Book Description

'A very clear account of this famous episode in history.' The Sunday Times The Jacobite uprising - a period of turmoil following the removal of James II, in favour of his daughter, Mary II and her husband William III. The following century would witness political plots, military conflict, acts of espionage and religious scheming to secure the throne of the United Kingdom for both James and his son, 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'. The Jacobite cause drew in allies and enemies, domestic and foreign. James, while exiled in both France and Italy, endures a life of boredom, repeated illness and loneliness as Charles breaks off contact. Funding, both Papal and French, is used up as efforts to return to rule culminate in defeat at Culloden. Frank McLynn has thoroughly researched this incredible period of history moving forward into the Hanoverian dynasty with careful assessment of all that Jacobitism stood for. Frank McLynn is a British author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley. He is also the author of Fitzroy Maclean and Bipolar, a novel about Roald Amundsen, published by Sharpe Books. Praise for Frank McLynn: 'Frank McLynn's achievement ... is to give Charles Edward a solidarity and three-dimensional reality that he usually lacks ... His account of the risings themselves is exemplary and he offers the best case yet for the nearness to success of the '45. What is usually seen as the last shiver of an anachronistic and romantic throwback emerges as a genuine alternative to Whiggery and the Act of Settlement.' Brian Morton, TES 'A broad canvas, dealing not only with sober historical truth but with the magic spell that either seduced or repelled Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, Burns, Scott, Borrow, Buchan, Stevenson and a hundred Irish poets...' Diarmaid O'Muirithe, Irish Independent 'A readable and fresh study ... thoroughly researched.' Esmond Wright, Contemporary Review 'Valuable in covering the wide sweep of Scotland, England, Ireland and the Continent, and bringing together many diverse strands into a coherent whole. Its wide range and taut approach make it very useful.' Rennie McOwan, The Tablet 'Packed with fascinating detail.' Denis Hills, choosing his book of the year in the Spectator 'Fitzroy Maclean has found his Boswell in Frank McLynn.' Trevor Royle, Scotland on Sunday 'Most entertaining.' Richard West 'Important, timely and balanced.' Soldier