Bonnie Dundee

Bonnie Dundee
First edition cover
Publication	1983
Length	Novel
Audience	Young adult
Historical era	17th century

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Bonnie Dundee is a young adult novel published by the Bodley Head in 1983. It is based on the career of John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee, who fought the Scottish Covenanters for James II, then led the first Jacobite uprising against William and Mary.

Plot

At Rotterdam in the early 18th century, an exiled Scottish grandfather, at the urging of his wife, undertakes to set down the true history of the Loyalist general called by his enemies Bloody Clavers, and by his followers Bonnie Dundee (1).

Hugh Herriot, the orphaned thirteen-year-old son of a painter who is living with his Ayrshire relatives, witnesses his neighbours and cousin, Alan Armstrong, ambush and execute a Government patrol in order to acquire their weapons for the Covenanter insurgency (1). He is captured and questioned by the leader of the Government forces, Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, who releases him. Returned home, Hugh breaks with his cousin (2), and their sympathetic grandfather arranges for him to work as a stable boy in the household of Lord Dundonel (3).

At Place of Paisley, Lord Dundonel's seat, Hugh becomes friendly with Lady Jean Cochrane, Lord Dundonel's grand-daughter, and her Tinkler kinswoman Darklis Ruthven (3). Also frequenting the house is Claverhouse, who in the spring of 1684 becomes engaged to Jean (4). Jean sits for a wedding portrait by a Dutch painter, Cornelius van Meere, who adopts Hugh as a temporary assistant (5), and offers him an apprenticeship in Utrecht, which Hugh declines, already planning to follow Claverhouse as a soldier when he is of age (6). Claverhouse is called away by duty on the day of the wedding, but Jean has invited Hugh to go with her to their new home at Dundee (7).

On Midsummer's Eve, Hugh meets Darklis under an elder tree, who tells him of her descent from Jean's great-grandmother Lady Casselis and Johnnie Faa, Tinkler royalty, and then has a vision of death and darkness in a pool of water (8).

Later that summer, Hugh rides cross-country to bring Claverhouse to an injured Jean (9), and when Claverhouse is mobilised again to Ayrshire, requests a place as galloper in his troop, which Claverhouse grants him, after Hugh finally confesses their first meeting (11). Their first act in the campaign is to arrest and execute an unrepentant Covenanter messenger, John Brown (12). They next move to break up a Covenanter conventicle led by the radical minister James Renwick, where Hugh kills his cousin Alan Armstrong (13).

Hugh spends the following years learning soldiering with Claverhouse's troop. Claverhouse is promoted to general and created Viscount Dundee. In 1688, King James's second queen becomes pregnant, and the erstwhile heirs presumptive, Princess Mary and Prince William of Orange, move to invade England. The queen is delivered of a son, but at the end of the year, James abdicates the throne, contrary to Dundee's urging, and departs for France (14).

In February of 1689, the Scottish Lords convene at Edinburgh and accede to William's rule, and Dundee departs in disgust (15). Though his allies' support fails to materialise, Dundee raises his banner for James and his Jacobite army massing in Ireland (16). Dundee takes his troops to Inverness to raise the highlands, turns back for the promise of the Dragoon regiments' defection, but on returning to Dundee finds his ally Colonel Livingstone has been arrested (17). Dundee meets Jean and their infant son at Glenogilvie to say goodbye, and Darklis gives Hugh a token to carry away with him (18). Dundee's troop make a gruelling cross-country march to Lochaber, Hugh befriending a Highlander who helps him rescue his mount from a bog (19). Dundee maneuvers for some weeks to bring the Government's superior numbers to battle on a ground of his choosing, but is forced to retire to Lochaber, where the uncommitted Highlanders, bored of inaction, are beginning to desert, and King James's Irish army finally materialises as a small group of raw recruits. Despite this disappointment, Dundee is forced to march south to hold Blair Castle, the gateway to the Highlands (20). They march into Blair unopposed, but must decide whether to press immediately against MacKay's camp on the south side of the pass of Killiecrankie. The Council's vote is carried for attacking. Hugh's Highlander friend Alisdair Gordon shares with him the Highlanders' apprehensions surrounding a woman at her laundry sighted on their march to Blair, whom they take to be the omen of a leader's death called the Washer at the Ford (21). Dundee finally brings his army to battle against General McKay's Government forces at the Pass of Killicrankie in July 1689. The Jacobites prevail, but Dundee is shot in the first charge and dies hours later (22). His men carry him back to Blair and lay him in the kirk (23).

As Dundee's leaderless army disintegrates, Hugh, injured at Killiecrankie, becomes lost and feverish, and is taken in by a band of Tinklers who recognise Darklis's pin (24). He returns to Glenogilvie to take his leave of Darklis and Jean, before leaving to join James's army for Claverhouse's sake (25). James and his soldiers are given asylum by the king of France, whose service they eventually join. Hugh fights three campaigns in the Pyrenees before a wound leaves him with an amputated arm and no prospects. In the churchyard of Perpignan, the sight of a beggar woman's hands inspires him to paint again, and he works his way across France and the Netherlands painting signs, until he finds his way to the house of Cornelius van Meere (26).

Two and a half years later, in late 1695, Hugh meets Darklis in Utrecht, where she is still in the service of the remarried Jean. As they speak, the inn in which the family is staying collapses, killing Jean. Without the first object of her loyalty, Darklis and Hugh no longer have any reason not to marry. Hugh's book is addressed to their grandchildren.

Chronology

Bonnie Dundee is closely based on historical events with well-known dates. Within the text, frequent references to the month and the passage of time can be backdated from an absolute date of 1689 for chapters 15 through 25, given in the opening paragraphs.

