Flight of the Heron timeline: the details
Feb. 6th, 2022 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeHere's how I put the timeline together! In several places, historical dates are of use for dating events in the novel, and my main source for these was Christopher Duffy's book Fight for a Throne: The Jacobite '45 Reconsidered.
Prologue
It's July 1745, and Ewen receives the news from Lochiel that Prince Charles has arrived in Scotland. We're not given a precise date, but I think we can deduce one, as follows:
Part I
The easiest part of the book to date: most of the dates are simply given to us, and the rest follow in sequence!
The ambush at High Bridge is historical, and took place on Friday 16 August; the rest of chapters 1.1 and 1.2 take place the same day. Chapter 1.3—Keith's trip up to Slochd nan Eun—takes place the next day. Chapters 1.4 and 1.5 are the day after that, and just in case we'd lost track, Broster reminds us that it's Sunday with Ardroy's Morning Prayer. Chapter 1.6 opens 'four days later', and the narrator immediately confirms that it's now Thursday 22 August; Keith's reminiscences take us back over the events of Monday 19 to Wednesday 21 (the journey to Glenfinnan and raising of the standard on the 19th, at Glenfinnan on the 20th, to Kinlochiel on the 21st, now at Kinlochiel on the 22nd). The Jacobites reach Fassefern 'next afternoon', Friday 23 August; it's now been a week since chapter 1.1 and so Keith's parole runs out, and he escapes that evening.
Part II
Chapters 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 take place over the course of a single night. In 2.1 it's 'early October' and Broster tells us that 'yesterday had come to an end' the affair of the Castle blockade. The blockade was in place during the first week of October, but I've struggled to find a precise date for when it was lifted; Patrick Crichton suggests that it was the 6th, and Duffy's account agrees with this. This puts the ball on the evening of the 7th. There are no precise references to time in these chapters, but with so much happening in one evening it's quite likely that it's after midnight by the end of 2.3.
2.4 opens 'the next day', when Alison speaks to Ewen; 'next day' after that Hector gets the whole story. After that, 'the October days went by', and Ewen's hand has time to heal up. At the end of the chapter it's 'early on the morning of the first of November', and Ewen is preparing to leave Edinburgh. According to Duffy, the main body of the army left the city on 31 October—Broster agrees, with Ewen staying longer 'to bring away the Cameron guard'.
Part III
3.1 opens on 'the seventh of March', and the first few pages summarise events from when the Jacobite army left Edinburgh to the present. Ewen and Alison are married 'next day' (8 March), and stay at Inverness the full day and night after that. Two days after the wedding Alison boards the ship for France, and Ewen goes to report to Lochiel and subsequently leaves Inverness.
3.2 is a bit various! It opens with more historical summary, beginning with the surrender of Fort Augustus on 5 March and then moving on to the siege of Fort William. The main action begins during the siege, on 'a fine morning in the latter half of March'; Broster describes the Jacobites firing on the fort from 'one of the little eminences about half a mile away', and suggests that the following action takes place soon after this begins. Comparing this with Duffy's description of the siege suggests the 'eminence' is Sugar Loaf Hill, on which new batteries were opened on 20 and 22 March; I think 20 March is the most likely date for this scene. Ewen is injured that day; he's kept in bed 'longer than he had expected', and has been up again for 'a day or two' when the siege is abandoned 'in the night of 3 April'. Ewen then returns to Ardroy, not more than a day's journey away, so probably he arrives on the 4th. He leaves when Lochiel's orders come; 'Cumberland is moving', and they're to march for Inverness. According to Duffy the Prince sent for Lochiel to Inverness on 4 April, so Ewen's stay at Ardroy probably isn't very long. The rest of the chapter takes place from during the night march on 15/16 April to just before the battle on the 16th.
3.3 returns to Keith, and we're told that it is 'the first of May'; Culloden was 'a couple of weeks ago'. The rest of the chapter takes place the same day, as does 3.4, which follows immediately on from 3.3.
