Recent reading
Jul. 19th, 2023 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaI am now up north, and tomorrow I will go hiking alone in the Swedish mountains (more precisely "Skäckerfjällen" if you want to know where I am). So no internet from tomorrow morning until Sunday evening, in case you're wondering why I am not replying to emails/comments. I promise to take photos! : )
Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel by John Drummond (published in 1842; the manuscript was completed in 1737)
This book fulfilled my every expectation; that is, it was by turns tedious and made my eyes glaze over, while also containing some amazing anecdotes. I will attempt to distill the anecdotes for you, while skipping the tedious parts. Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel was the grandfather of the Lochiel who took part in the ’45, and lived from 1629 to 1719--a long lifespan and a larger than life character, too! I skipped the 19th century introduction about the Highlands, and skimmed Drummond’s history of the Cameron clan from the 11th century onwards.
I only noticed now, when I was writing up this review, that like his namesake (our Ewen), Sir Ewen was fostered with a MacMartin! His father died when he was young, and his grandfather was infirm, but his uncle kept the estate together while Lochiel was young. When he was 12, he went to the Marquis of Argyll to be tutored (Lochiel’s mother was a Campbell). This is about when the Civil War broke out; Argyll’s father had been a royalist, but he himself was a Covenanter. Despite being actually in a war against the royalists (to which the Camerons belonged), he seems to have continued taking care of Lochiel in all good faith. At one point after a royalist defeat, Lochiel manages to speak to a royalist prisoner who is all, Alas! Why are you, the child of good royalists, in the care of this man who can teach you only treachery, ingratitude, enthusiasm, cruelty, treason, disloyalty and avarice? (This book is, uh, not making an attempt to be impartial. Also, ‘enthusiasm’ at the time meant ‘religious fanaticism’.) He tells Lochiel about the rightful king and his noble cause, and then dies a martyr’s death at the hands of the Covenanters. Hardened in his royalist loyalty, Lochiel returned to his clan at 18, where all rejoiced to see him.
The best part of the book is when Lochiel is fighting against General Monk’s forces (Cromwell’s representative in Scotland). At first he is a colonel in the Royalist forces at age 22, where ‘his greatest fault was an excess of forwardness’ in battle. This is also when the fort at Inverlochy (later to become Fort William) was first established. On one occasion, Lochiel attacked a party of 140 soldiers out collecting wood, with only 38 people, because they had ’the boldness to fix themselves in the heart of his country, and the insolence to cut down his woods without his leave’. He went himself into battle, but tied his younger brother Allan to a tree, so as not to risk both of them. But Allan got loose and followed them, which was lucky for Lochiel, because his brother later saved him from being shot twice, the last time by jumping in front of a bullet for him and dying. The Englishmen had heavy muskets, but I was intrigued that the Camerons were still fighting with bow and arrow! Along with some muskets, swords and targes. Apparently this is one of the last recorded times that bow and arrow were used in warfare in Britain.
Lochiel followed a few soldiers into the woods, and came upon the commanding officer of the English force. They fought with swords and then wrestled, until Lochiel was caught underneath his larger opponent on a dry streambed in a ravine. This is the famous occasion when he survived by biting out a man’s throat! (And one of the things that make me conclude that he was a werewolf; the others being that he was prodigiously strong and that he killed the last wolf in Britain). The majority of the English soldiers were apparently killed, one of the exceptions being a man whom Lochiel personally saved and who thereafter faithfully served him as cook all his life.
Further anecdotes from this battle: ‘his men had been some way or other, prepossessed with a fancy that the English had some excrescence shooting out from their rumps, in form of tails, which made some of the meaner sort examine several of the dead bodies.’ Further werewolf fodder??
‘One of his men having shot an arrow at too great a distance and Lochiel observing that it did not pierce deep enough to kill the man, cried out, that it came from a weak arm, at which the Highlander thought himself so affronted that, despite the danger, he rushed among the thick of the enemy, and recovering his own arrow, plunged it into the man's body to the feathers! This action would have cost him his life, if Lochiel had not quickly detached a party to his relief.’
