Walter Scott

Woodstock; or, the Cavalier Walter Scott

Woodstock, or The Cavalier. A Tale of the Year Sixteen Hundred and Fifty-one (1826) is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, one of the Waverley novels. Set just after the English Civil War, it was inspired by the legend of the Good Devil of Woodstock, which in 1649 supposedly tormented parliamentary commissioners who had taken possession of a royal residence at Woodstock, Oxfordshire. The story deals with the escape of Charles II in 1652, during the Commonwealth, and his final triumphant entry into London on 29 May 1660.




Scott began composing Woodstock at the very end of October 1825. He appears to have made rapid progress at first, but there were many interruptions during December and the second volume was not finished until 11 February 1826. He completed the final volume on 26 March.




The History of England by David Hume (1754?62), which Scott admired above all others, gave him most of what he needed for the historical background, though for many details he was able to draw on his profound acquaintance with the literature of the seventeenth century. For the goings-on at Woodstock Manor he was familiar with two accounts accepting a supernatural explanation in Satan's Invisible world Discovered by George Sinclair (1685) and Saducismus Triumphatus by Joseph Glanvil (1700). He also knew, though not necessarily at first hand, the version of the story in The Natural History of Oxford-shire by Robert Plot (1677), adopting its more sceptical approach to the business. (wikipedia.org)