3.5 opens 'a few hours later', and thus That Night in the Hut is the night of 1/2 May; by the end of the chapter 'it was light outside'.
Part IV
At the beginning of 4.1 'it was six days since he [Keith] had left Guthrie's camp'. That was during the night of the 1st, so depending on exactly how Keith is counting, it might plausibly now be either the 7th or the 8th. The rest of this chapter and 4.2 take place the same day. Meanwhile, Ewen was in Guthrie's custody for 'twenty-four hours', from the morning of 2 May to the 3rd. In chapter 4.2, Paton narrates the events in Guthrie's camp and tells us that Guthrie sent Ewen to Fort Augustus 'next morning', i.e. the 3rd. When Keith arrives at Fort Augustus he hears that Ewen gave the information about Lochiel 'last night'.
4.3 begins the next morning, and continues through that day and the following night. The next day after this, he meets Ewen 'about six o'clock in the evening'.
4.4 follows immediately from 4.3. At the end of the chapter Keith is told he'll be taken to Inverness 'next morning'. Ewen says he talked in his sleep 'the fifth night—two nights ago'. We can use this to resolve the 'six days' ambiguity: the fifth night after Ewen arrived at the fort was the 7th, so Keith must have arrived there on the 8th, he spent the 9th imprisoned, and it's now the 10th. (The night of the 7th might count as 'two nights ago' from the 10th if Ewen begins counting from the previous night).
At the beginning of 4.5, 'ten days had passed' since Ewen's meeting with Keith, so it's now the 20th; Ewen's conversation with Loudoun takes place the same day. The next day Ewen is moved to the dungeons; 'the following morning', i.e. the 22nd, Alexander Cameron arrives with news.
4.6 opens on 'the seventeenth of July'; Keith has been at Inverness all the time since we last saw him, with the threat of a court-martial having been removed by 'the last week in May'. Keith goes to Fort Augustus and confronts Cumberland the same day; he spends the night there and meets Albemarle 'next afternoon'. The end of the chapter skips over 'the next few days', ending 'on the morning of the twenty-fourth', when Keith gets permission to see Ewen.
Ewen and Keith's meeting in 4.7 then takes place the same day, the 24th; the chapter continues to 'next morning', when Ewen is taken away for Fort William, and 'that afternoon', when Keith gets his orders to go and search for the Prince.
Part V
5.1 takes place on the same morning as the end of 4.7, 25 July.
5.2 opens that night, with Ewen's rescue by the Yorkshiremen taking place the next day (the 26th); 'twenty-four hours later' he reaches Ardroy, and the rest of the chapter takes place the same day, the 27th.
5.3 summarises events over several days: Ewen leaves his room 'after three days' (the 30th), his conversation with Aunt Margaret is on 'the fifth evening after his return' (the 31st), and Archie arrives and talks to Ewen 'a week later' (7 August). We can match up some of the things Archie says with historical events. The Prince is currently 'in Chisholm's country', while Lochiel is hiding on Ben Alder with Cluny MacPherson; historically, Charles returned to the mainland on 5 July and joined Cluny on Ben Alder on 5 September, so Archie's account is consistent with it currently being somewhere between those dates.
5.4 follows immediately from 5.3; 'next day' Ewen begins preparing for his departure, which takes place that evening, and speaks to Angus before he goes.
5.5 is very difficult to date precisely; Ewen and his party from Ardroy have now reached the coast, so it's probably two or three days after 5.4, but we don't get an exact date. The other possible clue is the presence of a French ship, but the dates don't line up with this being the ship which took Charles off from Scotland on 20 September, or the second one which arrived along with it, and as far as I can find there are no other plausible historical ships (besides those two in September, Duffy only mentions one which arrived in May). I think we have to conclude that this ship is either fictional or too obscure to have been mentioned in the history books.
Epilogue
The epilogue also contains no specific clues, apart from the likely amount of time it would have taken Ewen to reach France and then Havre-de-Grâce. It took Charles nine days to get to France, but speed when travelling by sea was highly variable depending on the weather; we also don't know where Ewen's fictional ship landed him and hence how far he had to travel to get to Havre-de-Grâce, introducing more uncertainty.
