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The Prince in the Heather
Vintage hardcover
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 7, 2020
It would probably help if I knew more about Scottish history of the period, but I found this book to be rather difficult to follow at times. One location after another, one rain or hailstorm, and then a cold night without shelter. And lots of people with nearly the same name. The map in the front of the book was very helpful, and the pictures are lovely, so you do get a feel for the landscape of the time.
It's a dated book, but it's useful if you are interested in Scotland or (like me) are taking a trip there in the future and want to get a range of ideas for your travels.
It's a dated book, but it's useful if you are interested in Scotland or (like me) are taking a trip there in the future and want to get a range of ideas for your travels.
August 19, 2014
Interesting but sometimes hard to understand due to the writers style .
February 26, 2024
This book was given to me as by my parents, probably at my father’s suggestion, as a Christmas present when I was a teenager. I hadn’t re-read it with due attention since those days, although the essence of it has never left me, until reading recently the modern collection of stories “Blood Beneath Ben Nevis”, which picks up the legend of the lost Spanish gold that was sent to support the 1745 Jacobite Rising under ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. “The Prince in the Heather” confirms that the treasure was landed at Loch nan Uamh near Arisaig and then taken to Loch Arkaig near Fort William, and adds the detail that the man who took it there was John Murray of Broughton, Charles’ principal secretary.
This book is a detailed and fascinating account of “the movements of Prince Charles Edward Stuart from the Day of his defeat on Culloden Moor in April 1746 to his departure from France in September of the same year.” The primary source is a collection, The Lyon in Mourning, by the then Bishop of Ross and Caithness, the Rev Robert Forbes, who had supported Prince Charles but who “was scrupulous in his search for facts, reverent of dates, names and places, and loved the truth ‘let who will be either justified or condemned by it.’”
Eric Linklater himself is sometimes tempted into romanticism, especially with regard to Flora MacDonald, who famously dressed the Prince as her maid in order to convey him from the island of Uist to Skye, for instance eulogising her ‘grave and lovely eyes’ and her Highland modesty and discretion. A further paragraph elaborates on her delicacy when Charles wanted to wear a pistol beneath his feminine garb, but Flora objected on the grounds that this would give him away. Charles’ reply was:
“Indeed, Miss, if we shall happen with any that will go so narrowly to work in searching me as what you mean, they will certainly discover me at any rate.”
It is only in Flora’s mature years that this would become a story she would allow herself to tell.
“In appearance she was gently severe. Her beauty was not the soft, cosseted kind, but drawn on good bone with the tautness of a clear Hebridean sky; and in her eyes was the profundity that admits, like so much Gaelic song, the inseparable grief of life. It is pleasant to know that her laughter could play comfortable on a little coarseness.”
However, we do have a sober description of Flora from Dr Johnson, who travelled through the Highlands and Islands twenty-seven years later, and who met her, as a mature wife and mother:
‘She was a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle manners, and elegant presence’ and as he foretold she left a name that has been ‘mentioned in history’ and where ‘courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.’
That story, of course, was something of a highlight in the lengthy narrative of the Prince’s wanderings as a fugitive. It’s a pity that Eric Linklater or his editor was not quite so careful in the dates as was The Bishop of Ross and Caithness, as there is obviously a mistake somewhere. The first meeting with Flora took place in her brother’s estate in Milton, South Uist (where, incidentally, I spent three dreary months in a caravan one winter!) and that, according to the author, was on Midsummer’s night, the 21st of June. Following the intricacies of the tale, three days and nights seem to pass before he announces the next date as the 22nd of June; and the actual escape, according to the text, took place on 19th June! I decided that this third date had to be a textual error, which was confirmed by an event later that day and then into July. One can work it out but it detracted just a little from the narrative and overall reliability of the work.
