Kilmorgan Castle from Jennifer Ashley Books - Location in Scotland

[lainey]

I am just about finished reading The Stolen Mackenzie Bride - Jennifer Ashley, and it is one of my favourites of the series. There are some really harrowing parts of the story, and there is a surprising amount of tragedy especially in the later parts of the book. There are some light spoilers in this post, nothing story-breaking but I talk about a later event in the book so don’t read on if you don’t want to know anything about the story at all. I thought this was too much of a diversion from the point of the Romance Novels thread to post there so I started another thread.

Being from Scotland, I thought I would share some interesting information about the locations in the book. The book is set in 1745 which was the beginning of the Jacobite rebellion. The military roads with Malcolm and Mary travel on in the book are real roads, some of which still exist today. Here is a map of some of General Wade’s military roads:

Many of these roads are part of popular trekking routes across Scotland, for example the Great Glen Way which runs from Fort William to Inverness. A famous military road can be viewed from the Rest and Be Thankful Viewpoint not far from Loch Lomond. Here is a photograph of one of the Military Roads that runs from Arrochar to Inverary:

And another from Crieff to Aberfeldy:

Perhaps you can better imagine some of the scenery Mary saw for the first time when travelling to Kilmorgan Castle with Malcolm and seeing as this last picture is a photo of the GOOD military road, you can understand why they had to abandon the horse and carriage once they got north of Inverness and on to the old tracks.

Kilmorgan Castle, the home of the Mackenzies is a real castle. Except it’s not called Kilmorgan Castle (Kilmorgan is in Ireland) it is called Castle Leod. Known as the seat of the Mackenzie Clan, here it is:

In the penultimate battle written about in the book, I’m assuming Jennifer Ashley is talking about the Battle of Culloden (1746) where Charles Edward Stuart was defeated by the British government. It is said that 12,000 troops were brought in to deal with the Jacobites and the battle lasted little over an hour with between 1,500 and 2,000 Jacobites being slain, compared to only 300 government troops.

Here is Google maps showing Leod Castle, Inverness and Culloden Moor:

Of course, the Kessock bridge wouldn’t have been there during the story so they would have had to walk around via Beauly. It’s about an 8 hour walk from the castle to Culloden and that’s “Google time” which I feel is like the same as a jog.

Here is a photo of a small croft on “Culloden Battlefield”:

I write “Culloden Battlefield” in inverted commas because apparently the visitor centre and battlefield everyone walks around isn’t actually the battlefield at all and the real battlefield is somewhere West of the tourist site. If you speak to anyone from Inverness and the surrounding area they will likely tell you the same story though I can't find anything on the internet to confirm this.

As an interesting aside, I visited Auchinleck house today, an 18th Century Scottish Country Villa. It was built in around 1760, so about 14 years after the story in the book. This will give you an idea of where the rich lairds of Scotland would have lived (complete with Highland cow):

Anyway, I hope you found seeing these pictures as interesting as I did. It helped me visualise parts of the story better and it was nice to know that Jennifer Ashley had done her research and included details like the day of the battle being foggy. I made the pictures thumbnails because I didn't want to slow down the page loading time for people by adding huge images.

 

[Voyageur]

In the penultimate battle written about in the book, I’m assuming Jennifer Ashley is talking about the Battle of Culloden (1746) where Charles Edward Stuart was defeated by the British government. It is said that 12,000 troops were brought in to deal with the Jacobites and the battle lasted little over an hour with between 1,500 and 2,000 Jacobites being slain, compared to only 300 government troops.

Thanks for the background.

The Battle of Culloden was an early film I had viewed in youth, and it made an impression to be sure (it was brutal). Here is the trailer, and below is the documentary:

 

[Bluefyre]

Thanks Lainey. My paternal grandfather was Scotland although I have never visited. The blood runs strong. Enjoyed the pictures and your commentary. Really enjoyed the books too.