Backstory
We get fairly detailed information on the events surrounding Ewen's birth: his father flees Scotland after the 1719 Jacobite Rising, leaving the country 'three days' after Ewen is born; when he dies, 'before the year had ended', Ewen is 'six months old'. In the prologue, Ewen is 'just six-and-twenty'. The Battle of Glen Shiel, the decisive battle of the '19, was fought on 10 June 1719. Taken together, these all agree on a date of birth in mid-to-late June 1719. Margaret arrives at Ardroy 'after a while', and before her brother's death. Ewen is 26 at the beginning of the novel, and has his 27th birthday between chapters 4.5 and 4.6, when he's in prison at Fort Augustus.
Ewen spends 'two years' abroad for his education, and meets Alison in Paris during this time. By the time of the prologue, they've been engaged for four years. Thus the engagement began in 1741, and Ewen's two years in France were roughly from 1739-41, when he was 19-22.
We don't get such a precise timeline for Keith's backstory. He's 'thirty' in chapter 1.1; thus his date of birth is somewhere between August 1714 and August 1715, and he has probably turned 31 by the end of the novel.
Keith's betrayal by Lydia Shelmerdine was 'four years ago', in 1741. Keith's father died when he was five, sometime between August 1719 and August 1721. Keith has 'borne his Majesty's commission' for 'twelve years' as of May 1746, in chapter 4.2.
And that's it! Again, please do comment with corrections, additions, arguments etc. In particular, I suspect there may be more information on Keith's backstory in Gleam in the North, but I didn't revisit that book for this timeline, so if you've read it more recently and it does have anything to contribute, do say so.
Prologue
It's July 1745, and Ewen receives the news from Lochiel that Prince Charles has arrived in Scotland. We're not given a precise date, but I think we can deduce one, as follows:
- Charles is 'at Borradale in Arisaig', where he arrived on 25 July; Lochiel met him there on the 30th, and that hasn't happened yet. So it's somewhere between 26 and 29 July.
- Ewen gives the date of the Prince's landing as 'the twenty-fifth' and not 'yesterday', so it's probably not the 26th.
- Lochiel is apparently still wavering about whether to go to the Prince or not, so, in order to give him time to make up his mind and then get to Borrodale, it's probably not the 29th.
- There's no indication that it's Sunday—Ewen, out for an early morning swim, thinks about breakfast, but not about the Morning Prayer that we see in chapter 1.5—so it's probably not the 28th, which was a Sunday.
- Therefore, it's Saturday the 27th.
Part I
The easiest part of the book to date: most of the dates are simply given to us, and the rest follow in sequence!
The ambush at High Bridge is historical, and took place on Friday 16 August; the rest of chapters 1.1 and 1.2 take place the same day. Chapter 1.3—Keith's trip up to Slochd nan Eun—takes place the next day. Chapters 1.4 and 1.5 are the day after that, and just in case we'd lost track, Broster reminds us that it's Sunday with Ardroy's Morning Prayer. Chapter 1.6 opens 'four days later', and the narrator immediately confirms that it's now Thursday 22 August; Keith's reminiscences take us back over the events of Monday 19 to Wednesday 21 (the journey to Glenfinnan and raising of the standard on the 19th, at Glenfinnan on the 20th, to Kinlochiel on the 21st, now at Kinlochiel on the 22nd). The Jacobites reach Fassefern 'next afternoon', Friday 23 August; it's now been a week since chapter 1.1 and so Keith's parole runs out, and he escapes that evening.
Part II
Chapters 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 take place over the course of a single night. In 2.1 it's 'early October' and Broster tells us that 'yesterday had come to an end' the affair of the Castle blockade. The blockade was in place during the first week of October, but I've struggled to find a precise date for when it was lifted; Patrick Crichton suggests that it was the 6th, and Duffy's account agrees with this. This puts the ball on the evening of the 7th. There are no precise references to time in these chapters, but with so much happening in one evening it's quite likely that it's after midnight by the end of 2.3.
