Son of a Jacobite

J. Lovat T.

Description

April, 1746. Born on the final day of the Jacobite Rebellion at Culloden, Thomas Lovat enters the world on the same day his father departs, killed in action. The devastation of Culloden and the Highland Clearances will have a profound effect on the rest of Thomas's life.Conscious of his heritage and its associated anger, Thomas is confronted with a confused identity and heritage as he grows into a young man. Travelling to the Middle East, he meets and marries his first love. Together they bear a child. He comes to see the beauty and troubles of Islam and so reflects on his own religious beliefs and values.Returning to England, Thomas joins the British Army and travels to the Americas in the prelude to the War of Independence. As the American Revolution plays out, the tension between Thomas's rebellious Jacobite heritage and his duties as a British officer come dramatically to the fore.

Sujets

• Folclore
• Highlands and Islands
• Northern Scotland
• Lancashire
• Historical fiction
• Lancastre
• Folklore

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 22 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838596996
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Terence J. Lovat

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Son of a Jacobite is a work of historical fiction. While it draws on historical events and names some figures of history, any resemblance to their character and motivations or events surrounding them is entirely coincidental.


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ISBN 978 1838596 996

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd


Acknowledgements
As with all novels, there is one named author but many unnamed helpers. I acknowledge here those family members, friends, and colleagues who played some part in shaping this book through reading earlier versions. Also, Tom, for your work on the graphic features.


Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Epilogue

Scottish English Glossary
Scottish Gaelic Glossary


T. J. Lovat is an Australian of Scottish descent. His author page can be found at tjlovat.com.au










1
Emma stood on the porch of her Tarradale home peering towards Culloden. There was nothing to see for the mist and drizzle, nothing to hear because the battle had not begun.
She remained there longer than she should have in her condition. The fine spray was moistening her pale, freckled complexion. It went unnoticed until the small droplets falling from her abundant eyelashes began to blur her vision.
By the time she retreated inside, she was drenched and the fire in the hearth was dying.
She felt more uneasy than ever before.
‘May he be safe; let them all come home safely ,’ she muttered in prayer, glancing at the small crucifix that adorned the dresser. ‘And buadhach – victorious.’
*
Emma had tried to busy herself through the morning in the hope that Edward would be home by late afternoon or nightfall at the latest. She had felt so good these last two days, able to be the wife she had rarely been for her Jacobite hero husband. The birth of their first child was only weeks, maybe days away.
Theirs had been an ecstatic but difficult marriage. There had never been anyone else for either of them. Any time they had spent together was idyllic in an almost fantasy-like way. And that is just how it had been these past two days.
‘I just adore being with ye, Edward Lovat,’ she said when he had apologised for not taking her out for a ride or a walk. ‘I nay care where we are or what we’re doing. As long as I’m with ye.’
‘What did I ever do to deserve ye, my darling?’
She knew there was no need to answer that.
For all its idyllic nature, their relationship was encased in the rebellion from its beginnings. Endless talk and preparations had prevented them from spending the time together they would have wanted, the intrusion only increasing as the years rolled on.
When they were children, it was mainly in the form of games, single-minded play with one storyline, defeating the English. As adults, it steadily became more serious, and the seriousness was peaking today with the pending do-or-die battle just a few miles away.
Emma had taken more time than normal with her hair that day, golden auburn in the best Highland tradition. She wanted to look her best for Edward’s return. He loved her hair, even when she did not take particularly good care of it, as had often been the case lately. He had played with it more than ever in these last two days, slipping in and out of a particularly pensive mood and occasionally, almost absent-mindedly whispering.
‘I just love yer hair.’
It always lifted her spirits when he said this because, years before, it was an unexpected compliment about her hair that made her realise the admiration was mutual.
His unusual pensiveness had alarmed her slightly. Edward was always so confident, so in control but something had been worrying him about this battle, a topic neither of them entered upon lest it spoil the bliss of those rare days together.
‘ Gu cinnteach the English will ken brawer than to take on such a force as these feargach Highlanders ,’ she thought as she tried to console herself. ‘ The English are just doing it for the pitiful wage they collect. A bought army can be nay match for a Scottish force fighting for aur .’
This is the way things had gone so far in this “treacherous revolt”, as the English called it, and how good can this Cumberland be that he could turn it all around today?
Emma held this hope in her heart throughout the morning as the weather deteriorated to the point that surely no battle could be waged anyway.
*
Ever since Lord Lovat’s regiment had formed at Glenfinnan in the previous August of 1745, it had enjoyed remarkable success. Edward was second in charge with a rank of Lieutenant Colonel, under the leadership of his second cousin, Simon, Lord Lovat’s eldest son. They were cousins through Margaret MacLeod, wife of the 9 th Lord Lovat and a grandmother to them both.
Edward and Simon were inseparable. Even as small boys, they had regularly spent long days together, having run or ridden the short distance between Tarradale and Beauly, where Simon lived at Castle Dounie. Castle Dounie was the ancestral home of the Frasers of Lovat, the grandest castle in the Highlands that dated from the early 1400s. It was noted for its blackstone, four-storeyed twin towers that dominated the landscape of the Lovat Estates on which the two villages of Tarradale and Beauly were situated.
Edward was a year or so older than Simon, a little taller, darker in complexion and quite a bit bolder. Too bold for the likes of some in the area who thought him overly rebellious. Even Lord Lovat, himself sporting the dishonourable title of “Old Fox” for his cunning, had warned Simon about spending too much time with his cousin.
‘He’s trioblaid , lad. And he’ll get ye into trouble.’
Simon took it with a grain of salt because everyone knew that the Old Fox and Edward’s father had fallen out in 1719 over an earlier rebellion. The Old Fox had sided with the English, an unforgiveable act for Edward’s father who thereafter threw off the Fraser surname and named himself Thomas Lovat.
While a first cousin to the Old Fox, Thomas was far from being a Lord or living in a Castle. He was a hard-working farmer, a self-made man and a fiercely independent Highlander who would never have taken up with the English. As a result, there had been some feeling between these two cousins that lasted a quarter of a century until Lord Lovat finally nailed his colours to the Jacobite mast.
Edward was not really the troublesome boy the Old Fox deemed him to be. All the same, he certainly had not had the same cushioned upbringing as his cousins. This was part of the attraction for Simon. Edward had learned to survive the roughness of Highland life. He was naturally suspicious of nobility of any kind, other than Simon. Most especially, he had inherited his father’s despising of the English.
Hence, Edward normally devised and led the many campaigns he and Simon waged in their playtime wars against the English. The open fields and hills between their two villages, in the shadow of the noble old hill known as Ben Wyvis, offered endless opportunities for surprising the imaginary English forces, and inevitably overcoming them.
More-often-than-not, the enemy forces were pretend ones. On occasion, other friends would join in the games. When that happened, they were quickly relegated to the ranks of the soon-to-be vanquished English. Overall, Edward and Simon preferred the pretend option because it created less fuss and protest about ‘ isn’t it our turn to be the victorious Highlanders ?’ For them, the very idea of slipping into the persona of the English for the sake of a turn was as unthinkable as it got.
Theirs was an endless and tireless game of victory so when the real war began, they expected no different. They were battle-hardened beyond their years and actual experience.
*
One of the not-so-annoying companions to their war games was Emma Simpson, three years’ Edward’s junior.
Edward was about fifteen when he had his first experience of finding a girl something other than annoying. While she tended to fit in with the other players, unlike them, Emma never complained about being a perennially conquered English soldier. This was the case especially if Edward was doing the conquering. He noticed how compliant she was to his every command, how she looked at him with those adoring, jade green eyes, and how she looked through him to see even the vulnerable bits with which he was yet to find comfort himself.
‘ She ken that I’m brawer than I ken myself, ’ his inner self told him.
Edward surprised himself that he felt for the first time comforted