 

[Potatoes and Tomatoes]

I am just about finished reading The Stolen Mackenzie Bride - Jennifer Ashley, and it is one of my favourites of the series. There are some really harrowing parts of the story, and there is a surprising amount of tragedy especially in the later parts of the book. There are some light spoilers in this post, nothing story-breaking but I talk about a later event in the book so don’t read on if you don’t want to know anything about the story at all. I thought this was too much of a diversion from the point of the Romance Novels thread to post there so I started another thread.

Being from Scotland, I thought I would share some interesting information about the locations in the book. The book is set in 1745 which was the beginning of the Jacobite rebellion. The military roads with Malcolm and Mary travel on in the book are real roads, some of which still exist today. Here is a map of some of General Wade’s military roads:
View attachment 47614
Many of these roads are part of popular trekking routes across Scotland, for example the Great Glen Way which runs from Fort William to Inverness. A famous military road can be viewed from the Rest and Be Thankful Viewpoint not far from Loch Lomond. Here is a photograph of one of the Military Roads that runs from Arrochar to Inverary:
View attachment 47615
And another from Crieff to Aberfeldy:
View attachment 47616
Perhaps you can better imagine some of the scenery Mary saw for the first time when travelling to Kilmorgan Castle with Malcolm and seeing as this last picture is a photo of the GOOD military road, you can understand why they had to abandon the horse and carriage once they got north of Inverness and on to the old tracks.

Kilmorgan Castle, the home of the Mackenzies is a real castle. Except it’s not called Kilmorgan Castle (Kilmorgan is in Ireland) it is called Castle Leod. Known as the seat of the Mackenzie Clan, here it is:
View attachment 47617View attachment 47618
In the penultimate battle written about in the book, I’m assuming Jennifer Ashley is talking about the Battle of Culloden (1746) where Charles Edward Stuart was defeated by the British government. It is said that 12,000 troops were brought in to deal with the Jacobites and the battle lasted little over an hour with between 1,500 and 2,000 Jacobites being slain, compared to only 300 government troops.

Here is Google maps showing Leod Castle, Inverness and Culloden Moor:
View attachment 47619
Of course, the Kessock bridge wouldn’t have been there during the story so they would have had to walk around via Beauly. It’s about an 8 hour walk from the castle to Culloden and that’s “Google time” which I feel is like the same as a jog.

Here is a photo of a small croft on “Culloden Battlefield”:
View attachment 47620
I write “Culloden Battlefield” in inverted commas because apparently the visitor centre and battlefield everyone walks around isn’t actually the battlefield at all and the real battlefield is somewhere West of the tourist site. If you speak to anyone from Inverness and the surrounding area they will likely tell you the same story though I can't find anything on the internet to confirm this.

As an interesting aside, I visited Auchinleck house today, an 18th Century Scottish Country Villa. It was built in around 1760, so about 14 years after the story in the book. This will give you an idea of where the rich lairds of Scotland would have lived (complete with Highland cow):
View attachment 47621
Anyway, I hope you found seeing these pictures as interesting as I did. It helped me visualise parts of the story better and it was nice to know that Jennifer Ashley had done her research and included details like the day of the battle being foggy. I made the pictures thumbnails because I didn't want to slow down the page loading time for people by adding huge images.

How wonderful!! Thank you for posting this! I lived in Kiltarlity, just outside Beauly, for 7 years. I know these places...and I've lived in a castle!

 

[jhonny]

Thank you for sharing this, lainey!

I happened to be reading The MacKenzie series, and about the same time I also was watching this series called Outlander, which in its second season is all about the Jacobite rebellion, so It's interesting to know a little more about where the events actually took place.

 

[Mililea]

Thank you for sharing. That's exactly how I imagined it when I read it. Unfortunately I have only been to Ireland and not Scotland. I like the rugged, vast landscape. It has always held a fascination for me.

 

[Rabelais]

Thank you lainey. I just finished the Mackenzie series, and this adds some good background. Ashley painted a very accurate image in my mind's eye.

