The Statue Room
In order to explain why something is different, one must discuss those things it is different from. In this case, I'm explaining why Sir Walter Scott's The Monastery and The Abbot (both 1820) are not like, say, Sophia Lee's The Recess (1783), Lady Jane Grey (1791), or Rossetta Ballin's The Statue Room (1790). In turn, this chapter will now (thanks to reader requests) set up the rest of Book Two, which in part has to do with how my religious historical novels revise Scott. (Hooray! I'm nearly done with this chapter!)
Of course, as I mentioned before, the only one of these books that gets more than a sentence is The Recess, because we know that Scott actually took an interest in it. Alas, one of the perils of research is that one must read a lot in order to quote a little.
Now, The Recess is actually a reasonably good (and rather unusual) late-18th c. Gothic novel. Lady Jane Grey is...not quite so competent, but not so bad that I fantasized about feeding it to silverfish while I was reading it. (Of course, I was reading a digitized version, so the silverfish wouldn't do much damage anyway.) The Statue Room is...well, it's...OK, it's pretty horrifying. And not because it's Gothic. Silverfish may be too generous for this novel.
(I.v): It seems to me that "unmanured by the solar beams of experience" is not quite the proper turn of phrase. It also has certain unpleasant connotations that do not, perhaps, bode altogether well for the novel to follow. 'Moreover, the OED agrees with me that one cannot "approbiate" anything.
(I.vi): Now we're prefacing (because, says the author, one is supposed to preface, so OK). It's Gothic, so the manuscript must have got lost somewhere, right? Oh, yes: the MS was in a private collection, but "the house and library were unfortunately consumed by fire." Surely that was more apocalyptic than necessary?
(I.x): Ballin sighs that "forward critics will always find matter for censure in everything." Hey, I resemble that remark.
(I.9): "Most readers are familiar with the divorce of Henry the Eighth..." Some of us are familiar with both of them, even. The non-boding well continues apace.
As Anne Stevens points out, this is one of several The Recess knockoffs [1]. Apparently, instead of Mary, Queen of Scots having secret kids (The Recess), Catherine of Aragon had another daughter.
(I.11): Why, in the name of every bad historical novel known to mankind, would Catherine name her secret daughter Adelfrida?
And what does it mean to "perfect her coalescence with the King"? I was unaware that husbands and wives coalesced on a regular basis, although, as always, I am willing to be corrected on such points of marital trivia.
(I.18): Just a few pages into the novel, and poor Adelfrida (arrrgh) has lost mom, stepmom, and dad.
In the meantime, her stepmom's son the Duke has been eyeing Adelfrida's "springing beauties." For some reason, I have a sudden vision of protuberant body parts attached to Slinkies.
(I.19): However, now that the Duke knows that Adelfrida is Far, Far Above Him, he has luckily lapsed into "filial affection." Glad to hear that he managed to get over his grand passion in the space of one page.
(I.21): Except that he's still suffering from love pangs, two pages later.
(I.22): Mary I "was at length, after several wars and divisions, peaceably crowned Queen of England." Where did Lady Jane Grey go? (Besides the other novel, I mean.)
(I.25): Mary I is introduced to Adelfrida! And immediately accepts her! Because royalty never has any suspicions about teenage siblings who magically appear out of nowhere! Can I sell you London Bridge while I'm at it?
(More seriously, the author is revising the end of The Recess, in which James I destroys all the evidence relating to his sisters, and denies their existence.)
Meanwhile, Elizabeth dislikes Adelfrida immensely, 'cause Adelfrida is pretty and all. Oh, and will usurp her place in the succession. We'll see how long Mary I stays as the Good Guy.
(I.27-28): The very notion of Catherine having a secret child is "unheard of, but in fable." Er, yes.
The poor Duke's stab at merely filial affection seems to have been rather short-lived.
(I.35): Adelfrida, however, is having none of it. Must protect her reputation &c. But he's so cute!
In the meantime, let us ask ourselves what spiritual and physical discipline allows the Duke to "remai[n] above half an hour in the Princess' chambers, in the same attitude that she had left him..." Because one would think that the muscles would grow rather painfully stiff.
(I.37): First the Duke is sad because he can't say anything to Adelfrida. Then he's sad because Adelfrida tells him to shove off. Now he's sad because he's overreaching the bounds of acceptable sadness.
I'm feeling pretty gloomy myself, come to think of it.
(I.46): Elizabeth continues to be a lying liar who lies. Lies, I say! LIES!
Did I mention that Elizabeth seems not overly enamored of the truth?
(I.50): Amazing. Mary I remains the Good Guy right up to the end. No persecutions, no Philip II, no execution of Lady Jane. Then again, no Lady Jane.
(I.53): The Duke fails to get Adelfrida her rightful place in the sun. She gets arrested! (Because, duh.) He gets arrested! He gets released! But his head gets chopped off for reasons unknown! (Really, they're unknown. The author just mentions the execution in passing, after setting the Duke up as the hero for most of the novel.)
