The Laird Of Blackloch (Highland Rogue)
Page 29
Author’s Note
In telling The Laird of Blackloch, I’ve used a little poetic licence which I hope you, the reader, will forgive…
At the beginning of The Laird of Blackloch, Alex stumbles across Jacobite clansmen burying caskets of gold coins on the shores of Loch Arkaig. Legend has it there is missing Jacobite treasure hidden somewhere in the Highlands. By all accounts two French frigates, the Bellona and Mars, arrived at Loch nan Uamh on the west coast of Scotland at the end of April 1746 and delivered seven large caskets of Louis d’or gold coins donated by the Spanish to support Bonnie Prince Charlie’s cause. However, the Jacobite army had already been defeated at Culloden. Apparently the Prince’s former secretary, Murray of Broughton, was entrusted with looking after the treasure worth over one million livres; the money was to be used to help fugitive Jacobites. However, he was arrested by government troops in June 1746 and the treasure may have passed to the Camerons of Lochiel for safekeeping. Apparently it was buried on the shores of Loch Arkaig but may have been unearthed and reburied several times over the next few months to prevent loyalist soldiers discovering it. There are also rumours one of the caskets was stolen by the Macdonalds of Barrisdale. Over the years, many have searched for the missing gold, but to this day its whereabouts remains an unsolved mystery.
The fictional village of Kinloch, which I describe at the eastern end of Loch Rannoch, is an amalgamation of the actual village Kinloch Rannoch and the historical hamlet of Georgetown at the western end of Loch Rannoch. I’ve tweaked the history of each village slightly and altered the location of certain historical landmarks. At the time The Laird of Blackloch is set, the dragoon barracks were actually located in Georgetown (eventually renamed Braes of Rannoch and now known as Bridge of Gaur). Following the Forty-five, there are accounts of an evangelist in the Loch Rannoch area who preached regularly to the local community, but the church at Braes of Rannoch wasn’t built until 1776; the church I’ve mentioned in ‘Kinloch’ and the nearby bridge are entirely fictional.
Blackloch Castle and Eilean Dubh, which I’ve placed towards the south-west end of Loch Rannoch, are my own inventions entirely. The Black Wood on the western edge of the loch—an ancient Caledonian pine forest—is an actual place name I drew on for inspiration. Eilean Dubh (Black Island) was inspired by Loch Rannoch’s crannog—a medieval man-made island with a nineteenth century tower folly upon it—named Eilean nam Faoileag, or the ‘Island of Gulls’; however, it is towards the middle of the loch.
Whilst Clan Robertson—also known as Clan Donnachaidh—owned much of the land around Loch Rannoch in the eighteenth century, for the purposes of my story I’ve chosen to feature one of the clan’s septs, Clan MacIvor, instead. The hereditary title Baron Rannoch is my own invention.
At the beginning of the story, Alex says, ‘Nunquam obliviscar’ when making a vow of vengeance. This Latin phrase, which means ‘I will never forget’, is Clan MacIvor’s motto.
Some may question whether Alexander MacIvor, Lord Rannoch—aka Alexander Price—would have really been able to buy back his family’s forfeited estate; in my story, Alexander’s logging company purchases the confiscated Rannoch estate from the Crown’s Forfeited Estates Commission. Whilst I’ve used a little poetic licence, my premise isn’t without historical precedent. The Forfeited Estates Commission was established in 1747 to manage the many forfeited clan estates following the Forty-five Rebellion. These estates were eventually restored to their former owners or heirs for a price in 1784, but I wanted Alexander to reclaim his estate sooner. The idea that he might be able to buy back his land—albeit on the sly—occurred to me when I came across an account of the Crown selling off a forfeited estate following the first Jacobite Rebellion. The estate of the Jacobite Earl of Callendar was apparently sold to the York Building Company in 1720, hence my idea that Alex (in the guise of Alexander Price) might be able to do the same.
O Waly Waly is an old Scottish folk song that has its origins in the seventeenth century and a very convoluted, albeit fascinating, history. There appear to be countless variations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which are related to the well-known 1906 version, The Water is Wide. I’ve included two verses from older variants which best fit the theme of my story; one comes from a ballad perhaps published in 1750 in Newcastle, England, where my heroine Sarah hails from.
Thanks for reading The Laird of Blackloch. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you’d like to know more about me, my books, or to connect with me online, you can visit my webpage AmyRoseBennett.com, follow me on Twitter @AmyRoseBennett, or like my Facebook page AmyRoseBennett.Author.
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You’ve just read a book in my Jacobite Rogues series. The other book in this series is The Master of Strathburn.
This book was published by Escape Publishing. If you’d like to sample some more great books from my fellow Escape Artists, please turn the page.
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ISBN: 9781489257680
Title: The Laird of Blackloch
Copyright © 2018 by Amy Rose Bennett
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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