 

[Gwenllian]

I am just about finished reading The Stolen Mackenzie Bride - Jennifer Ashley, and it is one of my favourites of the series. There are some really harrowing parts of the story, and there is a surprising amount of tragedy especially in the later parts of the book.g The Stolen Mackenzie Bride - Jennifer Ashley, and it is one of my favourites of the series. There are some really harrowing parts of the story, and there is a surprising amount of tragedy especially in the later parts of the book.

I recently finished reading Jennifer Ashley's The Stolen Mackenzie Bride and found it to be a very good read, especially in these trying times. Indeed, the later parts of the book depict the tragedy of the battle against psychopaths/the new world of order and it shows us that nothing is black or white. Scotsmen fought against other Scotsmen/clan members instead of uniting against the take over by imperial forces that opposed the old clan system. Some of them even threw their own countrymen out of churches and hospitals, naked and all.

IMO the next article sheds some more light on the Battle of Culloden and seems to concur with the image that Ashley painted :

A remarkable prophesy from the 17th Century Highland prophet,
The Braham Seer.


"Oh! Drumossie, thy bleak moor shall, ere many generations have
Passed away, be stained with the best blood of the Highlands.
Glad am I that I will not see the day,
for it will be a fearful period; heads will be lopped off by the score,
and no mercy shall be shown or quarter given on either side."

"The defeat at Culloden led to the end of the Clan system and to great
devastation in the Highlands, but to all Highlanders the year of the
rising was a chapter in their history which can never be forgotten."

Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel, K.T.

The '45 rising of the clans which culminated in the Battle of Culloden - the last major battle to ever be fought on British soil - was probably the most disastrous event ever to overtake Scotland. The immediate effect was the post-battle, indiscriminate and infamous slaughter of much of the cream of Scottish manhood and 'clanhood' by Butcher Cumberland - the second son of King George II.

Born in 1721 he was only 25 when, as Duke of Cumberland and Commander-in-Chief of the English army at Culloden Moor, he defeated the Jacobites led by the equally young Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was just three months his senior. Leaving aside the folly and foolhardiness of the Young Pretender in engaging in battle in the first place, the aftermath must have been Charles' worst nightmare come true - it was certainly Scotland's!
"After the battle on April 16th 1746, Cumberland gave orders for the systematic extirpation of all 'rebels' who were found concealed in the Highlands. All houses where they could find shelter were to be burnt and all cattle driven off. This was interpreted to mean the killing or burning of all Highlanders found wounded or with arms in their hands, and Cumberland did nothing to soften such an interpretation of his orders. Hence came his well-known sobriquet of the ' Butcher,' which was given to him in London as early as August of that year." (historian David Nash Fords).


Modern military historians aver that the issuing of the 'give no quarter' order to the Duke of Cumberland's army is an unforgettable stain on the character of the British army. The cruelties, tortures and atrocities visited upon the Jacobites and their supporters and many of the uninvolved men, women and children unfortunate enough to live in the area, are all the more horrifying when one considers that this battle took place 260 years ago - just 73 years before the birth of Victoria. Those barbarous acts seem to have been indelibly etched in the Scottish psyche and no doubt provide oxygen for the jingoistic embers that flare up now and then in Scotland.


Lest one becomes weighed down by the sins of the English, it has to be remembered that more Scots fought against Bonnie Prince Charlie than for him and that the Government army comprised one third Scots - many of them from the Highland clans that supported the English parliament (Whigs). For them, Culloden was an ideal opportunity to settle old scores with their fellow Scots and indulge in widespread murder and pillage.. . . . "Campbell, an officer of militia . . . went with a party to Fraser of Kilbokies, who was not with the Highland army, and burnt all his houses and effects and took 13 score (260) of cattle, with many horses of the best kind. His loss was valued at 10,000 merks. For several days they killed man, wife and child many miles from the field of battle . . ."


Civilians in the area took sides too, many of them pragmatically supporting the winning army and there are tales aplenty of seriously injured and naked Jacobites being ejected from churches and hospital beds by their countrymen and women and being turned over to Cumberland's forces. It has to be remembered of course that the protagonists were not just divided into Jacobites and Hanovarians but also Catholics and Protestants. This added a regrettable further dimension to the military & civil conflicts - a religious divide that has blighted sections of the community over the centuries and down to the present day.


