Certain Travellers in Old England

B&W Publishing, 265 p, plus iv p Introduction by Alan Massie.

Here is another Scottish novel which scratches the 1745 Rebellion itch but unusually this one is set entirely in England. Presented as a partially incomplete found manuscript it tells the story of Alastair Maclean who had lately been in the service of the King of France but had returned to British shores in order to facilitate the rising of Charles Edward Stuart’s supporters in Wales and the West of England.

Maclean’s mission is a dangerous one; a traveller on the byways in those days was always apt to come under suspicion. With the help of the Naked Men and their leader – the Midwinter of the book’s title – he escapes from apprehension by a man charged with taking any who can not give a good account of themselves to the local magistrate, and arrives at the house of Lord Cornbury, a known Jacobite sympathiser but also one who recognises the folly of the Prince’s enterprise. From then on Midwinter’s group pop in and out of the narrative.

The company at Lord Cornbury’s is supposed to be mainly Jacobite but later it transpires there is a traitor to the cause amongst them, one who thereafter continually dogs and frustrates – given the outcome of History how could he not? – Maclean’s efforts to get to Derby with supposedly good news. Lady Mary Conbury has an unusual take on Mary Queen of Scots. “‘Her frailties were not Stuart but Tudor. Consider Harry the Eighth. He had passions like other monarchs, but instead of keeping mistresses he must marry each successive love, and as a consequence cut off the head of the last one. His craze was not for amours but for matrimony. So, too, with his sister Margaret. So, too, with his great niece Mary. …. What ruined the fortunes of my kinsfolk was not the Stuart blood but the Tudor – the itch for lawful wedlock which came in with the Welsh bourgeoisie.”

A surprise visitor arrives in the form of a tutor to a seventeen-year old girl, Claudia Grevel. This ill-clad worthy is none other than Samuel Johnson, disturbed that Claudia has run off with a Mr Norreys and seeking help to catch the pair before they can be married, a task in which he is doomed to fail. Johnson and Maclean become friendly and travel together for the latter half of the book. Johnson’s appearance in the novel allows Buchan to insert into the text some of that gentleman’s aphorisms.

At a later point the pair fall into the hands of troops loyal to King George. Their commander is a General Oglethorpe whom they met at Cornbury. He berates Maclean on why Charles will not succeed. A new breed of belief, the Methodists, had arisen in the south – “with them is the key of the new England, for they bring healing to the souls of the people. What can your fairy Prince say to the poor and hungry?”

Maclean thinks both Midwinter and Oglethorpe spoke of England like a lover to his mistress and that the country was akin to a spell on sober minds. He tells Midwinter, “You in England must keep strictly to the high road, or flee to the woods – one or the other, for there is no third way. We of the Highlands carry the woods with us to the high roads of life. We are natives of both worlds, wherefore we need renounce neither,” and indeed Midwinter spends most of his time in that mystical realm, the greenwood.

This is a tale packed with adventure, incident, betrayal and peril, but also insight. And it displays an eye for landscape which, though in this case is the English countryside, is a hallmark of Scottish writing.

Pedant’s corner:- King Louis’ service (Louis is pronounced as if it had no ‘s’ at the end; therefore Louis’ will also be so and hence to make its meaning clear its possessive must have ’s at its end: Louis’s,) bourgeoisie (was this word in use in the late eighteenth century?) “Jack Norreys’ neck” (Norreys’s,) ditto Lady Norreys’, “The forest had woke up” (woken,) “came the gypsies crazy cackle” (gypsy’s.)

Windmill, 1958, 302 p.

This is the second of Broster’s Jacobite trilogy (the first of which, The Flight of the Heron, I wrote about here.) Again it follows the fortunes of Ewen Cameron of Ardroy and also once more starts with a scene set at the Loch of the Eagle on his estate. Ewen’s son Donald pushes his younger brother Keith into the loch as revenge for him throwing his favourite object, a sword hilt memento from the Battle of Culloden, into the loch. Ewen has to effect a rescue but Keith becomes ill and the local doctor is summoned but is on a call. Meanwhile Ewen’s cousin Archibald Cameron, still in the service of the young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, and so subject to government attainder, turns up at the house and, as a doctor himself, ministers to the child. When Doctor Kincaid arrives he surmises the Camerons’ visitor is indeed the wanted man and informs the authorities. So Ewen’s adventures begin once more, as he is taken in to Fort William to be questioned and eventually bust out.

