The Monastery: a Romance is an 1820 historical novel by Walter Scott. It's one of the Waverley novels and is set on the Scottish Borders on the eve of the Reformation. A sequel, The Abbot, was published later in 1820.
Two brothers, tenants of the title monastery, fall in love with the same woman, a dispossessed noble, while the old order crumbles around them.
1Contains examples of:
- Artistic Licence – History: The story seems to take place around 1559/60, but the 1570 excommunication of Elizabeth I has apparently already happened, and Sir Piercie is an obsessive fan of John Lyly's Euphues (published in 1578).
- Beleaguered Boss: The Abbot really could do without the many responsibilities of his position.
- Betty and Veronica: The Glendinning brothers to Mary (Edward is Betty, Halbert is Veronica).
- Beware the Nice Ones: When it looks as if Sir Piercie has killed Halbert, it's gentle, mild-mannered Edward who demands blood vengeance and is ready to exact it at risk of his own life.
- Blessed with Suck: The White Lady magically heals Sir Piercie... with the result that nobody believes he was wounded in the first place and he gets charged with murdering the missing Halbert.
- Brave Scot: Halbert is physically fearless, while Julian and Christie display a certain amount of Villainous Valour.
- Corrupt Church: A mild example - the Abbot is worldly and lazy and fond of creature comforts, but he's still a fairly sympathetic character.
- The Dandy: Sir Piercie is very serious about fashion.
- Distressed Dude: Sir Piercie after he's accused of murder.
- Evil Uncle: Julian Avenel, a brutal Border reiver, has stolen his niece Mary's inheritance.
- Fake Aristocrat: Sir Piercie really is a knight, but his relationship to the Percy family is illegitimate, and his grandfather was a tailor.
- Fictional Province: The abbey of Kennaquhair ("Know-not-where") and its lands.
- Good Shepherd: The Protestant hedge-preacher Henry Warden is fatherly and quietly heroic.
- Historical Character's Fictional Relative: Sir Piercie Shafton is a cousin to the Earl of Northumberland.
- Historical Domain Character: The Queen's half-brother Lord James Stewart, anachronistically already Earl of Moray, turns up at the end, accompanied by the equally real Earl of Morton.
- Historical Fantasy: The presence of the White Lady makes it an example of this.
- Illegal Religion: Although Catholic power is clearly in its final days, Protestantism is still technically this.
- No Communities Were Harmed: Kennaquhair is a Fictional Counterpart to Melrose.
- Not Quite Dead: Sir Piercie after Halbert runs him through.
- Passive Rescue: Mysie sneaking Sir Piercie out of Glendearg Tower.
- Rhymes on a Dime: The White Lady speaks only in rhyme.
- Riddle for the Ages: What exactly is the White Lady? A fairy, a ghost, even a kind of angel?
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Sir Piercie never uses one word where a dozen will do.
- Sibling Triangle: Both Glendinning brothers love Mary Avenel.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Hot-Blooded Halbert Glendinning contrasts with his quiet, studious brother Edward.
- Strawman Political: Or rather religious. Scott's eagerness to assert the obvious superiority of Protestantism sits very oddly with his desire to be fair to individual Catholics: he constantly presents Catholicism as a faith only knaves and fools could follow while showing us Catholic characters who are clearly neither.
- Supernatural Aid: The White Lady provides this to several characters.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Mysie dons Sir Piercie's clothes the second time she rescues him.
- Sword Fight: Halbert and Sir Piercie fight a duel that ends with both parties being wrongly thought dead (by different people).
- Uptown Girl: Mary, a baron's daughter (though dispossessed), is this to Halbert (and to Edward's Unrequited Love), the Glendinnings being commoners.
- A far wider gulf appears to exist between the thoroughly aristocratic Sir Piercie and miller's daughter Mysie; however, Sir Piercie's pedigree turns out to be a little less impressive than claimed.
- We Used to Be Friends: Prior Eustace and Henry Warden were fellow students and close friends before ending up on opposite sides of the religious divide.
