Clanlands
Page 6
In a nutshell this ‘Glorious Revolution’ of sectarianism, king nobbling and incest goes down like a shite sandwich in Scotland, and it leads directly to the first Jacobite Rising of 1689 and subsequent unrest, as those ‘loyal to Jacob’ (Hebrew for James) are determined to put a Stuart king back on the throne and keep Scotland independent. The 1707 Act of Union, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain, further inflames the Jacobites, so much so that when Graham playing Dougal MacKenzie (a diehard Jacobite) discovers Jamie’s and Claire’s plot to kill Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746 (in order to change history and prevent the slaughter at Culloden occurring), there is a fight to the death.
Needless to say I won and Graham became unemployed again. [Graham: You had HELP!] A sore point to this day. In the book, Jamie kills Dougal himself. By involving Claire, it makes the two complicit and binds them in his death. I fear Diana was not best pleased . . .
But that’s quite enough history. Let’s go and get a drink!
Key Dates in Scottish History
1314 – Battle of Bannockburn
1300–1600 – Highland Clan Wars
1494 – Earliest Written Record of Whisky
1688 – Glorious Revolution – William of Orange
1689 – Early Jacobite Uprising
1690s –
Little Ice Age, slump in trade, famine: collectively known as the ‘Seven Ill Years’
1692 – Glencoe Massacre
1694 – Dougal MacKenzie born 29th May
1701 –
Act of Settlement – secured succession of only Protestant monarchs to the thrones of England and Ireland
1707 –
Act of Union – creating the Kingdom of Great Britain
1715 – Jacobite Rising
1721 – Jamie Fraser born 1st May
1745 –
Jacobite Uprising, Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) returns to Scotland
1746 – Battle of Culloden
1750–1860 – Highland Clearances
1755–83 – American War of Independence
1789–99 – French Revolution
1799 – Graham McTavish born
1846–56 – Potato Famine
CHAPTER FOUR
Scotland Was Born Fighting
‘Lament for the Old Highland Warriors’
by Robert Chambers (January 1835)
Oh, where are the pretty men of yore,
Oh, where are the brave men gone,
Oh, where are the heroes of the north?
Each under his own grey stone.
Oh, where now the broad bright claymore,
Oh, where are the truis and plaid?
Oh, where now the merry Highland heart?
In silence for ever laid.
Och on a rie, och on a rie,
Och on a rie, all are gone,
Och on a rie, the heroes of yore,
Each under his own grey stone.
SAM
It’s the winter of 180 AD and General Maximus Decimus Meridius wants to go home. Ancient Rome is thriving. Somewhere in Western Europe, he sits upon his trusty steed (‘Rusty’, whom Russell Crowe tried to steal and take back to the US; we rode Rusty in Season One of Outlander) and contemplates what may be the final battle against the Germanic tribes. Crowe, dressed as Roman General Maximus, has a clipped military accent and haircut to match. He’s trained, hardened and resolute, as he surveys the land across to the forest beyond. Suddenly, a huge figure appears on horseback, a mighty Germanic warrior, with a long beard and enormous axe; he is holding a Roman soldier’s severed head. He stands in defiance opposite the mighty Roman army and issues a guttural scream. The sound echoes off the trees and makes the hairs on the viewers’ necks stand up on end. A mass of mighty warriors thirsting for blood answer his unintelligible cry and a horde of German barbarians appear along the treeline, ready for war and bloodshed. Things don’t look good for Russell . . .
The mighty German warrior in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is played by Charlie ‘Chick’ Allen – a battle re-enactor and the leader of the Clan Ranald Trust for Scotland. The trust stages re-enactments and has its own fully functioning Highland village, which appears in countless TV shows, films and commercials. As terrifying in real life as he is on screen, Charlie is tall, broad and bred from the very rock itself. He naturally commands respect from the other re-enactors, who are as hard as nails but are too terrified to fight Charlie themselves, because of his fearsome reputation. On Outlander, he taught me how to wear a Great Kilt and fight with a sword, dirk (long knife) and targe (spiked Highland shield). He gave me my first dirk, used in Season One, and I learnt to spin it on the palm of my hand. It now sits in pride of place in my living room in Glasgow.