• Three generations ago: Lady Casselis has a daughter by Johnnie Faa.
• Two generations ago: Casselis-Faa daughter marries a Ruthven.
• 1638: Scots sign the National Covenant (1).
• 1640: Covenanter army including Montrose invade northern England (1).
• 1644-5: Montrose wins Scotland for Charles I (1).
• 21 July 1648: John Graham born (4).
• 21 May 1650: Montrose hanged (6).
• One generation ago: Faa-Ruthven son is Lord Casselis's falconer.
• 1660: Charles II crowned king of England and Scotland (1).
• Circa 1666: Lady Jean Cochrane born (3).
• Circa 1668: Alan Armstrong born (1).
• Circa 1669: Darklis Ruthven born; her parents die (3).
• 1670: Hugh Herriot born (1).
• 1675: Hugh Herriot's mother dies. Hugh is 5 (1).
• 3 May 1679: Archbishop Sharp murdered (1).
• 1 June 1679 : Battle of Drumclog. Alan Armstong's father killed by Government soldiers. Alan is 10 (1).
• 1681: Hugh Herriot's father dies. Hugh goes to live at Wauprigg. Hugh is 11 (1).
• 1683: Claverhouse campaigning in the southwest.
  • March: Hugh is 13, Alan is 15. Covenanters of Wauprigg murder four Claverhouse troopers (1). Hugh meets Claverhouse (2).
  • A few days later: Grandfather sends Hugh to Place of Paisley (3).
  • April: Hugh meets Jean and Darklis. Jean is 16-17, Darklis 2-3 years younger (13-15) (3).
  • Summer: The Ryehouse Plot. Hugh and Jean become friendly. Claverhouse patrols the Borders (4).
• 1684 (4)
  • Winter's end: Claverhouse returns to the South West (4).
  • March: Hugh meets Claverhouse again (4).
  • Spring: Claverhouse courting Jean.
  • Summer: Claverhouse and Jean betrothed. Claverhouse is 35 (4).
    • One day: News of Grandfather Armstrong's death. Jean invites Hugh to go with her. Cornelius van Meere arrives (5).
    • 2-3 days afterward: Hugh becomes van Meere's temporary apprentice (5).
    • Late May: Hugh paints Claverhouse's portrait (6).
    • 9 June: Claverhouse and Jean sign their marriage contract (7).
    • 10 June: The wedding, or Tuesday. Claverhouse called away to meet invading Glasgewians (7).
    • Most of a week later: Claverhouse returns to collect Jean & Co. (8).
    • 3 days later: Glenogilvie.
    • [23 June] Midsummer's Eve, most of a week later: Darklis's vision (8).
    • 2-3 days later: Dudhope (8).
    • Summer-autumn: Claverhouse in the West fighting James Renwick (9).
    • Late August: Hugh rides cross-country to bring Claverhouse to injured Jean (9). Hugh is 15 (10).
    • The day after next: Lady Mary Fair. Hugh meets Captain Faa and acquires Caspar (10).
  • Autumn-winter: Claverhouse ferrying between South West, Edinburgh, and Dunhope (11).
• 1685 (11)
  • Winter-spring: Claverhouse feuding with Queensberry, stripped of command in the South West. (11).
  • Spring: Charles II dead, James II crowned (11). James offers pardon to Renwick's rebels (12).
  • A few weeks later: Dukes of Monmouth and Argyll raising an army. Claverhouse sent back to South West. Hugh is 16 (11).
  • April: Claverhouse's Horse returns to Ayrshire, later called "the Killing Time". Claverhouse executes John Brown (12).
  • 6 days later: Claverhouse breaks up Renwick's conventicle. Hugh kills Alan. Monmouth and Argyll land (13).
  • A few weeks later: Monmouth's rebellion fails and he and Argyll are executed (13).
  • November 1685: 1st Earl Dondonel and Gen. Dalyell dead. Gen. Drummond C-in-C. Claverhouse General.
• 1685-8 : "upward of three years of what looked on the surface like peace" (14).
  • 1687: Declaration(s) of Indulgence
• 1688 (14)
  • Summer: Queen Mary pregnant. Whigs invite William and Mary into England.
  • October: Gen. Douglas's command go to London. James resolved to abdicate.
  • November: Prince James born [actually June]. William of Orange lands in Devon.
  • December: James departs for France.
• 1689: Events of chapters 15 - 25. The Scottish Convention accepts William of Orange. Dundee raises the Highlands and defeats a Government army at the Battle of Killiecrankie, but is killed. Hugh leaves Scotland for King James's service.
  • February: Scottish troops return to Scotland (15).
  • Late February: Claverhouse's son born.
  • 14 March: The Scottish Convention resolves to offer the Scottish crown to William. Claverhouse walks out. James lands in Ireland.
  • Monday, 17 March: Atholl, Mar, and Balcarres fail to march out of Edinburgh (16).
  • March 18-20: Claverhouse waits in Stirling.
  • 9 April: James Graham christened. Convention reprimands Dundee.
  • 11 April: William and Mary proclaimed king and queen of Scotland.
  • A few days later: Dundee raises the royal standard for James (16).
  • Late April: Dundee arrives in Elgin, word from Captain Faa. South to Cairn-o'-Mount; north to Inverness; south to Perth (17).
  • Monday May 13: Dundee returns to Dundee. Dragoons fail to materialise (17).
  • Tuesday May 14: Glenogilvie to Pitlochry (19).
  • Wed. 15-Thur. 16: Highland March to Lochaber (19).
  • May 18: meeting with Lord Lochiel in Glen Roy (19).
  • May 25: Dundee reviews the Highlanders at Glen Roy (20).
  • Next 3 weeks: Dundee and MacKay chase each other about the Southern Highlands; Dundee retires to Glen Roy (20).
  • Midsummer's Day [24 June]: Dundee marches for Blair (21).
  • Next day: Waiting at Badenoch for word from Murray (21).
  • Next day: Leaves Cluny Castle for Blair, via Druimuchdair. The washer at the ford (21).
  • Next day: Morning: decision to fight (21).
  • Evening: battle of Killiecrankie [actually 27 July 1689] (22).
  • Next day: Dundee laid at Blair (23).
  • "Within days": clan chiefs quarrelling; Lochiel and MacDonald go home (24).
  • "in a few days": march on Stirling? (24)
  • Next day: Hugh lost
  • Next day: Tinkler camp
  • Days: fever. Battle at Dunkeld [actually 21 August]; Jacobite collapse.
  • August, 5 days after Hugh wakes up: dropped off at Glenogilvie (25).
• 1689 - 1693: Events of chapter 26. Hugh campaigns in France and Spain; is invalided out of service; goes to Utrecht to study under Cornelius van de Meere.
• 1693 - 1695: Events of chapter 27. Hugh is reunited with Darklis; Lady Jean killed.
• Reign of George I (1714-27): Hugh composes the book (1).

Characters

Genealogy

Virtually every major character in Bonnie Dundee is distantly related, by virtue of Jean Cochrane and Darklis Ruthven's shared great-grandmother, (a semi-legendary) Countess Casselis [sic], but their exact connection is not made explicit in the text. Darklis's comment in chapter 8 that she is "kin to the fine stiff-backed Covenanting Cochranes" through "Jean's great-grandmother [...] not on the Cochrane side, her Casselis great-grandmother" might lead the reader to surmise that Lady Casselis was the mother of Jean's paternal grandmother Lady Dundonel, the only female ancestor of Jean who actually appears in the text. The usual complement of great-grandmothers, however, is four, and so it proves that it is Jean's mother, Lady Catherine Kennedy, whose father was the 6th Earl Cassilis and the son of the errant 'Lady Casselis'. (The person who actually occupies this perch on the family tree is Katherine Macdowall, but see Background for the fictionality of any Lady Cassilis's affair with a gypsy lover.) Darklis is more accurately kin to the Kennedys, and related by blood to the Cochranes only in Catherine's descendants.

Jean's cousin Lord Ross was the son of her father's sister Grizel Cochrane.

John Graham, Viscount Dundee, is kin to his hero James Graham, 1st Marquess Montrose, but their precise relationship is unclear. (Darklis Ruthven claims a vague tribal kinship to the Earls of Gowrie – one of whose daughters, Lady Margaret Ruthven, was Montrose's mother.) The Grahams are likewise obscurely related to James Philips of Amryclose through a Margaret Graham.

Cast

Italics denotes a real person.

The Herriot family

• Hugh Herriot (1), narrator, artist of Rotterdam, erstwhile follower of Bonnie Dundee. Orphan of a travelling painter. Narrow-built and dark. "I was aye a good follower in my young days, and needed someone to follow." At 13, uncommitted to either the Covenant or the Government (1). "the grief was on me, for the drummer laddie, and for my own loss of Alan that left me like a stray dog with no heel to follow." "The pull of two loyalties within me was over and done with, and there was some relief in that. I knew now that I was like Montrose: that I was no Covenanter nor ever could be." (2). "Willie had taken a good opinion of me, finding me more skilled with horses than most of my kind, and showed it by unloading on to me all the extra work about the place" "the day came–I'd not be knowing why it was that day and no other–when [Andy Burns] called a wee boot-licking, snivelling bastard just the once too often, and I hit him. [vicious no-holds-barred fight] Aye, that was a good moment, too." Proceeds to quote Alcibiades and his father re: gentlemanliness of aristocrats to Lord Dundonel's face (3). "[Claverhouse] had looked at me as I took his horse, in a way that nobody had ever looked at me before....I knew that something had happened in my life that could not unhappen again, though at the time I did not know what it was." "I was free to think long thoughts to myself about finding my way into Claverhouse's Horse...and maybe ending up myself with a third eye in the middle of my forehead, at the hands of my own people..." "to get away by his lone, when he would have solitude for his thinking; and most of my fellows seemed not to fell the need. I felt the need;" (4). "I knew for the first time that it was not so much the soldiering my heart was set on, as that I would be following Claverhouse." "the coming of the Dutch painter, was the third of the three things that were to shape my life." (5). "It was all like returning to a familiar but long-forgotten world to me; and I began to itch in my fingers and in some place deep inside myself for an odd bit of board and a brush and a dap of ingres of my own" "I have become a skilled and, as I think, a bonnie painter in the years since then, though alas, never the great one, the master that every painter dreams of becoming when he first sets out....But I do not think that I have ever had such joy of it again as I had in that hour. I am thinking that as with many other things, love, aye, and friendship among them, so it is with painting and the making of songs and the like, we have a first time, a virginity to lose, and the hour that we lose it is not just like any other hour in all our lives." "'Boy, you are a bad painter, but with teaching you could be a goot one,'" (6). "It was that evening [with Darklis] I found for the first time the goodness of silence shared between companions who do not need always to be talking." (8) "a thing that took a hand in the shaping of my life afterwards." "I must have shot up like a beanstalk in the past few months, for it was at that moment I noticed...that I no longer had to look up at him, for my eyes were on a level with [Claverhouse's], and I could look straight into them." (9). "'A stiff-necked young callant," (10). "if I was going to follow Claverhouse at all, it must be anywhere, at any time, against my own kind if need be, facing the wrench of divided loyalties... But to ride down to Ayrshire in a red coat..."  "'I have to go now, and not wait for an easier time.' 'I said you were a good follower.'" (11). "I had always been able to ride anything with four legs...I am thinking that I pulled my weight in the troop none so ill." (12). "'you were such a laddie when you went away...–and now you're not a laddie anymore. Did the sojering do that do to you?'" (13). "'Ye've the keen nose, I'm thinking,' said he, 'ye should ha' been a Hielan' man.'" (21). "For the first and only time in my life, maybe because it was the only time in my life that ever I was part of a Highland charge, the smell of blood came into the back of my nose, and the terrible red mist of battle-drunkenness was upon me. Most other times I have just been cold afraid." (22). "It was I that drew the fold of plaid across [Dundee's] face." (23). "'You always have to follow someone. 'Tis time ye learned to be your own man, Hugh.' (25).
• Herriot (1), Hugh's father, a travelling painter of signs and occasional portraits, who believed Hugh would be a better artist than himself. Died of lung-fever at Edinburgh when Hugh was 11. Narrow and dark like Hugh (1). Learned commentary on Alcibiades (3). "I had been dragged up by a father who cared more for the picture taking life under his hand, for its trueness of colour and line, than ever he did for King of Covenant." (4).
• Johnnie and Jamie Herriot (1), Hugh's sons
• Herriot grandchildren (1), intended audience of the book