After the dust of battle had settled, out of a total of some 5,000 in the Prince's army, it's reported that 1200 died - including very many slaughtered as they lay on the battlefield. 50 escaped overseas and over 100 combatants and Jacobite supporters were later executed, and over 1100 transported to the West Indies to end their days in slavery. Government losses were reported as 76.


The Prince's army had, in the main, consisted of rag, tag and bobtail - not professional soldiers but farmers, shopkeepers, students, weavers, joiners and young and old from all walks of life, high and low, led by just a handful of trained military men. Many of them were unwilling participants, inveigled into action by their own chiefs with threats of imprisonment, death and the burning of their homes. No-one on either side of this conflict came out of it smelling of roses!


What of the aftermath? Existing schisms were widened even more . . . clan set against clan . . . church against church . . . community against community . . . country against country . . . senior figures in Scottish clan society killed in battle, executed or transported . . . the carrying of weapons, the wearing of tartan and Highland dress, the playing of bagpipes . . . all banned . . . whole communities pillaged and sent into the hills for no crime other than an inability to speak English . . . the total extinction of the ties between clan chief and clan . . . 18th century ethnic cleansing with a vengeance!


Rob Donn was a Gaelic poet described as the most eloquent voice ever heard in Mackay country (Strathnaver) and he enjoyed total freedom of expression which he extended to his 'treasonous' comments on the disarming Acts after Culloden: "The English have taken the opportunity to leave you weakened, so that you will not be reckoned warriors any longer. But when you are without your weapons and equipment you will receive a thorough frisking, and your punishment will be all the more immediate. I see your misery as something unprecedented . . . but if you are lions, retaliate in good time, and have your teeth ready before your mouths are muzzled."


Retaliation was out of the question however - the Highland way of life was destroyed and the relationship between the 'tribal father and his children' was gone for all time. The price paid by his trusting countrymen and their kith and kin for the Young Pretender's ill-fated Stuart dream was high indeed.

Same old, same old, but it is still harrowing and at the same time an important lesson, because we see this divide and conquer principle play out again and again.

 

[Anamarija]

lainey, thank you so much sharing photos and location of Kilmorgan, I was interested for the same.

Thank you for sharing this, lainey!

I happened to be reading The MacKenzie series, and about the same time I also was watching this series called Outlander, which in its second season is all about the Jacobite rebellion, so It's interesting to know a little more about where the events actually took place.

Watching series Outlander was very helpful for me because it gave some kind of background because of my poor knowledge of English sometime I had problem understanding and imagining of environment in the Mackenzie series, especially in The Stolen Mackenzie Bride and The Devilish Lord Will.

I've been thinking of another aspect of these books, especially the ones above. Malcolm and Will are so constantly aware dangers of the world. They are perceptive and aware where ever they are and what whom they are. Something that I easily forget. We're living in different times but by no means less dangerous. And with knowledge about Lizzards and psychopaths we could be more aware how this planet is dangerous, but, we're not, at least me.

 

[Joe]

Retaliation was out of the question however - the Highland way of life was destroyed and the relationship between the 'tribal father and his children' was gone for all time. The price paid by his trusting countrymen and their kith and kin for the Young Pretender's ill-fated Stuart dream was high indeed.

That account of the history leaves a lot to be desired IMO. Then again, most historical accounts do. Culloden was part of a continuum that involved major events in Irish, English, Scottish, French, Spanish and Italian (to name a few) history that stretched back at least 200 years prior and continued on 250 years after. Portraying it as the "young Prtender's ill-fated dream" misses the context entirely.

 

[Niall]

This topic is opening my eyes to a whole lot of 'hidden history'!

I'm currently reading The King Over the Water: A Complete History of the Jacobites, by Desmond Seward.

Here's the blurb:

This is the first modern history for general readers of the entire Jacobite movement in Scotland, England and Ireland, from the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 that drove James II into exile to the death of his grandson, Cardinal Henry, Duke of York, in 1807. The Battle of Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight through the heather are well known, but not the other risings and plots that involved half of Europe and even revolutionary America.

