An account of the Elliot family through six generations with a cast in the hundreds, across Britain and her Empire, as the Scottish Enlightenment dawns.

As to the character of Sir Walter Scott, I have proved, I hope, that he worked on a copy of the ballad which was not the Elliot version, or the Sharpe copy; so that this copy may have represented the Scotts as taking the leading part; while for the reasons given, it is apparently earlier than the Elliot version--cannot, at least, be proved to be later--and is topographically the more correct of the two. I have given antique examples of the same sort of perversions in Otterburn. If I am right, Colonel Elliot's charge against Scott lacks its base.

The story of an important family whose members included the influential politician the Earl of Minto and his second son, Admiral Sir George Elliot.