The Armstrong family

• Armstrong of Wauprigg (1), Hugh's maternal grandfather, a farmer. Signed the Covenant in his own blood and followed Montrose as a young man, but now discreetly absents himself from Covenanter conventicles (1).
• Armstrong daughter (1), Hugh's mother, ran away to marry a travelling painter. Died when Hugh was 5 (1).
• Armstrong son (1), only son of Armstrong of Wauprigg, husband of Margaret and father of Alan, killed by Claverhouse's forces at the battle of Drumclog in 1679 (1).
• Margaret Armstrong (1), never forgave Hugh's mother for shaming the family, or Hugh by association. A beautiful, bitter widow of five years. "A good hater" of the Government troops who killed her husband (1).
• Alan Armstrong (1), Margaret's son, "A tall callant with a white freckle face under a burning bush of hair, and grey-green eyes that oft times had the Devil looking out of them; but he had tossed me a kind word from time to time, and whistled me to heel as a man whistles his dog." A confirmed Covenanter. Executes a wounded drummer boy at Phemie's alehouse (1). "He was trying to make it all seem quite reasonable. Somehow small. Was that how it seemed to him?" "until he put it into my head, it had never for an instant occurred to me to betray my kinsfolk." (2). "That was the time when I had been torn, between Alan with the freedom-fire in his eyes and Grandfather with his sick cow. And Alan himself had slashed through that tangle for me." (4). "a young man in weather-stained homespun, with bright red-gold hair tumbling about his head...the light bright familiar devil-dance at the back of the man's eyes." "It was him or me...The point went in...just below the collarbone." "'Must have got a hit in the ankle, and hauled himself in there to take cover while he reloaded,'" "I had not felt anything when I killed Alan, just the stillness and the two of us together in it; but now suddenly I was deadly cold." (13).

Their neighbours

• Ezekiel Grey (1), minister preaching in Wauprigg kitchen, a Covenanter fanatic. Helps fire Phemie's alehouse.
• Willie the cowherd (1), shameless and accomplished poacher. Brings the news of Claverhouse's troopers to Wauprigg.
• Forsyths, Patersons, and Carmichaels (1), Covenanter neighbours
• Phemie Saunders (1), elderly tavern-keeper, inside when her Covenanter neighbours set it on fire (1). Died in a ditch of burns and shock (2).
• Davy Meikle (1), blacksmith, sets Phemie's alehouse alight.
• Elspeth (2), Wauprigg maidservant
• Daft Eckie (2), Lochinlochian whom Hugh emulates to evade Claverhouse's questioning.

The Graham family

• Colonel John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee (1), called by the Covenanters Bloody Claver'se, by the Highlanders Iain Dhub Nan Cath, Black John of the Battles (1). "the cool arrogant face well matched to the voice, that could yet kindle into eagerness and quirk swiftly into laughter, the slight, tense figure, even the thin strong hands" "a kind of deadly patience that was more fearful than any threat" (2). "he had started his soldiering with the Scottish Brigade in the Low Countries, serving under William of Orange. There was a tale that he had saved William's life in battle" "it was the Duke of York, now become a friend, who had made Lieutenant John Graham captain of a troop of horse, and sent him to deal with the Covenanters the first time he ever came down into Ayrshire and Galloway, years ago." "His somewhat stern face lit into a smile–if I was writing of a lassie, I would have said it was a smile of uncommon sweetness. At all events, it was not the smile that you would have expected from Colonel John Graham of Claverhouse. Nor from Bloody Claver'se." "any man Claverhouse looked at knew himself to be the only man that Claverhouse was looking at in all the world. It was one of the things that gave him his power to lead men." (4). "'Montrose,' Claverhouse echoed the name, quiet-like, but with something in his voice that made me look round at him. 'I was but two years old when he–died, and I never saw him, but I should be glad to think that I had a look of him.' ...despite his thirty-five years and his hardness with the Covenanters, he had a laddie's gift for hero-worship in him still; and I knew who the hero was." "it was as though he had heard what I had not said, and understood, and accepted, gravely, like a liege lord accepting the fealty of his newest knight...And I was no longer a lost dog without a heel to follow." (6). "'When Ayrshire and the South West gets beyond any other man's handling, they send Colonel Graham a' His Majesty's Scottish Horse down to deal wi' it. And the shriek goes up again about Bloody Claver'se and his butcher's ways wi' the poor folk that seek only the freedom to worship God in their own fashion. And no one thinks to mention the poor de'il of a trooper shot in the back wi' a smuggled Dutch musket.'" (7). Claverhouse was made Constable of Dundee around [June 1684]" (8). Promoted Brigadier by James II in 1685 (11). "the time that followed is now often enough called 'The Killing Time', and Claverhouse named 'Bloody Clavers' for his part in it." "'Every man is worth the saving if it can be done.'" (12). "He was a quiet-spoken man, but his war-shout was a clarion, that could carry from one end of a battlefield to the other." (13). Promoted General c. 1685-8. "Claverhouse had his last audience with King James, and came back with an odd look on his face, almost as though he had been weeping; and word went round thatthe King had made him Viscount Dundee." (14). "He was not a young man any more, and had soldiered hard for all the years of his grown manhood. Nobody could have blamed him if he had thought he had earned some peace...but that was not Claverhouse's way." "he would whistle the dogs to heel, and myself also, like as not, and head for the high moors....I am thinking that there were times when Claverhouse took me as a walking companion much as he took the dogs, and for the same sort of company. I am not complaining, mind you, we understood each other fine, Claverhouse and me." "'honour is an intensely personal thing. I am one of the fortunate ones; for me, it is for the most part a simple thing, a straight road to be followed. For you, I think, also, For some men it is not simple at all.' He was a loyal friend to his friend, was Claverhouse, as well as a loyal man to his king." (15). "The man generally forgot to eat when he was on campaign, unless somebody saw to all that for him; and as I have said before, I had come by then to be to him much what a squire was to his knight in olden times." (17). "Dundee was a hard leader, as he always had been; but as always he demanded no more from us than he did from himself. He lay down on the same frozen ground as we did, and ate the same iron ration of stale bannock from his saddlebag, and carried no more of comfort than we in the rolled up cloak strapped behind his saddle." (19). "what with one thing and another, Claverhouse must have been sick at heart...I do know that he was sick in body" "The Highlanders had begun to call him Iain Dhub Nan Cath, Black John of the Battles, though indeed they had shared little fighting with him as yet," (20). "He thanked them for their care, both for him and the cause, admitted that indeed his death might be some loss to them. But what power would he ever have over the clans again, if he kept out of this battle?" (21). "I remembered my last sight of him, his sword arm up to cheer us on. Just under the raised edge of his breastplate the bullet must have taken him." 'It is less the matter for me if–the day goes well for–the King.' (22). "no Lowlander could ever handle the Highland men save Dundee, and maybe Montrose before him." (24).
• David Graham (16), Claverhouse's brother.
• James Graham (15), Claverhouse's son.
• James Graham, 5th Earl & 1st Marquess of Montrose (1), hero who campaigned for the National Covenant in the name of religious freedom in the 1630s, then raised the Highlands and led the Blue Bonnets against it for Charles I in the 1640s (1). A kinsman of John Graham (6). "'I go wherever the spirit of Montrose shall lead me.' And I saw his face for an instant clear in the lantern light, and wondered suddenly if Montrose had looked like that when he rose out to raise the Highlands for his king." (15). "it was the first time that Claverhouse had to deal with Highlanders; though I am thinking that he must have guessed what might happen, seeing that it had happened to his beloved Montrose, forty years before." (17). "no Lowlander could ever handle the Highland men save Dundee, and maybe Montrose before him." (24).
• James Philip of Amryclose (1), Dundee campaigns' self-appointed chronicler (The Graemiad) (1). A distant kinsman of Claverhouse's. "If I had read Cervantes at that time, I would have thought him a Don Quixote of a man...he had the long uncontrolled legs of a crane-fly, and a pair of great eyes aglow with dreams in his long, drooping face; that he had a fine knowledge of the Highlands, though himself he was a Lowlander like the rest of us, and as fine a knowledge of the classics and the faery world, a strong feeling for heroes and lost causes, and a certain skill with the bagpipes. He had a fine carrying voice and was forever talking" (8). "laid aside his pipes and his legends to become our standard-bearer (16). "'What was Hannibal to us?' I have always remembered that, and he must have remembered it too, for afterwards he put it in his book, making it sound heroic, which was not how it sounded at the time." (19). "Philip of Amryclose was fair drunk on it all." (20). Present at Dundee's death (22). Plays the lament at Dundee's funeral (23).

