The Last Highlander
Sarah Fraser
The Last Highlander
Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, was one of Scotland’s most notorious and romantic figures. A double-agent and spy, he became the most famous supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the last nobleman to be executed for treason. He is one of Scotland’s most notorious and romantic figures, a shrewd and calculating soldier of unlimited ambition, wit and double-dealing who died a martyr for his country and for an independent Scotland.In a life packed with plotting and incident, spells as a wanted outlaw, a prisoner in the Bastille, as loyal British soldier and aspirant Duke, Simon became the greatest double-agent of the age. Determined in 1701 to seek his fortune with exiled Jacobite king in France, Fraser acted as a spy for both the Stuarts and the Hanoverian Georges; claimed to be both Protestant and Roman Catholic. He was feudal, a Highland warrior chief, and benevolent despot. He disputed theological niceties with the Papal Nuncio in France, while courting Louis XIV for money to fund an invasion of England. He was fluent in five languages.
In July 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie landed on Eriskay – a tiny Hebridean island and launched his last and greatest attempt to seize back his throne, joined after victory at Preston Pans by Simon Fraser and his clans. They reached Derby before retreating ignominiously and facing final defeat at the hands of the British at Culloden. Fraser – one of Scoltand’s most colourful characters – was found hiding in a tree.
This gripping adventure and swash-buckling spy story uses the events of Lovat’s life to recreate this extraordinary period of history. As Sarah Fraser argues, the defeat at Culloden led directly to the end of traditional Gaelic civilization; to the brutal clearances and ‘pacification’ of the Highlands which followed and the lost civilisations of Scotland that were destroyed after 1745 by English repression.
4.0 out of 5 based on 3 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
History, Biography |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Pages |
448 |
| RRP |
|
| Date of Publication |
June 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-0007229499 |
| Publisher |
Harper Press |
| |
Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, was one of Scotland’s most notorious and romantic figures. A double-agent and spy, he became the most famous supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the last nobleman to be executed for treason. He is one of Scotland’s most notorious and romantic figures, a shrewd and calculating soldier of unlimited ambition, wit and double-dealing who died a martyr for his country and for an independent Scotland.
In a life packed with plotting and incident, spells as a wanted outlaw, a prisoner in the Bastille, as loyal British soldier and aspirant Duke, Simon became the greatest double-agent of the age. Determined in 1701 to seek his fortune with exiled Jacobite king in France, Fraser acted as a spy for both the Stuarts and the Hanoverian Georges; claimed to be both Protestant and Roman Catholic. He was feudal, a Highland warrior chief, and benevolent despot. He disputed theological niceties with the Papal Nuncio in France, while courting Louis XIV for money to fund an invasion of England. He was fluent in five languages.
In July 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie landed on Eriskay – a tiny Hebridean island and launched his last and greatest attempt to seize back his throne, joined after victory at Preston Pans by Simon Fraser and his clans. They reached Derby before retreating ignominiously and facing final defeat at the hands of the British at Culloden. Fraser – one of Scoltand’s most colourful characters – was found hiding in a tree.
This gripping adventure and swash-buckling spy story uses the events of Lovat’s life to recreate this extraordinary period of history. As Sarah Fraser argues, the defeat at Culloden led directly to the end of traditional Gaelic civilization; to the brutal clearances and ‘pacification’ of the Highlands which followed and the lost civilisations of Scotland that were destroyed after 1745 by English repression.
Reviews
Standpoint
Magnus Linklater
“Sarah Fraser is clearly both entranced and appalled by the behaviour of the family into which she has married. She makes it clear that Simon Lovat inspired great devotion among his clansmen, who would loyally follow him in battle, whatever side he happened to be on at the time, and she admires his manly qualities. But she is unflinching when it comes to recounting his treachery … Sarah Fraser recounts all this with verve and great authority, leavening the history with colourful accounts of the clothes, food, customs and cruelty of the times. She is perhaps a little too reliant on her imagination to be entirely acceptable to historians.”
01/07/2012
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The Times
Iain Finlayson
“He cuts a better figure than usual in this colourful, entertaining biography by Sarah Fraser, who, married to a Lovat Fraser, does not attempt to excuse Lord Lovat’s personal faults or political chicanery but, rather, to present him amply in a complex historical context.”
02/06/2012
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The Sunday Times
Max Hastings
“I would have liked Fraser to say more about Lovat the man, which might explain how, despite a life of unqualified duplicity and mendacity, he retained such power to charm. There was nothing in his character or history to admire, but there was still a grandeur to his villainy, one that makes delightful bedside reading for a posterity spared from having to live with him.”
17/06/2012
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