2.4 opens 'the next day', when Alison speaks to Ewen; 'next day' after that Hector gets the whole story. After that, 'the October days went by', and Ewen's hand has time to heal up. At the end of the chapter it's 'early on the morning of the first of November', and Ewen is preparing to leave Edinburgh. According to Duffy, the main body of the army left the city on 31 October—Broster agrees, with Ewen staying longer 'to bring away the Cameron guard'.
Part III
3.1 opens on 'the seventh of March', and the first few pages summarise events from when the Jacobite army left Edinburgh to the present. Ewen and Alison are married 'next day' (8 March), and stay at Inverness the full day and night after that. Two days after the wedding Alison boards the ship for France, and Ewen goes to report to Lochiel and subsequently leaves Inverness.
3.2 is a bit various! It opens with more historical summary, beginning with the surrender of Fort Augustus on 5 March and then moving on to the siege of Fort William. The main action begins during the siege, on 'a fine morning in the latter half of March'; Broster describes the Jacobites firing on the fort from 'one of the little eminences about half a mile away', and suggests that the following action takes place soon after this begins. Comparing this with Duffy's description of the siege suggests the 'eminence' is Sugar Loaf Hill, on which new batteries were opened on 20 and 22 March; I think 20 March is the most likely date for this scene. Ewen is injured that day; he's kept in bed 'longer than he had expected', and has been up again for 'a day or two' when the siege is abandoned 'in the night of 3 April'. Ewen then returns to Ardroy, not more than a day's journey away, so probably he arrives on the 4th. He leaves when Lochiel's orders come; 'Cumberland is moving', and they're to march for Inverness. According to Duffy the Prince sent for Lochiel to Inverness on 4 April, so Ewen's stay at Ardroy probably isn't very long. The rest of the chapter takes place from during the night march on 15/16 April to just before the battle on the 16th.
3.3 returns to Keith, and we're told that it is 'the first of May'; Culloden was 'a couple of weeks ago'. The rest of the chapter takes place the same day, as does 3.4, which follows immediately on from 3.3.
3.5 opens 'a few hours later', and thus That Night in the Hut is the night of 1/2 May; by the end of the chapter 'it was light outside'.
Part IV
At the beginning of 4.1 'it was six days since he [Keith] had left Guthrie's camp'. That was during the night of the 1st, so depending on exactly how Keith is counting, it might plausibly now be either the 7th or the 8th. The rest of this chapter and 4.2 take place the same day. Meanwhile, Ewen was in Guthrie's custody for 'twenty-four hours', from the morning of 2 May to the 3rd. In chapter 4.2, Paton narrates the events in Guthrie's camp and tells us that Guthrie sent Ewen to Fort Augustus 'next morning', i.e. the 3rd. When Keith arrives at Fort Augustus he hears that Ewen gave the information about Lochiel 'last night'.
4.3 begins the next morning, and continues through that day and the following night. The next day after this, he meets Ewen 'about six o'clock in the evening'.
4.4 follows immediately from 4.3. At the end of the chapter Keith is told he'll be taken to Inverness 'next morning'. Ewen says he talked in his sleep 'the fifth night—two nights ago'. We can use this to resolve the 'six days' ambiguity: the fifth night after Ewen arrived at the fort was the 7th, so Keith must have arrived there on the 8th, he spent the 9th imprisoned, and it's now the 10th. (The night of the 7th might count as 'two nights ago' from the 10th if Ewen begins counting from the previous night).
At the beginning of 4.5, 'ten days had passed' since Ewen's meeting with Keith, so it's now the 20th; Ewen's conversation with Loudoun takes place the same day. The next day Ewen is moved to the dungeons; 'the following morning', i.e. the 22nd, Alexander Cameron arrives with news.
