THE P RTAL
August 2014
Page 21
Newman’s haven in Scotland
Fr Len and Ruth Black discover Newman’s links with Scotland
Those of
us in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham know much about Blessed
John Henry. He was, as a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, an Anglican priest and leading light in the
Oxford Movement. We know that he was received into the Catholic Church in 1845, was made a Cardinal at
the age of seventy eight and beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on September 19th 2010 in Birmingham. But did
you know that John Henry Newman also had close links with the Scottish Borders?
A chance finding in a book about ecclesiastical
vestments led us to a discovery about Blessed John
Henry Newman and Scotland. It took us to
the home of the man who brought Scotland
and things Scottish to the heart of Queen
Victoria, Sir Walter Scott, the historical
novelist, playwright and poet, whose
novels and poetry are still read today,
with many of his works remaining as
classics.
Scott was born 1771 in the Old Town Sir Walter Scott
of Edinburgh near the Grassmarket, but at the age of
two he suffered a bout of polio that left him lame. To
cure his lameness was sent to live with his paternal
grandparents in the Scottish Borders. This was the
beginning of a love of the Borders that would draw
him back in later life to build the home of his dreams,
Abbotsford House, near Melrose.
Scott died in September 1832 in the home he had
designed and built and although he died owing
money, his novels continued to sell and the debts were
discharged shortly after his death. In the hands of his
descendents, Abbotsford House continued to flourish
and today, architecture and interior decoration
combine to make it an iconic building of the 19th
century Scottish Baronial style. With its wonderfully
eccentric collections and antiquarian atmosphere, it is
a key site in the history of European Romanticism.
James Robert Hope
In 1847 Sir Walter Scott’s grand-daughter, Charlotte,
married James Robert Hope (later ‘Hope-Scott’). It was
this event, and his friendship with Hope, which would
bring John Henry Newman to make extended visits to
Abbotsford House on two occasions and where he left
what today are second-class holy relics.
In his youth, James Robert Hope, who was to marry
Charlotte, had considered entering the ministry
of the Church of England but in 1835 he gave up
this intention and began to study law. In the 1840s
Hope became, with Newman and others, one of the
contents page
foremost promoters of the Tractarian movement at
Oxford which grew to become known as the Oxford
Movement. In 1851, four years after his marriage to
Charlotte, Hope, together with Archdeacon Manning,
was received into the Catholic Church in London,
followed soon after by Charlotte. N