Читать книгу The Highlander's Redemption - Marguerite Kaye - Страница 3

In the eighteenth century it was relatively common for young Scotsmen like Calumn, the hero of my story, to join the British army as part of their education—just as the sons of English noblemen were accustomed to do. Prior to the ‘45 Rebellion there was little conflict between the British Government and the Highland clan system, since both operated almost independently.

The Young Pretender changed all of this. Contrary to popular myth, the Jacobite uprising wasn’t a case of Highlanders led by Bonnie Prince Charlie fighting an English army. It was a much more complex and far more harrowing scenario than that.

The forces of the Crown, led ultimately by the King’s brother, the Duke of Cumberland, were made up from the regular army, supplemented by a number of clans loyal to the King (mostly but not exclusively Presbyterian, including my local clan, the Campbells of Argyll), who did not want to see the Catholic Stuarts on the throne. Though efforts were initially made to keep Highland regiments out of the fighting, by the time of Culloden there were four Scottish regiments involved. Ranged against them, the Jacobite army comprised a mixture of Highland clans (largely Catholic and Episcopalian), lowland recruits, plus French, Irish and even some English volunteers and mercenaries. Kin faced kin across the battlefield, just as Calumn finds himself doing.

Following the defeat of the Jacobites, the feudal power of the clans was systematically removed and the landscape of the Highlands changed for ever, regardless of whether the laird had supported the Government, as Calumn’s father did, or Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Charles Edward Stuart fled to France from where, having become an embarrassment to the French court, he was packed off to Switzerland. He eventually died in Italy, reputedly of drink. He never returned to Scotland.

The retribution which followed Culloden—the disarming of the clans and the ban on Highland dress, the confiscation of lands, the burning of crofts and the decimation of the population (commonly known as the Clearances)—which is depicted in my story—is entirely factual. ‘Butcher’ Cumberland’s nickname, and reputation, was well earned.