Their staff

• Leezie (8), housekeeper of Glenogilvie, "that was nurse to Claverhouse when he was a bairn"
• Master Gilchrist (9, 10), steward of Dudhope
• Archie Grier (9), head groom at Dudhope
• Andy (9), a groom at Dudhope
• Effie (9), Claverhouse's Edinburgh cook
• Murray (9), Claverhouse's man-servant
• Dr. Anstruther (9), Dundee physician

The Cochrane family

• Lady Jean Cochrane (Jean Graham, Viscountess Dundee) (3), youngest, unmarried daughter of Lord Dundonel's elder son, 16-17 years old. "A slight, long-boned lassie, with straight dove-gold hair that she wore at most times tied back with a ribbon as though she were a boy, and a pair of straight grey eyes like a boy's too, and a wide mouth that seemed made for joy." (3). Supplied Hugh with drawing materials. [To Claverhouse] "'All my life ye'll have but to whistle, and I'll kilt my petticoats to my knee and follow you the length and breadth of Scotland, wi' the heart in me singing like a lintie in a hawthorn bush.'"(4). "she was a valiant lassie, and a proud one" (7). "I think she gad found Claverhouse's bairn not easy in the carrying" (15). "thirty-five barrels of powder and ball–Lady Jean had managed better than that by selling her jewels." (20). "She was gowned in stiff black silk, and her hair was as elaborately dressed as I had ever seen it. That will have been for pride's sake." "It was the first time ever I had called her by her name alone, but it seemed natural, then, to all of us." "I knew that only the truth, however hard, was good enough for my lady Jean." (25).
• Lord Dundonel (Sir William Cochrane, 1st Earl Dundoneld) (3), Jean's grandfather, made Earl by Charles I (3). Dies 1685 (14).
• Lady Dundonel (Eupheme (Scott) Cochrane, Countess Dundoneld) (5), superintending Jean's wedding preparations.
• Lady Catherine Kennedy (Cochrane) (3), Jean's mother, "of as black a Covenanting family as ever prayed to the Lord, a grim-faced, godly woman" (3). Refuses to attend Jean's wedding (7).
• Sir John Cochrane (3), Lord Dundonel's younger son, in Holland after attempted regal assassination.
• Lord Cochrane (7), Lord Dundonel's heir, Jean's elder brother.
• Lord Ross (4), Jean's cousin, a soldier and a visitor at Paisley (4). Wedding guest (7). With Claverhouse in Edinburgh (9).
• Willie Sempill (3), Place of Paisley stable-master. "as much of a gossip as any old grannie." (4).
• Andy Burns (3, 4), Place of Paisley stable-hand, who bullies Hugh and gets bitten for it.

The Ruthven, Faa, and Casselis families

• Mary (Darklis) Ruthven (3), Jean's kinswoman and companion, "both henchwoman and friend, and maybe two-three years her junior, a nut-brown lassie with a kind of cool darkness about her" "carried herself always as if she was braced for something". Jean's private nickname for her is a Tinkler name, who are linked to the Kennedys (3). A skilled needlewoman (5). "I always thought of her by her real name, her gipsy name, now, for though we had seldom spoken with each other since the evening in the Abbey ruins, the shared secret seemed to have made a kind of bond between us." (6). "We had few enough dealings with each other, save for that one shared secret, in all the year and more since I came to Place of Paisley, and she was my lady's kinswoman and I but a lad out of the stable, but I sat down...as though the meeting had been long fixed between us and the most natural thing in the world." "'here am I, kin to the Tinklers and the fine stiff-backed Covenanting Cochranes; and there's a daft way to be!'" Feeling superfluous after Jean's marriage (8). "I knew in that moment, as I had never quite known before, how much my lady meant to her." (9). Friendly tabs kept on her by her Tinkler connections. "'And is it well wi' the Rawni–wi' Mistress Darklis Ruthven?'" (10). "I could not leave without bidding her goodbye, even though she did not seem to care that I was going....Just as it had to be me that took that message to Captain Faa for her, so it had to be Darklis with whom I left Caspar." "She reached up and took my face between her hands and drew it down a kissed me. The first time ever." (11). "there was a distance between me and Darklis these days, even while she told me about the London gaieties and laughed with me and at me, and mended my shirts. It had been there ever since the spring that I had gone down into Ayrshire with Claverhouse, as though maybe she felt some danger in letting me close to her, now that I was not a laddie any more. And yet I did not think that she liked me any less than she had done before. I hoped not, anyway, for I liked the lassie well; too well, maybe, for me own content . . ." (14). " 'Dinna come back. I could not be leaving Jean so long as she needs me.' And she the one that had been bidding me learn to be my own man!" "And it came to me that I had bidden Darklis goodbye too many times in th past years. Well, this was like to be the last time of all." (25).
• Johnnie Faa (6), gypsy lover, famed in song (6), of Jean and Darklis's great-grandmother Casselis, "a Tinkler laddie that came wi' his fiddle to play beneath her window," "And her lord hunted them down and hanged her bonnie Tinkler laddie before his castle gates." Darklis's great-grandfather (8).
• Lady Casselis (8), Jean and Darklis's great-grandmother, wife of Lord Casselis and lover of Johnnie Faa. "'not on the Cochrane side, her Casselis great-grandmother it would be–fell in love wi' a Tinkler laddie that came wi' his fiddle to play under her window, and ran away wi' him from her rightful lord... So the song tells. But it doesna tell that nine months later when her hedgerow bairn was born it was put out to foster, while the lady bore her lord his rightful brood until she died of the last of them.'" (8).
• daughter Faa (8), "'the hedgerow bairn was a lassie, and married out of the royal tribe of Faa into the witch tribe of Ruthven.'"
• Ruthven, Earls of Gowrie (8), reputed to possess witch blood.
• son Ruthven (8), Darklis's father, grandson of Johnnie Faa and Lady Casselis. "And her son, my father, left the black tents of his own people to settle down and become falconer to the last Lord Casselis all for the love of a white-skinned lassie. He was killed taking an eyas from the nest. They say he was drunk at the time, an' rock-climbing's no ploy for a drunk man. And my mother was killed when I was born, and so–'" (8).
• Captain Faa (10), Darklis's Tinkler kinsman. "like a very splendid and lordly tatty-bogle...A tall thin man wearing the wreck of a coat...Grey hair hung in thick greasy locks to his shoulders, and out of the man of it looked a long brown-skinned rogue's face with a great hooked nose that could have belonged to a Roman emperor...yellow eyes–blazing wicked yellow like those of the fish-eagle that the Highlanders cal Iolair-Suil-Na-Greine, the Bird with the Sunlit Eye. ...A scarecrow he might be, but clearly he was a scarecrow in some kind of authority" (10). "with the light prowling step of the mountain cat" (17).