Despite this minor error, there was so much I learned, it felt for the first time, from this faithful account. I hadn’t remembered anything about “The Seven Men of Glenmoriston” (it is pointed out that they were, in fact, eight). They, like so many others, had lost everything in support of the Prince and had now declared their own war on the vengeful Duke of Cumberland, whose name is still vilified in the Highlands. A reward of £30,000 had been offered for Prince Charles:
“These broken men had it within their power to enrich themselves by £30,000, but in the dissolution of their society one thing had remained strangely intact, which was honour. They swore allegiance in good Highland terms: ‘That their backs should be to God and their faces to the Devil; that all the curses the Scriptures did pronounce might come upon them and all their posterity if they did not stand firm to help the Prince in his greatest dangers.’ Charles still had much to fear, but not betrayal.”
Eric Linklater gives more detail on their military service and expertise and comments that “They should be respected as conscious partisans.”
The loyalty shown to Prince Charles is truly astounding. There is only one story in the Uists of an attempt at betrayal, by a young lad, who was ridiculed by the militia to whom he told his tale of having seen the Prince. This is beautifully detailed and the reason for the disbelief of the pursuers explained. They were not redcoats (regular soldiers) but militia, many of whom were MacDonalds from Uist who were sympathetic to the Prince. The author even mentions that two of them were in the boat that carried the Prince from Uist to Skye!
I was aware that in the island where I live, Barra, redcoats – regular government soldiers – had been stationed, but I didn’t know that they numbered in their hundreds. There are two things I wonder about now, after reading this book. One was, why were they here at all, as this is the only island the Prince never visited? Perhaps because Charles originally landed at Eriskay, the next island, but that was a whole year before. As far as I am aware, the MacNeils of Barra did not play an important role in the Rising. The second is whether a Jacobite song, claimed to refer to a MacNeil of Barra, was a borrowing from the 1715 Jacobite Rising, and the battle of Sheriffmuir. Dr Johnson had it sung to him by one of those who had helped the Prince, who then told him his tale. No translation is offered by Eric Linklater, but if you search tha tighinn fodham eiridh you will come upon more than one possibility for its origin. I think the line refers to the Prince’s coming again for another attempt to claim his throne. This mention of the song led me to the following site, which reproduces material from the School of Scottish Studies, where the late Nan MacKinnon, of Vatersay beside Barra, sings the song and talks about it being dedicated to a MacNeil of Barra. Nan probably explains why, but I couldn’t follow the Gaelic! A small mystery I will have to leave unexplained until I ask a Gaelic speaker to tell me what the recording is saying.
https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/tr...
There is an excellent final section detailing what happened to Charles’ many supporters, with some very moving writing. Most lost everything and were taken prisoner, some treated very cruelly. There were up to twelve government ships at any one time plaguing the waters of the Minch. The Captain of H.M.S. Furness in this area was responsible for burning the homes of supporters, accompanied by inhumanity and slaughter.
His brutality was rewarded, on the recommendation of the Duke of Cumberland, by promotion to a new frigate, H.M.S. Nightingale. He died in 1767, but, as the ‘ black Captain,’ his name has been handed down as one of the vilest of Cumberland’s subordinates.
https://digital.nls.uk/scottish-histo...
This review is already too long, but I must just mention quickly one Etienne MacDonald (whom I remember Ian on GR in one of his reviews writing about). He was a supporter of the French Revolution forty-three years later, and became Marshal of France and Duke of Taranto. He was the son of a former schoolmaster in South Uist, Neil Mac Eachain (properly MacDonald) who had been of invaluable help to the Prince and who went to France with him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89t...
I found the final section particularly moving, with its recognition that by the end of his months as a fugitive, enduring much hardship and danger, Prince Charles was very different from the young man who had led a pampered life in European courts; he had become someone worthy of the loyalty the Highlanders (some of them) gave him. I’ll just select one of Eric Linklater’s final paragraphs:
“As a political action his attempt to regain the throne had no consequence but total and disastrous failure, and judiciously it can be seen as an impossible attempt to put back the clock of history. . . .
Political success, however, is not the only standard by which to judge behaviour, and in another assessment Charles Edward Stuart, and those who rallied to his cause, won the world’s ultimate reward. The reward, that is, of the sort of immortality which the world gives to stories of romantic endeavour supported by that greatness of spirit of which humanity is sometimes capable.”