In his peregrinations about the Western Highlands trying to avoid government soldiery Ewen comes across Viscount Aveling, half-brother of the Major Keith Windham whom he befriended in The Flight of the Heron and from whom he learns that Archibald Cameron’s whereabouts have been betrayed. In the process, though, he makes an enemy of Aveling. Trying to warn Archie, Ewen only ends up injured during his capture.

After convalescing, Ewen makes his way to London to attempt to secure Doctor Cameron’s release and one night rescues a gentleman from street thieves. This turns out to be Lord Stowe, Aveling’s father. Coincidences being stretched a mite too far here perhaps. The rest of the book is made up of Ewen’s encounters with Aveling’s mother, Jacobite turncoats and trying to intercede with the Duke of Argyll, a Campbell and so sworn enemy of the Camerons but the government’s man for Scottish affairs.

While not as immediate in its chronicling of historical events as was The Flight of the Heron Broster manages to keep the level of peril reasonably high. A description of the Aurora Borealis could be taken to be the gleam in the north of the book’s title, as well as an allusion to the residual glimmer of the hopes of the Stuart dynasty, but the aurora’s relatively quick disappearance “as if it had never been” does not, quite, apply to the ramifications of the 1745 Jacobite rising.

Sensitivity alert. In a piece of stereotyping racist to modern eyes, a black servant of Lord Stowe is named Sambo.

Pedant’s corner:- had …. sowed (sown,) “would none of the thanks” (would have none of,) an extra comma in “‘Yes,, you may do that’”,) “once for all” (once and for all,) “They an prove nothing” (They can prove nothing,) gillie (ghillie,) “requires, it for his chaise” (no comma necessary,) a missing single quote mark at the end of a thought followed by a missing start one at the direct speech following on from it, a missing comma at the end of a piece of direct speech where the sentence carried on, paplably (palpably,) Gailbraith (elsewhere Galbraith,) Lock Arkaig (Loch Arkaig,) caryatides (caryatids.)

Apart from the Town Hall there are several fine buildings in Rochdale town centre, a few of them banks or former banks.

Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS:-

This has “bank” inscribed in the stone above the door but is somewhat anonymous now:-

Lloyd’s Bank (the rounded building):-

If you look closely at the above picture you can see a blue plaque. It was once the Union Flag Inn. In 1745 a confrontation between the Jacobite forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the town authorities took place here:-

Beside Lloyd’s Bank is the very modern Beales and behind and above both a building with faded writing on the brick. “Rochdale (something I can’t make out; equitable?) Pioneer Society (something I can’t make out.)” The Co-operative movement started in Rochdale (see later post):-

This building has a fine cupola:-

This very modern Memorial Bench is near the path from the visitor centre to the battlefield at Culloden:-

The inscription is in Gaelic but an English translation is given on the smaller extension, “We followed you, Prince, to this ocean of flatness and bullets.”

Another grave marker refers to the “English” dead. Many in the Duke of Cumberland’s victorious army were actually Lowland Scots. The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 was of course a Civil War.

To the foreground below is a reconstruction of the sort of house that would have been present on or near the battlefield of Culloden as shown on maps from the time. In the background is the modern visitor centre. These buildings make the scene much less bleak than it used to be.

This is the back of the cottage:-

Side view of cottage:-

Front of cottage:-

Drummossie Moor, site of the Battle of Culloden, where Bonnie Prince Charlie suffered his first and only defeat at the end of the ’45, otherwise known as the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-6 (an event which signalled the end of the old Highland way of life,) is one of the more dispiriting places I have visited. It seems a godforsaken area for men to have died over. I went there again this year when the good lady’s blog friend Peggy was over from the US in May. For some strange reason, though, it wasn’t as depressing this time as last. Maybe it was the presence of a Visitor Centre (built in the interim) which made it seem not so bleak and remote.

This is a close-up view of the government (Hanoverian) line – marked by the red flag.

Thios one was taken from the centre of the battlefield. Away in the distance (blue flags) is the Jacobite start line.

This is looking back to the Governent lines (red flags) from the battlefield’s centre.

A cairn lies at the battlefield centre:-

The cairn’s wording is slightly inaccurate. Yes, they fought for Prince Charlie, but in the main they fought for their clan chief (feudally) and not for Scotland per se.

In Flemington and Tales from Angus, Canongate, 2013, 291 p, including 16 p introduction, 1 p each Acknowledgements, Note on the Text and Author’s Note, 14 p Notes and 6 p Glossary.