The Dutch

• Mistress Seton (1), a Scot of Rotterdam, talks shit about Clavers, mortally offends Darklis
• Cornelius van Meere (5), Dutch painter in Edinburgh, summoned to paint Jean's wedding portrait. "'He looks like a wee yellow toad...with a great red peruke on top'" "with the broad thick accent of the Low Countries." (5).
• Johannes (5), van Meere's apprentice, "long and lean...a whey-faced sulky-seeming callant, with the red rash on his cheeks and chin that plagues some of us when our beards first begin to sprout". Burns his face not-attending to boiling oil (5).
• Mynheer and Mevrow de Fries (27), of Utrecht, Hugh's first clients

The British Army

• Johnnie (1, 2), drummer boy executed outside Phemie's alehouse by Alan Armstrong. About 14.
• Captain William Livingstone (4), Jean's brother's schoolmate, a close friend. "you would have thought they were brother and sister, for the closeness they had to each other; though it was in my mind even then that Captain Livingstone would gladly have been something else to her if she had looked at him in another way." (4). Commander of Claverhouse's troop (11). Transferred & promoted Major of Scots Dragoons (14). Remains with the Dragoons under King William for complicated reasons (15). Sent to arrest Dundee and hold the town, secretly offers his Dragoons to him via Jean, "Please tell John I am no traitor, and neither torture nor death shall ever make me so. ...I seemed to hear Colonel Livingstone's own voice, grave and always a little anxious" "Livingstone was taken, and in gaol in Edinburgh in peril of his life; and most of his officers with him." (17).
• Tam Johnston (7), "a long-legged, sandy-haired" trooper with whom Hugh shares an ale-jack at Claverhouse's wedding. "A friendly soul, and one that enjoyed the good things in life." (7). Claverhouse dies on his knee. "Tam wiped the blood from his lips, as gently as any lassie could have done; and as gently laid him down." (22).
• General Thomas Dalyell (7), Claverhouse's commanding officer (7). "'Also General Dalyell is an old man and a sick one, and our new Duke wants the Commander-in-Chief's place when it falls vacant, for his brother.'" (9). Dies 1685 (14).
• Colonel Douglas (9), brother of the Duke of Queensberry "and therefore an uncomfortably powerful man," and cheater of Foot Guards (9). Claverhouse's successor in the South West (11). Promoted Brigadier by James II in 1685 (11). Promoted General (14).
• General Lord George Drummond (11), awarded Claverhouse's powers of magistracy in the South West in 1684 (11). Claverhouse intercedes with him on behalf of John Brown the younger (12). Promoted Commander-in-Chief c. 1685 (14).
• Major James Crawford (11), commander of Claverhouse's regiment
• Pate Paterson (11), senior corporal of Livingstone and Claverhouse's troop (11). "he was one of those people who have a natural nose for tidings of all kinds–it was long enough, in conscience–and seem able to sniff news out of the wind, not just rumour, either, before it reaches anybody else." (14). "'Never did I think to march on the heels of a rabble of bog-trotting cattle thieves,'" (17).
• Lieutenant Barclay (12), one of Claverhouse's troop, supervising the condemned's wife
• Rob Rutherford (12), the biggest man in Claverhouse's troop
• Willie Kerr (13), Claverhouse trooper (13), not overjoyed by the prospect of civil war (14).
• Alec Geddes (13), Claverhouse trooper who recovers Alan Armstrong's body
• Matt Ferguson (14), Claverhouse trooper, "something of a student of history"
• Robin Findlay (14), young Claverhouse trooper, "lounged to his feet, with every red hair on his head standing out round his long white laughing face as though it had a life of its own" (14). Accurately predicts the Dragoons non-appearance (17).
• Colonel Balfour (17), Livingstone's replacement in charge of Scots Dragoons
• Lieutenant Crichton (17), Livingstone's messenger to Jean and Claverhouse
• Colonel Cannon (20), commander of the King's three hundred Irish recruits, "in not much better state than themselves" (20). On the right of the line at Killiecrankie (22). "Colonel Cannon, being the most senior officer left to us, took over the command;" after Killiecrankie (24).

The Stuart and Hanover families

• James Stuart, King James V of Scotland (21), once visited Blair Castle with the Papal Legate and the Italian Ambassador
• King Charles I of England and Scotland (Charles Stuart) (1), original enemy of the Covenanters.
• King Charles II of England and Scotland (Charles Stuart) (1), reigned 1660-1685. "already a sick man [in 1684], listened to lying tales and allowed himself to be pulled this way and that". Died early 1685 (11).
• James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (11), illegitimate son of Charles II and pretender to the throne (11). Lands at Lyme in 1685. "a man to follow to the death, as they say that young Monmouth was....Monmouth went to the block" (13).
• James Stuart, Duke of York and King James II of England and Scotland (4), younger brother of Charles II, father-in-law of William of Orange, and friend and patron of Lieutenant John Graham of Claverhouse (4). Inherited the throne from Charles II in early 1685 (11). "'James is too like his father in some ways–so was his brother Charles, but he knew how o get clear wi' it; James has never known how to get clear wi' anything.'" "What had happened to James, there is no knowing to this day; for whatever else he had lacked, he had not lacked courage until then. Some say that he had had a seizure of some kind, some that it was his heart that was sick, with grief that his daughter Mary should have turned against him...he would do nothing but say that it was God's will he should become a king in exile, and he must submit to God's will." "he was firm set for France, and would do no more than promise to return if the people regained their senses and called him back." (14).
• Princess Mary (Stuart) of Orange, Queen Mary II of England and Scotland (14), eldest daughter and heir presumptive of James II, wife of William of Orange.
• Prince William of Orange, King William III of England and Scotland (4), Stadtholder of the Low Countries, former patron of Claverhouse, married to the daughter of the Duke of York (4). Covenanter rebels in the pay of "Dutch William" (12). "'If James has a son, William will have more to do for his British kingdom than wait, and wink at a few smuggled muskets!'" "neither Dundee nor Balcarres would take service with him...And yet I think they both liked the man....a little dark uncomely man in a black suit, with a cough that seemed to be tearing his lungs to pieces; not the kind to win easy liking from all men, but I could have liked him fine, if the pattern of things had been otherwise. Seemingly he made a good king, too . . ." (14). "a king of their own faith, with a reputation for sound military leadership; aye, and a Stuart-born wife to share the rule and keep the thing from straying too far from home." (15).
• Princess Anne Stuart (14), younger daughter of James II, allied with William and Mary.
• George I of Great Britain (1), first of the house of Hanover, reigned 1714-27, the period of Hugh's composition.

