ABSTRACT
The Antiquary is a novel about what was to Scott 'modern' Scotland: as we have seen, it depicts a society lacking any real basis for internal conflict, whether political, religious or economic. For its encapsulation of an entire period with all its leading features and contradictions in one descriptive scene, the occasion of the 'wappenschaw' which opens the novel proper was probably never surpassed by Scott in his later work. The extreme Presbyterians object to the whole edifice of the episcopal church, feudal authority, and monarchical absolutism represented by the Stuart government: in such circumstances, to absent themselves from the ceremony is to challenge at once both the political and the religious authority of their rulers. Harrison's defensive position over the disobedient tenants on the Bellendens' estate is constantly paralleled by the defensive posture assumed by the authorities in the early stages of the novel.