GRAHAM
Charlie arrives at Loch Achtriochtan in the heart of Glencoe on a ‘Sons of Anarchy’ style hog that you could probably hear in Inverness. He’s wearing a bandana with a skull on it, and a black helmet fashioned to resemble that of a storm trooper. Now, while on others this might appear hopelessly desperate and perhaps sad, on Charlie one can’t help feeling he wrenched it from the head of an actual Nazi after headbutting him to death.
One thing about Charlie Allen is, he doesn’t look like a ‘Charlie Allen’ – he really looks like more of a Ruaridh McMurderer or Angus Og McBludgeon. As he walks up the bank of heather surrounded by the menacing Bidean nam Bim massif on the southern side of Glencoe – the ridges of Stob Coire Sgreamhach, Stob Coire nan Lochan and Aonach Dubh glowering down – Sam and I instantly feel emasculated. ‘He looks like a f*cking beast!’ says Sam, who visibly shrinks in his presence. I suspect Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson would start to cry.
Charlie’s beard is of legendary proportions, right down to his nipples. Thick, luxuriant and menacing, it is tempting to think that without his beard Charlie would look benign, but I’m pretty sure under the beard is . . . another beard.
I have a beard, Sam has something resembling facial hair, but this is a real beard, not crinigerous folly. And then he speaks. While Richard, our whisky man, had a softly modulated Scottish accent, soothing and mellifluous like a whisky liqueur, Charlie’s is the sound of heavy boots on gravel, a different timbre entirely. There is no attempt at putting you at your ease, it is simply a blunt instrument, like an axe. I have known Charlie for twenty-five years and he still greets me with the same wary suspicion, as if he may need to set about me with anything that comes to hand. Of course, this initial impression belies a soft interior, a Wildean wit, a habit of breaking into song and a love for Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. Just kidding. I can’t remember his handshake. I’ve probably blanked it from my mind because it was so painful.
SAM
He emerges at the top of a wee hill, dirk and targe in hand. ‘Ahrrrrr! The modern Highlander,’ I say in my deepest, manliest voice.
Graham is at it too. ‘Arrrr!’ he says like Long John Silver. ‘The man himself.’ I bet Charlie can smell lady latte on his breath. (He had one on the way over – well, of course, he did.) I, however, have gargled whisky from my hip flask and have the breath of a warrior.
‘Good to see yer. Good to see yer,’ I start to jabber, trying to stop looking like a pathetic actor. ‘So here we are.’ My inner voice is as Scottish and as fierce as Charlie. ‘Get a grip, yer jessie,’ it barks.
Oowwww!
Yup, his handshake is pretty terrifying, my manly resolve now crushed in his enormous hands. I subtly shake the pain out of my knuckles as we dive in to talk of Highland weaponry. Charlie tells us in his deep Scotch burr, ‘There was a lot of warring going on between the clans so they weren’t short of fighting practice! Over the centuries we were our own worst enemy. There were a lot of feuds between families and between clans, and when one clan’s in, we’re all in.’
We learn that a father wouldn’t have taught a son how to swordfight; that would have been left to the uncle. In Outlander, Jamie Fraser was trained by Uncle Dougal MacKenzie, played by Graham. At the age of fourteen he had gon
e to foster at his uncle’s house. Dougal taught him to fight with both hands; they were both left-handed but capable of using both. We decided on the show to let Jamie use both hands when writing and fighting as solely using my left hand would prove difficult and unconvincing. However, I try to use both when I can.
[Graham: No comment.]
Charlie lifts up his targe and tells us the circular shield (or Highland target) is one of the primary weapons of a Highland warrior. Made of wood and covered in cowhide, with an iron or leather handle and arm strap, they were sometimes highly decorative with intricate Celtic patterns in brass or silver. At the centre was a spike, which mercifully Charlie hasn’t screwed on today.