Assorted noblemen

• William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry (9), "'Queenberry on his way up would be the friend of any man who was friend to the King or York. But Queensberry is no longer on his way up, he's there! He has his dukedom and he doesn't need your good offices anymore.'"
• Colin Lindsay, Earl Balcarres (9), guest of Claverhouse in Edinburgh, "a fair-haired man sprawling long legs...who I knew, having seen him once or twice before, to be...the young Earl of Balcarres." (9). Visitor at Dudhope 1685-8. Brings back the news of James's intent to abdicate. Kin by marriage to William of Orange, but "Balcarres, I have heard tell, saying with that kindly, somewhat troubled smile of his that he could have no part in turning out his own king" (14). Co-conspirator with Dundee on March 14 (15). Breaks the news to Dundee that they're not coming through (16). "'the Earl of Balcarres has been arrested and is held under guard in his own house. They say he made no trouble; not trouble at all, the douce mannie.'"
• Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll (11), supporter of the Duke of Monmouth's bid for the throne. [Erroneously styled as Duke of Argyll – his son, also Archibald Campbell, was 1st Duke of Argyll created 1685] (11). Lands in Argyll in support of Monmouth. "He was not after all a man to follow to the death...So the both of them were taken...Argyll to the gallows in Edinburgh." (13).
• John Erskine, Earl of Mar (15), co-conspirator of Dundee on March 14, Governor of Stirling Castle. "had a fretful way of speaking that could not be mistaken." (15).
• John Murray, 2nd Earl of Atholl (15), co-conspirator of Dundee on March 14 (15). Persuades Balcarres to delay (16). "'The clan's sympathies are with our cause, and even Atholl himself, though he abandoned us after the Edinburgh Convention, remains carefully sitting on the fence, taking the waters at Bath for his unknown illness, until the time for decision-making is over.'" (20)
• Murray, fils (20), partisan of William. Besieges the Jacobite garrison left by Dundee in his own castle at Blair. "'At least he has his convictions'"
• William Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Hamilton (16), president of the Convention of Edinburgh

Assorted Jacobites

• George Gordon, 1st Duke of Gordon (15), "the Castle Rock where the Duke of Gordon was sitting like a moulting eagle on his crag, holding for the Stuart King"
• Sir Ewan Cameron, Lord Lochiel (17), ally of Dundee, Chief of the Camerons (17). "They do not grow men the like of that any more. He was tall as Keppoch, but of a finer breed, and carried himself like a king stag; and though he was close on sixty, his mane of hair and his great curling moustache were black as a raven's wing. Bright eyes, he had, and an iron mouth; and a gentle and courteous way with him beyond what I ever knew in any Highlander before or since. Yet for all that, so the story goes, fighting General Monck when he was a young man, he tore an English soldier's throat out wolf-like with his teeth. A man once seeing Lochiel would not be forgetting him again. Between him and Claverhouse it was a friendship at first sight. You could see it. They were like comrades in arms of twenty years' standing." "'thanks to your gossiping tongue, I know how to write to each man'" "that silken voice of his that seemed to come from the back of his throat" (20). Makes the decision to fight at Killiecrankie (21). On Claverhouse's left at Killiecrankie (22). Dundee's pallbearer (23). Leaves the Jacobite army after Killiecrankie (24).
• Coll MacDonald of Keppoch (17), Cameron of Lochiel's envoy. "Half a head taller than the tallest of his clansmen, and like them wearing the philibeg under his plaid instead of the trews that any Highland gentleman would be wearing; looking out from a bush of hair and beard as red as fire, with eyes that were the pale pure blue of snow-shadows on a sunny day. More like something out of Amryclose's ancient legends–Finn Mac Cool, maybe–than any man of the present day." "He was not interested in marching against MacKay. I doubt he had the smallest interest in King James's cause; or King William's, for that matter." (17). "Aye, and there was Coll MacDonald of Keppoch and his MacDonalds in their green and scarlet, each with a sprig of heather in his bonnet, and their piper playing 'MacDonald's Salute', shameless as ever, and seeing no reason why Claverhouse should not greet them gladly." (20). On Dundee's left at Killiecrankie. "It was Keppoch of all men, 'Coll of the Cows' as Claverhouse had called him, who broke it, wiping his eyes and nose on the red-haired back of his hand." (22). Dundee's pallbearer (23).
• James Seton, 4th Earl of Dunfermline (17), "old friend" who joins Dundee "out from Gordon Castle... with him sixty men of the Atholl country"
• Haliburton (18), friend of Dundee and Livingstone who joins at Dundee
• Alisdair Gordon (19), "one of the Highlaners was beside me, crying in the high-pitched voice of his people". Co-rescuer of Jock. "He was about my own age, and short for his breed; a stocky, sandy-haired chiel with the bandiest legs I ever saw in anybody not bred on horseback. Both of us still panting for breath, we grinned at each other with chapped lips. I do not think I ever remembered to thank him, nor did there ever seem to be any need....And that was how I first came to know Alisdair Gordon, who was to be my friend through the weeks that followed." (19). "I saw a short squat figure...I could not see his face, but there could be but one such pair of bow legs in all the Highland army." "I did not see Alisdair again that morning. I have always been sorry for it, for I did not see him after." (21). "We had lost a third of our men, and one of the m was Alisdair Gordon. I had only known him three months, but I missed him sore. Even in the midst of my grief for Claverhouse I missed him sore." (24).
• Patrick Stewart of Ballachin (20), "that staunch King's man" left in command of Blair garrison by Dundee
• Sir Alexander MacLean (20), "leading four hundred men of the Isles" "even MacLean's wild islanders look like disciplined troops by comparison."
• Sir John MacLean of Duart (22), commanding the MacLeans on the far right of the line at Killiecrankie.
• Glengarry "with three hundred MacDonalds at his back", "touching Glengarry in his pride" (20). Right of Dundee at Killiecrankie (22). Dundee's pallbearer (23).
• Clanranald, "who was but sixteen, with two hundred more from the Isles and Moidart" "Glen Moidart in his loyalty" (20). Right of Dundee at Killiecrankie (22). Dundee's pallbearer (23).
• "young Stewart of Appin at the head of his father's clan."
• "old Alistair MacDonald of Glencoe with a hundred."
• "MacMartins, yellow-haired giants in plaids that glowed royally crimson and purple."
• MacLoughlan in his ambition"
• "the MacDonalds of Sleet" (22), on Dundee's left at Killiecrankie. Leaves the Jacobite army after Killiecrankie (24).
• "a mixed battalion of MacLeans and Stewarts and MacNeills" (22), on the far left at Killiecrankie.

Covenanters & their victims

• James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews (1), murdered by Covenanters on the Edinburgh road in 1679.
• James Renwick (9), Covenanter leader returned from Holland in summer 1684 (9). "a tall man in black with the white flash of Geneva bands at his throat–like enough it was Renwick himself, certainly he seemed to be the leader among them–stood with arms upraised, his grey hair blowing about his face". Escapes the conventicle broken up by Claverhouse in 1685 (13).
• Peter Pierson (9), parish minister murdered at Kirkcudbright by Renwick's forces.
• John Brown (12), "the Christian Carrier", a Covenanter spy. "Claverhouse asked the older man would he take the oath of allegiance to the King. The man refused, saying he owned no king, and gave allegiance to God alone. Nor would he deny that he had been among those who freed the prisoners at New Mills. Aye, he was a brave man, and I will not forget his face; for it was the face of a man who will kill, and face death himself, for the thing he believes in, sure in either case that his God is bidding him to it." Summarily executed by firing-squad for high treason.
• John Brown (12), nephew and accomplice, who confesses all in exchange for a trial, "Man, it was pitiful."
• General MacKay (17), commander of the Scottish Convention's forces, "him that had served with Claverhouse in the Low Countries in their young days" (17). "'Highlander that he is, MacKay only thinks along roads.'" (19).

A Tinkler family

• Balthazar (24), a Tinkler, one of the camp that shelters Hugh
• Balthazar's wife (24), nurses Hugh through his fever
• Balthazar's mother (24), "a voice of velvet". "She was a very ugly old woman, shapeless with sagging flesh and wrinkled as a walnut; only her eyes under their shaggy grey brows were bright and soft; a lassie's eyes still, and I mind seeing, between one breath and the next, that she was one of those women–there are not many of them–who are ugly the first time you see them, and less ugly the second, and by the third, are beginning to be beautiful."

Others

• Alcibiades (3), the Lion of Athens, who fought like one. "'twas no gentlemanly thing to do, but Alcibiades was an aristocrat, which is a different thing altogether."
• Miguel de Cervantes (8), author of Don Quixote
• Hannibal (19), noted mountain-crosser
• Cuchulain (21), mythical Irish hero. "The Washer by the Ford, and she washing the blood-stained linen, who comes before the deaths of chiefs and heroes – aye, before the death of Cuchulain himself . . .

