Genius Fan

James Boswell loved his native Scotland throughout his life – even while the lure of London and the conviviality and entertainment it promised occupied most of his waking moments. We get a clear glimpse of just how he feels before he set off from Edinburgh on his parent-approved trip to London. I’ll explain. Listen up!

Imagine: Boswell goes to the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Close your eyes and travel back in time with me. It’s Scotland, it’s a little after ten in the morning on Monday 15 November, 1762 – so it’s probably anything from six to twelve degrees centigrade – and you’re sitting smoking outside a tavern, and let’s say you’re drinking ale (it’s my daydream – I get to choose…) at the bottom of the Canongate. The wheels of carriages make a regular rattle as they pass by, and one in particular, carrying two young men, passes the Girth Cross and slows to a halt outside Abbey Close. There it stands, right in front of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

You take a hefty gulp of ale followed by a couple of deep puffs on your pipe (it’s just gone 10am and my wife would never let me do this in real life), when one of the two passengers turns and descends from the chaise carriage and says something to the postilion rider who nods impatiently. He looks over his right shoulder, sees me smoking, nods and sparks up his own pipe. (I know, stick with me.) The passenger on foot is James Boswell, he’s a talkative 22-year-old who carries himself with an excess of confidence. He crosses the yard of Abbey Close and heads north east to the Abbey of Holyroodhouse, now a 650 year old ruin.

The account from Boswell’s London Journal 1762-1763

Boswell describes the events of the morning of 15 November in his journal, which was edited by the great Frederick Pottle (University of Yale, USA) and published in 1950 (November in the USA and December in the UK). Boswell writes that he…

“…walked to the Abbey of Holyrood house, went round the Piaza[s] bowed thrice, once to the Palace itself, once to the crown of Scotland above the Gate in front, and once to the venerable old Chapel.

“I next stood in the court before the Palace, and bowed thrice to Arthur-Seat, that lofty romantic mountain on which I have so often strayed in my days of youth, indulged Meditation & felt the raptures of a soul filled with ideas of the Magnificence of God and his Creation.”

Criss-crossing Boswell’s path at Holyroodhouse

I visited the Palace of Holyroodhouse recently and had it in mind to walk the same path he made in his tribute to Scotland before setting off to London. Not so easy. I undoubtedly criss-crossed, but did I get the path? Probably not. This is my interpretation of his path:

• He made a clockwise route taking him to the Abbey first
• He makes his first bow here – to what he calls the venerable old Chapel
• He continues clockwise enters what we call the quadrangle to view the piazzas. Here he bows again.
• From inside the quadrangle he turns to the front entrance and bows to the crown high up above the front gate
• He then walks through the front gate and there in the yard, in front of the palace, he turns south towards Arthur’s Seat (he calls it Arthur-Seat)

This is the only route I can think of that fits the way he describes in his journal. Got a better suggestion? Let me know.