Marmion was Walter Scott’s second historical romance and one of his most popular epic poems. The chivalric tale of love, betrayal, loyalty and honour ends with the English victory over James IV of Scotland at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. Encouraged by the success of the Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Scott started writing Marmion in the autumn of 1806. The first edition of 2,000 copies was published on 22 February 1808 and sold out within a month; three further editions appeared by the end of 1808 and nine more by 1825. The commercial success sealed Scott’s commitment to the literary profession. Despite the complex historical plot, Marmion won the public’s heart and the critics’ acclaim, establishing his reputation as a national poet. 
Marmion is Scott's most ambitious poem. Developing ideas originated in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, in which the seventeenth-century minstrel character served as an intermediary between the events of the story and the reader's present, Scott did away with the character and instead placed himself in the role introducing each canto. Critics complained that this literary device, in which Scott reflected on the present time ahead of continuing the story, drew the reader's attention away from the poem's drama.
Queen Victoria read Marmion during her first visit to Scotland in the late summer of 1842. The Queen noted in her Journal on 15 September, of reading Scott's description of the Abbess of Whitby and her party of nuns' voyage to Holy Island as she sailed past the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory on her return from Edinburgh. 
By the middle of the twentieth century, Scott's works were neglected by scholars and audiences who came to view the tales as little more than children’s stories. However, recent scholarship has begun to return Scott to prominence and recognised his close association with and influence on the Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century.