Horses and hounds

• Jess (1, 3), a Wauprigg dog
• Janot (2, 3), a Wauprigg horse
• Laverock (3), Linnet's foal
• Linnet (3), Jean's old mare
• Hector (1, 2, 4), Claverhouse's raking sorrel horse, a big charger, friends with Hugh.
• Kestrel and Folly (9), Dudhope horses Hugh rides to Leslie
• Hammerhead (9), a Leslie post-horse,  "he was as wise as he was ugly"
• Caspar (10), mongrel dog Hugh takes from the Tinklers in exchange for his stolen shillings. "I felt strongly that he should have a noble name, for his front end, with its little flattened muzzle and long silky ears...was like the little soft-bred dogs I had sometimes seen in the laps of great ladies....though his back legs and long stringy tail seemed to belong to another sort of dog altogether....Darklis said that Caspar was a gipsy name...In naming a dog, one should always consider the shouting." (10). "I have told you before that somewhere in Caspar's tangled ancestry there must have been a strain of cattle dog, and whiles and whiles he thought he was a cattle dog still. Now, in the moment of sorest need, the old skill and the old knowledge of his forefathers came upon him." (19). Left with Darklis when Hugh goes to King James (25).
• Jock (12), Hugh's cavalry mount, "a raw-boned Galloway gelding with a streak of Spanish blood in him" (12). Rescued from a bog on the Highland march (19). "Jock pitched down, going forward over his own neck, and I was flung through the air." (22).
• Skolawn (21), [Alisdair Gordon] always called Caspar by the name of Finn MacCool's great hound of ancient legend, it being his idea of a joke."

Places

• Scotland
  • The South West (1), "you will mind that the whole of the  South West was under martial law by [April 1685]" (12).
    • Ayrshire (1), "the rolling hills and boggy moors of my mother's country" (12).
      • Wauprigg (1) farmstead of Hugh's maternal relatives the Armstrongs. On a track alongside a burn, above the cattle-ford, on the far side of a ridge from the village. Bordered with whitethorn, with a rowan by the gate. ["Whaup rigg" = "curlew ridge".]
      • High Fold (1), Willie
      • Phemie's alehouse, Blackmoor (1), above the village. Burned down by Covenanter neighbours hoping to kill four Claverhouse troopers and steal their carbines (1).
      • Arkle (1), Master Forsyth
      • Lochinloch market (2), Daft Eckie [Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire?]
      • Auchans (3), Lady Catherine Kennedy's castle
      • Cairntable (12), a conventicle of James Renwick
    • The River Clyde (1), Glaswegian Covenanters cross it into Renfrewshire in June 1684 (7).
      • Clydesdale (7), Scottish Horse's encampment
    • South Lanarkshire
      • Drumclog (1), site of battle between Claverhouse and Covt. 1 June 1679.
      • New Mills (12), Covenanter prison break April 1685
      • Douglas (12), John Brown captured nearby April 1685 (12), Claverhouse's HQ (13)
      • Douglasdale (13), James Renwick's conventicle broken up
    • Galloway (1), Covenanter hotbed.
      • Kirkcudbright (9), taken by James Renwick in 1684.
    • Renfrewshire (7),
      • Paisley (4), full of troops in 1684.
        • Place of Paisley (3), Lord Dundonel's seat.
          • Paisley Abbey (4), ruin backing Place of Paisley, a former Cluniac monastery. Hugh's private retreat, overgrown with daffodils, inhabited by a white owl.
          • Abbey Bridge (4), next to a gatehouse quartering His Maj. Regt. of Horse in 1684, once the guesthouse of the Abbey.
        • the Red Lion (7), Claverhouse's billet
    • Glasgow (7), Covenanter trouble in June 1684.
    • Wigtown & Dumfries (11), Covenanting hotbeds in 1684-5
  • Edinburgh (1), Hugh's father died 1681. Archbishop Sharp murdered 1679 (1). Cornelius van Meere working in 1684 (5).
    • Leith (8), port of Edinburgh, presumably infested with fishwives
      • Leith Wynd (9), main street?
    • Queensferry (9), southern dock of the Inverkeithing ferry
    • the Cannongate (9)
    • the Netherbow (9), Claverhouse's lodgings
    • the Castle Rock (15), held for James by the Duke of Gordon
      • the De'il's Turnpike (14), "the secret way up the hidden side of Edinburgh Castle Rock, known to most men who have ever been quartered there"
    • St Giles kirk (15)
    • the Grass Market (15), where Montrose was hanged
    • Wedderburn's Coffee House (15), meeting-place of Dundee, Balcarres, Atholl, and Mar on March 14
    • the North Loch (15), beyond it appointed meeting-place of Dundee, Atholl, Mar, and Balcarres
    • Carlton Hill (16), along the shore of the North Loch
  • Angus (8), "'We're not in true Covenanting country, this side of Scotland," (9)
    • Dundee (5), approximately Claverhouse's home turf (5). "with its narrow winding streets and crow-stepped gables and the broad bright waters of the Tay." "there was always, by long and sacred tradition, something of a feud between Dundee town and its Constable." [i.e. Claverhouse] (9). "Claverhouse had come to be well-liked enough during his term as Provost, and a good few of the townsfolk had come up, if not to wish him well, then at least to see him on his way" (16).
      • Dudhope (8), Claverhouse's new house hard-by Dundee (8). "A bonnie place is Dudhope, part castle, part manor house, of warn rose-grey stone, sitting close among its gardens and its stands of oak and sycamore trees, on the slopes of Dundee Law above the old town" (9).
      • River Tay (9), a mile wide at Dundee and the usual route South
      • St Mary's Kirk (10), site of St. Mary's Fair
      • the Unicorn taproom (14)
    • The Skiddaws (8), hills above the coastal lowlands
      • Glenogilvie (8), Claverhouse's childhood home, in a glen on the north slope of the Skiddaws, about 10 miles from Dundee. "only woken from its sleep to be lived in now and then" (18).
        • The cattle-ford, midway between house and village, with an elder tree leaning over the water, called the Dark Lady and the Dark Lady's Looking-Glass (8).
    • Glamis (24), Tinklers going there to play a wedding
  • Fife (9), Hugh rides across it to summon Claverhouse from Edinburgh August 1684
    • St. Andrews (4), university attended by Lord Cochrane, Capt. Livingstone
    • The Ochills
    • Kilmany, posting station
    • Ferny, posting station with dozy groom
    • Gateside round Loch Leven to Kinross, the long way to Inverkeithing
    • Edensmuir Forest to Leslie through Rother Glen bridge to Cowdenbeath, the southern shortcut
    • Inverkeithing, the Forth ferry to Queensferry
  • Argyll (13), dominion and landing-place of Archie Campbell in 1685 rebellion.
    • Duart Castle, Mull (22), home of MacLeans commanded by Sir John MacLean
  • Stirling (15), castle governed by the Earl of Mar in 1689, proposed site of Jacobite convention
  • The Highlands
    • Aberdeenshire
      • The Grampians (17), highlands south of the Great Glen
        • Cairn-o'-Mount pass (17), scouts bring word of MacKay's army
      • River Dee (17)
        • Kincardine (17), where they crossed the Dee
      • Strathbogie (20), "they reached the open lowlands of Strathbogie ahead of us"
        • Huntly (17)
      • Fettercairn, Aberdeenshire (17), MacKay's base
      • Northesk (17)
    • The Moray Firth (17)
    • River Spey (17), crossed; then route south from Inverness to Dundee
      • Strathspey (20), "the game ended with a four-day hunt down Strathspey"
    • Elgin, Moray (17)
      • The Lantern of Moray, ruined cathedral
    • Inverness (17), "[The Highlanders] were sitting there outside the tumbledown palisade which was all the place had by eway of walls, demanding four thousand marks from the burgesses of the place as their price for not sacking the town....Inverness was a MacIntosh town...and there was blood feud between the MacIntoshes and the Keppoch MacDonalds; and himself happening to be there and with seven hundred men to his back, surely my lord Dundee could see that that 'twas the only reasonable thing to do."
    • Lochaber (17), "far, far below us, the shining waters of Spean and Roy came together and flowed down through the greenness of Lochaber." (19).
      • Glen Roy (17), appointed meeting-place with Lochiel
        • the clachan by the burn (20), Dundee's camp
        • Lochiel's house
        • Glen House, next to Lochiel's, Dundee's HQ
      • The Spean and the Roy (19), above which Dundee crosses into Lochaber
    • Sutherland (17), the north side of Moray Firth
    • Perthshire (17)
      • Atholl (17), Duke of Gordon's base
        • Blair (17), through en route to Dunkeld. Castle besieged for by young Murray, its owner, in June 89; draws Dundee out of Lochaber to hold it for James (20). "Murray, taking fright, had raised the siege of his own house and left Blair standing open to us." (21).
          • St. Bride's kirk (23), where Dundee is buried
        • Atholl Forest (20), MacKay's route to Inverness in June 89
      • Dunkeld (17), Dundee's raid on William's tax collectors. Battle on the Tay; the Highland army withdraws (24).
      • The Garry (17), "running green and swift with snow-water" (17). "all down the south side of the [Druimuchdair] pass, after we were over the saddle, the brown pools of the Garry shone through the hazels on their banks, beside the track we followed." (21).
      • Pass of Killiecrankie (17), "which was nothing but a break in the hills without special meaning for us as yet"
      • Perth (17), "where a new regiment was being raised for the Orange Government", raided by Dundee
      • Pitlochry (19), first camp on march to Glen Roy (19). "MacKay and his troops were making camp for the night at Pitlochry, ten miles or so south-east of us, beyond the pass of Killiecrankie." (21).
      • Druimuchdair (Drumochter) (19), main pass between southern and northern Highlands, not taken (19). Crossed en route to Blair June 1689. "Even at Midsummer Druimuchdair has no friendly air to it, and its gullies of grey granite are barren of life" (21).
      • River/Loch Tummel across Ben Alder past Rannoch to Loch Treig to Ben Nevis, route actually taken (19)
      • The Tilt (22), crossed en route to Killiecrankie June '89
      • The Lude Burn (22), "a brief halt" ditto
      • The Clune Burn (22), where scouts bring word of MacKay's clearing the pass
      • Creag Eileich (22), at the Battle of Killiecrankie Dundee's forces form their battle line on a ridge formed by one of its spurs. "From the long crest where we were taking up our position the hillside fell away, then levelled gently to a lower ridge about half a mile away, before it fell steeply to the Garry and the Blair road; [...] from the road as one came out from the Killiecrankie pass, it looked as though the lower ridge was the crest of the valley wall to the right, the higher ridge on which we were now taking station being out of sight behind it. [...] it sank away into marshy ground on his left [...] it ran up into the steep wooded slopes of Creag Eileich on his right;"
      • Schiehallion (22), "the distant sugarloaf crest" where the sun sets, seen from the ridge
    • Badenoch (21), marched through en route to Blair in June 1689
      • Cluny Castle, first stop en route to Blair, source of MacPhersons
  • The Outer Isles (Hebrides) (24), refuge of Jacobites en route to Ireland
• England
  • London (1), capital of Charles II (1).
    • Chelsea (14), encampment of the Scottish troops
    • Vauxhall (14), James's departure from London
    • St James's Palace (14)
  • Lyme (Regis), Dorset (13), landing place of Monmouth in 1685
  • Devon (14), landing-place of William of Orange in 1688
  • Bath, Somerset (20), Atholl takes the waters in June 1689
• The Low Countries (1), refuge of various Scottish malcontents incl. Hugh (1), Sir John Cochrane (3), James Renwick (10), Duke of Monmouth (11), the English and Scottish Brigades (14)
  • Spanish Netherlands
  • Dutch Republic
    • Rotterdam (1), home of the Herriots-in-exile, with a constant Scottish trade.
    • Utrecht (6), home of Cornelius van Meere
      • Silver Spur Street, Zilberen Spoor Straat (6), 3rd house beyond the kirk, with swans carved on the gable.
      • the Castle of Antwerp Inn
• Calicut, India (8), source of calico
• France (14), refuge of James II and his second family
  • Roussillon
    • Perpignan
• Ireland (15), James lands there to raise troops for invasion of Britain in March 1689
• Catalonia