This book is a detailed and fascinating account of “the movements of Prince Charles Edward Stuart from the Day of his defeat on Culloden Moor in April 1746 to his departure from France in September of the same year.” The primary source is a collection, The Lyon in Mourning, by the then Bishop of Ross and Caithness, the Rev Robert Forbes, who had supported Prince Charles but who “was scrupulous in his search for facts, reverent of dates, names and places, and loved the truth ‘let who will be either justified or condemned by it.’”
Eric Linklater himself is sometimes tempted into romanticism, especially with regard to Flora MacDonald, who famously dressed the Prince as her maid in order to convey him from the island of Uist to Skye, for instance eulogising her ‘grave and lovely eyes’ and her Highland modesty and discretion. A further paragraph elaborates on her delicacy when Charles wanted to wear a pistol beneath his feminine garb, but Flora objected on the grounds that this would give him away. Charles’ reply was:
“Indeed, Miss, if we shall happen with any that will go so narrowly to work in searching me as what you mean, they will certainly discover me at any rate.”
It is only in Flora’s mature years that this would become a story she would allow herself to tell.
“In appearance she was gently severe. Her beauty was not the soft, cosseted kind, but drawn on good bone with the tautness of a clear Hebridean sky; and in her eyes was the profundity that admits, like so much Gaelic song, the inseparable grief of life. It is pleasant to know that her laughter could play comfortable on a little coarseness.”
However, we do have a sober description of Flora from Dr Johnson, who travelled through the Highlands and Islands twenty-seven years later, and who met her, as a mature wife and mother:
‘She was a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle manners, and elegant presence’ and as he foretold she left a name that has been ‘mentioned in history’ and where ‘courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.’
That story, of course, was something of a highlight in the lengthy narrative of the Prince’s wanderings as a fugitive. It’s a pity that Eric Linklater or his editor was not quite so careful in the dates as was The Bishop of Ross and Caithness, as there is obviously a mistake somewhere. The first meeting with Flora took place in her brother’s estate in Milton, South Uist (where, incidentally, I spent three dreary months in a caravan one winter!) and that, according to the author, was on Midsummer’s night, the 21st of June. Following the intricacies of the tale, three days and nights seem to pass before he announces the next date as the 22nd of June; and the actual escape, according to the text, took place on 19th June! I decided that this third date had to be a textual error, which was confirmed by an event later that day and then into July. One can work it out but it detracted just a little from the narrative and overall reliability of the work.
Despite this minor error, there was so much I learned, it felt for the first time, from this faithful account. I hadn’t remembered anything about “The Seven Men of Glenmoriston” (it is pointed out that they were, in fact, eight). They, like so many others, had lost everything in support of the Prince and had now declared their own war on the vengeful Duke of Cumberland, whose name is still vilified in the Highlands. A reward of £30,000 had been offered for Prince Charles:
“These broken men had it within their power to enrich themselves by £30,000, but in the dissolution of their society one thing had remained strangely intact, which was honour. They swore allegiance in good Highland terms: ‘That their backs should be to God and their faces to the Devil; that all the curses the Scriptures did pronounce might come upon them and all their posterity if they did not stand firm to help the Prince in his greatest dangers.’ Charles still had much to fear, but not betrayal.”
Eric Linklater gives more detail on their military service and expertise and comments that “They should be respected as conscious partisans.”
The loyalty shown to Prince Charles is truly astounding. There is only one story in the Uists of an attempt at betrayal, by a young lad, who was ridiculed by the militia to whom he told his tale of having seen the Prince. This is beautifully detailed and the reason for the disbelief of the pursuers explained. They were not redcoats (regular soldiers) but militia, many of whom were MacDonalds from Uist who were sympathetic to the Prince. The author even mentions that two of them were in the boat that carried the Prince from Uist to Skye!
