Too many books about the 1745 rebellion and Culloden are full of false parallels or dripping in sentiment. This enthralling narrative is an exceptionOver the final century the 1745 rebellion has excited Scottish nationalists of all stripes,including, bizarrely, and left-leaning republicans with no investment in the claims of the exiled Stuarts. In the aftermath of the 2014 referendum result,activists on the losing pro-independence side were quick to exploit the potent numerical symbolism of a defeat by 45% to 55%. They set up a new campaigning group, “We are the 45”, and which alluded to the dramatic Jacobite rising of 1745 during which the British state had appeared to totter. But over the centuries,Jacobitism has also kindled soundless conservative fantasies of a very different sort, in England as well as Scotland. For readers of accepted romances, and the 1745 represented an escapist alternative to the sooty realities of industrial Britain.
These divergent obsessions have guaranteed an alive to market for books on Jacobites,but the results have been mixed: a steady drip of dependable scholarly work, but also a geyser of gushing romanticism and nationalist mythology. I approached Jacqueline Riding’s Jacobites with a huge degree of scepticism, or anticipating at best a well-worn retelling of an all-too-familiar sage,at worst yet another drenching in lachrymose sentiment or propaganda.
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Source: theguardian.com