Charlie says, ‘A lot of people mistake the shield as just being for defence but it is a weapon. The spike on the targe was really long and you could use it to slash and impale the enemy.’ It was common to hold a dirk (or ‘biotag’, a long knife) in the targe hand, the blade sticking out below for more slashing and stabbing. Charlie demonstrates, ‘So you’d come in over the top with the dirk, smashing through with the targe and impaling with the spike. It was just like a big thrashing and meshing machine. It was block, slash, cut; block, slash, cut with the targe alone.’
When defending, the Highlander would stop the point of a sword or bayonet with their targe and then lunge low for an upward thrust into the enemy’s torso with their sword, held in their other hand. The Highlander’s sword of choice was a basket-hilt Highland broadsword (or another dirk for some of the poorer Highlanders). These broadswords were really brutal weapons. Charlie holds out his for us to inspect.
‘They were three-foot razor blades. Very sharp with two blade edges – they could cut right through anything. The one I’m holding is a bit heavier, for re-enactment purposes, and it’s got a blunted edge to keep people safe, but the real ones were much lighter and easier to handle for slashing and cutting.’
GRAHAM
Charlie really is a man born in the wrong time. As he describes how the Highland warriors would fight with dirk, targe and broadsword, you see a wistfulness pass over his face, as if wondering why he’s not allowed to do this in his local Marks and Spencer’s.
I tell him I’d read that reports of the wounds at the Jacobite battles of Killiecrankie (1689) and Prestonpans (1745) were horrific because of these weapons, with skulls cloven in two, tops cut clean off, people split in two with a single blow right down to the guts. It was unbelievably brutal stuff.
‘Yeah,’ he nods, unfazed. ‘And they also had the basket at the end of the sword, which not only protects the hand but is a good weapon – like a steel boxing glove, so if you got in really close you could use it for upper cuts or pummelling down.’
He explained that, in battle, the Highlanders didn’t just go running in with swords. ‘They would stand and “loose off” arrows at the opposition. Some would go in with claymores [two-handed swords] or battleaxes before the line. The whole point of the line and the way the Highlanders fought was about protecting the man next to you, which is what the British [Redcoats] sussed out at Culloden, so when the Highlander’s arm was up, that’s when they came in underneath to stab them.’
The Highlanders ran forward in groups of twelve forming part of a greater wedge, with Gaelic battle cries of ‘Faster, faster’, booms and blood-curdling screams to invoke fear and shock in the enemy. The famous Highland Charge was all about speed. Once in musket range of the British, the Highlanders, armed with muskets, would fire at the enemy, gun smoke obscuring the enemy’s line of sight. The Highlanders would dive down to the ground at the return of fire and, whilst the Redcoats were reloading, or plugging their bayonets, the Highland Charge would continue thundering forward until they battered through the British lines.
‘They were incredibly fit men,’ says Charlie. At the Battle of Killiecrankie (1689) when the British let off the first volley into the Highlanders, they didn’t even have time to plug in their bayonets before the Highlanders were on them. They ran that fast. Imagine the panic in the British ranks when they saw wild plaid-wearing warriors roaring towards them, screaming, with all that weaponry . . .
The Charge, however, was to prove fatal on the boggy moor of Culloden (1746). The old warrior style of fighting could not contend with modern weapons, nor British tactics, and approximately 1,500–2,000 Highlanders and 300–400 British soldiers were slain in a battle that lasted no more than an hour.
Over a hundred years after Culloden echoes of the Highlands were heard on the Battlefield of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) in 1863 as the Confederates thundered towards the Unionists in Pickett’s Charge shouting their ‘Rebel Yell’. Given the predominance of Scots and Irish settlers in the Southern states (particularly after the Clearances of 1750–1860, when the landlords and clan chiefs ‘cleared’ their tenants by force to make way for sheep), the tactics would seem more than just a coincidence. And just like at Culloden, war cries and speed were no match for modern weaponry. The Confederates were defeated in the bloodiest battle in US history, with 10,000 men killed and 30,000 wounded on both sides.