I was aware that in the island where I live, Barra, redcoats – regular government soldiers – had been stationed, but I didn’t know that they numbered in their hundreds. There are two things I wonder about now, after reading this book. One was, why were they here at all, as this is the only island the Prince never visited? Perhaps because Charles originally landed at Eriskay, the next island, but that was a whole year before. As far as I am aware, the MacNeils of Barra did not play an important role in the Rising. The second is whether a Jacobite song, claimed to refer to a MacNeil of Barra, was a borrowing from the 1715 Jacobite Rising, and the battle of Sheriffmuir. Dr Johnson had it sung to him by one of those who had helped the Prince, who then told him his tale. No translation is offered by Eric Linklater, but if you search tha tighinn fodham eiridh you will come upon more than one possibility for its origin. I think the line refers to the Prince’s coming again for another attempt to claim his throne. This mention of the song led me to the following site, which reproduces material from the School of Scottish Studies, where the late Nan MacKinnon, of Vatersay beside Barra, sings the song and talks about it being dedicated to a MacNeil of Barra. Nan probably explains why, but I couldn’t follow the Gaelic! A small mystery I will have to leave unexplained until I ask a Gaelic speaker to tell me what the recording is saying.
https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/tr...
There is an excellent final section detailing what happened to Charles’ many supporters, with some very moving writing. Most lost everything and were taken prisoner, some treated very cruelly. There were up to twelve government ships at any one time plaguing the waters of the Minch. The Captain of H.M.S. Furness in this area was responsible for burning the homes of supporters, accompanied by inhumanity and slaughter.
His brutality was rewarded, on the recommendation of the Duke of Cumberland, by promotion to a new frigate, H.M.S. Nightingale. He died in 1767, but, as the ‘ black Captain,’ his name has been handed down as one of the vilest of Cumberland’s subordinates.
https://digital.nls.uk/scottish-histo...
This review is already too long, but I must just mention quickly one Etienne MacDonald (whom I remember Ian on GR in one of his reviews writing about). He was a supporter of the French Revolution forty-three years later, and became Marshal of France and Duke of Taranto. He was the son of a former schoolmaster in South Uist, Neil Mac Eachain (properly MacDonald) who had been of invaluable help to the Prince and who went to France with him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89t...
I found the final section particularly moving, with its recognition that by the end of his months as a fugitive, enduring much hardship and danger, Prince Charles was very different from the young man who had led a pampered life in European courts; he had become someone worthy of the loyalty the Highlanders (some of them) gave him. I’ll just select one of Eric Linklater’s final paragraphs:
“As a political action his attempt to regain the throne had no consequence but total and disastrous failure, and judiciously it can be seen as an impossible attempt to put back the clock of history. . . .
Political success, however, is not the only standard by which to judge behaviour, and in another assessment Charles Edward Stuart, and those who rallied to his cause, won the world’s ultimate reward. The reward, that is, of the sort of immortality which the world gives to stories of romantic endeavour supported by that greatness of spirit of which humanity is sometimes capable.”
July 16, 2012
Eric Linklater was a natural choice of author for a book and documentary film about Bonnie Prince Charlie, when the idea came up in the mid 60s. Compton Mackenzie might have been an equally obvious choice - he had already written one book about Charles Edward Louis Philippe Casimir Stuart. However, regardless of the choice of author, the style of the text was somewhat fixed from the start, since it was meant to back up a documentary film (as a published book) and so was not an individual writer's earnest appraisal of either the history or the legend.
Nevertheless, settling upon Linklater ensured a certain native expertise and charm, so to speak, since by the time he wrote this, he was a very able writer with numerous books to his credit. So "The Prince in the Heather" followed its predicted path and became a sort of odyssey, as Linklater and a film crew revisited the major haunts of the Prince during his lengthy (and often recounted) escape through the islands off Scotland's west coast. It is not a book that can be read as history so much as a story of now and then. The author intrudes (somewhat apologetically) from time to time, in order to periodically give the story a modern angle. Most of the text is devoted to the doings of 250 years ago, however, and under the competent pen of this first-rate Scottish writer, the Bonnie Prince once more comes out from the shadows. It is not an original work, and I do not think it is mandatory reading for historians. Yet it is a perfectly good read (a bonnie book shall we say) and if you pick up the original edition from somewhere, as I did, you'll find it is a well presented volume complete with a number of pertinent photographs.