Another from the 100 Best Scottish books list. Again from a local (well, 9 miles away) library. The novel was first published in 1911.

As soon as the years in which this is set, 1745-6, are discovered certain expectations might arise, a focus on Bonnie Prince Charlie or his entourage, following the rising tide of his fortunes from the standard raising at Glenfinnan through his initial triumphs to Edinburgh and on down to England before the fatal loss of nerve at Derby and thence to his downfall. Jacob, however, is more subtle than this. The events of that last Jacobite rebellion are present here, to be sure, (the Battle of Prestonpans – here rendered as Preston Pans – the advance to and retreat from Derby, the Battles of Falkirk and of Drummossie Moor, otherwise known as Culloden, the bloody and vengeful aftermath of that final battle on British soil) but they occur offstage. Jacob’s focus is relentlessly on individuals, not the broad sweep of history or “great events”. Though the Duke of Cumberland does appear in Flemington’s pages as a character (and not in a flattering portrait) the Young Chevalier never does, except as the driving force for the dilemma into which our titular protagonist falls. The action takes place exclusively in the county of Angus and specifically in the area linking the towns of Forfar, Brechin and Montrose. It is in Montrose harbour that the sole military engagement described in the book – a fictionalisation of a very minor naval incident in the ’45 rebellion – takes place.

To prevent his mother compromising Prince Charlie, protagonist Archibald Flemington’s father was badly used by the Old Pretender in exile at St Germain. Archie was subsequently orphaned and put in the care of his grandmother who, due to those earlier experiences, is now a full supporter of the Hanoverian dynasty. Flemington is a painter but also a government spy trying to discern the plans of the rebel James Logie; to which end he turns up at the door of Logie’s brother, a retired judge. While Flemington is still undercover Logie reveals to him a personal confidence – unrelated to any Jacobite sympathies. This engenders in Flemington a sympathy for Logie which he will not thereafter compromise and so the central tragedy of the story unfolds.

The novel is full of well-drawn and memorable characters: Flemington; his grandmother; Skirlin’ Wattie, the no-legged bagpiper who travels about on a cart drawn by dogs; Callander, the Government Army officer who is dutiful to a fault. Despite his confidence granted to Flemington, James Logie is a shadowier character, though his brother Balnillo is portrayed in all his preposterousness. Wattie is the only one who speaks broad Scots. The context provides clarity enough but the glossary is there if needed.

One chapter begins, “April is slow in Scotland, distrustful of her own identity, timid of her own powers. Half dazed from the long winter sleep, she is often bewildered, and cannot remember whether she belongs to winter or to spring.” How true – especially redolent when reading it in Scotland, in April, and the passage is characteristic of Jacob’s writing which is especially strong on landscape description.

Flemington is an illustration on an individual human scale of the dislocations and traumas, the disruptions, which a Civil War brings in its train and of how character can both resist circumstances and be a victim of them.

I took the precaution of not reading the introduction before the story. Wisely, as the usual spoilers in such things were present.

Pedant’s corner:- I found the reference to English parents strange in a passage contrasting the thoughts of a Scots woman who had spent a long time in France with those who hadn’t. Also mentioned were English dragoons at Culloden. (I haven’t checked. Any dragoons may have been English, though certainly a large part of Cumberland’s army was Scots.) Dulness with one ‘l’?

The day after our train journey we made the trip to Glenfinnan (or Gleann Fhionghain) by road. It was there, at the head of Loch Shiel, that the standard of Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart (aka The Young Pretender or, more commonly, Bonnie Prince Charlie) was raised in 1745 to start the doomed enterprise that was the Jacobite Rebellion which became known as the ’45 and ended at Culloden, the last battle to be fought on British soil.

In 1815 a monument was erected in memory of the clansmen who fought and died. It is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland. Being members, we took in the Visitor Centre and climbed the monument. That’s a bit scary. The stairs are steep, headroom is limited and the space at the top isn’t large. The views from the top are brilliant though.

The good lady nicked some of these photos before I got to them.

This is the monument from the approach path:-

Loch Shiel from the top of the monument:-

Glenfinnan Viaduct from the monument:-

The vilage of Glenfinnan’s War Memorial is situated in a recess by the road on the way up to the village from the monument to the station.

It’s a dignified figure of a soldier with bowed head. His rifle is apparently wooden. The names are on the rear for some obscure reason.