SAM
During a shirtless Highland Charge in Season Two of Outlander (a few episodes before our re-enactment of Prestonpans), Graham and fellow actors playing Rupert and Angus, along with a melee of extras, were required to run at us in full cry. I distinctly remember Graham with his long johns slipping down from under his kilt during each take (not a true Scotsman this time, mate!). Moments before, he had been seen doing press-ups to get himself and his impressive chest pumped. Duncan Lacroix stood smoking a cigarette watching the War Chief knock out some reps. As the pack of clansmen charged towards us, all in varying states of exhaustion, baying for blood, some not in great shape, wheezing, panting and being pummelled in the face by their own bouncing moobs – I couldn’t help notice they were covered in mud: a tactic to make them look even more wild and terrifying. However, Graham’s mud seemed to have been perfectly placed to enhance his muscles and six-pack. A mud pack. Don’t get me wrong, the man is in great shape . . . for his age . . . but I’d never seen a Highland Warrior use mud in this manner.
[Graham: Says the Kim Kardashian of contouring.]
After maybe two takes, Graham starts to complain he’s cramping and his quads are seizing up. It happened every time he was required to ride poor old Lambert, his faithful horse in the show. Graham gives 100% . . . for a couple of takes. And then, as soon as he feels he’s done enough or he thinks the director has enough footage, he suddenly gets cramp or an injury and has to have a wee sit down. And a latte. And definitely a snack. ‘And could I possibly trouble you for a copy of The Times – thank you so much.’ And perhaps a shoulder massage from a fair wench . . . There is a lot I can learn from Maestro McTavish.
GRAHAM
The wonderful Lambert was my horse on Outlander and possibly the most patient horse in the equine world. His twin was called ‘Butler’. Named after a brand of cigarettes, Lambert & Butler – only in Scotland! Lambert covered up all my shortcomings. I’m sure he’d look up at me and wink with his big winky horse eye before a take as if to say, ‘I’ve got this, buddy.’
There was a shot at the end of Season One, Episode Four – with me in the front, leading a long line of Highlanders away from Doune Castle (aka Castle Leoch). As I rode, hand on hip, I could hear the screaming of Stephen Walters (Angus) behind me, arguably even less happy with a horse than I am. His horse was careering back and forth, with him holding on for dear life, shouting, ‘Woah, woah, woah!’
I resolutely stared ahead, I didn’t want to give Lambert ideas, my only concern being whether I was in focus on camera. As Lambert and I passed the lens, Stephen’s voice fading in the background, I gave Lambert a thankful pat on his neck. He’d managed to make me look vaguely competent, yet again.
Another time we were riding in a long line and this time I’m singing a song (Season One, Episode Five). Now, I’ve never said I’m a singer. Nor has anyone else. I once auditioned for, ironically, The Hobbit (the mus
ical) back in 1990 and after I had sung my song the director said, ‘You have a great voice – struggling to get out.’ I was later asked by Brian Cox to be in Richard III at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. The theatre has a musical as part of its repertoire every year. They like you to be in two shows in the season. After my singing audition, Ian Talbot, the artistic director, said, ‘I think we could put you in the children’s summer show instead.’ So I ended up doing Richard III and playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in Kids from Sherwood.
So when I was asked to sing ‘The Maid Gey to the Mill ba Nicht’ in Outlander I thought, This is my chance! However, Grant O’Rourke, who played the wonderfully named Rupert, had other ideas. (I don’t think I’ve ever met a Rupert in Scotland, unless he was having his head flushed down a toilet.) Grant fancies himself as a bit of a singer, among other things, but he did not approve of my singing ability. He constantly corrected me and offered advice (all, of course, ignored by me). Instead, sitting astride my trusty Lambert, I belted out the song, in the wrong key, but with all the pent-up frustration of a man repeatedly denied his chance to sing. If I wasn’t going to get naked in Outlander (more on that later . . .) I was bloody well going to sing my lungs out. So when you watch that moment, remember the singing voice that had so long been denied its chance was finally being set free, while four horses back Grant O’Rourke was shaking his head in disbelief. The only silver lining was – Grant got thrown from his horse. Thanks Lambert.