Historic & Literary Walks: William Lithgow & William Simpson
ON THE subject of exploration, William Lithgow, the archetypal wandering Scot, suffered great peril on his Rare Adventures and Painefull Peregrinations which, from 1610, took him "thirty-six thousand and odde miles, which draweth neare to twice the circumference of the whole Earth."
For years I have loved the story of the luckless and lugless Will, the Lanarkshire adventurer who had his ears removed by the four brothers of a sister he wooed and lost. A fanatical anti-Papist he travelled to Italy of all places. Naturally he was branded a heretic and tortured.
He also despised Islam, then set off for Constantinople, wisely carrying a portable coffin with him. He journeyed to Poland, which he considered a Scottish colony, citing the 30,000 Scots who lived there as evidence.
In 1620 he travelled to Spain, just in time for the Inquisition. He was accused of spying and was stretched on the rack until blood flowed from his "armes, broke sinews, hammes and knees." Between tortures he was hung up by his toes.
To cut a long story short, William was to be burned at Granada, but thanks to the English consul his liberty was secured and he was returned in a warship to London. There he recovered his strength sufficiently to come to blows with the Spanish ambassador, whereupon he was thrown in prison!
William Lithgow's recollections of his travels to "the most famous kingdomes" of Europe, Asia and Africa were published in 1614. I suppose that makes him Scotland's first travel writer. Early editions are very rare, incidentally.
One of Lithgow's most remarkable adventures occurred in or around 1613, when he decided to walk across the Sahara Desert to Abyssinia - almost certainly becoming the first Scot to set foot in the region.
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A man who followed in his footsteps two centuries later was a compatriot who became one of the great Victorian travellers, William Simpson of Glasgow (1823-1899) and a remarkable archive of autobiographical material relating to Simpson's life also appeared in this week's Exploration and Travel sale at Christies. It consisted of an album of personal photographs, a sketchbook from his Indian travels, journals from his expedition to Abyssinia, letters and sketches by others, including one in the hand of David Livingstone, equipment used on his travels and a number of inscribed copies of his printed works.
A manuscript of his autobiography was dedicated, "To my dear daughter Anne Penelope Simpson, I dedicate these Notes and Recollections, so that when she grows up she may, through them, learn something of her father's life." She was five when he began the manuscript, eight when he finished it.
Simpson and Lithgow had much in common. Simpson was born in poverty in Glasgow and scarcely educated, but went on to live a life of almost unparalleled adventure. But while Will Lithgow took copious notes on his travels, Simpson made his name as a pioneering war artist.
He was known as Crimean Simpson from his depictions of the siege of Sebastopol (1854-55). Later, his depictions and descriptions of an extraordinary variety of events, from the Franco British War, to British Expeditions into Abyssinia (1868) and Afghanistan (1878), the funeral of Kaiser Wilhelm and the opening of the Forth Bridge, fired the Victorian public's imagination.
The entire archive from this eccentric, endearing individual was estimated to sell at £40,000-£60,000 but failed to get beyond £28,000 on Thursday and remained unsold.
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