“But there’s one thing ye’re wrong about, mo chridhe,” he continued. “This path we’re on, it is dangerous, for all four of us. And it was lonely at first, for me. But I’m no’ lonely now, no’ while I’ve got you.” He bent his head and tenderly kissed the top of her head.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, her lips against his neck, her voice muffled slightly. “Whatever happens, we’re in this together, for as long as it takes.”
After that they sat quietly, embracing and drawing strength from each other to face the months ahead. And downstairs, in the kitchen, Iain and Maggie were doing the same.
HISTORICAL NOTE
In view of the interest many of my readers have shown in the historical events portrayed in The Jacobite Chronicles, I thought some of you might find it interesting to learn that quite a few of the more unlikely scenes in my books, are in fact taken from historical record.
In Chapter One, at the dinner party, Beth disturbs the family by stating that the Old Pretender had a Protestant chapel. Although one of the main reasons the Hanoverians put forward against a Stuart restoration was that it would plunge the country back into popery, King James VIII and III, in spite of being a Roman Catholic, did have an Anglican chapel and retained two Anglican chaplains at his Court in exile in the Palazzo Muti in Rome, to minister to his Protestant subjects. He also believed that if his son, Prince Charles, was to one day become the king of a Protestant country, he should grow up surrounded by Protestants as well as Catholics. When Prince Charles, at the age of four, was presented to the pope, he steadfastly refused to kneel, leading some to believe that he would become Protestant someday. This does cast into doubt the somewhat hysterical anti-Catholic pronouncements of the Hanoverian supporters.
Also in Chapter One, Gabriel Foley talks about ‘Mr Red’. As unlikely as this sounds, Mr Red was a real person. His real name was Henry Read, and he agreed to bring English pilots over to Dunkirk to guide the French flotilla. However the English Jacobites became afraid when some of them were arrested, so sent Read to France alone, telling him to find suitable pilots there. But because his French was very poor, he couldn’t do this without help, and was unable to find either the prince or any other English contacts, so after a few days of wandering aimlessly about, he returned to England.
Chapter Five - washing of the feet. This is an old Scottish custom which still persists in some parts of Scotland. Traditionally the bride had her feet washed by the womenfolk, and the man’s feet were washed with soot and cinders. I’ve just adapted the genuine custom a little!
Chapters Fourteen and Seventeen - Prince Frederick, Prince of Wales, did have a very bad relationship with his father, and his shadow Court became a magnet for anyone who was in opposition to King George II. Numerous reasons have been put forward as to why father and son hated each other, but the fact remains that their acrimonious relationship was well-known and continued until the prince’s death. Prince Frederick was renowned for playing practical jokes on his friends and sycophantic followers. As he was heir to the ageing king, people wishing to curry favour would put up with his pranks in the hope of future preferment. I’ve taken liberties with this character trait to write some scenes in my book, such as the gardening scene. Although there’s no record of him actually being quite so horrible to his guests as to make them spread manure, Frederick was a keen gardener and also a lover of plays, even writing one himself under a pseudonym. So dire was the result that it ran for only two nights at Drury Lane before closing. He was also a great fan of cricket, and in fact died after being hit by a cricket ball in 1751, although this was not the direct cause of death.
As for Frederick’s sons, the eldest, Prince George (later George III) was thought by his tutors to be ‘lethargic and incapable of concentration’. He did not learn to read properly until he was eleven. He was very shy, and at times silent and morose.
Prince Edward, George’s younger brother, was described by Horace Walpole as ‘a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes…he is a sayer of things!’ As Walpole did not elaborate on the things Edward said, I put my own interpretation on this, and gave him the second sight, hence the premonition that Daniel will hurt Beth.
In Chapter Sixteen Anne tells us that Richard has ordered her to hand feed her baby. Whilst it was common for wealthier women to employ wet nurses to feed their children, there was an increasing concern that the characteristics of the nurse could be somehow transported through the breast milk to the infant, and because of this, wet nurses were carefully vetted. An alternative to wet nurses was hand-feeding, which increased in popularity in the 18th century, both amongst poorer women who needed to go to work, and the more elite who felt breastfeeding was beneath them, but were unwilling to entrust their offspring to a wet nurse. By mid-century men of science started to become interested in the subject of childbirth, and in investigating the high mortality rates of children who were hand-reared. Natural scientists such as Carl Linnaeus began to argue that women should nurse their own children, as other mammals do. In 1739 Thomas Coram founded the Foundling Hospital in London, and in the 1740s, William Cadogan became an honorary medical attendant. He was a firm believer in breastfeeding, and believed mothers’ milk was essential to child health. The exceptionally high mortality rate of infants was of great concern to the government, as these children would soon constitute the workforce, and the issue was debated in Parliament. To give an example of the seriousness of the situation, statistics show that out of ten thousand babies hand-fed in the Dublin Foundling Hospital over a twenty year period, only forty-five survived infancy.
In Chapter Eighteen, Alasdair arrives with the news that Prince Charles has landed in Scotland with just seven men. As foolhardy as this sounds, it’s true. He actually set out with two ships. One was the Doutelle, in which he travelled with his seven men: four Irishmen, two Scots and an Englishman. Three of them were elderly men, and only one of them would play an important role in the rebellion – Colonel John William O’Sullivan. The other ship was the Elizabeth, which had 700 soldiers on board, as well as 1500 muskets with ammunition and 1800 broadswords. Unfortunately they were intercepted by an English warship, and a battle ensued in which the Elizabeth sustained heavy damage, and had to return to France. Consequently, Prince Charles did land in Scotland with just seven men, although he was not daunted by this.
And finally, also in Chapter Eighteen, I wanted to point out that The Sofa – A Moral Tale, was in fact a real book, and the quotation Alex reads out is taken directly from the book. It was published in France in 1742, and was by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. It was a libertine tale, and a lot of the characters were satirical portraits of Parisians of the time – including King Louis XV. The author was temporarily exiled from Paris after its publication, due to this. It was translated into English the same year, so it’s conceivable that Beth would have had a copy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julia has been a voracious reader since childhood, using books to escape the miseries of a turbulent adolescence. After leaving university with a degree in English Language and Literature, she spent her twenties trying to be a sensible and responsible person, even going so far as to work for the Civil Service. The book escape came in very useful there too.
And then she gave up trying to conform and resolved to spend the rest of her life living as she wanted to, not as others would like her to. She has since had a variety of jobs, including telesales, teaching and gilding and is currently a transcriber, copy editor and proofreader. In her spare time she is still a voracious reader, and enjoys keeping fit and travelling the world. Life hasn’t always been good, but it has rarely been boring. She lives in rural Wales with her cat Constantine, and her wonderful partner sensibly lives four miles away in the next village.
Now she has decided that rather than just escape into other people’s books, she would actually quite like to create some of her own, in the hopes that people will enjoy reading them as much as she does writing them.
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Also by Julia Brannan
The Jacobite Chronicles
Book One: Mask of Duplicity
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Book Two: The Mask Revealed
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The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3) Page 46