Background

Literary references

The most fantastic thread of Bonnie Dundee is the antecedents of Darklis Ruthven, the kinswoman of Jean Cochrane through their great-grandmother Lady Casselis [sic], who ran away with Johnnie Faa, the king of the gypsies (ch. 8.) The fabled elopement is the subject of a Scottish ballad, a version of which Darklis performs in chapter 6 under the title The Ballad of Johnnie Faa. While Jean Cochrane was in fact descended from the Earls Cassillis, and a John Faa lived in the time of James V, the historicity of the drama is dubious.

Mention is also made of The Graemiad, "an heroic poem descriptive of the campaign of Viscount Dundee", written by James Philip of Amryclose, a minor character in Bonnie Dundee. Though in the novel Hugh and Darklis are familiar with the Latin original, it appears to have been published only in 1888, in English, and remains obscure.

More influential is Sir Walter Scott's ballad "Bonnie Dundee", from which the novel takes its epigraph, and which was parodied by well-known Sutcliff influence Rudyard Kipling in The Jungle Book.

Songs mentioned in the text:

• Psalm 148 (1)
• The Twa Sisters (6)
• The Gay Goshawk (6)
• The Ballad of Johnnie Faa (6)
• The Flowers of Edinburgh (7)
• Monte Caballo (7)
• Psalm 121 (12)
• Isobel Gordon's Fancy (21)

Composition

In a 1983 interview on Desert Island Discs, Sutcliff discussed her experience in writing Scottish subjects:

Q: Your latest novel of course is a Scots subject, Bonnie Dundee. And you’ve been up to Edinburgh to launch it yourself. Your hero tells his story in the first person in Scots dialect. You were taking a chance in presenting that to the Scots!

A: Well, I served quite a good apprenticeship to that. For years I wrote scripts for Radio Scotland, for their school broadcasts – little plays, twenty minute plays. And the producer – who later became a great friend – who I worked with, was actually herself a Sassenach, but she’d married into Scotland; she’d lived in Scotland her whole life, and she taught me exactly how to write the lowland Scots. And also the difference between the lowland Scots and the highland way of speech. So I think this came in very useful – though of course it’s not as broad, the use that I’ve made of it in Bonnie Dundee.

Jeffrey Aldridge in "Rosemary Sutcliff – A Personal Memoir" (1994) recalled the observations of historical novelist Dorothy Dunnett:

"At the book launch, I recall Dorothy Dunnett remarking of Rosemary that she was a dangerous woman; dangerous because of her acute powers of observation, her ability to get inside both characters and the period in which they lived. And here she was, an English woman, writing a Scottish story and getting it right! She had read the story, she went on, with the usual admiration for the writer’s skill but also, as a Scot, with an inquisitiveness as to how accurate it would be, not simply in its adherence to historical events – which is, after all, relatively simple – but in its Scottishness, that much more elusive quality.

She marvelled at the rightness of the speech, the grasp of the shifting fortunes of the characters, and – she added – found only one tiny mistake. At one point in the novel, one of the characters collects some bilberries from a bush. In Scotland, particularly at that time, they would have been called ‘whinberries’.

‘I’ll remember,’ said Rosemary. And she would have, too."

Sutcliff herself observed in her 1983 essay "Novelist's Hat and Minstrel's Bonnet",

"Frontier Wolf and my new not-yet-published Bonnie Dundee are both definitely post Blood Feud. Tougher books with less of the enrichment that I used to delight in, and a leaner line. But I do not know why this change has come about; certainly it has not been done by deliberate intention, but has happened of its own accord as the result of some natural process of growth and change."

Publication history

1. The Bodley Head, 1983.
2. Dutton, 1984.
3. Puffin, 1985.
4. Union-Verl, 1986. German.
5. Blind Society of the ACT, 1988. English/Braille.
6. Peter Smith, 1989.
7. Taschenbuch-Verl, 1992, 1993, 1994. German.
8. Red Fox, 1994.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/bonnie-dundee/oclc/10752988/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true