Nevertheless, settling upon Linklater ensured a certain native expertise and charm, so to speak, since by the time he wrote this, he was a very able writer with numerous books to his credit. So "The Prince in the Heather" followed its predicted path and became a sort of odyssey, as Linklater and a film crew revisited the major haunts of the Prince during his lengthy (and often recounted) escape through the islands off Scotland's west coast. It is not a book that can be read as history so much as a story of now and then. The author intrudes (somewhat apologetically) from time to time, in order to periodically give the story a modern angle. Most of the text is devoted to the doings of 250 years ago, however, and under the competent pen of this first-rate Scottish writer, the Bonnie Prince once more comes out from the shadows. It is not an original work, and I do not think it is mandatory reading for historians. Yet it is a perfectly good read (a bonnie book shall we say) and if you pick up the original edition from somewhere, as I did, you'll find it is a well presented volume complete with a number of pertinent photographs.
May 4, 2015
This book is the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie being on the run following the Battle of Culloden in April 1746 until he left Scotland on a French ship in September 1746. Despite a price on his head of 30,000 pounds, he eluded capture thanks to many loyal Scots who risked their lives to protect him. Some of them paid with their lives, others were imprisoned, tortured and/or lost their homes & property. Some of his protectors like Flora MacDonald are legendary. Others are more obscure.
The Bonnie Prince Charlie described in John Prebble's "Culloden" isn't very admirable. The Bonnie Prince Charlie in this book is sometimes admirable and sometimes not. The Hanoverian forces trying to capture him can be brutal. However, some of the local militia forces have divided loyalties and were sources of information for Bonnie Prince Charlie and his protectors.
There are a number of color and black and white photos throughout this book of people and places in the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles along with photos of various Jacobite artifacts like glasses used to toast the "King Over The Water." The photos give you a good sense of the rugged terrain they had to traverse.
One thing that would improve this book would be a map or maps to help you make sense of all the place names and keep track of Bonnie Prince Charlie's wanderings. Fortunately Google Earth came to the rescue.
If you want a fairly objective history of the "'45" uprising, read "Culloden." If you're a sucker, like me, for all things Scottish and especially lost causes like the Jacobite uprisings then you'll like this book.
The Bonnie Prince Charlie described in John Prebble's "Culloden" isn't very admirable. The Bonnie Prince Charlie in this book is sometimes admirable and sometimes not. The Hanoverian forces trying to capture him can be brutal. However, some of the local militia forces have divided loyalties and were sources of information for Bonnie Prince Charlie and his protectors.
There are a number of color and black and white photos throughout this book of people and places in the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles along with photos of various Jacobite artifacts like glasses used to toast the "King Over The Water." The photos give you a good sense of the rugged terrain they had to traverse.
One thing that would improve this book would be a map or maps to help you make sense of all the place names and keep track of Bonnie Prince Charlie's wanderings. Fortunately Google Earth came to the rescue.
If you want a fairly objective history of the "'45" uprising, read "Culloden." If you're a sucker, like me, for all things Scottish and especially lost causes like the Jacobite uprisings then you'll like this book.
October 14, 2012
So far I'm really enjoying it. Linklater's style is very "old English/Scot" if you will, which makes it a slow read for me, but I don't want to miss any details (of which this book is full), so I will pace myself through it.
Hopefully I will have a good report when I'm finished. At this point I am very fond of the Bonnie Prince and hope he can endure.
Hopefully I will have a good report when I'm finished. At this point I am very fond of the Bonnie Prince and hope he can endure.
August 1, 2016
History of the second Jacobite rising by following the path of Prince Charlie with astounding detail of the environment & with illustrations. For anyone following Scottish Highlanders
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