Etcetera, there are lots more battle anecdotes where these came from. All this, and he was ‘excessively modest’ as well, ha ha. I can only imagine our Ewen hearing these stories as a boy…
Let us skip forward. The Camerons were the last in Britain to hold out against Cromwell’s Commonwealth. This is how he finally made his peace with them: he captured and abducted a number of enemy officers, including a Campbell who was a friend of his. Then he entertained them with lavish feasts and hunting parties where his clansman herded the deer towards them so that they could have the 'rare pleasure' of killing the game with their swords. Lochiel daily grew in their esteem, and they tried to persuade him to surrender. With their help, Lochiel negotiated terms with General Monk which are frankly astonishing. Now this is how you surrender:
- Lochiel did not have to swear any oaths of loyalty--his word of honour that they would live in peace was enough.
- He and all his clan were allowed to bear weapons (but limited to a certain number of armed followers outside their lands).
- They had indemnity for everything they had done during the war.
- They did not have to pay the taxes they hadn't paid during the war.
- Lochiel and his tenants and clansmen were to be paid reparations for damage done by the governor of (the future) Fort William during the war.
And all these things were actually upheld by Monk later on, who became a good friend to Lochiel! There are apparently some theories that Monk was secretly royalist even at this time...he was later part of bringing back Charles II.
Alas, the rest of the book is not as entertaining--there are lots of complicated lawsuits and plots whereby different people tried to get at parts of Lochiel's estate and bring him into disfavour, and then later on a fairly detailed account of Dundee's 1689 Jacobite rising and Lochiel's part of it. It is interesting to see how Lochiel seemed personally to be friends with the future James II, though (he also helped Lochiel to get out of some of those legal feuds) which I guess explains the Camerons remaining strongly Jacobite.
Also, I have seen Sir Ewen’s actual boots, in the Clan Cameron museum in Achnacarry! : D Sadly I failed to take a picture of them, but they were typical 17th century riding boots, high and black and with large turned-down tops.
Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel by John Drummond (published in 1842; the manuscript was completed in 1737)
This book fulfilled my every expectation; that is, it was by turns tedious and made my eyes glaze over, while also containing some amazing anecdotes. I will attempt to distill the anecdotes for you, while skipping the tedious parts. Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel was the grandfather of the Lochiel who took part in the ’45, and lived from 1629 to 1719--a long lifespan and a larger than life character, too! I skipped the 19th century introduction about the Highlands, and skimmed Drummond’s history of the Cameron clan from the 11th century onwards.
I only noticed now, when I was writing up this review, that like his namesake (our Ewen), Sir Ewen was fostered with a MacMartin! His father died when he was young, and his grandfather was infirm, but his uncle kept the estate together while Lochiel was young. When he was 12, he went to the Marquis of Argyll to be tutored (Lochiel’s mother was a Campbell). This is about when the Civil War broke out; Argyll’s father had been a royalist, but he himself was a Covenanter. Despite being actually in a war against the royalists (to which the Camerons belonged), he seems to have continued taking care of Lochiel in all good faith. At one point after a royalist defeat, Lochiel manages to speak to a royalist prisoner who is all, Alas! Why are you, the child of good royalists, in the care of this man who can teach you only treachery, ingratitude, enthusiasm, cruelty, treason, disloyalty and avarice? (This book is, uh, not making an attempt to be impartial. Also, ‘enthusiasm’ at the time meant ‘religious fanaticism’.) He tells Lochiel about the rightful king and his noble cause, and then dies a martyr’s death at the hands of the Covenanters. Hardened in his royalist loyalty, Lochiel returned to his clan at 18, where all rejoiced to see him.
The best part of the book is when Lochiel is fighting against General Monk’s forces (Cromwell’s representative in Scotland). At first he is a colonel in the Royalist forces at age 22, where ‘his greatest fault was an excess of forwardness’ in battle. This is also when the fort at Inverlochy (later to become Fort William) was first established. On one occasion, Lochiel attacked a party of 140 soldiers out collecting wood, with only 38 people, because they had ’the boldness to fix themselves in the heart of his country, and the insolence to cut down his woods without his leave’. He went himself into battle, but tied his younger brother Allan to a tree, so as not to risk both of them. But Allan got loose and followed them, which was lucky for Lochiel, because his brother later saved him from being shot twice, the last time by jumping in front of a bullet for him and dying. The Englishmen had heavy muskets, but I was intrigued that the Camerons were still fighting with bow and arrow! Along with some muskets, swords and targes. Apparently this is one of the last recorded times that bow and arrow were used in warfare in Britain.