Poor Adelfrida: in case you're counting, now she's out her would-be boyfriend, mother, stepmother, father, and sister. Princess can't catch a break.
(I.58): Elizabeth has just announced to the Duke of Alencon her desire to marry Leicester, because she is unable to tell the two of them apart while they're in costume. These things do not reflect well upon either Elizabeth's intellect or the novel.
(I.79): Let's start off Book Two with a slight misquotation from Joseph Addison's Cato. (To be fair, Stevens notes that this is the first historical novel to use mottoes this way [106].)
(I.87): Leicester and Alencon, victims of an unintentional epistolary mix-up (the Queen is not such a hot plotter), now unite over the perils of Adelfrida (whom we haven't seen for a while; she's in prison). Luckily, Leicester just happens to be toting Adelfrida's portrait around, which is exactly the sort of thing you'd do when your queen is a notoriously jealous woman who fears being deposed by her half-sister.
(I.93): And, of course, Elizabeth has now found Adelfrida's portrait, which Leicester accidentally dropped. Because not only is Leicester short several little grey cells, he's also clumsy.
(I.97): Leicester is seized with "stupefaction" when Elizabeth indicates that she is not exactly pleased with him. Under the circumstances, it takes real stupidity to be stupefied, not least because he has apparently forgotten everything he thought just a few pages ago about Elizabeth's likely response to his interest in Adelfrida.
(I.101-2): The Duke of Alencon, whose ego seems rather bruised, decides that it would be a really good idea to liberate Adelfrida and depose Elizabeth. Apparently, the English people have nothing to say in the matter.
(I.102-4): Another character sensibly points out that this is a silly thing to do. It's so reassuring to find that someone in this novel has a brain.
Of course, this means that the Duke promptly ignores him.
(I.104): In a fit of "friendship," Elizabeth tells her girl crush, the Marchioness of Navarre, everything. Given the epidemic of irrationality sweeping through this novel, it's amazing that England survived into the seventeenth century.
(I.106): Oh, Adelfrida! I was wondering when we were going to see our heroine again.
(I.111): The Duke sees Adelfrida and is immediately swept up in the Throes of Passion. No explanation of how he could accidentally walk in on Elizabeth during her meeting with a prisoner, but that would be expecting a bit much of this novel.
I suspect that this won't improve the Duke's rational decision-making any.
(I.112): You'll all be glad to know that being imprisoned (and otherwise stressed out) for a considerable length of time has had no effect whatsoever on Adelfrida's looks.
(I.113-14): Elizabeth immediately realizes that the Duke is suffering from Throes of Passion. This because the Duke is too mindless to figure out that engaging in Throes of Passion in front of a woman worried about being deposed is not, shall we say, a particularly smart move.
Then again, the Duke does have the intellect of the proverbial box of rocks. So there's that.
(I.117): Quoth Adelfrida: "Oh, my Anne, this day is a fatal day!" Yes...our heroine has also been caught up in Throes of Passion, after seeing the Duke for a grand total of five minutes. Her emotional profundity knows...quite a few bounds, actually, as it seems to be about three inches deep.
(I.118): Mind-bogglingly, the Duke has forgotten all about the epistolary mix-up that made him ticked off with Elizabeth in the first place. Well, it would be mind-boggling, if I had any mind left to boggle at this point.
(I.121): The Duke's valet, originally the only person in this novel with signs of basic common sense, has now abandoned it all to help the Duke extricate Adelfrida from Elizabeth's toils. Common sense, it seems, is not highly valued here.
(I.132): Wait, I spoke too soon: Adelfrida is feeling rather cautious about the Duke's plans. But how long will such rationality last?
(I.134-35): The Duke is informed of all Elizabeth's plans; then Elizabeth is informed of all the Duke's plans. Seriously, folks, read some Le Carre.
(I.136): Adelfrida is free! Woo-hoo! Of course, the Queen means to off her at the first opportunity.
(I.141): For some reason, we now get the backstory for Elizabeth's girl crush, thirty-seven pages or so after she was introduced.
(I.143): And we start Book Three off with another misquotation, rather worse this time, from Thomas Penrose's "Madness." Gee, that can't be good.
(I.148): My goodness, we've finally got a reference to Lady Jane Grey. Bit late though, what?
(I.153): For some reason, Elizabeth wants the Duke back in England, even though she knows perfectly well he wants Adelfrida on the throne. This makes no sense whatsoever.
Then again, why would I expect it to?
(I.154): Elizabeth has the hots for the Duke again. I...what? Consistent characterization, it's a good thing.
(I.160): Adelfrida doesn't believe that the Duke really wants to marry her, despite just agreeing to marry him. One would think that the former ought to come before the latter.
(I.167): Somehow, the Duke manages to secretly get into Adelfrida's bed every night for three months. At court. Without Elizabeth noticing. Even though Elizabeth supposedly notices everything. (Well, except that her girl crush has repeatedly betrayed her.)
As it's not likely that Adelfrida will successfully gain the throne in the next volume--history can be such a stinker--I suspect that this will not end well...
[1] Anne Stevens, British Historical Fiction before Scott (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 51-52.