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Recent reading
Jul. 9th, 2020 06:53 pmThe Lyon in Mourning, collected by Robert Forbes, volume 2 (1748-50). More very interesting Jacobite historical bits and pieces. I'm really getting to admire Forbes as a historian: not only did he obviously put a great deal of work into his 'collection', he's scrupulous about accuracy and detail, noting where different accounts of the same events contradict each other and stating his increased confidence in points on which independent accounts do agree, and he mentions several times his readiness to hear stories about the good conduct of Hanoverians, because he wants to be fair to his enemies. Highlights of the second volume include accounts kept by Prince Charles's Master of Household, in case you ever want to know how many chickens or how much flour the Jacobites ate on any given day of the march through England; an account of how an attempt to capture the Prince failed due to a small number of people opportunistically pretending to be the entire Jacobite army in defence of him; and a great deal of poetry of somewhat doubtful quality, some of it in Latin.
This volume is less focussed on the Prince and his escape than the first, and there's more information about what happened to everyone else after Culloden, some of it making for frankly difficult reading; but there are also some accounts of miraculous and heroic escapes, and much of kindness amidst the cruelty—Anne Leith, a woman who did a great deal to help the prisoners at Inverness, recounts her experiences there, including what I think is the story that D. K. Broster had in mind when she mentioned an officer court-martialled for showing kindness to the prisoners (he brought them writing materials, allowing them to communicate with Mrs Leith and other friends, and would go on guard when it wasn't his turn to spare them from the attentions of less well-disposed officers). There's also a lot to be gleaned from Forbes's letters about life in and around Edinburgh after the Rising. Jacobitism was clearly very much alive, and apparently the authorities in the city were, amongst other things, repeatedly bothered by the appearance of white cockades and other Jacobite symbols on the statue of a lion adorning the Parliament House. And the letters can be enjoyable for what they reveal about their writers as well. Forbes was apparently in the habit of signing himself by silly fake names when writing to his close friends; 'Donald Hatebreeks, of Tartanhall' colourfully conveys his opinion of the proscription of Highland dress!
Over the Gate by Miss Read (1964). We're back to the usual format of the Fairacre books, with Miss Read as the first-person narrator. This book is all about the local stories she hears from the inhabitants of the village, typically told to her 'over the gate' while stopping for a chat at the end of the garden. Despite the occasional questionable period attitude, and some slight confusion over the timeline (we're now nine years after the publication of the first Fairacre book, and the present-day ones are clearly intended to be set contemporarily, but some of the same schoolchild characters appear in all of them), I enjoyed this one a lot. I love Miss Read's quiet sense of humour, and the strong sense of place that makes Fairacre so memorable was strengthened by all the local folklore in this book. I quite agree with Miss Read when she considers the idea of leaving Fairacre for professional opportunities elsewhere and then decides that she couldn't possibly. The double layer of fiction on the stories recounted to Miss Read is used to good effect, with ambiguity over how much really happened as narrated—some of the stories are mundane, others are decidedly unbelievable (amongst these was what has to be the best interpretation of the idea of 'weight loss' I've ever read).
This volume is less focussed on the Prince and his escape than the first, and there's more information about what happened to everyone else after Culloden, some of it making for frankly difficult reading; but there are also some accounts of miraculous and heroic escapes, and much of kindness amidst the cruelty—Anne Leith, a woman who did a great deal to help the prisoners at Inverness, recounts her experiences there, including what I think is the story that D. K. Broster had in mind when she mentioned an officer court-martialled for showing kindness to the prisoners (he brought them writing materials, allowing them to communicate with Mrs Leith and other friends, and would go on guard when it wasn't his turn to spare them from the attentions of less well-disposed officers). There's also a lot to be gleaned from Forbes's letters about life in and around Edinburgh after the Rising. Jacobitism was clearly very much alive, and apparently the authorities in the city were, amongst other things, repeatedly bothered by the appearance of white cockades and other Jacobite symbols on the statue of a lion adorning the Parliament House. And the letters can be enjoyable for what they reveal about their writers as well. Forbes was apparently in the habit of signing himself by silly fake names when writing to his close friends; 'Donald Hatebreeks, of Tartanhall' colourfully conveys his opinion of the proscription of Highland dress!
Over the Gate by Miss Read (1964). We're back to the usual format of the Fairacre books, with Miss Read as the first-person narrator. This book is all about the local stories she hears from the inhabitants of the village, typically told to her 'over the gate' while stopping for a chat at the end of the garden. Despite the occasional questionable period attitude, and some slight confusion over the timeline (we're now nine years after the publication of the first Fairacre book, and the present-day ones are clearly intended to be set contemporarily, but some of the same schoolchild characters appear in all of them), I enjoyed this one a lot. I love Miss Read's quiet sense of humour, and the strong sense of place that makes Fairacre so memorable was strengthened by all the local folklore in this book. I quite agree with Miss Read when she considers the idea of leaving Fairacre for professional opportunities elsewhere and then decides that she couldn't possibly. The double layer of fiction on the stories recounted to Miss Read is used to good effect, with ambiguity over how much really happened as narrated—some of the stories are mundane, others are decidedly unbelievable (amongst these was what has to be the best interpretation of the idea of 'weight loss' I've ever read).