Lochiel followed a few soldiers into the woods, and came upon the commanding officer of the English force. They fought with swords and then wrestled, until Lochiel was caught underneath his larger opponent on a dry streambed in a ravine. This is the famous occasion when he survived by biting out a man’s throat! (And one of the things that make me conclude that he was a werewolf; the others being that he was prodigiously strong and that he killed the last wolf in Britain). The majority of the English soldiers were apparently killed, one of the exceptions being a man whom Lochiel personally saved and who thereafter faithfully served him as cook all his life.
Further anecdotes from this battle: ‘his men had been some way or other, prepossessed with a fancy that the English had some excrescence shooting out from their rumps, in form of tails, which made some of the meaner sort examine several of the dead bodies.’ Further werewolf fodder??
‘One of his men having shot an arrow at too great a distance and Lochiel observing that it did not pierce deep enough to kill the man, cried out, that it came from a weak arm, at which the Highlander thought himself so affronted that, despite the danger, he rushed among the thick of the enemy, and recovering his own arrow, plunged it into the man's body to the feathers! This action would have cost him his life, if Lochiel had not quickly detached a party to his relief.’
Etcetera, there are lots more battle anecdotes where these came from. All this, and he was ‘excessively modest’ as well, ha ha. I can only imagine our Ewen hearing these stories as a boy…
Let us skip forward. The Camerons were the last in Britain to hold out against Cromwell’s Commonwealth. This is how he finally made his peace with them: he captured and abducted a number of enemy officers, including a Campbell who was a friend of his. Then he entertained them with lavish feasts and hunting parties where his clansman herded the deer towards them so that they could have the 'rare pleasure' of killing the game with their swords. Lochiel daily grew in their esteem, and they tried to persuade him to surrender. With their help, Lochiel negotiated terms with General Monk which are frankly astonishing. Now this is how you surrender:
- Lochiel did not have to swear any oaths of loyalty--his word of honour that they would live in peace was enough.
- He and all his clan were allowed to bear weapons (but limited to a certain number of armed followers outside their lands).
- They had indemnity for everything they had done during the war.
- They did not have to pay the taxes they hadn't paid during the war.
- Lochiel and his tenants and clansmen were to be paid reparations for damage done by the governor of (the future) Fort William during the war.
And all these things were actually upheld by Monk later on, who became a good friend to Lochiel! There are apparently some theories that Monk was secretly royalist even at this time...he was later part of bringing back Charles II.
Alas, the rest of the book is not as entertaining--there are lots of complicated lawsuits and plots whereby different people tried to get at parts of Lochiel's estate and bring him into disfavour, and then later on a fairly detailed account of Dundee's 1689 Jacobite rising and Lochiel's part of it. It is interesting to see how Lochiel seemed personally to be friends with the future James II, though (he also helped Lochiel to get out of some of those legal feuds) which I guess explains the Camerons remaining strongly Jacobite.
Also, I have seen Sir Ewen’s actual boots, in the Clan Cameron museum in Achnacarry! : D Sadly I failed to take a picture of them, but they were typical 17th century riding boots, high and black and with large turned-down tops.
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Date: 2023-07-21 06:21 pm (UTC)I did not know there was a contemporary memoir of the memorable Sir Ewen! That's great, and it sounds like a very entertaining book despite the tedious legal parts. I have no specific comments other than a general 'wow': he clearly lived a very eventful life indeed, and this totally sounds like good and plausible background for the werewolf fic.
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Date: 2023-07-24 02:14 pm (UTC)Glad you enjoyed the write-up! : D
I did not know there was a contemporary memoir of the memorable Sir Ewen!
Well, contemporary is maybe too strong a word, since it was written a few decades after his death! John Drummond was a relative of the Lochiels, so it's very much a writing-family-history book. But (according to Drummond) much better than the then recently published history of the Gordons, which is, he will have you know, riddled with errors!
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Date: 2023-07-24 04:39 pm (UTC)I see. Hee, I like Drummond's opinions on the veracity of other histories!
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