Based on the latest research, The King over the Water weaves together all the strands of this gripping saga into a vivid, sweeping narrative, full of insight, analysis and anecdote. ‘Few causes have aroused a more gallant response from the peoples of these islands than the Honest Cause’, writes Desmond Seward, ‘whether they were fighting for it at Killiecrankie, Prestonpans or Culloden, at the Boyne, Aughrim or Fontenoy, or dying for it on the scaffold’.

I have a LOT to say about it, but for now I'll just say that I'm beginning to understand where the 'romanticism' of that period comes from...

 

[Niall]

Thanks for the background.

The Battle of Culloden was an early film I had viewed in youth, and it made an impression to be sure (it was brutal). Here is the trailer, and below is the documentary:

That's what the victors have been saying the Battle of Culloden was like/about for the last 300 years. But almost none of it is true.

 

[Voyageur]

This topic is opening my eyes to a whole lot of 'hidden history'!

I'm currently reading The King Over the Water: A Complete History of the Jacobites, by Desmond Seward.

Here's the blurb:

This is the first modern history for general readers of the entire Jacobite movement in Scotland, England and Ireland, from the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 that drove James II into exile to the death of his grandson, Cardinal Henry, Duke of York, in 1807. The Battle of Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight through the heather are well known, but not the other risings and plots that involved half of Europe and even revolutionary America.

Based on the latest research, The King over the Water weaves together all the strands of this gripping saga into a vivid, sweeping narrative, full of insight, analysis and anecdote. ‘Few causes have aroused a more gallant response from the peoples of these islands than the Honest Cause’, writes Desmond Seward, ‘whether they were fighting for it at Killiecrankie, Prestonpans or Culloden, at the Boyne, Aughrim or Fontenoy, or dying for it on the scaffold’.

I have a LOT to say about it, but for now I'll just say that I'm beginning to understand where the 'romanticism' of that period comes from...

Sounds like an interesting historical book which is going to be checked out, because in reality the more read and watched in the historical sense, have not found my bearings on this period. I would be interested to know more of your thoughts after reading, as you said.

Had recently read a fiction mentioned in the Romance thread going back to the Prestonpans/Culloden period wherein the author, Jennifer Ashley, had said at the end that she had researched the period to write it (what sources I don't know). The story is told not primarily in romantic terms, but from a people splintered in their beliefs of the great cause presented. There was shared brutality - likely manufactured to help split. She did not overly focus on foreigners (not the storyline direction), yet that is where "Over the Waters" lead; France, and even from America, as stated by Desmond Seward's online mention.

As revolts go, in her fictional account, the spying was maximized with much double dealings. Different geographies in Scotland produced different alignments et cetera, and it was not a unified front by any means. The bonny prince often featured as either or, mostly to his zealotry. The Englisher match in brutality - leaving no quarter. In the account (again fiction), many Highlanders wanted distance, most land owners and farmers not wanting any part. There was bullying. Other countries, too, played a part (briefly there was France) and as history is told (fiction and non) it is most often done from the victors, leaving much unknown.

Again:

...for now I'll just say that I'm beginning to understand where the 'romanticism' of that period comes from...

I'm not sure what your understanding is, however have been thinking about this when initially read, with the romanticism of it all like a David and Goliath story spun depending on ones side - POV. There are a lot of moving parts, classes to protect, religious orders to divide, foreign countries that could/would support and influence.

Think I will enjoy Seward's account.

 

[Voyageur]

Think I will enjoy Seward's account.

Started in on this, which brings so much more to light that is known on the surface. The Irish in 1691, the Scottish in 1745, components of the English (obviously the kings and coups) and even to America in 1776, even Russia. Have only scratched the surface, however there are a great many moving parts to this history wherein one needs to look at the whole that cannot be captured in a battle here or there. The outcomes, though, bloody as they were, have surely colored our current times of empires - social, financial or otherwise.