ABSTRACT
Contextualization of the gender assumptions about romances, novels, and history that were current in the Romantic period has been a rewardingly prolific focus of Scott studies. The developing historical novel was, then, a chimaera in gender terms, though one controllable by the assumption that women took a special interest in the personal. Even as part of the concentric layers of narrative structure women are marginalized, a feature found in the paratexts of several of Scott's works. A standard feminist critique of A Legend of the Wars of Montrose, then, would be negative and hostile to most of the grain of the novel, though the text is clearly rich in implications for a broad gender analysis. Scott's 'dark' heroines might all 'chafe against the demands of decorum and social life' and even seem obviously sexier, while enjoying 'a certain immunity from criticism'.
