlesse and Smith in the inn was almost universally praised. Several of the reviewers doubted if their critical labours served much purpose, since readers had by now made their minds up as to the merits of this author, and the novels were read by everyone soon after publication.

The character of Fenella, a deaf and dumb fairy like attendant of the Countess of Derby, was suggested by Goethe's Mignon in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. The hiding of the Countess of Derby in the novel was based on the story of Mrs. Macfarlane which took place around 1716. "Peak haunting Peveril" is one of many topical references in "The Heavy Dragoon Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience (opera). The Peveril of the Peak pub is in Manchester city centre.