4.6 opens on 'the seventeenth of July'; Keith has been at Inverness all the time since we last saw him, with the threat of a court-martial having been removed by 'the last week in May'. Keith goes to Fort Augustus and confronts Cumberland the same day; he spends the night there and meets Albemarle 'next afternoon'. The end of the chapter skips over 'the next few days', ending 'on the morning of the twenty-fourth', when Keith gets permission to see Ewen.
Ewen and Keith's meeting in 4.7 then takes place the same day, the 24th; the chapter continues to 'next morning', when Ewen is taken away for Fort William, and 'that afternoon', when Keith gets his orders to go and search for the Prince.
Part V
5.1 takes place on the same morning as the end of 4.7, 25 July.
5.2 opens that night, with Ewen's rescue by the Yorkshiremen taking place the next day (the 26th); 'twenty-four hours later' he reaches Ardroy, and the rest of the chapter takes place the same day, the 27th.
5.3 summarises events over several days: Ewen leaves his room 'after three days' (the 30th), his conversation with Aunt Margaret is on 'the fifth evening after his return' (the 31st), and Archie arrives and talks to Ewen 'a week later' (7 August). We can match up some of the things Archie says with historical events. The Prince is currently 'in Chisholm's country', while Lochiel is hiding on Ben Alder with Cluny MacPherson; historically, Charles returned to the mainland on 5 July and joined Cluny on Ben Alder on 5 September, so Archie's account is consistent with it currently being somewhere between those dates.
5.4 follows immediately from 5.3; 'next day' Ewen begins preparing for his departure, which takes place that evening, and speaks to Angus before he goes.
5.5 is very difficult to date precisely; Ewen and his party from Ardroy have now reached the coast, so it's probably two or three days after 5.4, but we don't get an exact date. The other possible clue is the presence of a French ship, but the dates don't line up with this being the ship which took Charles off from Scotland on 20 September, or the second one which arrived along with it, and as far as I can find there are no other plausible historical ships (besides those two in September, Duffy only mentions one which arrived in May). I think we have to conclude that this ship is either fictional or too obscure to have been mentioned in the history books.
Epilogue
The epilogue also contains no specific clues, apart from the likely amount of time it would have taken Ewen to reach France and then Havre-de-Grâce. It took Charles nine days to get to France, but speed when travelling by sea was highly variable depending on the weather; we also don't know where Ewen's fictional ship landed him and hence how far he had to travel to get to Havre-de-Grâce, introducing more uncertainty.
Backstory
We get fairly detailed information on the events surrounding Ewen's birth: his father flees Scotland after the 1719 Jacobite Rising, leaving the country 'three days' after Ewen is born; when he dies, 'before the year had ended', Ewen is 'six months old'. In the prologue, Ewen is 'just six-and-twenty'. The Battle of Glen Shiel, the decisive battle of the '19, was fought on 10 June 1719. Taken together, these all agree on a date of birth in mid-to-late June 1719. Margaret arrives at Ardroy 'after a while', and before her brother's death. Ewen is 26 at the beginning of the novel, and has his 27th birthday between chapters 4.5 and 4.6, when he's in prison at Fort Augustus.
Ewen spends 'two years' abroad for his education, and meets Alison in Paris during this time. By the time of the prologue, they've been engaged for four years. Thus the engagement began in 1741, and Ewen's two years in France were roughly from 1739-41, when he was 19-22.
We don't get such a precise timeline for Keith's backstory. He's 'thirty' in chapter 1.1; thus his date of birth is somewhere between August 1714 and August 1715, and he has probably turned 31 by the end of the novel.
Keith's betrayal by Lydia Shelmerdine was 'four years ago', in 1741. Keith's father died when he was five, sometime between August 1719 and August 1721. Keith has 'borne his Majesty's commission' for 'twelve years' as of May 1746, in chapter 4.2.
And that's it! Again, please do comment with corrections, additions, arguments etc. In particular, I suspect there may be more information on Keith's backstory in Gleam in the North, but I didn't revisit that book for this timeline, so if you've read it more recently and it does have anything to contribute, do say so.
