Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Review, 18 Feb 2004
This is a superior biography of Charles Edward Stuart; one recent historian (Duffy) remarks that 'it is unlikely to be bettered' and it is hard not to agree with that assessment. The author spends time covering all aspects of Charles' life and does not skate over the years after his escape from Scotland in 1746. This is a sympathetic assessment of Charles. The author attempts some psychanalysis, a topic on which it is not certain he is qualified, and these sections seem to work less well. But a vast array of sources from a number of countries have been employed here, to excellent effect. There are a few oddities in the details however. The author discusses panic in London in December 1745 and quotes from Horace Walpole, but the reference used is to Walpole writing three months earlier - in December, Walpole's comments are rather different. Yet for a decent account of the Stuart princeling, this biography shines out.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
First Class, 19 Nov 2008
This is without doubt the best biography available detailing the turbulent life of Charles Edward Stuart, the legend that is Bonnie Prince Charlie. Whether he deserves the 'romantic' reputation often attached to his character is an ongoing debate to this day although in this particular piece Frank McLynn writes with sympathy and respect for the Stuart prince.
Despite this debatable stance the author does provide what i felt were fair assesments of the various 'key players' in the '45 i.e Lord George Murray, O'Sullivan and of course, Cumberland and his barbarous colleagues.McLynn at times writes with what borders on contempt for the Hanoverian army,its officers and commanders, in many instances with plenty of justification.The author compares well the relative humanity and compassion of the Prince and his command with their Hanoverian opponents, summing it up thus,"..the Hanoverian officers in general betrayed a frightening, sickening callousness in pursuit of their aims," which, weighing up all of the evidence available to us, is probably a fair assesment.
McLynn does, however provide a strong argument to quash various myths attached to Charles such as the commonly bandied about lack of intelligence, cowardice and that he ultimately ruined the Highlanders in a desperate,rash adventure. What emerges from the evidence used is a physically brave, reasonably intelligent young man who knew exactly what he was doing when he landed on the west coast of Scotland. As the author points out, the clan chiefs were no fools, they knew the risks attached to rebellion and only an intelligent man would succeed in persuading them to risk all in his father's cause.Stuart charm would not suffice despite what many histories would have one believe.
McLynn closely analysis the weaknesses of the Prince's character and contrary to a previous review, i feel this is a great strength in the book and the author provides compelling arguments and evidence to reinforce his views. That Charles was paranoid, delusional, overtrusting (to his flatterers) and inexperienced in warfare is beyond question and the author competently writes of the gradual deterioration from the 'zenith' of Derby to drunken old age in exile.
A must read for any interested in the '45, Jacobites or,of course, Charles himself. Many who hold prejudiced views on the Prince -which is commonplace in the Highlands despite the supposed romance we are alleged to attach to his person- should read this excellent piece of literature-it may well be an eye-opener.
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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bonnie Prince Charlie - Scotland's Flawed Hero, 28 Oct 2008
This is an impressive piece of work written by a biographer who has great sympathy for the subject but does not let that prevent him from revealing Charles Edward Stuart's weaknesses. The book sets Bonnie Prince Charlie's life against the historical background in which the Hanoverians held a somewhat shaky hold over the recently-established United Kingdom. The Jacobite threat came not just from Scotland, as popular history paints it, but from Ireland and England as well, mainly among the Catholics. The Scots were also divided, with some sections prepared to support the Hanoverians and others committed to restoring the Stuarts and regaining Scotland's independence. As for Charles, his intention was to gain the crown of Great Britain and not just Scotland and it was, perhaps, this ambition which led to his failure.
As McLynn argues, Charles might have been wiser to listen to his Scots military and political advisers and settle for his Scottish kingdom which would have gained recognition from the European enemies of England and consolidate his position there. Instead, he gambled too heavily and lost personally and politically and Scotland's loss is still felt to this day. During his time in Scotland and England, he was bonnie, brave and merciful, for example, refusing to execute prisoners or deserters in contrast to the barbaric behaviour of the Hanoverians after Culloden. At the same time, he was stubborn, obsessed with rank and jealous of his military commander, Lord George Murray, whose advice he often rejected.
In my opinion McLynn is too tolerant of Charles's behaviour during and after Culloden. Anyone who has ever visited the battlefield can see immediately that it was not suited to the Highlanders' tactics of a terrifying mass charge in which they took some casualties from riflemen before breaching the enemy lines and then hacking them to pieces or routing them. Charles sent his men, who had marched all night long and were exhausted and hungry, across a muddy bog into the merciless fire of a well-trained and equipped force of experienced troops and mercenaries. Although they inflicted casualties on the English forces and their Scottish lackeys, the Jacobite soldiers were annihilated. If you visit the site you can follow the battle and listen to recordings of the survivors. I recall in particular one Scottish officer complaining that he never even got near the English lines as his boots filled with water and dragged him down.
Charles fled the battlefield when the defeat was obvious and, instead of regrouping his army at nearby Fort Augustus, as many of the Highlanders had expected, he sent out a message that the uprising was over and they were to go home. During the following months of hiding in the mountains, glens and islands, he was never betrayed by any of the Highlanders whom he had let down so badly. In later years, Charles had the audacity to complain about his Scottish supporters and blamed them for his defeat. If you want to read more on this particular topic, I recommend John Prebble's fine book "Culloden" which deals not only with the battle but also the bloody aftermath.
Oddly enough, the villain of McLynn's book is not so much George II or his beastly son "Butcher" Cumberland, who is as detested today in Scotland as Cromwell is in Ireland, but Charle's father, James Francis Edward Stuart. James - King James III of England, the king over the water - is presented as hesitant and fearful, a man whose arrival in Scotland in 1716 to rally the clans was as much a humiliating failure as his son's was a heroic success almost 30 years later. McLynn paints James, who was based in Rome after being expelled from France, as a shadow hanging over Charles, trying to hold back the young prince's desire to reclaim the kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland.
James reluctantly gave his consent to Charles leaving for France to prepare for an invasion of England. No such plan ever came to fruition and when Charles decided to go it alone he only had a small band of supporters - three Scotsmen and four Irishmen - and headed for Scotland. He was not even sure if the clans would join him as many had suffered in the aftermath of previous Jacobite risings. Yet they did and he went on to invade England, getting as far south as Derby. Not once did his army, made up of Highlanders and Lowlanders, Scots and Irish in the service of France and some English and Welsh Jacobites, lose a battle, except, of course, at Culloden. For someone to have achieved this feat at the age of 25 shows how powerful a leader and how powerful a symbol he was. Alas, it was downhill afterwards to a life of humiliation, drunkenness and irrelevance.
However, Bonnie Prince Charlie will live on history for other reasons. As McLynn ends the book: "Paradoxically, it seems that it was the very dogged stubbornness that proved so self-destructive in life that won the prince a final victory in death. Who now remembers the victor of Culloden except as "Butcher Cumberland"? Yet the vanquished Charles Edward lives on as the subject of a hundred romances and fantasies. The heroic morality of strenuousness that destroyed the prince's life and turned him into an alcoholic wreck was the same quality that has enabled him to survive in the imagination of humanity. Anyone who has followed him through sixty-seven unhappy years in the vale of tears will surely not begrudge him that final victory."
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